The Constitution Of India Is More Powerful Than An AK47!

by

Dr. P.S. Sahni

Image courtesy: The Statesman

In such troubled times

More so than at any time in the past

The Constitution of India shall be our shield

Against all oppressive/repressive acts

Of communal/caste/racial hatred or bias

On religious minorities/subordinate castes/tribals

On women/LGBTQIA community/differently abled

And on workers/farmers/toiling masses

I shall stand up for my constitutional rights

And of those less privileged

And shall always carry the Constitution (pocket sized)

In my right hip pocket

Rather than the kirpan as dictated by my faith

Since one sees religion no more

Than a personal equation with a Creator

And that’s all to it for me

Shall not use this document

To ‘shoot anyone from the hip’

But only to use it as a shield

Against all onslaughts

My non-violence will go beyond

The Gandhian concept of non-violence

Which allows exceptions in rare circumstances

However one shall always be non-violent till one’s end

Buddha’s non-violence inspires me but more so Mahavir’s

So too, Nanak’s Sufism

All these three – Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism

Constitute the three rebellions against the then established order

The myriad diktats constantly being bombarded –

What to eat/what to wear/whom to marry

With violators qualifying for lynching,

Criminal assaults, public humiliation

Of being made to feel as second class citizens

Of day to day insecurity in all aspects of life

And externment from the local community

Even threats of deportation to a neighbouring country

The use of draconian laws stands perfected –

UAPA, NSA, PSA and provisions of IPC/IT Act

As also filing cases of defamation/sedition

Against those struggling for justice

Would the people submit to authority

Or would the people remember

The time tested tools for bringing about a change

Nay, a Sampoorna Kranti?

Then Paash’s poem “The Most Dangerous” shall reverberate all around

Coalitions, alliances, networking of organizations

Of workers, farmers, students, academicians

Poets, writers, artists, journalists, individuals

The good old struggle, mass mobilization, resistance and protest

Dharna, rally, hunger strike, satyagrah,

Court arrest, jail bharo,

Would get tested all over again

One remembers the slogan one had heard

For decades after independence

“Hindu Muslim Sikh Isai

Aapas me sab bhai bhai”

The bourgeois press would continue

To dole out party propaganda

About raids conducted by police

In houses/offices of activists

Where the only documents recovered

Would be copies of Constitution of India

Could this be adjudged prima facie incriminating evidence

For charges of sedition/anti-national activity to be proved?

But what if the Constitution is amended

And the words “secular”, “socialist” deleted

And its spirit all through made secular & socialist – mukt

Through brute majority in Parliament

Then the agents of PIL industry

Would move the apex court

What if the judiciary were to rule

Through a Constitution Bench of more than thirteen judges

That the basic structure of the Constitution has not been destroyed

By the constitutional amendment

Though de facto it would mean

That Kesavananda Bharati stood overruled

Would the usual sequence unfold –

Popular protests, mass arrests,

FIRs and disappearances

No bail or relief through habeas corpus?

If so then the charge sheet prepared by the police

Would be more voluminous than the Constitution

As one would confess voluntarily to have

Demanded implementation of every right guaranteed to all citizens

In prison one would still ask for a copy of the Constitution

Since the pocket sized Constitution would have

Been confiscated by the investigative authorities

During custodial interrogation or upon entry into the prison

Arun Ferreira wrote in his book

“Colours of the Cage - A Prison Memoir”

That a copy of the Constitution was denied to him

By the jail librarian for the reason – that it is too bulky!

If convicted and jailed and awarded capital punishment

Then unlike Udham Singh I would not spit on the judge

Who pronounces the judgement

Since for me spitting on a fellow human being is a violent act

Rather I would respectfully bow my head and accept the verdict

I would not plead for mercy

Since you don’t ask for mercy

When you have done no wrong

With long years of incarceration in jail

Successively in anda cell

Waiting for execution in solitary confinement/death row

And cut off from developments outside the jail

When the D-day arrives

The last wish before the hangmen puts

The black hood over the head

And tightens the rope noose around the neck

Would be to check if the then Constitution

Still retains the words “secular”, “socialist”

Or worse has the Constitution been replaced

By an ancient document!

[On 25^th June the Internal Emergency was formally imposed in India in 1975.]

First Published in Countercurrents.org: https://countercurrents.org/2019/06/the-constitution-of-india-is-more-powerful-than-an-ak47

Massive Demonstration At New Delhi, India In Support Of The Struggling People of Palestine on International Quds Day!

Co-Written by Dr. P.S. Sahni & Shobha Aggarwal

As part of worldwide demonstrations for freedom of Palestinians over a thousand Muslims assembled at JantarMantar, New Delhi, India on 31 May, 2019 in solidarity with and support of the struggling people of Palestine. It was a two hour long protest dharna (sit-in) from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. under scorching heat with the day temperature hovering around 46.2°C. Delhi was actually reeling under a heat wave with a ‘red warning’ having been issued on Friday by the Indian Metrological Department. The protesters – men, women, children, teenagers – had come in buses from all over Delhi after offering the Friday afternoon Namaz (prayers) at their respective mosques. The Protesters were observing Roza (fasting) throughout the day. It was a well-planned protest and the entire space earmarked for protest at JantarMantar got filled up. Volunteers carrying walkie-talkie ensured that batches of protesters reaching the venue site walked to the space where they could sit on chairs or stand. Ironically the program started fifteen minutes ahead of time! There was heavy deployment of police and para-military forces at the protest site; a water canon vehicle was on standby. The whole area was cordoned off by Delhi Police road barriers.

The demonstration took place in the backdrop of a new government in the process of being installed in India for the next five years; this government is largely seen to be pro-Israel. Besides it is the first time in Israel’s history that the Prime Minister designate has failed to form a coalition government and fresh elections are to be held in September. Ironically Israeli Parliament had passed a controversial law characterizing the country as principally a Jewish state in 2018.

This was the first major demonstration at JantarMantar in which such large number of people participated after the results of the General Election in India were announced on 23 May, 2019 followed by a deathly silence in public spaces.

The protesters were carrying placards bearing messages written in Urdu, English and a few in Hindi language:

1. From the river to the sea; Palestine will be free
2. Death to Israel
3. Death to America
4. “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians”, Nelson Mandela
5. Stand Against Israeli Occupation
6. Tell us who is terrorist; Tell us who is oppressor
7. Each one is more degenerate than the other; America and Israel

After the introductory speech a Dua (prayer) for Palestinians was recited in solemnity. Later several speakers highlighted the following points:

• Conscious attempt being made by vested interest to have the Palestinian problem out of the world gaze
• Palestine has been converted into a prison
• Palestine will eventually get freedom and its land back
• This generation of ours will see the freedom of Palestine; Israel will be wiped out in twenty-five years
• Confidant of eventual success
• Seventy years of exploitation by Israel will end
• The killing of Palestinian children by Israeli army will end
• The Israeli political establishment will cease soon
• India has always supported the cause of Palestinians
• Appeal to Government of India and the United Nations to impose sanctions on Israel
• If sanctions are imposed against Israel, it will go out of existence in seven days
• There have been violation of human rights of Palestinians for seventy years, can we forget Palestine?

Near the end of the protest program an effigy of Israel and its flag was lit on fire. Posters of Netanyahu were stomped upon by protesters.

The following slogans were shouted with either the protesters having both hands raised or waving the National flags of India and Palestine. It was an emotional sight to watch:

America Murdabad (Death to America)

Israel Murdabad (Death to Israel)

Palestine KeMajroohmon, Hum TumhareSaathHain

(The Wounded and hurt people of Palestine, We are with you)

Hindustan Zindabad (Long Live India)

Attankvad Murdabad (Death to Terrorism)

The protest ended with the participants walking in a rally along the length of the protest site raising slogans and waiving flags.

As we left the protest site we remembered the 1999 poem titled “We Were Without a Present” by Mahmoud Darwish, poet of Palestine and the world.

Also at: https://countercurrents.org/2019/06/massive-demonstration-at-new-delhi-india-in-support-of-the-struggling-people-of-palestine-on-international-quds-day

How Do We Face Kashmiri Muslims Now?

by Shobha Aggarwal — February 23, 2019

The word Kashmir stands censored out at all three places on the entry gate!

‘Kashmir Handicrafts Exhibition’is put up on Baba Kharak Singh Marg (BKS Marg)at a venue sandwiched between a Masjid and Pracheen Shiv Mandir every year in winter. BKS marg has all the state emporiums and is a street in Delhi with places of worship of all the major religions. It has few Hindu temples (Hanuman mandir, Shiv mandir and Ganesh mandir), Bangla Saheb Gurudwara, and a Church at the end of the marg. Behind the emporiums stands a Jain temple.

BKS marg also houses a Coffee Home, operated by Delhi Tourism – said to be a home away from home – adjoining Shiv Mandir. Across the road next to Ganesh Mandir is a multi-storied building,Mohan Singh Place which houses the Indian Coffee House on its terrace. The Coffee house has been the meeting point of many political, social and cultural activists for over six decades. If you take a walk down the state emporiums chances are that you may still meet some non-party political and socio-cultural activists who frequent the place.

Every year I buy some dry fruits, spices, honey from the ‘Kashmir Handicrafts Exhibition’ which lasts till at least the end of first week of March. A small vendor outside the ‘Kashmir Handicrafts Exhibition’is frequented by people like us to have a cup of steaming hot Kashmiri Kahwa poured from a huge silver kettle pot. Like most Indians I was waiting for the last days to do my shopping from the exhibition at a bargain price.

On 20 February, 2019 I read a news item in the Times of India: “Meghalaya guv backs boycott of everything Kashmiri”. He had tweeted the same message a day earlier. I resolved to prepone my shopping at the ‘Kashmir Handicrafts Exhibition’ to that day itself in support of the Kashmiris. I reached there in the afternoon where I met half a dozen of my co-activists already assembled there and in animated discussion. To my horror I saw the whole wooden and canvas structure housing the various vending outlets at the ‘Kashmir Handicrafts Exhibition’ being pulled down. Since it was raining we took shelter under the remaining part of the yet-to-be pulled down structure. We were sipping tea obtained from a roadside tea vendor. A fellow activist,Babu Munna expressed anguish that the exhibition which was to last two more weeks was suddenly forcibly closed.

As the rain stopped we– Vijay Gautam, Salman Qureshi, Dr. P.S. Sahni, Mohammad Umar, SubhashBharati– stepped out and looked at the sign board. We realized that the first word Kashmir in ‘Kashmir Handicrafts Exhibition’ had been covered overnight by a wall paper with flowery pattern on it. Everywhere the word Kashmir had been so covered. There appeared to be a conscious effort to remove Kashmir out of our existence. The flowers designed on the wall paper covering the word ‘Kashmir’ looked like a floral tribute to a place considered paradise on earth.

I felt wretched. I cursed my Bania instinct to save small amounts of money by deciding to wait till March for my shopping. I had failed to do my little bit for Kashmir. The Government claims that Kashmir is an integral part of India. But at the same time it is trying to obliterate not just Kashmir but everything Kashmiri from the daily existence of every Indian. If this is allowed to happenwithin a radius of two kilometers from the Indian Parliament, Supreme Court of India, on a street with all the State emporiums and a tourist hub for foreigners, the horror Kashmiris must have facedelsewhere in India in the last one week petrifies me. By advocating a boycott of Kashmiri goods – through it minions – is the Indian state imposing sanctions on Kashmir, à la Trump on Venezuela?Why are thousands of Kashmiri students studying in various universities in India; the Kashmiri workers employed in factories; and the individual vendors selling shawls and phirans being criminalized? What, then, should we do?

Telugu Poet Varavara Rao presently incarcerated in jail for alleged anti-national activities has aptly summed up:

“If crime itself assumes authority and power

And hunts down people holding them criminals,

Everyone endowed with a mouth who keeps silent,

Becomes [a] criminal himself.”

Also at: https://countercurrents.org/2019/02/23/how-do-we-face-kashmiri-muslims-now/

Post-Truth Vedic Mathematics: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam = (Whole World – UAE).K

Post-Truth Vedic Mathematics:

Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam = (Whole World – UAE).K

Key: K signifies in relation to Kerala 

 by

Dr. P.S. Sahni

The incumbent occupying the seat of the Prime Minister of India may live under the delusion that the aforementioned equation – a product of his politics – is at par with Einstein’s E = mc² and which lets him erroneously experience a eureka moment in the Archimedean spirit. Nevertheless Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam is a Sanskrit phrase found in Hindu texts such as the Maha-Upanishad which means the world is one family. This verse is engraved in the entrance hall of the Parliament of India and is said to be the “loftiest Vedantic thought”.

Ever since he has come to power, the Prime Minister of India has invoked the term Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (VK) umpteen times. On 27 September, 2014 while addressing the 69^th U.N. General Assembly at the U.N. Headquarters in New York, he referred to the term as India’s philosophy. This was his maiden speech at the U.N. Next on 24 November, 2015 in Singapore he reminded the audience that Indians believe in VK. He again invoked VK on 9 July, 2016 in South Africa. Once more on 23 November, 2017 while inaugurating the two day Global Conference on Cyberspace in Delhi he said that technology breaks barriers and it validates the Indian philosophy of world is one family. As recently as 23 January, 2018 he stressed on VK at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland in solving the global problems … to bridge the existing gap in humanity.

When ‘Operation Maitri’ was launched as a rescue and relief operation in Nepal – with a predominantly Hindu population – by the Government of India in the aftermath of April, 2015 earthquake, around Rs. 7000/- crores were given in aid. India pledged this amount for the reconstruction efforts. (This is ten times the amount which the UAE government is said to have offered presently for the Kerala flood victims). The Indian aid was duly accepted by Nepal during its hour of need.

Now the philosophy of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam by no stretch of imagination can be seen to be only emanating from India in a centrifugal direction towards the rest of the world. It could be that due to the constant invocation of the philosophy by the Prime Minister of India, the head of the UAE is convinced of its universality. It is in this spirit that the UAE aid should be seen. Only this time around the philosophy is gravitating towards India in a centripetal direction. In physics, as in life, action and reaction are equal and opposite.

The interconnectedness of the world cannot be denied. The whole world is a global village. Those in power who have been chanting the mantra of VK would do well to remember Krishna’s discourse in Bhagwad Gita:

“There are some people who do not see whether or not the world is connected. For them it is meaningless, because they always live in a self-created darkness, devoid of knowledge. These are tamasik people who are lazy, slothful, inert and blind to reason and truth.”

The powers that be cannot wish UAE out of the global village.

The real issue which is getting obfuscated is the hatred which the present rulers in India based in New Delhi have towards Muslim people and Muslim majority countries; the latter gets seen as enemies in relation to the ideology which permeates the Sangh Parivar. No doubt since 1992 the invocation of Ram and Ram temple at Ayodhya has thrown up at least two prime ministers from within the BJP fold. The right wing forces would do well to remember that when Sita was abducted, Ram had no hesitation in accepting aid and help from birds and animals in locating her whereabouts. Ram even enlisted the help of Vibhishana, younger brother of Ravana, the latter being perceived as the enemy of Ram.

The legend in Ramayana where the then Prince Dashratha unleashed an arrow on a boy Shravan Kumar who had come to a lake to collect water for his sick and aged parents, who were both blind and whom he had been carrying on a sling, needs to be remembered by those ruling India. When Dashratha went to tell about Shravan’s death to his parents, the latter cursed Prince Dashratha who later suffered in life. Dashtratha’s kingdom too suffered.

By killing the foreign aid the puffed up bullies in Delhi have done ‘a Dashratha’ act on the needy, hungry and thirsty people of Kerala devastated by the recent floods. Keralites would never forgive the rulers of India for their betrayal.

[Dr. P.S. Sahni is a member of PIL Watch Group and can be contacted at: pilwatchgroup@gmail.com]

  

Also At: https://countercurrents.org/2018/08/30/post-truth-vedic-mathematics-vasudhaiva-kutumbakam-whole-world-uae-k/

Kerala Floods: Operation Chlorine Tablet, Operation Bleaching Powder Needed

 by Dr P S Sahni — August 20, 2018

I am making a few suggestions in the wake of monumental tragedy caused by floods in Kerala. Apart from whatever the administration is doing to contain epidemic of water borne diseases, stress should be on two very simple steps:

1. The Kerala government could announce and initiate on a war footing ‘Operation Chlorine Tablet’
2. The Kerala government could announce and initiate on a war footing ‘Operation Bleaching Powder’

These should be distributed at the relief camps/medical centers so that it reaches every household. If implemented these two steps alone could save thousands of lives in Kerala. The chlorine tablet would take care of the water being made drinkable; the bleaching powder would ensure that the surroundings are disinfected. These two steps are very cost effective & could be done even by financially strained municipalities.

Of course the services of WHO, UNICEF and NICD (National Institute of Communicable Diseases, Delhi) could be availed of, but their advice should be questioned on scientific grounds before their prescription is implemented on the masses.

These suggestions emanate through work in areas/situations where water borne diseases become imminent. I was a member of one of the first medical team which reached Indo-Bangla border in 1971 where almost ten million refugees had landed. The camp where I worked had housed twenty-five thousand refugees. The stress was on vaccination against cholera and typhoid, use of bleaching powder as a disinfectant and distribution of Sulfaguanidine tablets at our makeshift clinic. Those in severe dehydration were given intravenous glucose saline solution – which was always a scarce commodity. Since we worked during the months of June, July and August the monsoon rains as also the overflowing small nearby rivers played havoc in the spread of epidemic diseases.

During the 1988 cholera epidemic in Delhi half the citizens were vaccinated by the Rajiv Gandhi government even though WHO had concluded by then that vaccination is both useless as well as dangerous once the epidemic has started. Over 1500 people had died in this epidemic. It is well known that governments resort to mass vaccination since those in power want to appear to be doing something during the crises – and vaccination offers the best mask as if something effective is being done for the masses. Majority of the deaths had occurred because people were being shifted to infectious diseases hospitals whereas they should have been treated right at the local treatment centers at the relief camps.

(In recent years the WHO has again changed its stance and is now seen to be advocating cholera vaccination even when there is a full blown epidemic; perhaps the WHO, too, wants to be seen to be doing something just as politicians in power do worldwide.)

I had a chance to work among the tribals in Nilgiris in 1973 where Dr. Narasimhan Rao had devoted his whole life for the cause of the tribals. He impressed upon us through experience that where intravenous glucose saline solution is not available, one could directly inject green coconut water; all one needs is the intravenous tubing set. In fact this method is of use in remote areas of some countries along coastal areas. But its use is limited to severe dehydration cases.

Dr. P.S. Sahni is a member of PIL Watch Group Email: pilwatchgroup@gmail.com

https://countercurrents.org/2018/08/20/kerala-floods-operation-chlorine-tablet-operation-bleaching-powder-needed/