Palash Speaks

Partition continues as Zionist Brahmins plan to Rule and enslave the Galaxy!

Palash Biswas

Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
Partition continues. Holocaust Continues. War on. Civil War on. Humanity Bleeds. Nationalities and aboriginal people annihilated worldwide. It is infinite zenocide as zionist Brhamins plan to rule the Galaxy! Nothing is local. Manusmriti is now Global. Untouchability is translated in purchasing power and enslaved aboriginal people have no entry into the global Market. Depopulation continued with Regress and latin America is shifted in south asia. So, the Middle East war Zone is also shifted right into our heart with war cry: War against Terrorism. All resistance is subverted by the so called Media, Intelligentsia and civil Society which deprives the indigenous people of its existence so that they may capture all the wealth inthis galaxy! All the resources in this Galaxy.Thus, Global anti Imperialsist, anti Neoliberalism, anti apartheid and Anti Untouchability movements have to interweaven to form a Global resistance to upset the apple Cart of the Ruling Zionist Brahmins!

Indian Brahmins created Pakistan to disallow Political Power, civil and Human rights to the eighty percent Enslaved Indigenous People comprising of SC,ST,OBCand minorities.Elite Muslims obliged the Brahmins to get a little Pakistan while they could have ruled India with an alliance with the Indigenous People in this subcontinent. Converted majority Muslims have aboriginal rules and they were against partition of India. The demography and census reports classifying SC, ST and OBC out of Brahminical Hindutva clearly showed that Independence without partition would have meant Doom`s day for the Ruling Brahmins in this subcontinent. They were afraid of Demography, awakening in enslaved communities thanks to enlightenment provided by British Rule free from Manusmriti, and finally of the emerging National dalit Movement under Dr Ambedkar. Interim government experiment in Bengal showcased the emerging coaliation of Dalits and Muslimd reigning. Brahmins could not bear this. They divide d India, introduced Joint majoritarian Electroal system and monopolsing polity and society by false Ideologies and political parties defending Brahmincal interests depriving minorities and nationalities any type of representation. clubbing of castes and Communities rule India to defend brahminical interests at all costs. But this gimmick is laso exposed with Globalisation and High Technology and Higher Education. Thus , they decided to kill higher education for elite autonomy hiking fees hundred times. They killed constitution undermining the fundamental rights of Reservation, introducing neoliberalism. They ejected militant Sikhs and dalit Bengalies out of their bases and making them handicapped, helpless. Thus, the nationalities might not take over the central rule. Five coroe refugees ejected from bangladesh and erst while East pakistan were made deprived of citizenship, mothertongue, reservation and were pitted against aboriginal tribes countrywide with a master plan to divide and rule. Now they introduced Citizenship Amendment act to eject out Dalit Bengali refugees out of this geopolitics once again.
No, it is not final. They kill Constitution, Judiciary and Democracy. they suspend Human and Civil rights. They destroy production system to dislodge and displace aboriginal and indigenous people from life and livelihood. They have become the best comradors of Hindu Zionist White Post Modern Galaxy Order with strategic regrouping under US lead declaring War against Muslims. They invented congress and then RSS. They also created communist and Maoist parties to subvert Revolution and Insurrections. The total game of Opposition politics led by political or non political, civil society or intelligentsia defend the Brahminical ruling interest. Rulig class implement every agenda of its class dominance and the opposition works like saftey VULVE to maintainn the work of the Pressure Cooker, the country Sensex Shining Indai turns to be. Underclasses are living in false dream that they will be liberated by communists, maoists, naxals, Mamata Bannerjee, Medha Patekar or Ulka Mahajan! All of them work together to achieve the goal to turminate and depopulate the enslaved majority so that the three percent Brahmins may rule eternally!

And see what the US slave PM Dr Manmohan Singh says industrialised nations responsible for climate change in Visakhapatnam. Observing that industrialised countries had the "biggest" responsibility for the impact on climate, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today put the onus on them to correct the damage.On the other hand, the central government said Goa’s recent decision on seeking de-notification of three SEZs was legally untenable. India's government may decide to raise prices of auto fuels by the end of January, for the first time in 18 months, to lower the burden of record crude prices on state-run refiners. All options, including a price increase and a cut in duties on fuels, will be considered to help the refiners who sell fuels below cost, Oil Minister Murli Deora told reporters in New Delhi today. Deora said he is in talks with the communist allies to seek their approval for raising prices. Crude oil traded near a record in New York after reaching $100 a barrel for the first time yesterday on concern violence in Nigeria may further cut output in Africa's biggest producer. The rise has strained finances at Indian Oil Corp., the nation's biggest refiner, and its counterparts that are forced to sell gasoline, cooking oil and diesel at below-market prices.

“The notified SEZs in Goa cannot be stripped of their status. There is no provision for scrapping a notified zone in the SEZ Act of 2005. State governments cannot recommend de-recognition of the notified status of the zones to the commerce department,” Commerce Secretary Gopal K Pillai said after a meeting of the SEZ Board of Approval (BoA).Pillai, however, clarified that it was up to the state government to deal with the formally approved zones that had not been notified. “The Goa government has already transferred land to formally approved zones,” he said. On December 31, the Goa government had said it would scrap 12 SEZs in the state and recommend de-notification of three others. However, no request for de-notification has been sent to the Department of Commerce, which is the anchor for the SEZ policy.

Meanwhile,the West Bengal government Wednesday formed an environmental expert committee to monitor all activities in East Midnapore's Nayachar Island for locating there a chemical hub after Nandigram was abandoned for the project in the face of stiff resistance from villagers.

"We have formed an environmental expert committee, headed by former chairman and managing director of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) Subir Raha, to look into all the environmental aspects of the project," Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee told a press conference after a cabinet meeting here.The committee will give its suggestions to the government on setting up the chemical hub project at Nayachar, a 40 sq km island in the Hooghly river about 150 km from Kolkata.

A high-level steering committee chaired by the chief minister would also be set up to monitor the project on regular basis. State cabinet ministers, including Industry Minister Nirupam Sen, will be its members.

It will facilitate execution of four sanctioned projects, including the chemical hub at Nayachar, with Indonesia-based Salim group.

With Nandigram in revolt, the proposed chemical hub was shifted to Nayachar, where the state government owns 11,000 hectares of land. The Haldia Development Authority (HDA) also owns some land.

The Geological Survey of India (GSI) has also conducted a study at Nayachar before setting up the project there.

Wednesday's cabinet meeting also decided that the district magistrate will suggest suitable land to the government for any project, keeping in mind the loss to and displacement of local people, Bhattacharya said.

Legal experts say the Goa development can become a complex legal issue. “A zone can be notified only after the state government’s approval, on which Goa has backtracked. Moreover, there is a functioning SEZ policy in the state, effective from June 2006. SEZs will find it difficult to function without the state’s support, which includes providing water, electricity and sewerage connections, as well as relaxed labour laws, VAT exemption and environmental clearances,” said Hitendra Mehta, head of the Gurgaon office of law firm, Vaish Associates.

No other state government has so far sought scrapping of a notified SEZ. However, after Mayawati became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh last year, the state government had asked the SEZ Board of Approval not to consider cases from the state till its go-ahead.

The state did not give permission for an SEZ in Noida that was to be developed by a consortium led by Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. Subsequently, it has approved other SEZ proposals.

However, out of the seven formally-approved zones in Goa, three have been notified and are eligible for tax benefits. Proposals for eight zones in the state are yet to be taken up by the BoA, an inter-ministerial body headed by Pillai.

Notified zones in the state include a 123.2-hectare biotech SEZ of Meditab Specialties, a 107.17-hectare services SEZ of K Raheja Corp Pvt Ltd and a 20.36-hectare Biotech SEZ of Peninsula Pharma Research Centre Pvt Ltd. Pharma major Cipla is developing two units in the Meditab zone and has already invested Rs 200 crore.

Addressing the 95th Indian Science Congress here, he said the world cannot walk down the path of environmentally harmful development that developed industrial economies have pursued thus far.

"They bear the biggest responsibility for what has happened and must bear the greatest responsibility for correcting the damage," Singh said, adding climate change posed a great and new challenge to the development prospects and to the livelihood of the people.

Noting that India had adopted a "pro-active and pragmatic approach" to the problem of environmental degradation, he said, "We cannot replicate the western model of wasteful consumption and environmentally harmful industrialisation.

"We need an alternative approach more mindful of our resource endowments, and also of the need to avoid damage to the environment," the Prime Minister said.

"we need a global response, a national response and a local response."

An expert committee headed by R Chidambaram had come forward with a research agenda to study the impact of climate change in the country, he said, adding the government was in the process of identifying a centre of national excellence on climate change.

Orissa violence part of RSS strategy: CPI-M
New Delhi: The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has alleged that the communal violence in Orissa was not "an isolated breakdown of law and order" but a part of an "overall strategy" by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to subvert republican principles.

In an editorial in the latest issue of party mouthpiece People's Democracy, the CPI-M said safeguarding the republic was essential to put the country on the road to prosperity and progress.

CPI-M pointed out that last week's violence in Orissa's Kandhamal district that killed three people, allegedly unleashed by Hindu fundamentalists, came immediately after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s electoral victory in Gujarat.

"This anti-Christian campaign in Orissa is, thus, not an isolated breakdown of law and order. It is part of an overall strategy of the effort to transform modern India through the subversion of its republican principles."

The editorial said: "Such electoral tactics are not transitory but dovetail the larger strategy objective of the RSS - the objective of transforming the secular democratic character of the modern Indian Republic into its conception of a rabidly intolerant Hindu Rashtra."

The article said any attempt to subvert the fundamental pillars of India's constitution could create havoc for the unity and integrity of the country. "India is a country of unparalleled diversities - religious, linguistic, cultural, ethnic etc. The only way a country of this size and diversity can be kept united is by strengthening the bonds of commonality that exist amongst this diversity.

"Any attempt to impose a uniformity on this diversity can only lead to the disintegration of this country. And, it is precisely this that the communal forces under the slogan of 'one country, one culture' are seeking to do," the editorial alleged.

The article recalled the anti-Christian campaign by the RSS and its affiliates launched in December 1998 in Gujarat, a state that is called Hindutva's laboratory and where the BJP has won election after election.

The party also noted that M.S. Golwalkar, one of the prominent leaders of the RSS, had once remarked that the three internal enemies of its pursuit of establishing its conception of a Hindu Rashtra were the Muslims, Christians and the communists.

The communists urged the Indian people to be alert and take steps to stop the efforts to communalise the nation."The majority of Indian people who cherish the republican foundations of modern India need to halt this communal juggernaut in its tracks. This is absolutely essential to first safeguard our republic and to put it on the road of overall prosperity and progress," the article said.

In what is seen as a major boost for Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and a setback for his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Mayawati, the Janata Dal (U)-BJP surmounted heavy odds to retain the Bikramganj Lok Sabha seat while the Bahujan Samaj Party suffered a jolt losing the prestigious Ballia seat to its arch rival Samajwadi Party.

The JD(U) retained its hold on Bikramganj Lok Sabha constituency when its candidate Meena Singh, the widow of former local MP Ajit Singh, defeated her nearest RJD rival Ashok Kumar Kushwaha by 31,258 votes. While Singh secured 1,65,664 votes, Kushwaha polled 1,34,406 votes.

In West Bengal, the CPI(M) renewed its influence on Balaghar Assembly seat with its nominee Bhuban Pramanik defeating his nearest Trinamool Congress challenger Ashim Majhi by 8,410 votes. The CPI(M) victory margin went down by 10,000 votes compared to last polls.

In Ballia, SP Neeraj Shekhar, cashing in on the sympathy for his father Chandrashekhar, former Prime Minister who died last year, romped home by a margin of over 1,30,000 votes over his nearest rival BSP's Vinay Shankar Tewari. Neeraj polled over 2,95,000 votes while Tewari secured more than 1,64,000 votes. This was the first major setback for the ruling BSP in the State.

BJP's Virendra Singh and Congress' Rajiv Upadhya polled over 22,000 and over 10,000 votes respectively losing their deposits.

In Bikramganj, where RJD chief Lalu Prasad had placed his prestige at stake and forged a formidable caste combination and banked on the support from disgruntled JD(U) Rajya Sabha member Bashisth Narayan Singh, Anand Mohan Singh and expelled party leader Upendra Kushwaha.

The RJD boss camped at Bikramganj for well over a week. To make up for his drifting minority vote base, Lalu Prasad even stayed at jailed party leader Akhlaque Ahmad's residence.

With Yadav and Kuswahas making up for nearly 28 per cent votes, Lalu hoped that Upendra Kushwaha, a one -time right hand of Nitish Kumar, would be able to make a major dent in the Kurmi-Koeri combination forged by the Bihar CM in the last Assembly polls. While this did not happen, Lalu even failed to effectively divide the Rajput votes despite support from Basisth Narain Singh and Anand Mohan Singh, who was recently convicted in the murder of former Gopalganj District Magistrate.

Trinamool Congress office set ablaze in Durgapur
Durgapur: A Trinamool Congress office was set ablaze near Durgapur steel plant in Burdwan district of West Bengal last night, police said.

The temporary structure of the party's minority forum office was set on fire by unidentified persons in front of the main gate of the steel plant at midnight yesterday, the police said today.

Trinamool leader Prabhat Chatterjee alleged that it was the handiwork of CPI(M) workers.

CPI(M) MLA Biprendu Chakrabarty denied the charge and asked the police to identify the miscreants.

Burdwan Superintendent of Police Pijush Pandey said that he was aware of the incident and would examine all possibilities, if a complaint was filed.
Tata's `people`s car` heading for Geneva Motor Show
Mumbai: Delhi’s Auto Expo starting January 10 will not be the only place where Tata Motors will display its competitively priced Rs 1 lakh car, which will be the cheapest car in the world.

After showcasing the yet-to-be-named car (Ratan Tata calls it “the people’s car”) in the capital, the company is planning a similar splash at the Geneva Motor Show in March, a company spokesman confirmed. This will be a prelude to entering the competitive European market.

The Geneva show will mark the first time a small car will be unveiled at an international auto show before its commercial launch in India, scheduled for September or October. No test drives will be allowed at the Delhi Auto Show. However, it is not clear whether they will be allowed in Geneva.

Tata Motors has already shown interest in launching the car in markets that resemble India. A joint study is being conducted with Italian partner Fiat in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. Italy is another possibility.Auto experts said the European foray is part of a strategy to maintain respectable margins on the car.

The car, which is to be sold in sizeable numbers (the target is up to 1 million a year by 2010-11), is expected to find a market among middle-income buyers looking to upgrade from two-wheelers.The car will also target buyers of used compact vehicles and mid-sized sedans.

The Geneva Motor Show has been a happy hunting ground for several Tata vehicles including concept cars.The company had unveiled the pick-up Cliffrider (to be launched in India), the Elegante sedan, the TL Sprint among other models at the Swiss show. The recently launched 2.2 litre Safari Dicor was also displayed there.

Other than the Rs 1 lakh car the company may also showcase the new Indica and Indigo at Geneva this spring. Both cars will be launched in India, later this year.

The small car will be produced at more than one manufacturing plant, apart from the upcoming plant in Singur, West Bengal. Its facilities in Uttarkhand, Pune and Lucknow are other options.

West Bengal Govt to set up steering committee for NKID
Kolkata | Wednesday, Jan 2 2008 IST

The West Bengal Government today decided to set up a steering committee headed by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to monitor the implementation of New Kolkata International Development (NKID) project.

The implementation of the NKID project has lot of implications and involves many departments.

It has been decided to set up the high level steering committee to be chaired by the Chief Minister, who will monitor the development of the project on a regular basis.

The implementation of NKID project will be carried in different phases.

In the first phase of the project implementation of Petroleum, Chemical, Petrochemical Investment Region (PCPIR) at Nayachar, development of Raichak and Kukrahati bridge with 25 km stretch of road to be connected with Diamond Harbour Road and a stretch of road will be developed in 24 Parganas (North)besides township development at Kalyani, Baruipur and Haringhata. These townships will be built by NKID on existing lands which are already in possession of the state government.

The NKID, a special purpose private company, was being promoted by the Salim Group, the Universal Success Group and Unitech for development of various projects in West Bengal.

The high level meeting, held at the Writers Building to discuss the NKID project, was presided by the Chief Minister and was attended by Industry & Commerce Minister Nirupam Sen, the IT Minister, the Sunderban Development Minister, the Fishery Minister, the Chief Secretary and heads of other concerned departments.

First anniversary of Nandigram unrest

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Nandigram: Case of political opportunism or development battle?

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Bano Haralu
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080037583&ch=1/3/2008%209:46:00%20AM
Thursday, January 3, 2008 (Nandigram)
It is exactly a year since the Nandigram SEZ crisis began and winds of change are cautiously blowing over the fields in Nandigram.

For eleven long months villagers here suffered a siege within as supporters of the CPI (M) and the Trinamool Congress backed Bhumi Uched Pratirodh Committee clashed over the controversial issue of land acquisition for a petro chemical hub. The standoff worsened with the issue turning into turf war for supremacy between the two political parties.

That is how the people of Nandigram will remember the year gone by. And this is where the first voices of protest against acquiring land for a Special Economic Zone were heard, exactly a year ago.

At a meeting of Kalichandrapur Panchayat, there were rumours that the Haldia Development Authority would announce a land acquisition drive.

Villagers feared their land would be taken away by force. One of the victims in the violence that followed was Rehman's 19-year-old son, a member of the Trinamool Congress-backed Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee.

''My son is no longer with us and I don't want an industry. I don't require one,'' said Sheikh Fojla Rahman.

In February, the Chief Minister announced no land would be forcibly acquired but by then the damage had been done. And in March police tried to enter Nandigram using force. 14 people were killed in firing after which Nandigram remained on the boil. The administration did nothing to restore calm.

For both the CPM and the Trinamool Congress, the issue turned into a turf war for supremacy. Voices of protest echoed on the streets of Kolkata also in Parliament. A spate of bandhs followed, Nandigram became a national issue.

The Calcutta High court condemned the firing and ordered a CBI probe. And in November when the CPM tried to recapture its lost base four people died in clashes.

But the Chief Minister visited Nandigram only last week, almost a year after trouble first broke out to attend a district level conference of the CPM, where he handed out compensation to the 29 party workers, who were killed last year.

Paramilitary forces are present in the area but the general worry is, what happens after they are gone.

Both the CPM and the Trinamool who have lined up meetings to mark the first anniversary of the violence claim many of their supporters are still missing.

Life is desperately trying to return to normal here in Nandigram as an uneasy calm shadows the shattered peace.

The controversial land acquisition issue was hijacked by an intense political battle for turf between the CPI(M) and the Trinamool Congress, crippling life for an entire year.

It is not difficult to guess what the people here will be longing for in the New Year, peace that will last.

CPM defeats split Oppn in Balagarh
3 Jan, 2008, 0145 hrs IST, TNN

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/CPM_defeats_split_Oppn_in_Balagarh/articleshow/2670396.cms

KOLKATA: The CPM on Wednesday managed to retain the Balagarh assembly seat in the Hooghly district by taking advantage of the split among Opposition parties like the Trinamool Congress, Congress and the BJP. However, the Marxists lost nearly 10,000 votes compared to the 2006 assembly polls.

The seat fell vacant following the death of former CPM MLA Dibakar Routh, who had won the seat by a margin of about 18,000 votes. Bhuban Pramanik of the CPM bagged 60,101 votes against Asim Majhi of the TC, who secured 51,691 ballots. The CPM’s victory margin dropped by about 10,000 votes compared to the 2006 results despite the fact that all the Opposition parties had contested the elections independently and there was no electoral patch-up among them.

Strangely, the Congress emerged as the worst performer as far as vote share is concerned. While the BJP’s garnered 8,833 votes, the Congress could account for only 5,864 votes. Naxalite faction CPI-ML (Liberation), which had contested the elections, got 4,530 votes, a little less than the Congress.

Balagarh results clearly indicate the CPM’s eroding mass base in rural Bengal after the Nandigram issue. The result also suggests that the Congress leadership is fast losing its influence among the electorate which is basically anti-CPM. People in Balagarh did not take the Congress as an anti-CPM force.

On the other hand, the result also indicates that the CPM may continue with its winning streak unless the TC, Congress and the BJP manage to fight the polls jointly against it.

The three Opposition parties together got 66,388 votes.

CRPF to stay in Nandigram: government
Posted : Wed, 02 Jan 2008 16:08:00 GMT
Author : IANS
Category : India (World)
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http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/167784.html

Kolkata, Jan 2- The West Bengal government Wednesday said paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) will remain deployed in restive Nandigram in West Bengal, where violence over the proposed land acquisition for a special economic zone (SEZ) has claimed 35 lives since January last year.

'We don't want the CRPF to be withdrawn from Nandigram. As of now, the CRPF is there and it would be there in future also,' said Prasad Ranjan Roy, state home secretary.

The CRPF was deployed in Nandigram Nov 12 at the state government's request in the wake of spiralling violence in the area.

He said it was not possible to comment on whether the stay of the paramilitary troopers would be extended. But the state government has taken the decision that the CPRF would remain in the area for sometime, Roy told reporters after a high-level meeting with West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at state secretariat.

'The state government cannot take such a decision unilaterally. It has to consult with the centre before taking any such step,' Roy said, adding the deployment of the central force in Nandigram has helped in controlling the situation there.

Nadigram, located about 150 km from Kolkata in East Midnapore district, flared up in January over proposed land acquisition for SEZ, including a chemical hub in collaboration with Indonesia's Salim group. The state government later scrapped the plan in the face of stiff resistance.

Thirty-five people have died officially in Nandigram violence since January with fresh bout of violence unleashed in November after the CPI-M cadres allegedly recaptured their lost bases in the area by launching a massive onslaught on the rival anti-land acquisition BUPC.

Buddhadeb misleading Nandigram people: Mamata
Posted : Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:40:05 GMT
Author : IANS
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Kolkata, Jan 3 - Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee Thursday launched a tirade against West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee for 'misleading' the people of Nandigram.

'The chief minister is misleading the people of Nandigram by admitting his mistake in sending the police to the area Mar 14 that resulted in the death of 14 people. But will he be able to return the lives lost in the violence and the dignity of women who were tortured and brutalised by CPI-M cadres?' Banerjee asked, addressing a rally at Bhutarmore in East Midnapore's Nandigram area.

Bhattacharjee visited the area for the first time in eleven months Dec 26 and said he would not have sent police to Nandigram if he knew there would be firing, and promised a major development package for the area.

'No one in Nandigram will accept food grains or clothes given as doles by the government. People who can brave bullets will also be able to fend for themselves. We don't want any help from the government which has killed people, destroyed houses and raped women,' she said.

The Trinamul Congress chief also demanded adequate punishment for perpetrators of violence in the area.

'We will not rest till those who have killed, raped and destroyed homes are handed out adequate punishment,' she said.

Vowing to intensify her agitation to bring justice to the people of the area, Banerjee also announced a series of programmes in Delhi and in East Midnapore district.

'We will hold a meeting in Delhi Jan 21 to protest the violence in Nandigram. Another meeting will be held in Khejuri in East Midnapore district Feb 2,' she said.

Trying to clear the misgivings that her party was against industrialisation, Banerjee said, 'We want industries but not at the cost of livelihood of innocent farmers whose lands are being taken away for setting up industries.'

Nadigram, located about 150 km from Kolkata, flared up in January last year over proposed land acquisition for a special economic zone (SEZ), including a chemical hub in collaboration with Indonesia's Salim group - a plan that was later scrapped by the state government in the face of stiff resistance.

Thirty-five people have died officially in Nandigram violence since January 2007 with a fresh bout of violence unleashed in November after the Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPI-M) cadres allegedly recaptured their lost bases in the area by launching a massive onslaught on the rival anti-land acquisition Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC).

The Left Needs Rethinking,
Not Abject Apologia

By Praful Bidwai
02 January, 2008
Countercurrents.org

Prabhat Patnaik has done what no other intellectual allied to West Bengal's Left Front has even attempted after Nandigram: namely, try to turn the tables on Left-leaning critics of the CPM by gratuitously attacking them for their " messianic moralism" and their presumed "disdain" for "the messy world of politics".

His agenda goes well beyond defending the CPM or apologising for one of the most shameful episodes in the Indian Left's history, involving the killing of peasants, devastation of thousands of livelihoods, sexual violence, and gross abuse of state power. It is to declare all criticism of the CPM's policies and actions illegitimate and misconceived, however sympathetic or inspired by radical ideas it might be.

The impact of Patnaik's article will be to prevent rethinking within the CPM, which could produce course correction. Ironically for Patnaik, it will only strengthen the party's neoliberal orientation and the "cult of development" that neoliberalism spawns, which he rails against.

Worse, it will harden the West Bengal CPM's readiness to brutalise peasants and workers (in whose name it speaks) in the interests of the rich and powerful, like the Tatas, Jindals, and the Salim group which is a front for Indonesia's super-corrupt Suharto family.

Patnaik is wrong on both facts and logic. His claim that "thousands" of CPM supporters in Nandigram were forced to become refugees for months is backed by no credible or independent source. Citizens' inquiries, including by a People's Tribunal consisting of a retired High Court Chief Justice, say that refugees from CPM-inspired violence outnumbered "dislodged" CPM cadres by a factor of 10, if not 20.

BUPC-Trinamool thugs too practised violence, but they couldn't have matched the state-assisted clout or scale of the militant operations of the well-oiled party apparatus. Leaks from the CBI report on the March violence, just submitted to the Calcutta High Court, speak of extensive collusion between CPM cadres and the police, which still continues.

As numerous reports in Tehelka, Hard News and Outlook have established, "recapturing" Nandigram wasn't an act of "desperation", which followed "the failure of every other effort at restoring normalcy". It was a planned punitive operation, premised on the abdication by the state of its fundamental responsibility to protect the life and limb of all citizens. The government allowed party thugs to wreak havoc through hostage-taking, arson, illegal confinement, rape, and of course, outright killing.

Equally important was Nandigram's policy context: an indefensible neoliberal plan to impose an SEZ on the people. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee indeed apologised for his "mistakes" in Nandigram. But he hasn't even remotely changed his neoliberal orientation, nor dropped the SEZ plan. He has merely relocated the chemical hub to Nayachar, a geologically unstable island, where no industrial activity, least of all hazardous chemicals production, is permissible under the Coastal Zone Regulations.

For all the apologies and confessions, Bhattacharjee's government appealed in the Supreme Court even against the High Court order for the payment of compensation to Nandigram's victims—a disgraceful thing for a Left-led regime to do. For eight long months, the victims were offered, and got, nothing from the government or the CPM.

At any rate, Nandigram's people don't feel assured that the chemical hub story is over. PWD Minister Kshiti Goswami, no less, has publicly said that the CPM's real plan is to build the hub at Nandigram, and use sparsely populated Nayachar to rehabilitate the displaced.

Patnaik doesn't even pause to reflect on why the bulk of the progressive intelligentsia in West Bengal, and perhaps much of it in the rest of India, has been so critical of the CPMon Nandigram. He wishes away the enormity of what happened on the blind presumption that "the Party" must be right—as always, because by definition, it is with "the people".

It's not "intellectuals" alone who have turned critical of the CPM. Its own Front allies, including the CPI, Forward Bloc and RSP, have publicly accused it of acting unilaterally and dissociated themselves from its Nandigram actions. The Bloc has decided to contest next May's panchayat elections independently. The RSP too will probably do that. The CPI has publicly criticised the CPM's high-handed conduct and some of its economic policies.

These cracks in left unity have appeared for the first time in 30 years. If the Front splits, the CPM will have to carry the blame.

If Patnaik is seriously concerned with political praxis —as he says he is in his attack on "moral messiahs"—, these cracks should worry him far more than a few individuals' comments comparing (although not equating) certain similarities in the violence in Bengal with patterns in the pogrom of Muslims in Gujarat.

This writer has always maintained that the two are not comparable in quality, scale, intention or effect. Referring to Gujarat's communal carnage doesn't help understand what happened in Singur and Nandigram under a secular government blinded by its zeal for industrialisation-at-any-cost, and led by a party whose 30 years in power have turned it conservative, and encouraged it to develop arrogant intolerance towards people within its own plebeian base.

Despite all these qualifications and distinctions, it's impossible for Marxists, socialists or progressives to condone either the overt violence of Nandigram, or the covert violence inherent in the elitist, neoliberal developmentalism pursued by the Left Front. Patnaik simply fails to make, indeed even attempt, this discriminating judgment.

Patnaik's principal explanation for a large number of Left-leaning intellectuals turning critical of the CPM is twofold: " most" of them "are in any case strongly anti-organised Left, especially anti-Communist"; and second, many who "till yesterday were with the Left in fighting communal fascism" have changed their stance. "With the … perceived weakening of the BJP … and …. the communal fascist forces, a certain fracturing of the anti-communal coalition was inevitable …"

The first proposition begs the question: "in any case" says it all. Worse, it conflates disparate categories such as "erstwhile 'socialist' groups", NGOs, Naxalite sympathiers, and "Free Thinkers" (a small, long-extinct student group in JNU). It fails to ask why many intellectuals who have had a lifelong commitment to the Left, and in particular the Communist Parties, feel disillusioned after Nandigram.

The second proposition assumes that the Left led the anti-communal struggle, which became critically important with the BJP's ascendancy in the mid-1980s. This is open to question—despite the contributions of groups like Sahmat and Sanskriti.

Frankly, the anti-communal fight was led by civil society organisations, public intellectuals, and combative activists who dissected BJP-directed textbooks, questioned Hindutva's claims, and valiantly took on Parivar goons. Even journalists played a role, as did feminists. The Left, in particular the CPM, certainly participated in the struggle. But leadership is another matter.

The West Bengal Left Front didn't stop LK Advani's rath yatra in 1990. Bihar's Laloo Prasad Yadav did. After the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom, the CPM and its front organisations were marginal in exposing the culprits or providing relief to the victims.

Immediately after the 2002 Gujarat carnage, the Left Front allowed Praveen Togadia to hold provocative meetings in Bengal, in which he justified the butchery of Muslims.

Similarly, the alliance between the organised Left and civil society groups and the progressive intelligentsia is not coming apart mainly under the impact of the BJP's decline. This perception of decline is neither widely shared nor a driving force of the change in question.

That change is primarily attributable to the CPM's increasing tilt towards neoliberalism, especially in the states where it rules, its growing sectarianism towards other Left currents, and its resort to strong-arm tactics against its own former constituency. Patnaik is no stranger to these traits in Kerala, where his attempt to combat pro-rich policies has met with stiff resistance from the CPM's dominant pro-neoliberal faction.

If Patnaik's basic premises are flawed, his charge that the Left's intellectual critics wish to further the destruction of politics and withdrawal from political praxis is patently tendentious. He doesn't cite a single instance to show that these detractors want to establish their "intellectual hegemony". Indeed, the second half of the article is a series of peevish assertions without rationality or roots in reality.

Patnaik makes a false dichotomy by counterposing politics to morality. He altogether misses the point that Leftists are not amoral, but have different, indeed superior and more refined, moral standards than Rightists. They should be scrupulous in adhering to an ethics that makes fine distinctions between constitutional and unconstitutional means, is strong on justice, equity and gender equality, is genuinely inclusive, non-divisive and anti-sectarian, and espouses peace and negotiated conflict resolution.

Particularly objectionable is the charge that the "detractors" distrust politics in the same way as does the "development cult" propagated by Manmohan Singh, which segregates it from politics, considered dirty by the middle class.

From here on, Patnaik indulges in pure fantasising: "The revolt against the CPI(M) is simultaneously a revolt against politics. The combination of anti-communism with a rejection of politics in general gives this revolt that added edge …"

Most of those whom he targets are in fact intensely political and have dedicated great energies to building a politics based on an abiding commitment to the poor, to principle, and to collective dialogue and action within the broad Left.

Perhaps the most deplorable part of Patnaik's argument is the "two-camps" theory—a formulation reminiscent of Stalin's crude dialectical materialism. This can be used, and was used, to justify suppression of freedoms and rights, fake trials, Gulags, invasions, brutalisation of exploited people, indeed, mass murder.

You can't define the "people's camp" by including certain parties regardless of their ideologies, policies or practices, and condemn others as "the enemy of the people" (a quaint-sounding phrase in the 21st century!)

Worthy partisanship does not lie in mindlessly supporting "my party, wrong or right", but in advancing a politics that places the poor, exploited and oppressed at its core.

A final point. One of the most encouraging and healthy developments of the past decade has been the mutually empathetic dialogue and collaboration between the organised Left, on the one hand, and people's movements, civil society organisations and committed Left-leaning intellectuals. This spans a range of issues, including neoliberal globalisation, the people's right to food and employment, human rights, peace and nuclear disarmament, opposition to Empire and hegemonism, and of course, secularism.

Patnaik's article is written not in the spirit of promoting such a dialogue or alliance. It will discourage, censor and delegitimise it—to the detriment of all concerned. Nothing can be more unfortunate

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CPM threat to CBI witnesses

Statesman News Service
KOLKATA, Jan. 2: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) asked the state government to take steps against some CPI-M leaders of Nandigram who allegedly threatened villagers who agreed to be the CBI's witnesses in court to depose on the 14 March police firing incident in which 14 people died. In response to the letter, the state government has decided to file cases against the culprits. State home secretary Mr Prasad Ranjan Roy confirmed this at the Writers’ Buildings today.
In his letter to the state government, DIG (CBI) Mr Alok Ranjan mentioned three instances of villagers, who had consented to depose for the CBI, being threatened by local CPI-M leaders. It bears recall that the Bhumi Uchched Protirodh Committee (BUPC) repeatedly alleged that CPI-M cadres were threatening their supporters once they had left relief camps and moved back to their homes. Even the CRPF said that police were refusing to register cases against criminals allegedly backed by the CPI-M after the jawans had turned them over to the officers.
The letter from the CBI ~ another pointer to the fact that all was not well on the law and order front in Nandigram ~ came as a major embarrassment for the state government. This came at a time when the state government was trying to establish that the local administration was not working under any kind of political pressure. That the state home secretary announced so fast the government’s decision to act, indicated that the it did not want to let its image get tarnished, especially at a time when panchayat polls were approaching.

Steering panel set up

KOLKATA, Jan. 2: A steering committee headed by chief minister Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was formed today to monitor the progress of a clutch of projects. “In the backdrop of Nandigram and Singur, care will be taken to displace very little of the existing population while setting up projects scheduled to be completed in 15 years’ time,” Mr Bhattacharjee said.
An expert panel headed by former ONGC chief Mr Subir Raha has been set up to report on the environmental impact as well as the suitability of other factors with respect to the Nayachar project. Zurong Consultancy of Singapore has been appointed by the New Kolkata International Development (NKID), a special purpose private company set up to execute ventures in the state, to prepare another report. The NKID has retained a US firm to compile a report on the proposed Raichak-Kukrahati bridge.SNS

Maoists mow down 2 CPM leaders

Statesman News Service
KOLKATA/KRISHNAGAR/PURULIA, Jan. 2: Maoists made their presence felt in the state after two CPI-M local committee members across two districts were killed allegedly by the Maoists in the past 24 hours.
The state government today admitted that it had failed to counter the Maoists in some rural pockets of the state. The home secretary, Mr Prasad Ranjan Roy said at Writers’ Buildings that they had asked those leaders who faced threat to their life not to go to the interiors. Instead, they were asked to stay in the urban areas.
In Purulia, Pahalan Kumar Majhi (45), a local committee member of the CPI-M, was shot dead by a group of Maoists near his residence at Besra village in Balarampur, at 11.30 last night. When Maoists raided the village last night, they shouted slogans against the corruption of the CPI-M at panchayat level. Police seized at least ten leaflets from the spot. The additional superintendent of police, Mr Pranab Kumar Das, reached the spot this morning and admitted that Maoists had been involved in the attack.
Mr Das said : “There were 15 to 20 Maoists. Maoists also injured the mother of the victim, Mrs Dudi Kumar Majhi. The brothers of the victim were injured when they tried to resist the Maoists”. Within a few hours after killing the CPI-M leader in Purulia, a gang of suspected Maoist ultras shot dead a CPI-M leader in Nadia’s Chapra police station area around 11 am today.
The gang comprising four persons fired shots at Ramprasad Mondol (53), a school teacher as well as a member of CPI-M Doierbazar local committee while on his way to his school at Madhabpur. He was the former food karmadhyakshya of the Chapra panchayat samity. According to the local residents, the attackers fled towards Neoa and Bhagwanpur, the Maoist strongholds between Kotwali and Chapra police station areas. Before leaving the spot, they left some leaflets behind. When asked about the matter, Mr Samsul Islam Mollah, local CPI-M MLA, said: “Mondol was a very popular leader. Though, some posters of Maoist have been found near his body, we are yet to be sure whether the Maoists have killed him.”
Mr Kusumakar, the SP, said, “There are some disputes between the local CPI-M leaders and some Maoists about Kalinga Beel (water body) here. The Maoists didn’t wish to give rights of fishing to the local CPI-M leaders and this could be one of reasons behind the attack on him.”

BJP workers detained
Four BJP workers were detained by the police today in connection with the murder of Sisir Chatterjee, member of the Mongalkote CPI-M zonal committee. He was butchered last evening barely 20 metres away from his party office at Koichar in Katwa. The snifer dogs traced his head to a paddy field where it was dangled from bamboo sticks with Maoist posters and leaflets.
Reacting to the detention, Mr Sanjay Bhattacharya of the BJP alleged that their men were being framed on baseless charges.

Bloodspill in Assam bandh mayhem: 7 killed in police firing
Curfew was clamped in Lakhipur town and the army asked to move in after a three-day bandh that began this morning left a trail of death and destruction in Goalpara district of Lower Assam. Seven persons died when police fired on bandh supporters who had turned violent. Two police officers and a CRPF jawan were among the 20-odd people injured in the violence. Several vehicles were either set ablaze or damaged by protesters at different places.

The bandh was called hurriedly last night by the Non-Rabha Co-ordination Forum and the Non-Tribal Protection Forum to prevent officials from reaching polling stations and booths for the second phase of panchayat elections, slated for Friday.

The state Election Commission tonight postponed elections in the whole of Goalpara district, scheduled for January 4 and 9, indefinitely.

The two organisations behind the bandh were protesting the government's decision not to hold panchayat polls in parts of Kamrup and Goalpara that are administered by the Rabha Hasong Autonomous Council. Rabha groups had opposed the election in their areas, a demand that the government accepted, without polls to the council being held. Lakhipur town bore the brunt of the mob violence, but the first incident of the day occurred at Bhalukdubi in Goalpara town around 11am. Protesters hurled stones at polling personnel who had assembled for their onward journey to different places. The police lathicharged the mob.

The scene of violence then shifted to the main market in nearby Lakhipur town, where thousands of people gathered since the morning to enforce the bandh. When a section of the crowd started throwing stones and damaging vehicles, a police team arrived to disperse the crowd. That was around noon. When the protesters retaliated, the police team was quickly outnumbered. The officers-in-charge of Lakhipur police station and the Jaleswar outpost, Gobinda Saikia and Irfan Khan, were injured.

When caning failed to stop the mob, the police opened fire. Four persons struck by bullets died and 10 were injured. As news of the deaths spread, thousands of people marched to Lakhipur police station and proceeded to attack the police personnel, which led to yet another round of firing in which three more persons died and another 10 were injured. That incident occurred around 3.15 p.m.Goalpara superintendent of police Abhijit Bora said over phone that the police had no option but to open fire. "We burst teargas shells and fired rubber bullets, but the protesters kept coming at us. So we had to open fire."

Bora said the mob next targeted four houses belonging to people of a linguistic minority community on the outskirts of Lakhipur town. As many as 10 vehicles and 22 two-wheelers, including a truck of the District Rural Development Agency, were torched or damaged at different places. A bus was attacked near Durga Mandir in Goalpara town and set ablaze.

Protesters also blocked National Highway 37 and disrupted traffic. Goalpara deputy commissioner Utpalananda Sarma said the army was asked to move into "sensitive areas" of the district when the violence spread. The president of the Non-Rabha Co-ordination Forum, Shajahan Ali, said the police firing was unwarranted. He asked for the resignation of the Congress-led government, saying it had lost the "moral right" to remain in power.

"We will not succumb to coercive measures," Ali said. The organisation demanded Rs 5 lakh each in compensation to the families of those who died in the firing and Rs 1 lakh each for the injured.

http://www.taratv.com/top_story.html

Comment Policy

First anniversary of Nandigram unrest
It is exactly a year since the Nandigram SEZ crisis began and winds of change are cautiously blowing over the fields in Nandigram. For eleven long months villagers here suffered a siege within as supporters of the CPI (M) and the Trinamool Congress backed Bhumi Uched Pratirodh Committee clashed over the controversial issue of land acquisition for a petro chemical hub. The standoff worsened with the issue turning into turf war for supremacy between the two political parties.

A year later the figure of people killed is still not known but at least 50 people have died and several are still missing. Hundreds have been injured and thousands made homeless for months with a feeling of fear and helplessness. That is how the people of Nandigram will remember the year gone by. And this is where the first voices of protest against acquiring land for a Special Economic Zone were heard, exactly a year ago.

At a meeting of Kalichandrapur Panchayat, there were rumours that the Haldia Development Authority would announce a land acquisition drive. Villagers feared their land would be taken away by force. One of the victims in the violence that followed was Rehman's 19-year-old son, a member of the Trinamool Congress-backed Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee. ''My son is no longer with us and I don't want an industry. I don't require one,'' said Sheikh Fojla Rahman.

The Calcutta High court condemned the firing and ordered a CBI probe. And in November when the CPM tried to recapture its lost base four people died in clashes. But the Chief Minister visited Nandigram only last week, almost a year after trouble first broke out to attend a district level conference of the CPM, where he handed out compensation to the 29 party workers, who were killed last year.

Paramilitary forces are present in the area but the general worry is, what happens after they are gone. Both the CPM and the Trinamool who have lined up meetings to mark the first anniversary of the violence claim many of their supporters are still missing.

Life is desperately trying to return to normal here in Nandigram as an uneasy calm shadows the shattered peace.

The controversial land acquisition issue was hijacked by an intense political battle for turf between the CPI(M) and the Trinamool Congress, crippling life for an entire year. It is not difficult to guess what the people here will be longing for in the New Year, peace that will last.

SOUTH ASIA SESSIONS
[ South Asia Table of Contents ]

[ Panels by World Area Main Menu ]

[ View the Timetable of Panels ]

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Session 7: Hidden Away: Tantrism and South Asian Art
Organizer: Rebecca M. Brown, St. Mary’s College of Maryland

Chair: Padma Kaimal, Colgate University

Discussant: Janice Leoshko, University of Texas, Austin

While some elements of South Asian tantric art—Tibetan mandalas, yab-yum sculptures, maithuna couples—see no end to exposure and publication, much of the meaning of major tantric art and architecture of South Asia is hidden from the gaze of the uninitiated. The three papers of this panel explore three very different examples of art and architecture which illuminate the relationship between tantrism’s hidden aspects and temple sculpture, bhakti, and the construction of modern India.

The first two papers examine temple architecture and its decoration. The first explores the elaborate patterning that embeds tantric meaning within apparently simple visual signs. The second explores the tension between manifest (prakat) and hidden (aprakat) in the structure and the terracotta program of Bengali temples. The final paper explores the manner in which the hidden aspects of tantrism and tantric art were used to establish an Indian modernity in the 1960s and 1970s. As a group, the three authors establish a counterpoint between what tantric art was thought to be in the mid-twentieth century and what artistic production around tantrism looked like in eighth-century southern India and seventeenth-century Bengal. Each paper engages with tantrism as it intersects wider political and religious institutions: royal patronage, Gaudiya Vaishnavism, and the international modern art movement. The papers together move the study of tantrism in art in new directions, showing that even as tantrism is hidden, its presence is central to much of South Asian art and architecture.

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Hidden Tantric Lessons in an Eighth-Century Temple

Padma Kaimal, Colgate University

The Kailasanath temple complex was built between 700 and 725 by a Pallava king at his dynasty’s capital, Kancipuram, in southeastern India. The architecture and sculpture of this monument express tantric philosophy’s central principles through visual signs that remain hidden even as they sit in plain view. Any visitor who gains access to the temple’s walled courtyard will see all around her the interlocked buildings and dramatic carvings that carry these tantric meanings. Those meanings, however, may elude her because they lie not in the forms alone but in patterns underlying the placement of those forms throughout the temple complex. Only visitors trained in tantra—initiates in that esoteric tradition or scholars benefitting from the recent publication of tantric secrets—are likely to perceive those patterns and recognize their significance.

One of these patterns I discern at the Kailasanath complex rests in the arrangement of its goddess images. This sculptural program consistently counterposes goddesses on the basis of their sexuality, manifesting as it does so tantra’s emphasis on the sexuality of deities, the variability of the supreme Goddess’s many manifestations, and the goal of transcending dualistic thought. These core lessons of Tantra are thus embedded in the monument’s very plan but screened from the gaze of those who have not learned what to look for.

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Hidden Meanings in the Temple Terracottas of Seventeenth-Century Bengal

Pika Ghosh, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Gaudiya Vaishnavism, the devotional movement led by the Bengali saint Chaitanya (1586–1633), upholds Radha’s deeply passionate and self-sacrificing love for Krishna as the ideal state for the devotee to achieve. The primary texts suggest that the goal of the aspirant was to enhance her/his levels of knowledge and meditational skills toward participation in the lila (amorous play) of the deities. This process is understood as a progression from the prakat (manifest) to the aprakat (hidden). The double-storied brick temples built throughout the Bengal delta in the seventeenth century are a site for such aspiration. In this paper I want to explore the possible evocation of older tantric concepts and visual forms that were already prevalent in the region, where rich Buddhist and Shakta tantric traditions had developed earlier, toward enhancing the experience of bhakti. The iconography of the terracotta panels adorning the earliest Vaishnava temples can be read as a progression from the manifest to the more potent "hidden" knowledge, available only to those initiated within the tradition. Panels depicting scenes such as the rasamandala (circular dance of Krishna with the women of Mathura) are particularly rewarding when read in this light.

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The Hidden and the Modern: P.T. Reddy, Neo-Tantrism, and the Struggle for Modern Art in India

Rebecca Brown, St. Mary’s College of Maryland

In the face of a British public aghast at Indian art forms, Ananda Coomaraswamy’s early 20th century justifications of the study of Indian visual culture lay in the valorization of Indian art as an authentic spiritual expression opposed to a post-industrial, jaded western aesthetic. In the years after India’s Independence, the question of authenticity for modern art turned to an uncovering of the "hidden" and therefore authentic India, giving rise to a neo-tantric art movement.

This paper examines the Andhra Pradesh artist P.T. Reddy (1915–1996), and traces his struggle with the need to create an authentic Indian visual expression while adhering to the demands of a universalizing ethos within European modernism. His work turns to a reinterpretation of Indian tantric imagery, using its esoteric symbolism and universal forms to bridge the gap between abstraction and Indian-ness. Reddy’s neo-tantric paintings explore abstract shapes, mandala-like diagrams, and personal symbolic elements, in order to bring the space of a hidden and therefore "purely" Indian culture to shape the Indian modern art movement in the 1960s and 1970s.

By reading his images alongside post-Independence politics and the religious diffusionism in India (and the world) during this period, this paper examines the effects of a new interest in tantrism on the development of Indian modernism. For Reddy, this meant using the Orientalist assumptions about exotic and mysterious India to construct an Indian modernism which relied on the aesthetic of tantrism with its hidden, esoteric imagery.

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Session 8: Crossing Boundaries: The Changing Roles of the Chakrasamvara Tradition in India and Nepal
Organizer: David B. Gray, Rice University

Chair: Robert A. Thurman, Columbia University

Discussant: Laura Harrington, Columbia University

Keywords: religion, art history, India, Nepal, Buddhism.

This panel explores the multiple roles played by the Chakrasamvara Tantra in South Asian history, bringing to light an early medieval Buddhist tradition, the practice of which continues in several South Asian and Himalayan communities. A composite text, Chakrasamvara Tantra drew inspiration from both Hindu and Buddhist sources, criss-crossing sectarian boundaries. It therefore thwarts our ordinary attempts at sectarian identification, proposing instead an alternative model of self-identification, as David Gray argues in his paper. It also challenges our attempts at interpretation, as it is a transgressive text, advocating the crossing of socially defined boundaries such as the purity/impurity and auspicious/inauspicious divides. Its study thus requires hermeneutic sophistication, as Miranda Shaw shows in her paper. Following its composition in India in the eighth or ninth century C.E., it was transmitted to Nepal, where it served as a major influence on the shaping of Newar cultural identity, as John Huntington explores in his paper. Dina Bangdel highlights the importance of representations of the Chakrasamvara goddess Varuni in Newar Buddhist religious history and iconography. Despite its importance in South Asia and beyond it has gained little scholarly attention. This panel will make a contribution toward filling this lacuna in our knowledge of an important South Asian religious tradition. In so doing, it seeks to highlight issues of religious identity and representation in the study of South Asia cultural history, engaging interdisciplinary issues that will be of interest to Asian Studies scholars across a broad range of disciplines and regional specializations.

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The Adi Prajna Guhyeshvari and the Beginnings of Samvara Cycle Tantra in Newar Buddhism

John C. Huntington, Ohio State University

Note: This paper is about the less publicly known Buddhist site of Puran (Ancient) Guhyeshvari and not the well-known Naya (New) Guhyeshvari in near Pashupatinath in Deo Patan.

In our recent and ongoing studies of Newar Buddhism at The Ohio State University, we have found that the Svayambhupurana’s narratives of the emergence of Chakrasamvara enlightenment methodologies have been reified in a very strict interpretation. Contained within it is the story of the first teaching of the Tantra to Manjudeva by Guhyeshvari and his subsequent teaching of the practice to Prachandadeva of Gaur, who upon receiving initiation (diksha) became known as Shantikar Acharya, the founder of the Vajracharya linage of Chakrasamvara teachings in Newar Buddhism. The incorporation of Guhyeshvari into Buddhism, and her role in Newar Buddhism is little understood and there are several aspects to her role. First, as Adi Prajna, she generates Vajravarahi and the Yoginis of the Chakrasamvara mandala. She indirectly, via Vajravarahi, also generates all of the Buddhaprajnas, who appear as the female Armor deities of the generations stage meditation; she is the goddess Varuni, who is the goddess of the five alcohols (who is the topic of Dr. Bangdel’s presentation); and she appears as one of the five Yoginis of Vajravarahi’s completion cycle mandala in the Nepal Valley. In summary, she is the underlying

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Partition continues as Zionist Brahmins plan to Rule and enslave the Galaxy!

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