From: bond@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (Girish Bonde)
Subject: Agonies of Aug. 8!
Organization: University of New Brunswick
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 21:28:24 GMT


                           "Agonies of Aug. 8!"
                            ==================
                 (An article from "Blitz", 15 August 1992).
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    When Achyut Patwardhan died a few days ago, India lost  a  major  link
    with  the  revolutionary  spirit of the '40s that brought the military
    might of an empire to its knees. The movement began in Bombay on  Aug.
    8,  1942,  with Gandhiji's Quit India call that lit a fire never to be
    extinguished. Patwardhan and his colleagues of  the  "Congress  under-
    ground", led by Jayprakash Narayan and Aruna Asaf Ali, were the moving
    spirits of that great and final struggle. They shall remain immortal.

    How agonising then, to witness the sycophantic hoardings, cutouts  and
    advertisements  welcoming  the Prime Minister to Bombay. Of course, we
    are proud and happy when the Prime Minister visits this city.  But  he
    was  not  here  on  a  personal display; he had come precisely to com-
    memorate the 50th anniversary of the Quit India Movement. In this con-
    text, the whole approach to the event and its celebrations by the city
    Congress became ridiculous, almost blasphemous.

    The huge banners and buntings prominently displayed the  Prime  Minis-
    ter, the messages of welcome to him and the names of the donors of the
    decorations.  But there was no mention of WHY the Prime  Minister  was
    here, no memorial to August 8, 1942 and its heros. Were we celebrating
    the "Quit India" revolution, we could not help  asking  ourselves,  or
    the visit of the Prime Minister to the city?

    It was a measure to which we have debased our political culture,  that
    cloying  local politicians vied with one another to display bigger and
    better structures of welcome for P.V. Narasimha Rao, rather than  com-
    memorate  this glorious, yet solemn, occasion. It was a measure of how
    a nation has  been robbed  of  its  own  history  by  an  increasingly
    decadent political class.

    Aug. 8, 1942 and Aug. 15, 1947 were about courage and  freedom,  about
    struggle  and  sacrifice, and the promise of a better tomarrow, a com-
    pact between a nation's leaders and its people, a contract of  compas-
    sion.  But the cultural mindset that has accompanied the new "economic
    reforms" since July 1991 has  buried  compassion  fathoms  deep  under
    World Bank- IMF market forces.

    India's entry into the "me-first" decade has seen the spawning of  the
    Harshad  Mehta  -  Bhupen  Dalal phenomenon. If there is one thing one
    ought to be grateful to the scam for, it is that it has laid bare  the
    essential  rottenness  of our core institutions, the intrinsic knavery
    of our ruling elite - above all, its voracious, parasitic,  insatiably
    greedy apetite.

    And still, the worship of wealth by any means continues in the name of
    "new  policies" and "economic reforms". For this journal, there is but
    one test of policy - that laid down by  Mahatma  Gandhi:  "Recall  the
    face  of  the  poorest  and the weakest man whom you have seen and ask
    yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him.
    Will  he  gain anything by it? Will it restore him to control over his
    life and destiny? In other words, will  it  lead  to  Swaraj  for  the
    hungry and spiritually starving millions?"...
    ======================================================================

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