On Wealth and Income Inequalities

IN the late nineteen sixties and the early nineteen seventies, an argument used to be put forward by theorists of Social Democracy that went as follows. In any society, wealth inequality is always greater than income inequality; but if this income inequality is curtailed, then that ipso facto has the effect of curtailing wealth inequality as well, and that too quite substantially. Hence it is not necessary to actually nationalise private property and institute social ownership of the means of production; all that is required is the use of taxes and subsidies to reduce income inequality, and over time wealth inequality will automatically come down and even get completely eliminated, as would income inequality itself (assuming that labour is homogeneous and all workers are equally thrifty).

The proposition that wealth inequality is always greater than income inequality is indisputable for all societies characterised by class antagonism. This is because the workers, who own no assets, nonetheless have to be paid a subsistence wage (which is also true of corresponding social categories in all pre-capitalist societies based on class exploitation). If, for instance, there is a total capital stock of 100 (consisting, for simplicity, entirely of fixed capital), which yields an output of 40 (assuming, again for simplicity, that there is full capacity utilisation) by employing 20 labourers, each of whom has to be paid a subsistence wage of 1 unit, then the income ratio between the workers and the capitalists is 20:20, while the asset or wealth ratio is 0: 100. Hence greater inequality in wealth than in income is a feature of all societies based on class exploitation.

SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC ARGUMENT

But the social democratic argument stated that if income inequalities are large and the workers barely eke out a subsistence, then they would be consuming their entire wage bill and saving nothing, while if these inequalities are kept low then they get a bit more than bare subsistence and start “saving”. “Saving” by definition, however, constitutes addition to wealth, so that once they start saving they begin to own assets and hence get an income from wealth in addition to their income from work. If their saving ratio out of this composite income, consisting of both income from wealth and income from work, is high enough, and not too much lower than that of the capitalists, then their wealth ownership grows at a faster rate than that of the capitalists proper (who do no work), in which case the workers in effect become capitalists over time, and the social divide between the two classes disappears, together with all wealth and income inequality (assuming homogeneous labour and equal thriftiness among all workers).

Let us clarify the argument using the numerical example already given above. Let us assume that the share of wages in total output remains unchanged at 50 percent as in the above example. But the workers save 40 percent of their income while the capitalists proper save 60 percent. Then if 100 was the capital stock to start with, it becomes 120 in the next period, with capitalists’ saving being 12 (60 percent of their income of 20) and workers’ saving being 8 (40 percent of their income of 20). The output from this capital stock of 120 in the second period will be 48, of which the wages will be half, i.e., 24, and profits will be 24.

The workers’ income however will now include some profit income as well: since they own 8 capital stock out of 120 (i.e. 1/15), their profit income will be 24/15 or 1.6; and their total income will be 24 (their income from work) plus 1.6 (their income from property), which is 25.6. The capitalists’ income will be 24 (total profits) minus 1.6 (profits going to the workers), which is 22.4. If they save the same ratios of their respective incomes as before, then the workers’ savings in this second period will be 40 percent of 25.6, which is 10.24 while the capitalists’ savings will be 60 percent of 22.4, which is 13.44.

Let us see what this implies. The workers’ savings increase from 8 in the first period to 10.24 in the second, i.e., by 28 percent. The capitalists’ savings increase from 12 in the first period to 13.44 in the second, i.e., by 12 percent. Since savings constitute additions to wealth, it means that the workers are adding to their wealth at a faster rate than the capitalists; and if this keeps happening, then over time the workers will keep increasing their share of capital stock and the capitalists will progressively dwindle into insignificance, which will constitute a “bloodless” silent revolution in the capitalist system. (The recognition of this basic logic was first expressed in a joint paper by two American economists, Paul Samuelson and Franco Modigliani, each of whom went on to win the Nobel Prize in economics, though not for this paper).

All that is required for this “bloodless” silent revolution therefore is that income redistribution through fiscal means should occur to the extent required to enable the workers to have a high enough savings-ratio compared to the capitalists. Social democracy which in the immediate post-war period had successfully undertaken measures to reduce income inequality was sanguine that it was effecting this silent revolution. And to be fair, it was not just the Social Democrats who were taken in by this argument. Since its logic was impeccable within the context in which it was propounded, and since the context itself was not too far-fetched in the post-war setting, it had a surreptitious appeal even to socialists who otherwise argued publicly for social ownership of the means of production.

LACUNAE OVERLOOKED

In that post-war setting, the obvious lacunae in the argument got overlooked. The first such lacuna is the absence of any recognition of deficiency of aggregate demand. In the above example for instance we assumed full capacity utilisation all along, which presumes that the production of full capacity output never gets thwarted by any shortage of aggregate demand. If it did get thwarted, then there would be an increase in unemployment and unutilised capacity, which would mean that the workers’ income would shrink, forcing them to live at bare subsistence where their entire income got consumed, negating the very assumption underlying the social democratic argument. But this lacuna was ignored because in the post-war setting, the policy of “demand management” by the State in capitalist economies more or less ensured that the problem of deficiency of aggregate demand was kept at bay.

The second obvious objection to the argument is the belief in the persistence of a bourgeois State that pursues social democratic policies, not only of “demand management” but of reducing income inequalities through fiscal means. And again in the post-war setting where the correlation of class forces was such that even a formal change of government from labour or social democratic parties to conservative parties, appeared incapable of overturning such policies, the assumption of “social-democratic-policies-in-perpetuity” did not seem far-fetched.

The third objection was in fact linked to the first two. Capitalism being a “spontaneous system” which has its own immanent tendencies, no particular correlation of class forces remains frozen for ever. One basic immanent tendency under capitalism is centralisation of capital, or the coming together of capital in larger and larger blocs, which in turn produces a tendency for capital to become “globalised”. The pressure for “globalisation” gathered momentum in the sixties and European governments, including social democratic governments, willy-nilly had to lift controls over cross border flows of capital, especially in the form of finance. Though such lifting was cautious to start with, it further strengthened “globalisation of capital” and hence further demands that the State, which continued to remain a nation-State, should abandon the role imposed upon it in the heyday of social democracy, and should concern itself above all with promoting the interests of globalised finance capital.

NEO-LIBERAL PARADIGM

Even though the actual shift away from the social democratic paradigm to the “neo-liberal” paradigm (where the State is pre-eminently concerned with appeasing globalised finance capital) occurred during the rule of Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in the USA, social democracy had no answer to the basic conundrum of how a nation-State could remain committed to Keynesian “demand management” and redistributive fiscal policies, when the capital confronting it was globalised and could simply move to other locations if its “confidence” got dented by such intransigence on the part of the State.

As a result of the shift in policies, Keynesian “demand management” was abandoned, resulting in higher average levels of unemployment in the capitalist economies in the period after the mid-seventies than in the preceding post-war years; it also meant that booms in capitalist economies got associated with the formation of “bubbles” whose collapse inevitably brought in slumps of the sort we are witnessing now. In addition the shift entailed a weakening of trade unions and hence of the bargaining power of the workers; a rolling back, in varying degrees, of the Welfare State; and substantial tax concessions to the rich; all of which, far from reducing or even stabilising the level of income inequality, actually widened income inequality quite significantly.

In fact, Joseph Stiglitz argues that an average American worker earns less in real terms today than 45 years ago, and that American men without a university degree earn 40 percent less than four decades ago. On the other side, the top one percent of the American population take home 22 percent of the nation’s income; and the top 0.1 percent take home a staggering 11 percent of the nation’s income. (All figures are taken from Graham Peebles’ article in Truthout January 21, 2014). The recent crisis has only worsened this inequality. And it is not surprising that wealth inequalities too have widened quite dramatically. At present the richest two percent of the world’s population own 51 percent of the world’s assets!

Faced with these figures, many progressive economists and agencies like the UNICEF have been demanding a redistribution of resources from the world’s privileged to the world’s deprived. While the sentiments behind these demands are laudable, to believe that it can be done without overthrowing the system that reproduces this inequality in an accentuated manner, is naïve. The end of the social democratic dream, that the State can be used even within the capitalist system to bring in redistributive measures that would ultimately alter the system itself through a silent revolution, only underscores the fact that even the preservation of whatever limited “gains” are made by the people within the system requires an intensification and a widening of class struggle against the system. The maintenance of such “gains” cannot simply be taken for granted and mathematically extrapolated to a limit point entailing a withering away of capitalism.

Capitalism does not wither away as a result of social democratic redistributivism; on the contrary it has forced a withering away of social democracy itself. It needs to be consciously overthrown.          

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Prabhat Patnaik People's Democracy

Devil is in the Detail

BJP’S prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi addressing a meeting in Kerala has said, “I continue to be a victim of untouchability.”

But one wonders if Modi knows what it means and feels to be an untouchable? Let us hear from the horse's mouth itself. Speaking about scavenging which has condemned lakhs of dalits to a life of indignity since ages, he says that this job of shit collection or cleaning of gutters is a ‘Spiritual Experience’ for them. In his book ‘Karmayog’ which is a collection of his speeches to high-profile IAS officials, he discusses the age-old caste-based vocation of the dalits as an 'experience in spirituality'. “I do not believe that they have been doing this job just to sustain their livelihood. Had this been so, they would not have continued with this type of job generation after generation…At some point of time, somebody must have got the enlightenment that it is their duty to work for the happiness of the entire society and the Gods; that they have to do this job bestowed upon them by Gods; and that this job of cleaning up should continue as an internal spiritual activity for centuries.” So that's 'enlightened spiritual activity'! Wonder why the proponent of such wonderful ideas does not walk the talk!

In another occasion, addressing a meeting of safai karmacharis, he likened the safai karmacharis’ job of cleaning up others’ dirt to that of a temple priest. He told them: “A priest cleans a temple every day before prayers, you also clean the city like a temple. You and the temple priest work alike”. This is hitting two birds at a single shot. One, safai karmacharis are excluded from the 'real temples' and two, their jobs are reserved only for them, as traditionally the jobs of the priests are reserved for brahmins. Title them 'priests of the cities' and confine them to the worst possible social oppression – clever by half, or is it more?

To understand the politics behind Modi's statements/utterances/writings and the good sangh pracharak that he is, let us once again recap what Dr B.R. Ambedkar said: “The system of untouchability has been a goldmine for the Hindus. This system affords 60 millions of untouchables to do the dirty work of scavenging and sweeping to the 240 million Hindus who are debarred by their religion to do such dirty work. But the work must be done for the Hindus and who else than the untouchables?” Behind all that Modi says thus is the undeniable mark of the RSS.

Let us now tear a little bit into the Gujarat model of development and see things in their reality, as they exist.

In a village called Galsana in Ahmedabad district, which is around 100 kms from the city, dalits are not allowed entry into any of the five temples in the village. The younger generation of dalits protested this ban which resulted in their social boycott.

In the gruesome killings of dalits at Thangarh (September 2012) the state government did not come to the rescue of dalits despite the complaints lodged by dalits about the imminent attack.

In a survey conducted in 2011, where 200 dalit children and 65 non-dalit children were interviewed in 12 villages in Gujarat, it was revealed that more than 90 percent of dalit children have faced discrimination while procuring medication at government hospitals and clinics. More than 80 percent of dalit children have faced discrimination while trying to avail something as basic as pathological tests.

Dalits in at least 77 villages in Gujarat have been forced to migrate due to social boycotts, according to chairman of the National Human Rights Commission Justice KG Balakrishnan.  According to him, nearly 100 complaints were also received by the NHRC on alleged police atrocities, particularly the police refusing to register their complaints, or showing total inaction in pursuing the cases after registering the complaints.

Conviction of those who have been booked under the SC/ST Atrocities Act, is just about 3.5 per cent in Gujarat.

Local barbers in Saurashtra refuse to give a haircut or shave, saying that they will not get any upper caste customers, forcing some of the dalits to travel all the way to Junagadh.

And now time for some facts about manual scavenging: According to the 2011 census data there are more than 2000 households who are forced into manual scavenging in Gujarat. Another survey conducted by Tata Institute of Social Sciences and reported by the Indian Express mentions that more than 12,000 manual scavengers exist in Gujarat. And Saurashtra, which has the greatest concentration of dalits in Gujarat, leads the pack with more than 900 families indulging in manual scavenging.

Now let us turn our attention to the TV advertisements about Modi and his Gujarat. It is projected as a state where women do not go walking miles to fetch water and water indeed is supplied to every household. Tall claims but for the fact that in the villages of Jasdan taluka in drought-hit Saurashtra, even today dalit women are not allowed to draw water from the main sump. Jaya Makwana shares her experience: “We have to listen to casteist remarks and are even threatened if we get close to the sump”. Fact 1, there is no direct tap connection to her house. Fact 2, to avoid being abused she walks 3 km under the scorching sun to fetch water. Thorough as he is with history, so he might be with geography too: Jasdan tehsil is not in Gujarat! But the sad tale of woes does not end here.

Unable to bear both injustice and thirst, women from these villages had approached the deputy collector. The result, in the 'best administered' state, led by 'able administrator' is not tapped water but threats for their guts. After all, it is not for nothing Gujarat is called the laboratory of Hindutva experiment. If dalits are not abused in the laboratory, where else they be?

Shrewd politician that he is, Modi tried playing the card of pitting two sections of the downtrodden against each other –dalits against the religious minorities. Hitting out at the Ranganath Misra Commission report for religious and linguistic minorities, Modi said the commission was an attempt to rob the dalits of their rights envisaged in the constitution. Statesman, isn't he?

Dare the dalits escape from the clutches of Hindutva social order, the Gujarat government has recently ordered an inquiry into the mass conversion of dalits to Buddhism at Dungarpur village in Junagadh district. A case of witch-hunting!

Let us come back to Kerala once again and try to decipher the real Modi. In the same address to the people of Kerala, he asked them to fight superstition and give maximum education to their children. Modi said these were the two main things required for development. Lest you be under the mistaken impression of the 'scientific' Modi, he clarifies his position in a meeting in Manipur, where he said that vastu shastra instructs us that if the northeast of your house is good then you will prosper. So, Manipur should be developed. Ignore the dichotomy in what he says, and you could see how cleverly he has elevated vastu shastra to the status of science!

The lesson is, Modi is complex but as the popular saying goes, 'the devil lies in the details'. Tear into the details, you can easily decipher him: he is none other than a rabid, communal, anti-dalit, anti-minority sanghi. Simply, a threat to the country and our future.

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G Mamatha People's Democracy

Pete Seeger Will Keep on Singing

THAT was November 1977. One of the worst natural disasters – a typhoon and a tidal wave swept across the coastal Andhra Pradesh and in Krishna district alone more than 10,000 people lost their lives. Even before the government could wake up and organise relief measures, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), led by Comrade P Sundarayya personally visited the affected areas and organised relief efforts. As a part of the relief that was mobilised, a team from West Bengal visited the areas and distributed essential materials and also organised medical camps. Along with them was Pete Seeger, not the man, but the song. It was the first time that the song 'We Shall Overcome' was heard in those regions, a song of hope in times of adversity.

We Shall Overcome – just three words – but what an impact they had and still continues to have. The song became an organising chant during the Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. The song continues to inspire hundreds of thousands of students, many of whose congregations conclude with this song. Pete Seeger, who prefers to identify himself as one who had popularised the song, rather than as one who owns the song, termed the song as “It's the genius of simplicity. Any damn fool can get complicated”.

This song reflects his way of writing that resounds throughout his work to give them timelessness and endurance. As he himself states: “I swiped things here and there and wrote new verses”. We Shall Overcome was based on old gospel songs, primarily “I’ll Overcome,” a hymn that striking tobacco workers had sung on a picket line in South Carolina. A slower version, “We Will Overcome,” was collected from one of the workers, Lucille Simmons, by Zilphia Horton, the musical director of the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee, which trained union organisers. The copyright for the song is not held by Pete Seeger but he shares it with all those from whom he had learned the song and he even humbly acknowledges, “At that time we didn’t know Lucille Simmons’s name”. He had established a Fund in the name of the song to which all the song’s royalties go, which in turn are used to provide grants to African-Americans organising in the Southern states of the US.

How unlike some of the modern day music composers, who copy deftly but without any acknowledgement, forget about remorse. A case in point is the famous anti-war Italian song, 'Bella Ciao' that was turned into a romantic song by our 'talented' music directors of our film industry.

Pete Seeger was never commercial and was never after stardom. He always wanted people to remember the song rather than the singer. Indeed Seeger always used to say with a lot of humility, “they are not my songs, they are old songs, I just happened to sing them”. That is the reason why, again, quite unlike the present day 'kings, queens and stars' of music who win legions of fans through careful 'packaging', Pete Seeger is remembered more in the songs that he sang. He carved out a space for himself in history, quietly with rarer set of qualities: nobility, generosity, humility and more importantly when things got rough, breathtaking courage.

Pete Seeger was one of the musicians (Paul Robeson was another such famous singer as was Charlie Chaplin, the famous actor) who was harassed during the McCarthy period. He was blacklisted for being a member of the Communist Party and was indicted for contempt of Congress. In 1955, he was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he testified, “I feel that in my whole life I have never done anything of any conspiratorial nature. I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this”. True to his character and just as he alone can do, he had offered to sing his songs before the Committee, an offer which was declined!

As a result of his attitude, the House of Representatives tried Seeger and six others for contempt. Seeger defended himself with the words: “Some of my ancestors were religious dissenters who came to America over three hundred years ago. Others were abolitionists in New England in the eighteen forties and fifties. I believe that by choosing my present course I do no dishonour to them, or to those who may come after me”. It was for this conviction in his views that he was found guilty and sentenced to 12 months in prison. He was removed from the TV and his songs were blacklisted from the radio. The organisers of his concerts were harassed, forcing some of them to cancel his shows. All these did not deter him, but in fact further steeled him. Right wing groups protested at his concert venues, to which he remarked in jest: “All those protests did was sell tickets and get me free publicity, the more they protested, the bigger the audiences became”.

Seeger never regretted even for once his political positions: “Historically, I believe I was correct in refusing to answer their questions. Down through the centuries, this trick has been tried by various establishments throughout the world. They force people to get involved in the kind of examination that has only one aim and that is to stamp out dissent. One of the things I'm most proud of about my country is the fact that we did lick McCarthyism back in the fifties. Many Americans knew their lives and their souls were being struggled for, and they fought for it. And I felt I should carry on. Through the sixties I still had to occasionally free picket lines and bomb threats. But I simply went ahead, doing my thing, throughout the whole period”.

Till his end, Seeger remained firm in his convictions. Calling himself socialist and communist, but with a 'small c', he said: “still a socialist, just as bombs still come down and kill innocent women and children”. His banjo used to sport the message: “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender”.

It is with this courage that he led the artists in the protests against the Vietnam war. Two of his famous songs, 'Where Have all the Flowers Gone', and the 'Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, and the Big Fool said to Push on', expressed the popular anguish and protest against the war. In 1974, he was the first to record Estadio Chile, the last song written by Victor Jara, another revolutionary singer and poet who was publicly executed by the dictatorial regime in Chile, which came to power after overthrowing the Communist government of Salvador Allende.

Seeger continued singing till his very last and was publicly seen singing as late as during the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011. He championed the interests of the working class, poor and downtrodden sections of the society. He was out and out against the corporates. He led a protracted struggle against the environmental contamination of the Hudson river. Four decades of relentless and dogged struggle forced the General Electrics, responsible for the pollution, to come down and pay half a billion dollars for the cleaning of the river system. This is again an indicator for Pete Seeger, the person he is!

Over the years, Pete Seeger was conferred with many awards and even the government was forced to recognise the volumes of work he had done, particularly for the revival of folk tradition. He was conferred with a National Medal of Arts, the highest US honour for an artist by the then President Bill Clinton. Pete Seeger accepted the award, but without losing the irony: “The whole situation is hilarious, I've usually come down to Washington to picket the White House and now I'm coming to get a medal”! He was awarded a Grammy for lifetime achievement as well for his contributions and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Song Writers Hall of Fame. Similarly, he received the Order of Félix Varela, Cuba’s highest cultural award, for his “humanistic and artistic work in defence of the environment and against racism”.

All these did not in any way tone down the peoples' artist in Seeger. Throughout his life, his principles never wavered and his optimism never faltered. He wanted the people to come out of their ‘Little Boxes’ of indoctrination and challenge the system. “Every establishment in the world needs a good opposition, in order to be healthy”. And he tried his best to maintain the health of the world.

For Pete Seeger song is a weapon, a tool to better the society. He used to say: “My job, is to show folks there’s a lot of good music in this world, and if used right it may help to save the planet. The key to the future of the world, is finding the optimistic stories and letting them be known”. As the reviewer in New York Times wrote, “For him, folk music and a sense of community were inseparable, and where he saw a community, he saw the possibility of political action”.

“The real revolution will come when people realise the danger we're in”.

Our real tribute to him can only be through making people realise the danger we are in.

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R Arun Kumar People's Democracy

Picture Courtesy: Rediff.com

RSS/BJP Unleashes a Charade on the Indian People

THE RSS/BJP and its PM aspirant’s desperation at the possible emergence of a combination of secular opposition parties – non-Congress, non-BJP – in the run up to the 2014 general elections has reached a new crescendo.  A litany of epithets have been unleashed which should be considered unbecoming by anybody, particularly by somebody who is self-proclaimed by the RSS/BJP as India’s future prime minister.  Some of his comments denouncing the `third front’ as `third rate’ have drawn a spontaneous response that such comments can come only from a `third rate’ mindset!

Sections of India Inc. and their mentors, the international finance capital, appear equally worried at the prospect of their apple cart being upset.  This is because they see in the RSS/BJP’s PM nominee the best hope, a la Hitlerite fascism in post-1939 Great Depression Germany, for maximising profits at the expense of heaping increased economic exploitation on the people and the complete abrogation of freedoms by unleashing fascistic repression. They were hoping for unhindered imposition of neo-liberal reforms imposing greater economic burdens on the people. The fears that such a process may face roadblocks has now prompted an international credit rating agency, whose name sounds chillingly similar to the RSS/BJP PM hopeful, Moody’s, to predict such an alternative possibility as a disaster.  This the Indian media has widely reported, “Third front government may delay economic reforms: Moody’s” (Times of India, February 12, 2014).  The agency spokesman in India said so in a comment titled, “Post-election India: A fragmented coalition will be the biggest threat to credit quality”. Need anything further be said?  What is in store for India and its people, in the case of such an eventuality of the RSS/BJP triumphing in 2014 elections, thus, is not only the sharpening of communal polarisation but the heaping of economic miseries on the vast mass of our people.

In tune with this, the RSS has unleashed a charade on the Indian people trying to camouflage this eventuality. Its public campaign is ostensibly pitched on the issues of development and prosperity. The real target remains advancing the RSS vision of a rabidly intolerant fascistic `Hindu Rashtra’ agenda by sharpening communal polarisation.

Such duplicity is in evidence all around. The first day of the current parliament session saw the BJP successfully stall the introduction of the Prevention of Communal Violence Bill (PCVB) on the grounds that this violated federalism – a basic feature of our constitution. Last week, in this column, we had detailed the BJP’s diabolic efforts and the Left parties fundamental position on this issue.  Hence, we are not repeating these arguments.  However, the BJP’s championing of our federal structure today  is an eyewash given the fundamental RSS positions on the Indian constitution.

The RSS/BJP's self-declared Guruji, MS Golwalkar, who provided both the ideological construct of the 'Hindu Rashtra' (We, Or Our Nationhood Defined, 1939, Fourth Edition, 1947) and the organisational structure of the 'sangh parivar' to achieve this objective, had decades ago spoken of the need “to bury deep for good, all talk of a federal structure of our country's Constitution, to sweep away the existence of all 'autonomous' or 'semi-autonomous states' with one State, viz., Bharat and proclaim 'one country, one State, one legislature, one executive'... Let the Constitution be re-examined and re-drafted, so as to establish this unitary form of government...” (Bunch of Thoughts, Third Edition, 1966, Page 227)

On the one hand, the BJP claims credit for the creation of the states of Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, and Uttarakhand, while on the other, they engage in double-speak over the Telangana state. Unlike the CPI(M), which unequivocally favours the non-division of linguistic states, the RSS/BJP continue to speak of 'one country, one people, one nation'. For the RSS/BJP, therefore, federalism does not mean the recognition of India’s vast diversity and plurality. It means the division of the country into small administrative units devoid of any character or unity based on language, ethnicity etc of the people. In the process, it seeks to place all such states at the mercy of the central government for their survival.  This is, unfortunately, the experience many a small state in our country, particularly in the North-East. For instance, if the current 80 MPs from the Uttar Pradesh stand in unison in the Lok Sabha, no government can ignore their legitimate demands.  Imagine, if this state is divided into four or more parts, each would lose its capacity and be reduced to be at the mercy of the central government.

Similar is their subterfuge regarding their campaign focussing on development and the 'Gujarat model'. Planning Commission data substantiates that in terms of Net State Domestic Product and FDI inflows, Gujarat ranks behind backward industrial states like Odisha and Chattisgarh. In terms of per capita income, it remains sixth among major Indian states, fifth in terms of poverty levels, eighth in terms of life expectancy. With regard to human development indices, it has a dismal record of ranking tenth among all major Indian states. In terms of the peoples’ health index and education index, it ranks sixth. Over 80 percent of its children and 55 percent of women suffer from anaemia. This is its 'growth model'.  Notwithstanding this reality, the 'Gujarat growth story' is seducing sections of India Inc. into applause.

A recent cover story (The Caravan) on Aseemanand, one of the protagonists of the alleged Hindutva terror network, now in custody as the main accused in the Samjautha Express train blast (February 2007), Hyderabad Mecca Masjid blasts (May 2007) and at the Ajmer Dargah blasts (October 2007), also named but not yet charged in two other terrorist attacks in Malegaon, Maharashtra (September 2006, 2008) says, “his terrorist attacks were sanctioned at the highest levels of the RSS – all the way up to Mohan Bhagawat, the current chief of the RSS, who was the organisation's general secretary at that time”. The latter, in turn, is alleged to have told Aseemanand that, “it is very important that it be done. But you should not link it with the Sangh”. This expose goes on to detail that Aseemanand's accomplice, RSS’s Sunil Joshi, “who was allegedly the connecting thread between several different parts of the conspiracy – including those who assembled and those who planted the bombs – was killed in mysterious circumstances in December 2007”.

The RSS’s record on the issue of imparting militant training to the Hindus has a long history.  It was V D Savarkar who gave the slogan “Hinduise all politics and militarise Hindudom”.  Inspired by this, Dr B S Moonje, mentor to RSS founder Dr Hegdewar, traveled to Italy to meet the fascist dictator, Mussolini.  The meeting took place on March 19, 1931. His personal diary notes of March 20 reveal his fascination and admiration of the manner in which  Italian fascism was training its youth  (read storm-troopers) militarily.  Upon return to India, Dr Moonje established the Central Hindu Military Education Society at Nasik in 1935, the precursor to the Bhonsala Military School  established in 1937.  Investigations have now put this on the terror radar. Golwalkar, in 1939, exults Hitler’s purging of the Jews under Nazi fascism saying that it is “a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by”. Much later in 1970, he says “Generally speaking, it is a matter of common experience that evil forces (read non-Hindus) do not understand the language of logic and sweet nature. They can be controlled by force”.

The RSS, forever, continues to deny any links with such people when they are caught or their terror activities exposed. For instance, the RSS always claimed that Nathuram Godse was not with the RSS when he shot dead Mahatma Gandhi – a claim strongly contested by Nathuram’s brother.  Here is what Nathuram’s brother Gopal Godse had to say in a media interview, “All the brothers were in the RSS. Nathuram, Dattatreya, myself and Govind. You can say we grew up in the RSS rather than in our home. It was like a family to us. Nathuram had become a baudhik karyavah (intellectual worker) in the RSS. He has said in his statement that he left the RSS. He said it because Golwalkar and the RSS were in a lot of trouble after the murder of Gandhi. But he did not leave the RSS.” (Frontline, January 28, 1994).  The point, here, is not the technicality of somebody being a current member. The point is the venomous ideological indoctrination that the RSS and its affiliates undertake which nurtures and promotes such violent militancy.

In this context, it is necessary to recollect that Sardar Patel, who is today sought to be (mis)appropriated by the self-appointed future prime minister of India, had banned the RSS following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.  A government communiqué dated February 4, 1948, drafted by Sardar Patel,  announcing the ban on the RSS says: “The objectionable and harmful activities of the Sangh have, however, continued unabated and the cult of violence sponsored and inspired by the activities of the Sangh has claimed many victims. The latest and the most precious to fall was Gandhiji himself”.

Further, the RSS/BJP is now working overtime to claim a judicial `clean chit’ to the Gujarat CM for his role in leading the state administration during the 2002 post-Godhra communal carnage. A closure report filed by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) in February 2012 is cited as evidence. This is far from the truth. The SIT has held that while there is evidence in many of the allegations made in the Zakia Jaffery complaint of June 2006 regarding the attacks at Gulberg society, Ahmedabad during the riots are true and correct, but in its (SITs) own assessment, this evidence is not prosecutable. Further, the Amicus Curaie's report to the Supreme Court clearly stated that the Gujarat CM should stand trial for offences under sections 153(a), 153(b) and 166 of the Indian Penal Code. As far as the final verdict on 2002 communal pogrom is concerned, literally 'the jury is out', with review petitions pending in the higher courts. There is, thus, no `clean chit’, whatsoever.

All these apart, we are now being told by the RSS/BJP to forget 2002 and move ahead towards a prosperous future under their prime ministerial aspirant. To our secular, democratic, republic and our people, justice continues to be denied since the 2002 Gujarat carnage, cancerously festering the wounds. Our republic can be cleansed and strengthened only when justice is delivered in all cases of this communal pogrom and in all others, where justice continues to be delayed, hence denied. What the country needs in 2014 is an alternative political dispensation to both the Congress and the BJP which is committed to deliver justice and, thus, strengthen our republic as well as work towards providing a better livelihood for the vast mass of our people.

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Editorial, People's Democracy