Skip to main content

Varavara Rao's letters from prison 'sing solidarity' from heartland of resistance

By Aviral Anand*
“Look
At the moonlight
Trapped in this rectangle.
I raise my head
And see my poetry
Gleaming like a moonbeam
In the sky."
(“Captive Imagination – Letters from Prison”, Varavara Rao)

A leading newspaper recently published sections from letters that the Elgaar-Parishad accused have written to family members and acquaintances from their current state of incarceration. The letters pulsate with various emotions of those behind bars, but one element that does seem to shine through is a continued concern for their less-fortunate fellow-beings.
This, despite their own hardships, can give us a glimpse of the profound feelings of social justice that they harbour and which remain undimmed despite their arrests on flimsy grounds.
It is probably worth our while to reflect upon what they convey. And maybe consider their expressions as representative voices of countless others incarcerated on the basis of questionable evidence - in India and in other parts of the world – whose voices do not reach us.
It is easy to brand and label people. The label that is current and being used with glee, is that of “Urban Naxal.” It is important to know that the prime minister of this country is also taken in by its shallow and vengeful representation. So much so he had to use it to ascribe current protests against the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) to the Urban Naxals, perpetuating a vicious stereotype.
At its core, the term denotes those who live in urban settings, and hence in a kind of full public view and carry on subversive activities, chief among them being to undermine the narrative of nationalism - in concert with the “non-urban naxals,” who carry on their struggles from remote and far-off places we cannot be bothered about.
As one of the more detailed discussions on the issue of urban naxals, the movie and book by Bollywood filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri has it, "They [the urban naxals] take up genuine issues with the aim not to solve it but to create unrest and anger against the system and make people believe in armed struggle."
It is hard to believe that this could be a key takeaway regarding any of those who were arrested on specious charges in the Elgaar Parishad case. This is calling into question without demonstrated evidence and reasoning the struggles for social justice of people who have silently stood in solidarity with the most marginalized.
Surely, the least one could ask from someone who seeks to undermine a people's body of work by slapping labels on them is some minimum familiarity and engagement with their work. But such basic sincere effort is too much to ask from those who are determined to malign others in the shallowest manner.
In the vortex of the current climate over the various attacks on citizenship in India, when there is also so much pushback and repression of dissent by the state, it is probably instructive to spend some moments with the expressions of the indomitable spirit and conviction of those booked in the Elgaar Parishad case.
Shoma Sen, one of the accused, was close to her retirement as a professor of English from the Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University. One can read her life trajectory in any way, but what shines through is a concern for her less fortunate fellow beings.
As her daughter Koel recounts, Shoma was born in Mumbai, but chose to move to Nagpur so she could work in Vidarbha: “She soon shifted to Nagpur, because she felt that if all the intellectuals lived in Bombay, then who would work for the people in the poorest parts of Maharashtra, such as Vidarbha?”
Koel adds that, “Her evenings would be spent visiting women (many of them Dalits, and victims of domestic violence) in the slums of Juni Magalwari (a big ghetto in Nagpur), discussing their immediate issues and concerns.”
Sudha Bharadwaj
Sen has several academic papers to her credit wherein she has dealt with issues of displacement, patriarchy and the case for Dalit feminism. In “The village and the city: Dalit feminism in the autobiographies of Baby Kamble and Urmila Pawar,” Sen presents a nuanced view of the space created by the Dalit women writers whose works she discusses, even in the midst of mainstream movements - be they Communist or (male-centered) Ambedkarite, which tend to view feminist movements with suspicion.
In her letter, extracts of which were reproduced in the newspaper report recently, Sen speaks of what she observes in jail while tying that with her deep-rooted concerns with issues of patriarchy: 
“Sitting where I am, I can see how little has changed as we approach the 72nd Independence Day. Women, mostly from unprivileged, lower caste backgrounds, barely literate, married off at 14 or 15 years of age, form the bulk of those who are languishing in jail. They are living examples of how patriarchy functions in society and in the judiciary. These are issues and kind of people we were fighting for....”
Rona Wilson, a member of the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners, or CRPP, was “arrested from his home, a rented one-room set, in south Delhi’s Munirka village,” as stated in a newsmagazine, along with the others in the Elgaar Parishad case.
According to the report in the newsmagazine, “Rona ventured into areas that well-funded non-governmental organisations were hesitant to tread, which meant that there was always a dearth of capital…[and] Rona’s cousin too reiterated that the activist had little means to live by.”
That Rona placed the struggle for freedom of others above the struggle for his own livelihood seems to be evident. His letter from prison, written after the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir in August 2019, speaks movingly about the injustice faced by the Kashmiris – and the silence of the Indian civil society:
“The deafening silence to the level of dehumanization, mistreatment, brutalization and debasement of like of the people of J&K is a direct measure of our own dehumanisation. The deep securitization of our minds, the dark fears in the far recesses of our minds, benumbed in the self-imposed ‘security’ of our gated selves.”
Also among those arrested is lawyer and labour-activist Sudha Bharadwaj. She has worked in Bastar in Chhattisgarh as part of the organization Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha for more than two decades. She has fought against displacement caused by big corporations like Swiss cement giant Holcim and the Jindal group, among others, and for the rights of workers and the tribals.
Sudha Bharadwaj chose path of activist and lawyer in Bastar, leaving behind some enviable career and education available to her
Illustrating the nexus between the state and corporation in an interview, Bharadwaj had stated that, “Surguja [in Chhattisgarh] has bauxite. It is densely forested. The forest ministry said it was pristine jungle, a ‘no-go’ area for mining. The Chhattisgarh government made it a ‘go’ zone, with a rail corridor and power plants.”
In a paper titled “Gravest Displacement Bravest Resistance,” she wrote, “I strongly feel that understanding what is happening in Bastar today is of the greatest significance not only to us in Chhattisgarh,but to all those who want to understand imperialist onslaught and corporate land grab, particularly in the resource-rich adivasi areas...” 
Bharadwaj chose a path as an activist and lawyer in Bastar, leaving behind some enviable career and educational avenues available to her.
She speaks about her love of nature in her letter from jail - but even that is interspersed with her desire to see a better future for humanity: “The sun rising after a long night, or showers after the unbearable heat. All this fills me with hope for betterment and progress in human life. The process will be tortuous and slow, but it will happen.”
Other accused, like activist Sudhir Dhawale, an Ambedkarite activist, who had co-organized the Elgaar Parishad, has been a long time activist in Maharashtra. After the caste-based Khairlanji massacre in 2006, Dhawale formed the Ramabai Nagar-Khairlanji Hatyakand Virodhi Sangharsh Samiti. In the same connection, he also launched a political front, the Republican Panthers.
He writes in his letters how the term ‘Urban naxal’ was created since none of the previous epithets to describe those dissented were not adequate anymore to address rising discontent among the masses.
Social activist Vernon Gonsalves has donned many hats. He has been arrested earlier too for supposed links to the Maoist movement. 
He was on the editorial board of “Thingi Kamgar Masik”, a Marathi magazine for workers and was associated with another Marathi magazine “Jahirnama since” the 1980s. He has also contributed to a volume of poems and essays titled “In a Violent Land” which contains contributions from Khushwant Singh and Mahashweta Devi, among others. In his letter, he writes about the sense of despair that he experiences from time to time, yet manages to console himself and looks to hope for a better future.
Varavara Rao, the poet and activist, with whose poem this piece opened, has been subject to incarceration and law enforcement’s gaze for a long time. In his current reflections, he finds hope and courage when he considers many of his other prison-mates, many of them youth, who he knows are faring far worse than him. Rao’s book, “Captive Imagination -- Letters from Prison”, first published in 2010, has its foreword penned by famous African writer, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o.
As Thiong’o writes in his foreword: 
“These letters from prison are really from the heartland of resistance. They are a celebration of words that sing solidarity in and outside prison walls. They are lyrics to freedom and social justice everywhere.”
It is these lyrics which soar beyond prison walls and attempt to reach the outside world like free birds. Maybe we can each read the message that accompanies these birds, and them set soaring onwards so the songs fill the world. As another poem from Rao’s book puts it:
“When a weary cloud
Chokes the voice of justice
No blood flows
No tears rain
Lightning turns to thunder
Raindrops swell to a hurricane
As a mother wipes her tears
Beyond the prison bars
The poet’s melody
Soars forth...”

---
*Socially-concerned citizen, currently based in Delhi, believes in all kinds of solidarities with global struggles, such as the working class, indigenous and other marginalized peoples’ struggles

Comments

TRENDING

Insider plot to kill Deendayal Upadhyay? What RSS pracharak Balraj Madhok said

By Shamsul Islam*  Balraj Madhok's died on May 2, 2016 ending an era of old guards of Hindutva politics. A senior RSS pracharak till his death was paid handsome tributes by the RSS leaders including PM Modi, himself a senior pracharak, for being a "stalwart leader of Jan Sangh. Balraj Madhok ji's ideological commitment was strong and clarity of thought immense. He was selflessly devoted to the nation and society. I had the good fortune of interacting with Balraj Madhok ji on many occasions". The RSS also issued a formal condolence message signed by the Supremo Mohan Bhagwat on behalf of all swayamsevaks, referring to his contribution of commitment to nation and society. He was a leading RSS pracharak on whom his organization relied for initiating prominent Hindutva projects. But today nobody in the RSS-BJP top hierarchy remembers/talks about Madhok as he was an insider chronicler of the immense degeneration which was spreading as an epidemic in the high echelons of th

Central pollution watchdog sees red in Union ministry labelling waste to energy green

By Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran*  “Destructors”, “incinerators” and “waste-to-energy (WTE) incineration” all mean the same thing – indiscriminate burning of garbage! Having a history of about one and a half centuries, WTE incinerators have seen several reboots over the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. 

First-of-its-kind? 'Eco-friendly, low cost' sewage treatment system installed in Gujarat

Counterview Desk Following the installation of the Unconventional Decentralized Multi-Stage Reactor (UDMSR) for sewage treatment, a note on what is claimed to be the  first-of-its-kind technology said, the treated sewage from this system “can be directly utilized for agricultural purposes”, even as proving to be a “saviour in the times of water crisis.”

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah*   The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. 

'Flawed' argument: Gandhi had minimal role, naval mutinies alone led to Independence

Counterview Desk Reacting to a Counterview  story , "Rewiring history? Bose, not Gandhi, was real Father of Nation: British PM Attlee 'cited'" (January 26, 2016), an avid reader has forwarded  reaction  in the form of a  link , which carries the article "Did Atlee say Gandhi had minimal role in Independence? #FactCheck", published in the site satyagrahis.in. The satyagraha.in article seeks to debunk the view, reported in the Counterview story, taken by retired army officer GD Bakshi in his book, “Bose: An Indian Samurai”, which claims that Gandhiji had a minimal role to play in India's freedom struggle, and that it was Netaji who played the crucial role. We reproduce the satyagraha.in article here. Text: Nowadays it is said by many MK Gandhi critics that Clement Atlee made a statement in which he said Gandhi has ‘minimal’ role in India's independence and gave credit to naval mutinies and with this statement, they concluded the whole freedom struggle.

Indo-Bangla border: Farmers facing 'illegal obstacles' in harvesting, transporting yields

  Counterview Desk  In a representation to the chairperson, National Human Rights Commission, human rights defender Kirity Roy, who is secretary, Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM), has said that Border Security Force (BSF) personnel are creating "illegal obstacles" for farmers seeking to harvest their ripened yields and transport them to the market in village Jhaukuthi of Cooch Behar district.

Wasteland, a colonial legacy, being used to 'give away' vast tracts to Ratnagiri refinery

By Fouziya Tehzeeb* William D’Souza, a 55-year old farmer from Kuthethur, Mangalore, was busy mixing cattle feed when we arrived at his doorsteps. Around 25 km from the bustling city of Mangalore, Kuthethur is a lush green village with thick vegetation. On the way to William’s house the idyllic view gets blocked by the flares and smoke arising from the Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL).

CAA disregards India's inclusive plural ethos, 'betrays' ideals of freedom struggle: PUCL

Counterview Desk    "Outraged" at the move of the Central government to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA 2019) weeks before the election, the top rights group, People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), has demanded that the law be repealed. 

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Invincible, Modi 'taller' than BJP, RSS: An opportunity for Congress beyond 2024?

By NS Venkataraman*  With the announcement of poll schedule for the 2024 parliamentary election, there is palpable excitement and expectation amongst the countrymen  about the shape of things to happen in India after the  results of the election would be announced. There is also speculation abroad about the future course of developments in India.