Journey's End

the end back to its beginning
the beginning back to its end...

Anusha Jogi, Aitia


Dear Reader,

This will be my last post as an Undertrial: tomorrow, I return to judicial custody by an order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court, exactly one day short of my one year of ‘half-freedoms’, the twilight existence of a bailed-out undertrial; on the 7th of May, Final Arguments commence on my behalf; and judgement is due to be delivered by month’s end. The Order itself is an unanticipated setback: being behind bars at this critical juncture and thereby without access to legal counsel, I will not be able to effectively participate in my own defence. Under the circumstances, it is only natural to be disappointed, even sad.

Despite this, I continue to have full and unadulterated faith in our nation’s judicial process. It may well be that the cancelled-order of the hon’ble High Court had gone beyond the scope of section 439 of the Criminal Procedure Code (dealing with the Powers of the High Court to grant Bail) in commenting on the quality of the evidence- the principal consideration for their Lordships’ decision- but it is also true that certain submissions made by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the complainant’s counsels before the Apex Court were incorrect: for instance, it was insinuated that ‘27 prosecution witnesses (PWs) have turned hostile since I was enlarged on bail.’


The fact, however, is that of the fourteen PWs examined consequent to my coming out on bail, i.e., on 5th May 2006, two were Metropolitan Magistrates, another a scientific officer with the Central Forensic and Scientific Laboratory (CFSL) while the remainder were investigating officers of the C.B.I. To presume that any one of them can become hostile at my behest is not only improbable but also, outrightly laughable. This ‘defect’, I am informed, might be sufficient cause to file a review petition, but by the time it is disposed off, the Trial would have ended. I can only hope that this judgment of the hon'ble Apex court does not have an adverse impact on the Trial’s outcome. Incidentally, this exact apprehension, I'm told, has been specifically dealt with in a last-line rider of that Order.

The bottom-line, however, is that we were caught unawares: although the matter had been shown as listed, the Bench that had previously been hearing the case for the past 10 months was on vacation, and consequently the matter came up before another Bench. Consequently, my lawyers presumed that it would be adjourned. In fact, the senior counsel who had been appearing in the matter was on leave that day. As subsequent events revealed, it was a fatal mistake on our part; and one for which I now pay the penalty. Still, I prefer to see all this as Destiny's- God's- Plan for my Life.

I have always felt that this is as much a legal battle as it is a moral one. “You know that you haven’t done any wrong,” my mother never fails to comfort me, “so God will not let any wrong come to you.” I believe her. But I also worry about her- and about Papa. As an only son, I know only too well the pain of being separated from my parents, my lifeblood. And from my friends and wellwishers- those tens of thousands of people who have stood by my family through thick and thin.

Indeed, I am both gratified and strengthened by so much Love.

The last entry of my Jail Diary was dated 3rd May 2006. Its next entry will be exactly one year later: on 3rd May 2007. I can only hope- and pray- that this next section will be a short epilogue; and that we will meet again, soon.

Please pray for me.

Good bye.

AJ

Note: No part of this post shall be published, or quoted wholly or in part, without prior consent of the author and/or his representatives as directed by him. This is a personal message and as such, does not have any bearing or reflection whatsoever on the judicial proceedings related to the author's case. The views expressed herein are being published in absentia by his representatives, and the author can not be held in any manner liable for these.

Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......

Papa's Birthday (a day before my bail was cancelled)

L-R: Gorakh (PSO), Anil Tah, Blogger, Papa, Surya (PSO), Dr. Naresh Kumar, Mummy Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......

Personal: A Midsummer's Tale

The Pursuits of Law
At twenty-nine, I am well past the age to be appearing in exams; yet, that is precisely what I was doing for most of this past month. Come to think of it, I am not surprised. After all, there are only two things that can happen when you’re being tried on a charge of conspiracy to commit murder (in legalese, Section 120-B read with Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code): one, you end up spending your life locked up in a central jail (in which case, the best one can hope for is to pen a bestseller à la the ex-convict, Gregory David Robert’s Shantaram); or two, you become a lawyer. In my case, I am hoping it will be the latter. I’m told I won’t be the first: the late Mr. Dabir, noted criminal lawyer and longtime president of the Madhya Pradesh Bar Council, catapulted to the top of his profession after he was acquitted of the charge of murdering his wife. Post-acquittal, he took out an advertisement in the local papers, audaciously declaring, “if you’ve killed someone, come to me for acquittal.”


Now that my exams are ended, I can focus on the Final Arguments of my trial, due to commence on the 1st of May. The Supreme Court has directed the Sessions Court to pronounce judgment before the end of next month. The evidence, comprising about two hundred witnesses and running into thousands of pages, is copious: it has to be scrutinized with a toothcomb. This is precisely what we- my counsel, Mr. Surendra Singh and I (ably assisted by Mr. Rahul Tyagi, Mr. Shailesh Nitin Trivedi, and Mr. Pratul Shandilya)- did from the 22nd-24th of this month at Delhi. [SNT took a photograph of our deliberation, which is posted here.] Thankfully, the sole testimony implicating me- that on the night of 21st May 2003, I presided over a meeting of more than twenty persons (including the state bureau chief of the Times of India newspaper) in which I discussed plans to kill the deceased- has been contradicted by documentary evidence in the form of passports of not one but four of those persons allegedly present at that meeting, confirming that they were aboard a flight to London on that fateful night. This fact has also been corroborated by the passenger manifest of the relevant airline. Despite insinuating that the entries in the passport and passenger manifest have been ‘managed’, the Central Bureau of Investigation has not been able to produce any proof to substantiate its allegation despite being in possession of the documents for over ten months now. While demanding possession of the said documents, the CBI stated, “we are getting the matter investigated by the Interpol and the High Commission”. Infact, there is every reason to believe that the Bureau has deliberately suppressed the report of the Interpol investigation into the veracity of those entries. The other equally telling revelation is the belated appearance of two handwritten pages: the witness was not only asked to write beforehand what he was expected to tell the Magistrate but to make sure that he didn’t get anything wrong, the I.O. (Investigating Officer) cut-out sentences and rewrote them in his own handwriting. Here is positive proof of precisely how the Bureau manufactured ‘evidence’ against me. What really bothers me is- why?

Ideas for Communal Feasts
Finally, I want to mention something about weddings. There’s been a flood of them: every night, I end up going to atleast four; and there are many more that I can’t. At the risk of generalizing, I find that receptions have gotten more ostentatious and outlandish. Perhaps the recent Abhishek Bachchan- Aishwarya Rai wedding has something to do with this? Which is why I was pleasantly surprised to attend a simple communal-wedding of twenty-four couples at Dhaneli, a village in Balod. Raja Sahu, the local Zila Panchayat member organized it. He has been doing this for six years running. Needless to say, functions like this one save society from needless and wasteful expenditure, and should be emulated by the young. That is what I told the children (seen here perched on a tree- once again, SNT's photograph).Papa’s 61st birthday is less than two days away. With the exception of last year, when I was in jail, I can’t remember a time I wasn’t with him on this day. So this year too, I will be going to Delhi to spend the afternoon with Papa. As always, he isn’t keen on celebrating. He’s told all his well-wishers (myself included) that he would be happiest if we spend the day doing something good for those less fortunate. Frankly, I can’t think of a better way to celebrate one’s birthday. Or for that matter, weddings.

AJ
Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......

Eleven Things I Love Most About The Chhattisgarhi Summer

1. Buckets of chilled water filled with small sucking mangoes (choosni aam)


2. Drizzles that make earth smell like heaven


3. How the speed of life turns to slow motion


4. Afternoon siestas


5. Pre-dawn strolls across the countryside & late night drives to nowhere


6. Rhythmic whir of a ceiling fan as it slices lazily through the still air (beats the silent humming of a modern air-conditioner anytime)


7. Endlessly soaking about in a water-body (pond, pool at the foot of a waterfall, rivulet), like a water-buffalo


8. Constant complaining about the heat & plotting retreats to the hills- that seldom materialize



9. Cold, cold water from an earthen pot


10. Bohar bhaaji cooked in curd with fresh raw-mango chutney


11. Sleeping naked in wet white cotton bedsheets under clear, starry-skies in open-courtyards of old homes (thandi saféd chhadaron mein jage der tak, baithé rahein tassaworein jana kiyé huyé, dil dhoondta hai fir wohi fursat ke raat din…)

AJ Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......

Film Review (D): Namasté London

Note: You can also comment on this post at the IMDB website.
Namasté London is a tedious film: it seeks to readapt Manoj Kumar’s “Purab aur Paschim” [East and West] to our times but the outcome is a yarn based on highly improbable and unbelievable premises.

For one thing, no first-generation NRI-Londoner [Rishi Kapoor] can possibly trick his remarkably liberated and fiercely independent adult-daughter [Katrina Kaif] into marrying a desi Punjabi [Akshay Kumar] while ostensibly “taking a journey across India to see the Taj Mahal”. Moreover, no self-respecting hot-blooded desi Punjabi is going to hang around London watching his ‘wife’ paint the town red with her fiancé- a spoilt and thrice-divorced heir of a British tycoon- in the hope that she will eventually come running back into his arms. As things turn out, that is exactly what happens.

Only two sequences stand out: first, the family’s hilarious interviewing of suitable matches for their daughter, including a lap-top yielding software-analyst from Hyderabad who demands to have a premarital ‘physical compatibility’ test with the prospective bride-to-be, and another loony from Delhi who thinks he is a character in an Ekta Kapoor soap-opera; secondly, a quiet family scene at the dinner table, which stands out for Rishi Kapoor’s efforts at suppressing his laughter. Apart from this, there is nothing else to the film.

Watch it only if you haven’t got anything better to do. Or, as in the case of the incorrigible Mohit Singhania, if your world begins and ends with Ms. Kaif!

AJ Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......

Lessons from Rajnandgaon

Note: No part of this text shall be published without the author's prior and explicit consent.

In many ways, Rajnandgaon is my ‘Achilles’ heel’: while visiting the city for the first time in June 2003, I was accused of murdering someone I didn’t know previously existed; when I next returned to the city after a lapse of almost four agonizing years to campaign in a parliamentary bye-election, my father was arrested on the same trumped-up charge. In both cases, we fell victim to the worst sort of political vendetta, arising chiefly out of an absolute bankruptcy of issues: after all, as Christians living in a culture that venerates the giving of one’s life for the sake of others (see, John 3:16), what can be more slanderous or hurtful than to be accused of taking another human-life? Not a moment passed by in my 10½ month-long incarceration when I didn’t feel like the principal character in Tolstoy’s short story, “God Sees The Truth But Waits”.

The sole objective behind my father’s cathartic arrest at Gandai, some seventy kilometers from Rajnandgaon, became apparent during the Government’s submission filed before the hon’ble sessions court two days later: “even if the accused is to be enlarged on bail,” the Government Pleader (GP) pontificated, “he must be explicitly forbidden from campaigning in Rajnandgaon.” [The GP was dismissed shortly afterwards.] Despite this Freudian slip, the chief minister and his party went on to term this arrest as “part of the judicial process”. Not surprisingly, my father’s principal detractor within his own party, Motilal Vora, journeyed all the way from Delhi to Somni, a village on the Durg-Rajnandgaon border, to join chorus with the BJP. This, more than any other factor, led to my father’s subsequent public outburst against Mr. Vora: it hurt him that a senior leader of his own party should condone his arrest when it was so obviously politically motivated. Infact, the popular perception of Papa as a ‘calculating, shrewd politician’ is totally misconceived: what most political commentators don’t realize is that he has more often than not allowed his heart to dictate his politics.

The second part of the chief minister’s underhand tactics involved secret support, possibly even funding, of the BSP campaign under the mistaken belief that this would eat into the Congress’- and my father’s- dalit support base. Consequently, a senior IAS officer of the state administration, Aman Singh, was deputed to liaison with the BSP candidate, a notorious Raipur-based 'businessman' whose diatribe against my family grew increasingly ridiculous with every passing day so much so that he filed an affidavit stating that my mother, “Dr. (Mrs.) Renu Jogi, had threatened his life if he didn’t withdraw in favor of the Congress party” (!). As things turned out, he lost his deposit despite spending a large fortune on a very high profile campaign. The only surprising thing about this episode is the people he kept in touch with, as may be discerned from his telephonic call details, especially during the period of my father’s arrest [8th-15th March]: they included not only members of the BJP, including the chief minister and his candidate, Leelaram Bhojwani, but also the complainant, Satish Jaggi, and quite a few prominent state Congress leaders who I prefer not to name here.

In any event, Papa’s arrest, particularly the manner in which it was executed, catapulted as the predominant election issue at Rajnandgaon. A day after my father had been taken into custody by a 500-member armed contingent of the Raipur police led by its SSP Marawi, a television news crew visiting a remote hilltop Baiga village in the constituency was confronted with belligerent tribals demanding to know why Ajit Jogi had been arrested? Following his return to Rajnandgaon against medical advise, there was a fourfold increase in the number of people attending his public meetings. Editorializing about the Rajnandgaon mandate in the state’s largest circulated newspaper, ‘Dainik Bhaskar’, the noted journalist, Diwakar Muktibodh wrote:

“The arrest of former chief minister Ajit Jogi is proof of [the BJP’s] political bankruptcy. Which of the BJP’s political strategists thought that the party would gain from Ajit Jogi’s arrest? It is a simple matter and everybody knows that when Ajit Jogi’s name has not been mentioned in the CBI’s investigation-report and the matter is in court, then what is the meaning of arresting him immediately after a lower court issues a non-bailable warrant on the private complaint of Satish Jaggi? The political motives of this can be very easily understood. Similarly, the registering of the offense of dacoity against Jogi in the Dongargarh police station just one day before polling is also laughable. How can such serious charges be leveled against a man who is on a wheelchair? Nobody believes this, not even the voters of Rajnandgaon. This move of the BJP also backfired, and far from turning the people against Jogi, it generated an environment of sympathy for him.”

[Dainik Bhaskar, Raipur, 2.04.2007, page 1, translation mine]

Done by Duryodhana?

As things stand, the people’s verdict confirms Mr. Muktibodh’s opinion. Indeed, the plot to keep Papa out of the campaign backfired on the ruling BJP and its chief minister, who rather humiliatingly, lost both in his home constituency, Dongargarh, and his hometown, Kawardha, where the chief ministerial couple had taken a hectic door-to-door campaign in a last-ditch effort to save face. His post-electoral attempt at justification is at best, feeble: “Operation Duryodhan,” he rationalized shortly after the result was announced, “prevailed over Inflation.” This contention, which is in total reversal of what he was saying earlier, is easily countered by posing two questions:

• How did his party’s candidate, Leelaram Bhojwani, manage to retain his hometown, Rajnandgaon, by a margin of more than 5000 votes despite Duryodhan? Here, ‘the son of the soil’ factor seems to have overridden every other factor, at least in the township. The indisputable surmise that Mr. Bhojwani remains more popular in his home constituency than the chief minister is in his makes the chief minister’s defeat even more shameful.

• Why didn’t the RJD lose Palamu in neighboring Jharkhand even though its MP had been implicated in Duryodhan? To say that Duryodhan presented incumbent political parties with a fiat accompli- that its candidate will ipso facto be ousted in the ensuing bye-elections- is therefore incorrect. If anything, Palamu is indicative of a rather unfortunate trend: the downplaying, even acceptance, of corruption as an issue among the nation’s electorate.

It is obvious to me that the BJP has learnt little from Kota; in all likelihood, it will learn even lesser from Rajnandgaon. At a polling booth in Virendranagar, a puzzled presiding officer was confronted by angry women voters demanding that a complaint be registered against the local BJP workers for giving them ‘german’ (germanium) earrings while misleading them into believing that they were made of pure silver (!). Likewise, many BSP youth workers were disappointed upon learning that they will now have to make hefty installments of monthly payments on motorcycles ‘gifted’ to them, failing which these will be repossessed by the finance companies. Even more shockingly, a journalist recently emailed me a photograph of the chief minister’s wife, Veena Singh, handing a huge wad of thousand-rupee notes to one of her party workers from an overstuffed purse at Rajnandgaon, even as onlookers continue to stare at her (see below). It is a telling picture with a very clear message: people’s hearts- and votes- can’t be bought with money.

The other, much more pertinent, lesson concerns the tribals of the state. The BJP suffered its biggest defeat- of a whopping 22000 votes- from the Lok Sabha’s sole tribal constituency, Ambagarh-Chowki. Personally, I can discern three factors that contributed to this: first and foremost, it is a reaction against the atrocities perpetuated by the state-sponsored Salva Judum (SJ) movement, in which hundreds, if not thousands, of tribals have been killed; secondly, the numerous high-profile deaths of tribals and scheduled castes in police custody; thirdly, the abject failure of this state government to keep its election promises to the tribals vis-à-vis giving a cow to every tribal family, waiving of farmers’ debts and a monthly stipend of Rs. 500 to every unemployed youth. Taken cumulatively, it reveals an increasing awareness among the state’s tribal electorate.

AJ

Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......

CHITRAKOTE: THE THREE TRAGEDIES OF CHHATTISGARH TOURISM

Note: Very curiously, excerpts from this entry were published in Naxal Revolution.

Diary entry of 17.02.2007
This author strikes a pose at the Chitrakote waterfall.

The site for the log-huts camp overlooking the Chitrakote waterfall takes its dying-gasp: this summer, the huts, all of which have withstood the test of time with remarkable fortitude and very little maintenance, are to be dismantled to make way for a hideous brick-and-cement ‘tourist complex’. An attendant confides to me that tourists aren’t exactly happy: “if we wanted air-conditioned buildings of concrete,” they lament, “we would have stayed back in the city.” In my opinion, the worst thing about the ‘new master plan’ are the four closely clustered cement ‘cottages’ at the edge of the cliff, which rather senselessly block what used to be the Fall’s majestic view from the rest of the (now) proposed lodges: with the exception of those lucky few allowed to stay in those four cottages- the absentee landlords of the GOC- none of the other residents will be able to enjoy the panorama of Chitrakote (see photograph below). Indeed it will not be farfetched to say that the sine qua non of why people would want to stay here in the first place no longer exists.


Under Demolition: The Log Huts Campsite at Chitrakote (can you see Chitrakote?)

Chitrakote is an ideal case study of what’s happening to Chhattisgarh Tourism- and culture- under the tutelage of its high profile- but in my opinion, misguided- minister, Brij Mohan Agrawal. The way I see it, there are three definitive shifts in the ministry’s policy.

1. OVER-BUREAUCRATISATION: During my father’s regime, the mantra was privatization: the scant tourism infrastructure we had inherited from MPTDC (Madhya Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation)- its only notable property being the ruinous Chhattisgarh Hotel at Raipur- was slated for disinvestment; likewise, parent departments of various ‘rest houses’ littered all over the state- Irrigation, PWD and Forest- most of which were built during the heydays of the Raj, were instructed to hand them over to private parties, to be run on commercial lines.

Papa’s policy was clear. GOC was to confine its role to Publicity: its job was to attract potential tourists to come to Chhattisgarh; once here, private parties, functioning with minimal bureaucratic interference, were expected to take over. Bastar of course was to be Chhattisgarh Tourism’s mascot, but other areas- Bhoramdeo, Achanak Mar and Barnawapara (all three are designated wildlife sanctuaries); Bagicha and Mainpat (both ‘virgin’ hill stations); Sirpur, Sonmuda, Dongargarh, Rajim, Chandrapur, Dantewada and Ratanpur (temple sites)- were also identified for promotion. Since ‘eco-tourism’ and ‘ethno-tourism’ constituted the very core of GOC’s policy, the departments of culture, forest and tourism were placed under one Principal Secretary to enable better synergy between them. Jai Tilak, an IAS officer from Kerala who was instrumental in putting that state- God’s own country- on the world tourism map, was ‘poached’ from his parent-cadre, and given what might be euphemistically called ‘a free hand’. All of this, it would seem, has been reversed. For one thing, Mr. Jai Tilak had been unceremoniously shunted off to Excise, where he soon tired of formulating the state's Liquor Policy.

Meanwhile, CTDC, the government-run state tourism corporation, is on a construction overdrive: tourist lodges, much like the one here at Chitrakote, have mushroomed along highways, and at various other places à la Bansilal’s Haryana. That’s all very well. What I fear- and I believe the lessons of past experiences to be on my side- is the likelihood of their falling victim to the gross mismanagement, corruption and nepotism that are the bane of most, if not all, ‘public sector undertakings’: it will not be long before they are reduced to little more than contemporary ruins. At the rest houses I halted at enroute to Jagdalpur- Kanker, Keshkal, Kondagaon- I was told that the rooms were all booked for ‘guests of hon’ble ministers’ although none of these haloed guests, with the exception of the hon’ble home minister’s wife (who spent all of five minutes at Kondagaon), had bothered showing up. In my opinion, the most sensible thing to do now would be to hand these properties over to private parties, who will, motivated as they are by profits, ensure that they are well maintained. Also, all future ‘projects’ should be organic to the state’s underlying cultural sensibilities: right now, they resemble cheap matchbox-style motels.

This in fact brings me to my second and far more serious point: the de-Chhattisgarhisation of Chhattisgarhi culture.

2. DE-CHHATTISGARHISATION: Not too long ago, I was having lunch with a journalist from the German publication, Focus. She had just been to a cultural evening organized by the Department of Culture, and her surmise of what she saw was as follows: “Chhattisgarh’s culture,” she mused, “is very similar to Rajasthani culture.” Had it not been for her local guide, who had thankfully accompanied her to the luncheon, I would have taken this comment to be symptomatic of an outsider’s total lack of cultural sensibility to distinguish a bison-horn Maria peacock dance from the Kalbeliya. He quickly clarified that the song & dance routine that my distinguished guest had seen was indeed staged by a troupe from Rajasthan, and it had nothing to do with Chhattisgarhi culture. “What else can we expect,” he said, “when the minister for culture is a Marwari (a native of the Marwar region of Rajasthan) who doesn’t know how to speak [the] Chhattisgarhi [dialect]?”

A young journalist-friend from Bilaspur, who had won the local Press Club’s local badminton championship, narrated a similar anecdote to me. While presenting him with the trophy, the hon’ble Chief Minister politely asked where he hailed from. “I am a thakur,” my friend replied, “from Uttar Pradesh.” The CM’s off-hand repartee to his query is telling: “So am I.”

It is an undeniable fact that Chhattisgarhis today find themselves being ruled by a government constituted primarily by persons who do not- cannot- identify themselves with the state’s underlying cultural sensibilities. This has had catastrophic affects. In this regard, I shall cite specific examples. At the Rajyotsav celebrations, held annually to commemorate the state’s foundation day, the amount paid to a little-known dance troupe from Mumbai in 2006- Rs. 15 lakhs- was more than that disbursed to all the other local artistes put together. Likewise the Chhattisgarhi Sahitya Academy, which was headed by the state’s poet-laureate Lakshman Masturia during my father’s government, has been allowed to go defunct while a Sindhi Sahitya Academy has been formed for the promotion of Sindhi literature (Sindh is now a province in Pakistan with its capital at Karachi). While I’ve nothing against Sindhi, it is also important not to overlook other dialects of Chhattisgarh that face a very real threat of obsolescence: Sargujiya and Nathpuriya are two that come to mind, which have a very rich literature that ought to be preserved and promoted.

As far as the local artistes are concerned, an unofficial Culturocracy dominates: it has monopolized state-largesse by systematically ostracizing artistes who refuse to kowtow to the not-so-covert politico-cultural agenda espoused by the BJP’s parent-body, the RSS. During the last Vidhan Sabha elections, professional artistes hired by one Mohan Chand Sundrani, a Sindhi by sheer coincidence, to campaign for the BJP were caught unawares when they were suddenly paraded before the Press as having en mass joined that party. Not surprisingly, Mr. Sundrani now lords over Chhattisgarh’s cultural activities as head of Sundrani World Video, a Raipur-based private limited company, which releases more than 200 ‘Chhattisgarhi’ musical video-albums and CDs every year. This is more than all his competitors put together. In fact artistes not part of his ever-growing cultural stable are finding it increasingly difficult to survive. His numero uno ‘artiste’ is one Yogesh Agrawal, the younger brother of the state’s culture minister. Mr. Yogesh Agrawal’s tallest claim to fame comes from having ‘co-starred with the Bollywood superstar, Amitabh Bachchan, in the patriotic film, Ab tumhare hawale watan saathiyon.’ In film posters erected all over town, his beaming visage dwarfed that of Mr. Bachchan’s. Cinemagoers were therefore somewhat bemused to discover that Mr. Agrawal’s sole appearance in the movie was in a five-second non-speaking scene with the superstar. Lest the audience carelessly overlook this precious misé-en-scène, owners of theaters were advised to pause and replay it at least three times over with the caption: “in this scene, Amitabh Bachchan appears with the pride of Chhattisgarh, our very own Yogesh Agrawal ji.”

Meanwhile, the ‘music videos’, far from being representative of Chhattisgarh’s incredibly rich folk culture, have become increasingly vulgar and full of cheap double-entendres: in one number, ‘aey man chali’, the Calcutta-based starlet, Oshin, gyrates to techno-rhythms with only an iota of clothing. Culture, therefore, is being sacrificed at the scaffold of titillation. The other trend discernable in the evolution of popular Chhattisgarhi music is the growing influence of Oriya, and particularly Sambalpuri, songs. This is mainly because most of the music albums are recorded in sound studios in Cuttack; more often than not, Oriya songs are simply dubbed in Chhattisgarhi. Tonight, at the Lohandiguda madai (fete) where over ten thousand tribals from all over Bastar have congregated, we saw a ‘natt’ competition. Eight parties were simultaneously performing scenes from the Ram Lila in eight separate enclosures to a suitably enthralled squatting audience, comprising mostly women. The common feature in all these performances was that they were all in Oriya (see photo below).
Lohandiguda Madai

The only place where we came across a performance in the native dialect was outside the devi-gudi (the tribal temple): a mandali (band) of performers was singing stories from the Puranas in hybrid-Halabi (which even I could follow), interspersed with ‘prasishtis’ (adulatory songs) for paying-devotees.

The biggest sufferer, however, has been the nascent Chhattisgarhi film industry. In the years 2000-03, more than 35 Chhattisgarhi films were released; from 2004-06, their number has shrunk to less than 10. Annual state film award function, started in 2003, ‘to recognize and promote excellence in Chhattisgarhi cinema’ was summarily abandoned; subsidies announced by the previous government too have been discontinued. Instead the Department of Culture organizes ‘Film Star Nights’. Here also, the ‘politics of culture’ has ensured that the more popular of Chhattisgarh’s ‘stars’- like Shekar, Anuj Sharma and Poonam Naqvi, who attained stardom with ‘Mor chaiyyan bhuiyyan’, the state’s top-grosser ever- are kept at a distance from such events. The DoC’s chief organizer of such events is the proprietor of R.P. Films Pvt. Ltd., Rajesh Mishra, who, like Mr. Sundrani, is extremely close to Mr. Yogesh Agrawal. Any artiste who is considered close to rival political organizations- like Mr. Sharma- is not extended an invitation to participate whereas little-known starlets, who are obviously more amenable to the state’s designs, are given prominent billings.

I was recently asked to preside over the closing ceremony of a statewide Gammat Nacha competition. This, as I later learnt, is an annual event organized by the Tarun Chhattisgarh newspaper. It is indeed unfortunate that although we have several dance-forms in the state, the state government has not deemed it fit to promote any of them. The solitary exception, the Panthi Nach competition announced belatedly this year (2007) as part of Guru Ghasidas Jayanti celebrations, is seen as little more than a political gimmick to woo the ‘Satnami votebank’. The prize money announced for this competition, however, was inexplicably reduced when it came to actually rewarding the winners. This laxity is understandable considering that rather than a particular 'caste' like the Satnami, the principal target of the present government’s cultural policy is indeed the ‘Hindu votebank’. This then brings me to my third- and most sensitive- point.

3. RELIGIOUS EMPHASIS: By far, the single biggest ‘event’ in the DoC’s calendar is the ‘Rajim Kumbh’: glitzy hoardings displaying smiling photographs of the state culture & tourism minister and the CM alongside that of the deity, Rajiv Lochan, are erected at strategic places all over the state; double-page advertisements are placed in every minor and major publication of the nation; sadhus (godmen) from all over the country are extended state-sponsorships to attend. While I find nothing particularly wrong with this- after all, both the Rajim Kumbh méla and the Bastar Dusshera (which has nothing whatsoever to do with the tale of Lord Ram) were popularized during my father’s regime- it is most objectionable that these religious events are being used not only to further votebank politics but also for shameless self-promotion: only last year (2006), some of these godmen were persuaded to confer, in violation of all established precedence and norms, the religious title of ‘Mahamandalesvar’ (great lord of the universe) on the personage of the state culture minister, Mr. Brij Mohan Agrawal.

Taken together, the above-described three trends have led to an unfortunate paradox: the way this present administration sees it, tourism and culture in Chhattisgarh today have very little to do with the Chhattisgarhi identity. Even more worrisome is the fact that both the existence and evolution of this identity have come under grave threat, and there is nobody to speak against it.


AJ
Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......