Strikes and Hartals - 2

Blooming Stars - Swami (Dr) Snehananda Jyoti

 After a gruelling night-drive on August 7- 8, 2012 in the Western Ghats from Munnar, India, to Kochi International Airport and from there to St. Louis, Missouri, USA via Doha and Houston taking about 36 hours (of which 22.5 hours were in the air) I am still recovering from the jet-lag on the other side of the globe. I am completely turned around in that day has become night and night day. Fortunately some timely showers broke the long spell of sweltering August heat of St. Louis, in the mid-west, USA. I had a lot of time to think about in the plane and waiting lounges. After getting here, somehow I could not shake of the reports of the pathetic politics of murders engaged in Kerala especially by the Communist Party Marxist. That its misguided, obscurantist, and autocratic leaders could viciously consider someone leaving the party a kulamkuthi (stabber of one’s own family) or could make a widely reported and highly provocative statement to the effect that not even the Indian army can have access to a person suspected of a crime is kept somewhere in their party’s hiding place is unthinkable in a democratic country such as India. This kind of challenges can be construed to constitute seditious materials in a legally constituted democratic state. The strike on August 1, 2012, precipitously declared after the arrest of a prominent leader, who is reported to have facilitated through phone conversation the now famous murder of the defected party member, by impetuous, impulsive, and misguided party leaders spawning uncontrolled violence, and causing immense harm and untold suffering and inconvenience to the public while central forces summoned to quell unruly violence and keep peace was not employed is entirely unprecedented and totally unconscionable and unacceptable. The elected or appointed officials abetting such paralysis through neglect of duty have to certainly give an account to the general public. At this point I want to make very clear that I believe in non-violence and I would advocate very restrained and calculated force, however much I hate it, for the greater common good and only in extreme situations of the break-down-of law and order where a few anti-social elements would keep by far the greater majority at bay by threats and intimidations. It is also important to note that the report of the content of the taped conversation played by the police investigators in front of the arrested leader of the party in the face of his persistent denials in utter disregard for truth was widely circulated to the general public through the communication media, I presume, to inform and prepare the general public to prevent them from any possible rash and reckless behavior. This strike was not for protecting human rights; it was, on the contrary, to create chaos and anarchy so that a person who may have been an accomplice in the commitment of a crime may not be duly prosecuted. What about the rights of the innocent victim who was murdered in such a cruel way for exercising his fundamental freedom of choice?! Yesterday it was his unwanted murder. Tomorrow, God forbid, it might be mine or yours for that matter! No individual or party is above the law. Let the law with due process deal with the criminals. I am also appalled by the report of a judge who chose to leave the state earlier than planned to take his assignment in another state on account of some threats he received. Does a soldier in our army facing bullets in the border areas below freezing temperature to secure our security and freedom have the same choice? I do not think so. These are extraordinary times when all right-thinking and freedom-loving people need to do our little bit to support one another and to boost our morale lest we be overtaken by chaos and totalitarianism. Then it will be too late. Certainly we do not want to be silent spectators and repeat the history of Hitler’s Nazi Germany where over six million (60 lakhs) innocent Jews were killed when humanity was a silent spectator. In the light of many recent shocking revelations on murderous politics related to CPM in the media, I just happened to highlight some of the undemocratic activities of CPM. To be fair, other political parties are not far behind CPM in undemocratic ways and inciting mob violence leading to destruction, injuries, and deaths. Only they are not yet reported to be so systematic as the CPM in eliminating others. I also want to make it clear that in the depth of my being I am a communist, and I have suffered in good measure for the genuine communist values that I stood for. Only I cannot stomach the antics of political shenanigans in India who use politics without principles to advance their own hidden agenda and to line their own and their cronies’ pockets. 

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