Bhaduriji
Phanishwar Nath Renu on Satinath Bhaduri [HUG translates part of Phanishwar Nath Renu’s reminiscences on Satinath Bhaduri and his times. The original piece appears in Satinath Shawrone (Reminiscing Satinath), edited by Subal Gangopadhaya & compiled by Madhumay Pal in 1972. The work was re-published by Prakash Bhavan in January 2013.] ******************************** Bhaduriji…! We used to call him Bhaduriji. I mean, we, the boys from Zila Purnea. Not Bhaduri-moshai, or Satuda, nor Comrade Satinath or Bhaduribhai. Simply Bhaduriji. He used to love Purnea more than India. So the context of my knowing him will remain Purnea. My father was a mid-level kisaan in a village nearby, and often he used to get engaged in various land related court cases. So, I used to know the names of all the big and minor wakils of that area—right from the ones seen in the sub-divisional court to those practicing in the zila kachehri. That is how I came to know about the Chhotababu of the Bhaduri household. One day baba took me to his chamber and I was immediately admonished for not touching his feet. It is at that moment that I spotted that all encompassing, winsome smile on Chhotababu’s face: “Good that you have not touched my feet or else I would have ended up cross-examining your baba about this sudden urge to train you in the right etiquettes,” he said. On the way back baba started telling me about him: “What a man! No pride of learning whatsoever. Does not utter a word more than what is required. The senior wakils at the bar-library would vouch by his legal digests and commentaries. And handwriting? Likhnewale ki ungliya chum lu! And we all knew that Chhotababu was the tennis champion of the Station-Club. And indeed I saw him playing one day—no fanfare, no karamati—Chhotababu returning each serve with effortless ease. And no reaction betrayed on his face, whether he won or lost a point. Such was his focus and nonchalance. When I was at Biratnagar (Nepal), studying at Krishna Prasad Koirala’s ashram of a school Adarsh Vidyalaya, I received a letter from Baba: Chhotababu had left wakalati and had joined the Congress, the letter said. He does not stay in his bungalow anymore but lives in an ashram at Tikapatti, a fringe locality. And has started walking barefooted I was stunned for a few hours and began constructing in my mind a certain tapestry: a lonesome itinerant figure with his trademark smile, charkha-jhola-kambal slung on his side, walking down the village path. Unperturbed by fashion and commotion. Within: By then I had joined the Student Federation. It was in 1942 that I met Bhaduriji for the second time. This time: at Bhagalpur Central Jail. I could see his smiling visage from a distance among the other time-servers in the Segregation Ward. He had also recognized me instantly: “You, here? Shabbash!” And then without giving me any time, this man of few words, started a rare unwinding. He turned to the assembled political prisoners: “This boy made a fool of the daroga of Farebgunj, do you all know? The daroga and some constables and chowkidars encircled their house, intending to trace the volumes on hanging and sacrifice that appeared in Chand and Hindpanch magazines respectively. They had a search warrant too. And young Renu got hold of a red khaddar gunny-bag and put up this little act as if he was taking off to school. Of course those books were in that bag. The daroga, truth be told, actually did express some suspicion but was fooled by his seemingly innocuous reply.” I became red with embarrassment—that was such an insignificant incident. What a thing to tell in front of such big political leaders! But that little incident broke the ice and instantly made my relationship easy with many prisoners thereafter. Of course Bhaduriji was one of the star football players in jail and I always witnessed his steely nonchalance on and off the field. One day, after a volleyball match, he quietly asked me: “Don’t you know how to handle the volleyball? Badminton? Tennis—anything? Why, will your name be stricken off from the Student Federation rosters if you indulge in games and sports?” I was embarrassed. Actually, he was right. Student leaders would not look too kindly on young boys who would take interest in sports. That was not the ‘political field.’ There were five communal messes in our ward during that period. But Bhaduriji was swapaki—used to cook his own food. There was this man Anath-babu, who ran the mess where I was enrolled. But he used to always admonish me for my tea-drinking sprees. I believe he had this secret mission of reforming me of this habit. So, he would take half a cup of milk, begin pouring a pale red tea ‘liquor’ over the milk and start his daily rant. Every single day. Twice. All that I recall of it was tannic acid and tannin and the distortions and contortions of his facial muscles even as he tried to impress upon me my stupidity. One day I had had enough, rushed to Bhaduriji and asked whether he would allow me to have my tea with him. At this, he enquired what was wrong with the mess. I replied pat that Anath-babu and his gang would not allow me my daily dose of tannic acid. He started chortling. The more I tried to explain that I actually meant ‘flavor,’ the more he would laugh his heart out. “No, no, you are correct,” he said, “But do you know the amount of tannin that a pot of tea contributes gets far outstripped by a tiny piece of betel-nut?” And he stopped himself right there. Soon, I noticed that those who would lecture us on the side effects of guzzling tea would be the ones who consumed the maximum quantity of betel-nuts. Bhaduriji was trying to show the inconsistency of the health-wallahs—the gap between precept and practice. His tremendous and silent
Two Stories
Kate Chopin The Kiss It was still quite light out of doors, but inside with the curtains drawn and the smouldering fire sending out a dim, uncertain glow, the room was full of deep shadows. Brantain sat in one of these shadows; it had overtaken him and he did not mind. The obscurity lent him courage to keep his eves fastened as ardently as he liked upon the girl who sat in the firelight. She was very handsome, with a certain fine, rich coloring that belongs to the healthy brune type. She was quite composed, as she idly stroked the satiny coat of the cat that lay curled in her lap, and she occasionally sent a slow glance into the shadow where her companion sat. They were talking low, of indifferent things which plainly were not the things that occupied their thoughts. She knew that he loved her-a frank, blustering fellow without guile enough to conceal his feelings, and no desire to do so. For two weeks past he had sought her society eagerly and persistently. She was confidently waiting for him to declare himself and she meant to accept him. The rather insignificant and unattractive Brantain was enormously rich; and she liked and required the entourage which wealth could give her. During one of the pauses between their talk of the last tea and the next reception the door opened and a young man entered whom Brantain knew quite well. The girl turned her face toward him. A stride or two brought him to her side, and bending over her chair — before she could suspect his intention, for she did not realize that he had not seen her visitor — he pressed an ardent, lingering kiss upon her lips. Brantain slowly arose; so did the girl arise, but quickly, and the newcomer stood between them, a little amusement and some defiance struggling with the confusion in his face. “I believe,” stammered Brantain, “I see that I have stayed too long. I — I had no idea — that is, I must wish you good-by.” He was clutching his hat with both hands, and probably did not perceive that she was extending her hand to him, her presence of mind had not completely deserted her; but she could not have trusted herself to speak. “Hang me if I saw him sitting there, Nattie! I know it’s deuced awkward for you. But I hope you’ll forgive me this once — this very first break. Why, what’s the matter?” “Don’t touch me; don’t come near me,” she returned angrily. “What do you mean by entering the house without ringing?” “I came in with your brother, as I often do,” he answered coldly, in self-justification. “We came in the side way. He went upstairs and I came in here hoping to find you. The explanation is simple enough and ought to satisfy you that the misadventure was unavoidable. But do say that you forgive me, Nathalie,” he entreated, softening. “Forgive you! You don’t know what you are talking about. Let me pass. It depends upon — a good deal whether I ever forgive you.” At that next reception which she and Brantain had been talking about she approached the young man with a delicious frankness of manner when she saw him there. “Will you let me speak to you a moment or two, Mr. Brantain?” she asked with an engaging but perturbed smile. He seemed extremely unhappy; but when she took his arm and walked away with him, seeking a retired corner, a ray of hope mingled with the almost comical misery of his expression. She was apparently very outspoken. “Perhaps I should not have sought this interview, Mr. Brantain; but — but, oh, I have been very uncomfortable, almost miserable since that little encounter the other afternoon. When I thought how you might have misinterpreted it, and believed things” — hope was plainly gaining the ascendancy over misery in Brantain’s round, guileless face — “Of course, I know it is nothing to you, but for my own sake I do want you to understand that Mr. Harvy is an intimate friend of long standing. Why, we have always been like cousins — like brother and sister, I may say. He is my brother’s most intimate associate and often fancies that he is entitled to the same privileges as the family. Oh, I know it is absurd, uncalled for, to tell you this; undignified even,” she was almost weeping, “but it makes so much difference to me what you think of — of me.” Her voice had grown very low and agitated. The misery had all disappeared from Brantain’s face. “Then you do really care what I think, Miss Nathalie? May I call you Miss Nathalie?” They turned into a long, dim corridor that was lined on either side with tall, graceful plants. They walked slowly to the very end of it. When they turned to retrace their steps Brantain’s face was radiant and hers was triumphant. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Harvy was among the guests at the wedding; and he sought her out in a rare moment when she stood alone. “Your husband,” he said, smiling, “has sent me over to kiss you.” A quick blush suffused her face and round polished throat. “I suppose it’s natural for a man to feel and act generously on an occasion of this kind. He tells me he doesn’t want his marriage to interrupt wholly that pleasant intimacy which has existed between you and me. I don’t know what you’ve been telling him,” with an insolent smile, “but he has sent me here to kiss you.” She felt like a chess player who, by the clever handling of his pieces, sees the game taking the course intended. Her eyes were bright and tender with a smile as they glanced up into his; and
Sabotage Not Terrorism
Alberto Toscano [The Context: The Tarnac Nine are nine alleged saboteurs arrested in the village of Tarnac, France in November 2008 in relation to a series of instances of direct action. The gendarmerie, French police, entered Tarnac with helicopters and dogs and dragged the suspects from their beds. Around twenty people were arrested on November 11, 2008, and nine of those were charged with “criminal association for the purposes of terrorist activity”. Of those nine, Yildune Lévy was released, under review, on Jan 16th 2009 and Julien Coupat was released on May 28 of the same year. The nine are predominantly graduate students from middle-class backgrounds–22 to 34 years old. Five of the nine had been living in a farmhouse on a hill overlooking the village.] The war on terror, which we were once told was infinite, seems past its sell-by-date. Even David Miliband has declared the term to be “misleading and mistaken.” But its effects on our polities persist. Following an age-old script, laws that had been sold as emergency measures have sunk their roots deep into the practices and mentalities of our governments. All forms of dissent that are linked, however tenuously, to politically-motivated illegal behaviour now fall within the purview of anti-terrorism measures , which claim to a nebulous “security” as their ultimate rationale. While the geopolitical imperatives that underlay the war on terror are being fundamentally questioned, anti-terrorism continues to be used and abused as a flexible repressive instrument across Europe and beyond. From ecological activism to sociological research, there is little that anti-terrorism legislation cannot cover. The case of the “Tarmac Nine,” which had drawn such attention in France after a series of spectacular arrests on 11 November 2008, is a case in point. Named after the village in the Corrèze district where a number of the prosecuted lived collectively and ran a grocery store and film club, the case revolves around the accusation that these politicised 20- and 30-somethings were responsible for a series of sabotage actions against the high-speed TGV trainlines in early November, which resulted in massive delays. From the outset, the case has been choreographed by the government, specifically by Sarkozy’s then minister of the interior, Michele Alliot-Marie. To consider the Tarnac case is to be faced with a pattern for the criminalization of dissent which is becoming ever more general, and which is likely to intensify as Europe (witness the events in Greece over a period of time) is confronted with forms of social conflict which challenge the viability of the socio-economic order. The French authorities have made it clear that the aim of this highly spectacular operation was to send a pre-emptive message, to nip in the bud the perceived threat of anti-capitalist movements that refuse the parliamentary arena and opt for direct action. This is what the French security services, with the imprecision typical of inquisitions, have been referring to as the “anarcho-autonomist tendency”. They have also referred to these political milieus as “pre-terrorist”. The term is key. To the extent that terrorism is no longer perceived as a tactic, however repugnant, but as a kind of total crime beyond the pale of explanation or negotiation, the “pre-terrorist” is already on the way to becoming an absolute enemy of the state. This is how the same material act – the sabotage of a train line, for instance – may be perceived as an act of vandalism in one case, and as a political threat to the state in another. The consequences are clear, and they are disturbing. The implementation of antiterrorist legislation is profoundly arbitrary and selective, hinging on the political proclivities of ministers, magistrates and the police, increasingly acting in concert and bypassing customary legal safeguards, above all the presumption of innocence. If hard evidence is absent – as it seems to be in the Tarnac case – then lifestyle and beliefs will do. This was the approach taken by the minister of the interior herself. Recognising that there was no sign of attacks against persons in the whole affair, she nevertheless declared: “They have adopted underground methods. They never use mobile telephones, and they live in areas where it is very difficult for the police to gather information without being spotted. They have managed to have, in the village of Tarnac, friendly relations with people who can warn them of the presence of strangers.” The very fact of collective living, of rejecting an astoundingly restrictive notion of normality (using a mobile, living in cities, being easily observable by the police) has itself become incriminating. The prosecution’s other plank, the alleged authorship by Julien Coupat (the only one of the accused still under preventive incarceration) of an anonymous book entitled The Coming Insurrection, which refers to acts of transport sabotage as part of an anti-capitalist rising of “communes”, also follows the pattern where the “pre” in pre-terrorism is defined by political statements or beliefs at odds with the current order. The support committee of the Tarnac Nine has lucidly argued that antiterrorism has become a full-fledged method of government, a willfully vague expedient in the arsenal of the modern state. There is much at stake. We are losing the political literacy, and the legal capacity, to distinguish between sabotage and terrorism, vandalism and mass murder, as every oppositional alternative to the status quo is swallowed up under the umbrella of terrorism. In times of crisis and possible turmoil, this one-dimensional thinking is profoundly dangerous, and an insidious threat to everyone’s “security”. —————— Alberto Toscano is a lecturer in sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is best known to the English-speaking world for his translations of the work of Alain Badiou, including Badiou’s The Century and Logics of Worlds. He served as both editor and translator of Badiou’s Theoretical Writings and On Beckett. His book Fanaticism: The Uses of an Idea was published in 2010. adminhumanitiesunderground.org
Aim, Shoot, Poster
Alok Dhanwa District Magistrate You are an outdated speaker You speak such an oppositional tongue As if you are fighting kings Of a time when Parliament was unborn still Do you think the Parliament has allowed The language and traps of hostility the same As it used to be during the times of the kings? This man, on the other side of the table, listening to you so intently Patiently, with full concentration He is not a king He is the district magistrate. He is the district magistrate More educated, adept, impersonal Than the king. This man is not from that distant fort—brought up in cold pomposity. He was born in these back-alleys He’s brought up amid our failures and mistakes Aware of our courage, greed He is way more indulgent and canny than the kings. He can conjure up more confusion And keep us away more clinically from freedom The government must keep close vigil on his superlative mind. Sometimes we must even learn from him. ——————– Lights, Projection, Your First Film The night the bund gave way And the river flowed in You didn’t even care to inquire The way you grew up without this town Where stood your first train Lights, projection, your first film. ———————————— Chowk The riches of those women have remained with me The ones who had trained me to cross the chowk From my mohalla they turned up Every morning to their work they went My school on their way Ma would lend me to them. In their safeguard. And I would await them after school-break. Yes, those women taught me waiting. And then the local quasbah school loomed On my own now, I made other friends. There were other roads to the school, other keys We found out soon. Decades gone, those days Come back to me. In some big city Seeking to go across some odd, imposing chowk I think of those women I extend my right hand to them And with my left, I clutch the slate The way I had left them At the broadsheet-backs of my twenty twenty years. —————————– Who Saved my Soul? Who saved my soul? A flicker of a light from the little candle A few boiled potatoes saved it. Flames in dry leaves And earthen utensils saved it. That jungle yellow cot And that yellow coloured moon Those street-play lumpen jokers In rags With voices like the glory of truth Tussling, exchanging blows In street corners Driving away rioters From these fearless blithe Hindustanis have I learnt the craft of the stage Drama seemed like some thoroughly drenched outfit. Carrying tongs for grandma’s rotis From the Idgaah mela, little Hamid returns And after December 6 As February was sneaking in Wild berries Yes, these things have saved my soul. —————————— Worth Now you even get paid for forgetting This is what greedy, untroubled folks do. —————————— Junction Ah, Junction. Where the train stops for some time. Tarries. Refuels itself for the rest of the journey I look for my old sweetheart there. —————————————- Aim, Shoot, Poster Is it April 20, 1972 Or the right arm of a professional killer or the leathery mittens Of some spy or some stain on the binoculars of a marauder? Whatever it might be, I can’t call it a day. It is an ancient place where I am writing now Where till this day, tobacco sells more than words The sky here is pig high Nobody uses tongue here Nobody uses eyes here Nobody uses ears here Nobody uses nose here Here: only teeth and stomach Arms scraped in soil No humans Save a blue khokhal Relentless, that seeks grain From one torrential rain to another… Here, is this woman my ma Or an iron girder 5 feet tall In which hangs a couple of dry rotis. Like long dead birds There is no gulf between my daughter and my strike As constitution, true to its promise Keeps on breaking my daughter and my strike. After one flash election Am I supposed to stop thinking about explosives? On this April 20, 1972, can I live with my children like a father ought to live? Like an inkpot filled with ink Like a ball Like a heath full of grass Can I live with my children? Those people ferry me to my poems They use and blindfold me, let me rot across the border Never letting me reach the capital, distant I get hounded, detained even before I reach the Zila-town. No, not the government The cheapest cigarette brand in this country has stood by my side. My childhood, that germinated near my sister’s feet Like yellow rend shrubs Has been flattened by the daroga’s buffalo If the daroga has the right to shoot so that he can save what remains human Why not me? In this soil that I am writing now In this soil that I walk In this soil that I plough In this soil that I sow the seeds And this soil from which, extracting grains I carry to the godowns and storehouses Should I have the right to shoot for this soil Or this rat of a zamindar who wants to make this country A moneylender’s dog? This is not a poem. It is the realization of shooting bullets Which are now meeting every single pen-pusher. Every single tiller. ————————— Girls on Rooftops Still the girls come on to the rooftops Their shadows fall on my life The girls are here for the boys Downstairs, amidst bullets, the boys play cards Sitting, on the stairs above the drain Lazing on benches outside the footpath tea-stall Sipping tea Around a boy