Do we need a Buddha of Violence

November 9th, 2007 | by Vijayaraghav |

Do we need a Buddha of Violence?  

Today’s DNA News Paper while wishing everybody A Happy Diwali and Prosperous New year have given more fire works in their front page like Army official implicated in illegal passport scandal, School children in Pakistan say only Harry Potter can save their country and Medha Patkar manhandled on her way to Nandigarm. 

My sympathies are with Medha because as an activist she has to live with this sort of treatment wherever she goes while protesting against the bad elements who always take a chance to violate human rights to protect their own interests. Nandigram is shortly becoming another Narmada and there is only one change that the person at the helm of the affair is Buddha (Buddhadeb Bhattacharyya). 

A report says that  in Police firing at Nandigram on March 14^th  the toll were 14 whereas a report during the month of  April mentioned that  nearly sixty four children were missing from Nandigram.  There is no point in debating about the toll because it is always misreported by the media. 

Some psychoanalysts were conducted a study at Nandigram soon after the incident and shocked to know the findings.  The people were having difficulty in interaction with others due to the trauma they have undergone.  They are in a depressive condition due to the feeling of worthlessness and loss of self esteem.  They are in a torture syndrome and showed acute stress condition of insomnia, loss of appetite, continuous state of mental disturbance and sudden emotional outbursts because they are always in continuous state of panic  

Gopala Krishna Gokhale is believed to have said once that “What Bengal thinks today India thinks tomorrow”.  This was because of years old tradition of literature, art and culture.  Bengal had three Nobel Laureates of India viz. Rabindra Nath Tagore, Mother Teresa and Amartya Sen as well as india’s only Oscar winner for life time achievement, Satyajit  Ray.  These people were in the forefront of  intellectual leadership during india’s freedom struggle and they were the first to embrace communism as an ideology in this country.   

Now West Bengal ranks amongst the worst affected states in terms of access to health and education.  The art of scientific rigging always helped the communist party to retain power year after year.  Don’t think that the poor women and farmers always made this possible.  By using the police machinery excessively, you can win any election without having the support of  poor people.  

In his essay Globalization and voice Amartya Sen mentions that Antiglobalisation protesters belong, however, to several differences camps, and some opponents of “economic globalization” have no problem whatever with the globalization of ideas (including that of science and literature).  Their views, which need careful attention, are certainly not dismissible on the ground that globalization of science , technology and understanding has made very positive contributions to the world- something that these particular critics of economic globalization would not at all deny. 

It would be hard to believe that the progress of the living conditions of the poor across the world can be made faster by withholding from them the great advantages of contemporary technology, the valuable opportunity to trade and exchange, and the social as well as economic merits of living in open, rather than closed, societies. 

People from very deprived countries clamor for the fruits of modern technology (such as the use of newly invented medicines, particularly in the treatment of AIDS – these new drugs have transformed the lives of AIDS patients in America and Europe); they seek greater access to the markets in the richer countries for a wide variety of commodities, from sugar to textiles; and they want more voice and attention in the affairs of the world. 

If there is skepticism of the results of globalization, it is not because suffering humanity wants to withdraw into its shell.  

Years ago at the 11^th congress of  CPSU (B) Lenin said that “Among the people we are as a drop in the ocean, and we can administer only when we properly express what the people are conscious of.  Unless we do this the communist party will not lead the proletariat, the proletariat will not lead the masses, and the whole machine will collapse. (Lenin, selected works, vol. IX p.364)”.  What would be the reaction of the modern communists about this?  It is really interesting to check that out.            

One more report in the back page of DNA says that After 16 long years, CPI(M) scripts a come back for Lenin.  The report says that For the first time after the 1964 split when the Indian Marxists sided China and eighty-three years after Lenin’s death, the CPI(M) on Wednesday unveiled a marble bust of Lenin at it’s A K Gopalan Bhavan headquarters.  Unveiling the bust, Prakash Karat (General Secretary of CPI(M) said the imperialist propaganda that it was the end of multilateralism after the collapse of  Soviet Union has been proved wrong and their dream of a unipolar world is over.  What does he mean by this?. Is he pointing about a change in ideology!.  

Noam Chomsky (Renowned linguist, philosopher and political analyst.  He works as a professor in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) says in his book Propaganda and the Public Mind about the theory of  Marxism that Marx is certainly worth studying.  He was a theorist of capitalism.  He developed a certain abstract model of capitalism.  He investigated what might happen in that kind of system.  How much relationship it had to the real world of that time or this time, one has to ask.  He had essentially nothing to say about socialism, a few scattered sentences here and there.  He had no theory of revolution or of social change.  But you study what he did for its important work, and one should know about it.  If you want to call it a theory , OK. 

A lot of what people call theories in social sciences – literary theory and others – is obfuscation.  I don’t know of any  understanding that goes deep enough so that you can’t present it very simply and in such a way that the principles are pretty much on the surface.  We are living in an era when a lot of prestige is given to professional expertise.  People have a real responsibility not to claim more than they can offer.  If you claim to have a theory that deduces unexpected consequences from nontrivial principles, let’s see it.        

You can discuss about any ideology and its progressive notion in the five star comfort during press conferences et al.  What about the promise made to the masses while garnering support during elections to retain power.  

The reforms should start in a peaceful and amicable way not by power and goondaism. 

A hand should be raised only for blessings and peace rather than for the blood of those who brought the party to power. 

We need a Buddha of peace & harmony not of violence. Let’s  pray for that during Diwali.