NE Extremism

I have taken the following paragraphs from an interview appeared in an assamese daily “ The Assam trubune” on 2nd December 2007. I decided to put it on my blog as most of the time such statement from Assam does not reach to other part of the country. This can help some of our country man to rethink, who believes that the whole of North Eastern Community supports the extremism and are enjoying every bit of being called anti Indians.

NE extremism has lost relevance

PANAJI, Dec 2 – The extremist movement in North East has lost its relevance and has destroyed the social fabric of Assam, feels Assamese director Sanjeeb Sabhapandit. Sabhapandit, whose film Jaatinga Ityadi is being screened at IFFI 2007, says the Assamese film is a comment on the current scenario of militancy in the State. It depicts how militancy has created a psychosis of deep fear among the people there while militants lure innocent young men and women into their fold.“Militancy has now become an easy and profitable business .... The moment money entered the extremist movement through extortions and kidnappings, the ideology began to erode and today the common man no longer sympathises with them,” Sabhapandit told PTI.

“This film is an attempt to showcase the real face of militancy which has destroyed the social fabric of Assam. We wanted to show the world the real face of militancy in North East through the film,” Sabhapandit said.Speaking about the significance of the film title, Sanjeeb informs that Jatinga is a small place in Assam where birds are said to commit suicide. But this is not the case - birds do not actually commit suicide, they are lured to death.At night, people hold bamboo torches to attract these birds and when they fly close, they are clubbed to death. However, the general folklore says that the birds come here to commit suicide, he said.“In the guise of a revolution the boys are lured into a death trap,” Sabhapandit said.Drawing a similarity between the birds and the youth, he chose name for his movie.

Sanjib’s first film Juye Poora Shoon (The Gold that has been Burnt), based on environmental preservation received the National Award for best film in 2004.“We are making a very strong statement as it is the youth, who have dreams of leading a good life, that are getting killed. This mindless mayhem has to stop. This is our message,” Rajkamal Bhuyan, the film’s producer said.“Ultimately in the name of liberalisation, they are killing the same people they claim to be fighting for. We are losing our brothers. Be it a security personnel, civilian or an extremist, ultimately it is our countrymen whose blood is being shed in this violence,” he said.

The movie depicts extremisim all over the world, with Assam serving only as a backdrop, Sabhapandit said.“While the world is becoming a global village, the issue of terrorism today affects everyone. In this changed scenario, the ideologies of Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro no longer hold relevance as there is no common enemy state today,” he said.

Sukandighi

Recently, I have come back from my two-month stay in a small village named Sukandighi near Malda. Sukandighi is very close to NH34 connecting Malda and Raiganj in North Bengal. I was accompanied by my batch mate and friend Partha Sarothy Roy. The village stay itself was an experience worth remembering, but one of the most best thing that has happened to us, is the introduction to Khon Gaan.

Khon Gaan is a kind of folk theatre and it was exclusive to Sukandighi. One explanation we have for the name Khon is that ,it is a mixture of various plots (khond) stitched together to take forward the main plot. Khon Gaan is a dying art today with very little patronage of the artists most of whom are mainly small and marginal farmers. It also cornered with the advent of electronic medium of entertainment. The events taking place in surrounding villages are staged in a different manner with a pinch of salt through khan. As such it does not have a religious element or any mythological story as the core.

We have witnessed one khon gaan show during our stay in Sukandighi . It was staged in our host family’s house and the name of play is Sati Hebla. Like in most of the folk theatre, man plays the role of woman in Khon Gaan also. The show was significant for us as well as for the whole community of sukandighi as it was staged after a gap of 7 long years.

“So what do you do basically in the village?” asked the IAS Trainee with a high degree of skepticism about my work in rural development. I have faced such skepticism for innumerable times from corrupt government officials, self centered and well paid professional of corporate, businessmen whose profit depends on economics of exploitation and from some of my close friends. So I find myself quite comfortable answering these questions. “The village people have become quarrelsome because of our work”, I replied. The young IAS officer found it very amusing and smiled at me without taking my answer seriously. Then he moved to his next question.

But I gave him the reply by using all my logic and intelligence. It was a well thought response. If I look back at my work for last three years that is what we have done in the village- we have made the people more quarrelsome! We have told them about their share in Public Distribution System which they never got. We taught them to draft application using Right to Information to know about how much money has come to Panchayat for village development which is well guarded secret in the village. They have received a lot of other information that created a kind of restlessness among them. Now they want their share of right and benefits. So the peaceful village where the oppressed never rose their voice against the powerful is no longer peaceful, because the poor are demanding their right in democratic ways.

21st century women

Let me name her Kamla, because she herself does not know her name. Nobody called her by name; she was always daughter of her father, sister of her brother or wife of her husband.

She is 2nd of five daughters in the family of nine. The only male members in the family are her 4 year and 6 year old brothers. Her mother got rid off her, when she was 14 by getting her married to 29 year old Rambalak, who lost his first wife while giving birth to a child. Kamla’s mother was a daily laborer working at the agricultural land of landlord in their village. Tuberculosis took her father, who was a riksha pullar in Lucknow, when she was 11.
Kamla was married in a family where she was the only women. Apart from her husband, the family has his father and his older brother. Initially everything was going well until one day her father in law made advances on her. She resisted …then it was the turn of her brother in law. She resisted …. She was scared of telling anyone about it. What other will think of her ? But it became a regular practice. She shared with her husband. Rambalak protested against his father and brother. But they threatened to kill him. So he fled to Kanpur. Now, Kamla was all alone and was pregnant with Ram Balak’s child. She has no choice but to return to her mother. Kamla has started working as labour in the field of their landlord. She gave birth to a girl. She is subjected to frequent indecent remark by her master and other male members in the village, especially upper caste people. She has little support in her already poverty stricken community.

I am not sure what will be the future of Kamla. May be someday, some one in the village may rape her and there will be no one to protect or protest. May be she will migrate to big cities for work and may end up in brothel. She is 16 now.
( Kamla lives in a small village of Sitapur district, 90 km from Lucknow.)

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She is a mother of 3 Children. She is feeding her children by working in field for zaminder sahib. (My learned friend may argue that we have an act in our country to abolish zamindari system long back, so how can we have zaminders? I would love to tell him that we also have Dowry Prevention Act in the country, but we all know how preventive it is.). Her village is in Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh, dominated by upper caste landlords. She was a perfect client for the development worker to sell their product of women empowerment and decentralization of power etc….So they motivate her to take part in the forthcoming election of Gram Panchayat for the post of Gram Pradhan. The seat was reserved for Women from Backward communities. Everybody thought that she can be a perfect case study if she won the election. Foreign donors will be happy with Development agencies intervening in the area, taking this as perfect case for women empowerment, where a woman from backward caste is taking part in political decision making. And it was also not difficult to convince her to take part in the election. She fought the election and won. She won against the wife of Zaminder Saheb’s servant , whom the zaminder supported, so that he can control the Gram panchayat fund once his servant won. It is hell lot of money in Gram Panchayat theses days and he understands this very well. Her victory made him angry and she has to pay by loosing her job in his field. Her house was put on fire in by Zaminder. She is jobless and homeless and she has three children to support.

Mirage !

I was confident of my career growth, till I got a call yesterday. I am quite content with my work believing that I am exposed to a lot of experiences. I did a consultancy for one of the leading UN agency, my project was recognized as one of the best in the state, our sweet Delhi Doordarshan has made a documentary on the revolutionary changes that we brought in through our project !! I was interviewed by DD, my name has appeared in several English and Hindi Daily and already I have started feeling like a celebrity! But all my illusions were brought to an end with a simple phone call. Now I am feeling like the biggest looser on this planet. It seems like my sweet dream has ended in a nightmare. I am feeling the way R.V. Winkle must have felt when he woke up after 20 years of sleep. Everything looks unknown and difficult! Most of life was wasted on sleeping and dreaming.

My brother has been one of the biggest strength in my life. I consider him as my biggest strength because he made me stronger with his unique way of analyzing my all kind of moves regarding studies, career … His analysis has this very raw nature of coming out with a harsh truth. The truth will always make a looser out of me. But I always turned out to be the winner. I am the winner because in spite of being the biggest looser, I move on. The recent analysis has come out with the truth that in last 5 years of my working, my career growth was only 5% per anum in terms of monetary value (phew!.. I never thought of it.) So I must make a move immediately so that the growth rate can at least catch up with our inflation rate which is at higher end then my career growth. He gave me this learned insight over a phone call.

I was also thinking on this to make a move from my present job which is 3 years old to a new one. I have become stagnate and needed a change badly. But it never occurred to me that I am incurring a loss of 2%-3% every year because the inflation rate is 7%-8% and my growth rate is 5%! Here again I am the looser. But I must deserve a pat on back for my creative strength (now I know why they call the Scorpios as creative person). I loved to believe that my career was taking a good shape. It is my creativity which has designed such an illusion around me and made me happy for last couple of years!

why should i write ?

I am in a confused state of mind ( as always). I want to write " something" desperately but what is that "something" i dont know. then why should i write something ?
I wan to write something so that i can convince myself of being a writer.
I want to write something because that will make me famous among my friends.
I want to write something so that i can show off my knowledge.
I want to write something so that you appreciate my intellect.
I want to write something so that my frustration can come out.
I want to write something so that ..........

With so many explanations, i am sure you wont dare me to stop from writing ( I like to play safe).

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