“He being dead yet speaketh”
RAJ ERA CEMETERIES IN PERIL
Showing respect to the dead is common to societies all over the world. ‘Speak not ill of the dead’, is what we are taught from our childhood. ‘Let them rest in peace’ comes instantly to mind as we pass a grave. Encroaching and vandalising their final resting place can therefore be viewed as sacrilege. Shakespeare sounded a grim warning in the epitaph inscribed into his gravestone at the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon in England:
"Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare,To dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones,And cursed be he that moves my bones."Shakespeare supposedly wrote it himself because in his time old bodies were dug up and burned to make room for new burials. Many British men and women of the Raj era would have aspired to borrow from Shakespeare's epitaph and wished their final resting places to remain untouched by the encroaching, marauding hand.
There are few well kept graveyards, such as the Bhowanipore Cemetery in Kolkata, Viceroy Lord Elgin's memorial at McLeodgunj in Himachal Pradesh, the Nuns' cemetery near St Bedes College for Women in Simla, and the War cemeteries at Kohima, Delhi, Pune and Comilla in Bangladesh. Most, however, have fallen prey to encroachment, vandalism and pilferage. Some have disappeared due to the vagaries of nature or to the greed for land. It is the same story from Peshawar to Chittagong, Baramula to Trivandrum. Peshawar’s Gora Qabristan, witness to the Afghan Wars, and the cantonment cemetery in Meerut, where the Indian Uprising of 1857 began, are typical of the decay now facing old British graves. As a result, it is nearly impossible to put an exact number, far less to decipher the inscriptions on them. Criminals take away headstones making it difficult to identify the tombs as has happened with the graves of Bethune and Michael Madhusudan Dutt in Kolkata’s Lower Circular Road Cemetery.
Non-British cemeteries have fared no better. The Jewish cemetery, located off Lloyd's Road in Madras, now Chennai, is adjacent to the Chinese cemetery and both cemeteries have clusters of vendors and squatters with vegetables displayed on the road itself at the entrances. Portuguese, Spanish and French tombs have all but disappeared from the Indian soil.
Whereas most of the inscriptions on the grave stones speak of the survivor’s grief and loss, some speak of the vanity of their occupants ignoring Thomas Gray’s famous Elegy “… The paths of glory lead but to the grave.” In most cases, the tombstones are not of Viceroys and other high and mighty of the British Raj but of the countless British civil servants, soldiers, merchants, missionaries, townspeople and teachers, their spouses and children most of whom succumbed not to sword but to summer heat and tropical diseases. They are all part of India’s past. If some headstones contain doggerels we also come across some fine quotes and original compositions. At least some of the tombs can claim to be fair representatives of Indo-European architecture. Much has been lost but not all. If properly maintained these cemeteries can become virtual 'al-fresco museums'.
The care of these graves has become no body’s baby. Lack of interest and resources lie behind this callous neglect. But it is more a question of mindset. This was amply reflected in the adverse media reaction to the restoration in Delhi of the tomb of Brigadier-General Sir John Nicholson, whom William Dalrymple, a British himself, has portrayed as the villain of the 1857 uprising aftermath. Local sensitivities have of course to be taken care of. The Indian public and their representatives in parliament and government have to be sensitised to the fact that conservation of the Raj era cemeteries is not meant to glorify and perpetuate British imperial history but to give us a valuable perspective on India’s heritage. We have to look at these graveyards as ‘little pockets of history’, a who’s who of the British Raj. However much we may resent the British rule in India we cannot wish it away.
The conservation of these tombs and cemeteries is simply beyond the capacity of local church committees. A concerted effort is called for lest this valuable source of history is lost for ever. Sadly, in India the Central and State Minority Commissions and the nominated Anglo-Indian members of state assemblies have been indifferent. The least they can do is to pressurise the government to have pucca boundary walls erected to prevent further encroachment as the hunger for land can drive people to any length. The British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia (BACSA), a London-based charity, has done a great job in listing out a large number of graves and even pays for the upkeep of some. Lately, Lt. Col. Lake has launched a trust in UK with an ambitious target to raise £700,000 a year from corporate donors such as HSBC, Rothschild, Lloyds and other major foundations so that these places can be maintained in perpetuity throughout the erstwhile British empire. India-based NGOs and public authorities may also pitch in and play a coordinating role.
An estimated two million graves of the Raj era, lying in isolation or in clusters in designated cemeteries, dot the Indian sub continent. If the government can catalogue and put them on the net many of the present generation Britain may want to visit India to connect with their ancestors and put a wreath on their tombs. In the process they will be unwittingly promoting what can be crudely termed as "graveyard tourism".
Most of all, we must create public awareness to defer to the dignity of the dead for, to borrow from the epitaph on Viceroy Lord Elgin’s grave, “He being dead yet speaketh”.
Dr. Sudhir Kumar Jha
NIRVANA’ Buddha Colony
Patna 800 001
(The author is a former Director General of Police, Bihar and a free-lance researcher. He can be contacted at sudhirjhapatna@gmail.com)
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
CYBER POLICING
CYBER POLICING
Personal Vigilance Is The Answer
Crime on the internet, or cyber crime in trendy parlance, is no more confined to the pages of science fiction. It has truly arrived, leaving the law enforcement agencies baffled. This is a new type of cat and mouse game they have not played earlier nor been trained for. Hackers no longer need violent weapons or accomplices to commit felonies. What they need now is a computer, a screen name, and intent to mutilate one or many computer systems.
Anonymity of the internet and its decentralized global nature helps them to manoeuvre through web pages, access credit card numbers and passwords, or just keep on stalking. Often the only clue is their e-mail address. Fraud has always been around; computers give it a new dimension. What if the numbered Swiss accounts can be compromised? The rise in e-commerce, and soon m-commerce, is bound to present a bounty to the scam artist. What is really disturbing is the wide, and ever increasing, scope of crime through the internet. Be it pornography, blackmail, extortion, drug traffic, terrorism or sheer vandalism, a computer can be exploited.
CURIOSITY
Minors attack computer systems out of curiosity, a thirst for knowledge, and while exploring, exceed bounds of what is legal. Adults do it for reasons that can vary from greed to revenge to sheer mischief. Megalomania or delusion or grandeur is at times the driving force. While commercial, military, government and home computers are vulnerable, the easiest targets are often those at educational institutions. Any effort at building the network defences must start with fixing these weakest links. Favourite targets have been the computers in South Korea, China, the Philippines, Russia, Eastern Europe and US. Can India remain unscathed for long?
While the new medium is a haven for criminals, the anonymity of the web cuts both ways. The cloak of electronic facelessness is the perfect tool for police to run decoys and keep an eye on the bad guy. In a case reported from UK, a sleazy character found an underage girl in a chat room on the internet and tried to lure her into having six at some prearranged location. At the destination a 50-year old policewoman with a shiny pair of handcuffs greeted him. She was the “young girl” all along. India’s police in the metros can take note.
The much-hyped “Love Bug” virus that swept the world recently took the internet world by storm and unnerved the computer security experts. The Philippines police arrested a man suspected of helping to create the crippling virus but had to set him free for want of evidence. Close on the heels came a new and dangerous computer virus dubbed “killer resume”. It was so named because it arrived pretending to be a “resume” from a potential job applicant. The virus was carried in a file attached to an e-mail system using a Microsoft outlook programme. In a not-too-late response Microsoft has come out with an anti-bug patch which prevents the users from running any “executable” programme attachments to e-mail and flashes a warning if there is an attempt.
The authorities complain that their probe is hampered by a lack of laws covering the new global computer network delaying arrest and allowing the suspects time to dispose of key evidence. In the United States, the FBI is alarmed at cyber crimes doubling in a year. Their survey of Fortune 500 companies revealed that 62 per cent of all reported computer breaches till date occurred last year. It feels frustrated at not being able to keep up its excellent track record. In his recent testimony before a subcommittee of the US Senate, FBI director Louis Freeh listed lack of manpower, technology (computer architecture), hazy jurisdictional issues and weak laws as the main hindrances to effective cyber policing. He recommended tougher laws including doubling jail time and fine.
The question of jurisdiction is crucial since internet crimes will often cross state and national boundaries. The US proposes to have Law Net, which would be an online investigating agency that could cross local, state and even international borders. It is imperative that not one but all countries have adequate laws and they enter into treaties of mutual cooperation, like the extradition treaties. Interpol is in a unique position to play a pivotal role, both detective and instructive. Its advice should be taken and listened to.
UTILITIES
In India, our economy is going to be driven by e-commerce. Computer is crucial in the running of infrastructure public utilities such as telecom, power and gas distribution, banking, railways and aviation. E-mail is fast replacing fax and conventional mail (derisively called the “snail mail”). And yet, India is only at the threshold of an internet revolution. According to a guesstimate, only about 15 per cent of a million internet connections are at homes. More cyber cafes and information kiosks will come up once the problems of bandwidth shortage and slow dial-up connections are taken care of. This gives us time, but not much time, to put our cyber policing in place.
Fortunately, so far nothing more serious than software piracy and theft of internet time has been reported to the police. To make our large police force, a few lakh strong, computer literate will be neither easy nor cheap. To start with specialized cells should be created in the central and state police organizations. The ministry of Home Affairs should take the lead, though there is now a separate ministry of Information Technology. One hopes the IT law-in-making will have enough bite. Success will, however, depend not on the stiff penal provisions but on strict enforcement. Also on the anvil is a convergence law, to be called information, communicator and entertainment bill or some such thing. It has to be ensured that the two laws do not work at cross purposes.
IT minister Pramod Mahajan has returned from the United States quite taken in with what the Americans are doing in this regard. He is all praise for the FBI-led National Infrastructure Protection Centre he visited in Washington and has proposed a committee on similar lines. He has said nothing about India having something like the American NetLaw. The central intelligence agencies will have to hone their cyber skill and employ it increasingly for routine espionage and counter-espionage. Surveillance and monitoring will be vital inputs in any future plan for cyber policing.
PRIVACY
The telecommunications and the postal departments intercept transmissions when asked to do so. Why can’t there be a law to make the internet service providers install the data equivalent of wiretaps? The tap must, however, be used sparingly as it involves the infringement of citizen’s privacy. Sensitive issues such as these, one hopes, have been addressed in the proposed information technology bill. Till such time, and it can be a long time, that the police agencies are geared up, the business houses will have to use the protective and investigative cover made available by the private security agencies. Once having vetted these agencies, the police should cooperate with them rather than making their work difficult.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has assumed the entrepreneurial role of introducing the country’s police forces to e-policing. The bureau is in the process of collecting and collating the literature available on cyber crime and distributing the same to the country’s police forces in the form of CD-ROM. It has also planned training and orientation programmes for its own and state police officers. The SVP National Police Academy at Hyderabad has also planned special courses in combating Net-crimes for Indian and foreign police officers.
What is required is to generate security awareness among the computer users through a sustained campaign. Personal vigilance will preempt much of the trouble. Keep changing your password. Enjoy online shopping but be discreet in disclosing your credit card number. The computer must remain user-friendly but should have enough built-in safety to deter the prowler. To this end the designers and the security experts much work in tandem.
SUDHIR KUMAR JHA
14.07.2000
The author is a former Director General of Police, Bihar.
Personal Vigilance Is The Answer
Crime on the internet, or cyber crime in trendy parlance, is no more confined to the pages of science fiction. It has truly arrived, leaving the law enforcement agencies baffled. This is a new type of cat and mouse game they have not played earlier nor been trained for. Hackers no longer need violent weapons or accomplices to commit felonies. What they need now is a computer, a screen name, and intent to mutilate one or many computer systems.
Anonymity of the internet and its decentralized global nature helps them to manoeuvre through web pages, access credit card numbers and passwords, or just keep on stalking. Often the only clue is their e-mail address. Fraud has always been around; computers give it a new dimension. What if the numbered Swiss accounts can be compromised? The rise in e-commerce, and soon m-commerce, is bound to present a bounty to the scam artist. What is really disturbing is the wide, and ever increasing, scope of crime through the internet. Be it pornography, blackmail, extortion, drug traffic, terrorism or sheer vandalism, a computer can be exploited.
CURIOSITY
Minors attack computer systems out of curiosity, a thirst for knowledge, and while exploring, exceed bounds of what is legal. Adults do it for reasons that can vary from greed to revenge to sheer mischief. Megalomania or delusion or grandeur is at times the driving force. While commercial, military, government and home computers are vulnerable, the easiest targets are often those at educational institutions. Any effort at building the network defences must start with fixing these weakest links. Favourite targets have been the computers in South Korea, China, the Philippines, Russia, Eastern Europe and US. Can India remain unscathed for long?
While the new medium is a haven for criminals, the anonymity of the web cuts both ways. The cloak of electronic facelessness is the perfect tool for police to run decoys and keep an eye on the bad guy. In a case reported from UK, a sleazy character found an underage girl in a chat room on the internet and tried to lure her into having six at some prearranged location. At the destination a 50-year old policewoman with a shiny pair of handcuffs greeted him. She was the “young girl” all along. India’s police in the metros can take note.
The much-hyped “Love Bug” virus that swept the world recently took the internet world by storm and unnerved the computer security experts. The Philippines police arrested a man suspected of helping to create the crippling virus but had to set him free for want of evidence. Close on the heels came a new and dangerous computer virus dubbed “killer resume”. It was so named because it arrived pretending to be a “resume” from a potential job applicant. The virus was carried in a file attached to an e-mail system using a Microsoft outlook programme. In a not-too-late response Microsoft has come out with an anti-bug patch which prevents the users from running any “executable” programme attachments to e-mail and flashes a warning if there is an attempt.
The authorities complain that their probe is hampered by a lack of laws covering the new global computer network delaying arrest and allowing the suspects time to dispose of key evidence. In the United States, the FBI is alarmed at cyber crimes doubling in a year. Their survey of Fortune 500 companies revealed that 62 per cent of all reported computer breaches till date occurred last year. It feels frustrated at not being able to keep up its excellent track record. In his recent testimony before a subcommittee of the US Senate, FBI director Louis Freeh listed lack of manpower, technology (computer architecture), hazy jurisdictional issues and weak laws as the main hindrances to effective cyber policing. He recommended tougher laws including doubling jail time and fine.
The question of jurisdiction is crucial since internet crimes will often cross state and national boundaries. The US proposes to have Law Net, which would be an online investigating agency that could cross local, state and even international borders. It is imperative that not one but all countries have adequate laws and they enter into treaties of mutual cooperation, like the extradition treaties. Interpol is in a unique position to play a pivotal role, both detective and instructive. Its advice should be taken and listened to.
UTILITIES
In India, our economy is going to be driven by e-commerce. Computer is crucial in the running of infrastructure public utilities such as telecom, power and gas distribution, banking, railways and aviation. E-mail is fast replacing fax and conventional mail (derisively called the “snail mail”). And yet, India is only at the threshold of an internet revolution. According to a guesstimate, only about 15 per cent of a million internet connections are at homes. More cyber cafes and information kiosks will come up once the problems of bandwidth shortage and slow dial-up connections are taken care of. This gives us time, but not much time, to put our cyber policing in place.
Fortunately, so far nothing more serious than software piracy and theft of internet time has been reported to the police. To make our large police force, a few lakh strong, computer literate will be neither easy nor cheap. To start with specialized cells should be created in the central and state police organizations. The ministry of Home Affairs should take the lead, though there is now a separate ministry of Information Technology. One hopes the IT law-in-making will have enough bite. Success will, however, depend not on the stiff penal provisions but on strict enforcement. Also on the anvil is a convergence law, to be called information, communicator and entertainment bill or some such thing. It has to be ensured that the two laws do not work at cross purposes.
IT minister Pramod Mahajan has returned from the United States quite taken in with what the Americans are doing in this regard. He is all praise for the FBI-led National Infrastructure Protection Centre he visited in Washington and has proposed a committee on similar lines. He has said nothing about India having something like the American NetLaw. The central intelligence agencies will have to hone their cyber skill and employ it increasingly for routine espionage and counter-espionage. Surveillance and monitoring will be vital inputs in any future plan for cyber policing.
PRIVACY
The telecommunications and the postal departments intercept transmissions when asked to do so. Why can’t there be a law to make the internet service providers install the data equivalent of wiretaps? The tap must, however, be used sparingly as it involves the infringement of citizen’s privacy. Sensitive issues such as these, one hopes, have been addressed in the proposed information technology bill. Till such time, and it can be a long time, that the police agencies are geared up, the business houses will have to use the protective and investigative cover made available by the private security agencies. Once having vetted these agencies, the police should cooperate with them rather than making their work difficult.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has assumed the entrepreneurial role of introducing the country’s police forces to e-policing. The bureau is in the process of collecting and collating the literature available on cyber crime and distributing the same to the country’s police forces in the form of CD-ROM. It has also planned training and orientation programmes for its own and state police officers. The SVP National Police Academy at Hyderabad has also planned special courses in combating Net-crimes for Indian and foreign police officers.
What is required is to generate security awareness among the computer users through a sustained campaign. Personal vigilance will preempt much of the trouble. Keep changing your password. Enjoy online shopping but be discreet in disclosing your credit card number. The computer must remain user-friendly but should have enough built-in safety to deter the prowler. To this end the designers and the security experts much work in tandem.
SUDHIR KUMAR JHA
14.07.2000
The author is a former Director General of Police, Bihar.
The Interpol Saga - limits of global policing
INTERPOL SAGA
Limits of Global Policing
Our mega-scams have made the Central Bureau of Investigation a household word. But the CBI can go so far and no further. It can do precious little once scam money has been stashed away in foreign accounts and the dramatis personae have found sanctuary abroad. CBI then takes the help of Interpol. Even to those who have heard of Interpol, it is a mysterious presence, bordering on fantasy, handling operatives in the James Bond mould. The truth is nothing as exciting.
Interpol stands for international police cooperation and not for international policing. Countries are sensitive about their national sovereignty and no country will tolerate a foreign police agency or even an international police body snooping into its affairs however friendly its intentions may be. The constitution of Interpol therefore emphasizes that police cooperation must be limited to criminal offences and that too within the limits of the laws of different countries, in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
EXTRADITION
Interpol initiatives are invalid when dealing with fugitives seeking asylum from political or religious persecution. The other day Interpol had to turn down China’s request to arrest Li Hongzhi, the leader of the banned Falun Gong sect, as it could not have involved itself in a case of political or religious nature. Interpol has no branches. Every member country has to designate one of its several police agencies as the national central bureau to liaise with Interpol. It is through these NCBs that Interpol operates. In India, CBI is the designated NCB.
Interpol is a contrivance born out of necessity. The giant strides taken by science and technology in the present century offers increased opportunities for international criminal activity. For instance, preparations for a crime may be made in one country and committed in another; an offender may escape across a border after committing his offence; or he may transfer his illicit gains abroad. Tracing and detaining such offenders, and their eventual extradition, may prove extremely difficult. If these problems have to be overcome police agencies must work together.
A concerted attempt was made to improve police cooperation through the International Criminal Police Commission in Vienna in 1923. It was essentially a European organization and met annually. A degree of mystery still surrounds the years of World War II. The Germans moved its headquarters offices from Vienna to Berlin, but most records have vanished, leaving the allegation that it became an arm of the Nazi state largely unproven. This did not stop the former French President, Mitterand, saying at the opening of the new Interpol buildings in Lyons in 1989 that “the Nazi invasion (of Austria) led to the institution being used for unacceptable ends, against the wishes of its founders and most of it’s members”. After its uncertain wartime history, a broad-based ICPC moved its headquarters in 1946 from Berlin to Paris. New statutes were adopted and Interpol was chosen as the telegraphic address. In 1956 ICPC became International Criminal Police Organisation – better known as Interpol.
Interpol is not an agency of the United Nations though it does collaborate with the latter in certain areas. Like the UN, the membership of Interpol is voluntary. It has become a truly global organization with the number of member countries jumping from 50 in 1955 and 177 in 1997. As an estimated 80 per cent of the traffic going through Interpol’s communication is between European countries, they make a bigger financial contribution. Irrespective of their size and financial contribution all members enjoy equal rights. The supreme governing body of Interpol is its Central Assembly which meets annually and takes all major policy decisions. An executive committee elected by the assembly meets thrice a year to monitor the implementation of the policy decisions.
The General Secretariat is Interpol’s implementing arm and its permanent presence. The Secretary General heading the secretariat is the chief executive officer of Interpol and its moving spirit. The Secretary General is elected by the General Assembly for five years at a time. The secretariat has four divisions – the executive office, the financial controller and the European liaison bureau report directly to the Secretary General. The 300-strong secretariat staff are police officers or administrative and technical personnel.
NARCOTICS
The areas of principal interest to Interpol are offences against persons and property including murder, kidnapping for ransom, terrorism and hostage-taking, traffic in human beings, aerial hijacking, traffic in stolen motor vehicles, clandestine business in firearms and explosives etc; economic and financial crime including currency and document counterfeiting and forgery, fraud of various types involving banking operations and other commercial activities, money laundering, traffic in radioactive substances and environmental crimes; offences involving cultural property such as art theft and trafficking in endangered species of wild life; and drug trafficking and related offences including illicit cultivation, manufacture, transport and sale of drugs. Of the above, narcotics and money-laundering use up the better part of Interpol’s time and resources. It is in respect of these two that our CBI and the Narcotics Control Bureau have the most to do with Interpol.
International conferences on fraud and money-laundering organized by Interpol have strongly urged the member countries to make laws to confiscate the alleged proceeds of crime, even unexplained wealth, using the principle of “reverse onus”. India’s Law Commission has reportedly taken the cue. Lately Interpol has also been collaborating with India’s forest officials and agencies concerned with preservation of endangered species in preventing poaching and smuggling of tiger skins, elephant tusks, rhino horns, etc.
Interpols’ bread and butter is the circulation of crime-related information in what are known as “international notices”. Of the various kinds of notices the red-cornered notice is of utmost concern and urgency to Interpol. It is issued to secure the arrest and the extradition of accused persons.
COOPERATION
Remember CBI activating the red-corner and look-out notice against Quattrocchi (Bofors case) through Interpol in the wake of the Supreme Court upholding the warrant of arrest against him? And for the arrest of Kim Davy in the Purulia arms dropping case? In response to Interpol’s red alert notices, Chandraswamy’s aide Babloo Srivastava was arrested in Singapore, a JKLF leader in Belgium, and drug lord Iqbal Mirza in London. The twin resolution adopted unanimously at the 66th Interpol General Assembly Meet in Delhi in October 1997 – to give legal status to the red alert notices and to create a universal convention on extraditions – may some day become a reality.
Interpol was never intended as an operational force but was concerned to see general cooperation achieved between national police systems and facilitate that by acting as a clearing house of information. Some critics of Interpol see it as Eurocentric. Others find it bureaucratic and cumbersome, besides being remote and distant from on-the-ground policing.
Despite Interpol having moved more directly into tackling terrorism doubts have remained due to a feeling that its worldwide membership could still lead to information in the Interpol network getting into wrong hands. Interpol rejects the criticism but it came in for some defamatory comment when it was alleged that it had withheld information about a Palestinian “guerrilla chief” who visited France for medical treatment in the early 90s. No one, however, questions its pre-eminence in international police matters. It has remained apolitical by and large.
With its high-profile professional image Interpol can step into the next millennium with confidence. If Shengen and Trevi gradually take over Europolicing, Interpol will be able to pay better attention to the rest of the world.
SUDHIR KUMAR JHA
25th November 1999
The Statesman
Limits of Global Policing
Our mega-scams have made the Central Bureau of Investigation a household word. But the CBI can go so far and no further. It can do precious little once scam money has been stashed away in foreign accounts and the dramatis personae have found sanctuary abroad. CBI then takes the help of Interpol. Even to those who have heard of Interpol, it is a mysterious presence, bordering on fantasy, handling operatives in the James Bond mould. The truth is nothing as exciting.
Interpol stands for international police cooperation and not for international policing. Countries are sensitive about their national sovereignty and no country will tolerate a foreign police agency or even an international police body snooping into its affairs however friendly its intentions may be. The constitution of Interpol therefore emphasizes that police cooperation must be limited to criminal offences and that too within the limits of the laws of different countries, in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
EXTRADITION
Interpol initiatives are invalid when dealing with fugitives seeking asylum from political or religious persecution. The other day Interpol had to turn down China’s request to arrest Li Hongzhi, the leader of the banned Falun Gong sect, as it could not have involved itself in a case of political or religious nature. Interpol has no branches. Every member country has to designate one of its several police agencies as the national central bureau to liaise with Interpol. It is through these NCBs that Interpol operates. In India, CBI is the designated NCB.
Interpol is a contrivance born out of necessity. The giant strides taken by science and technology in the present century offers increased opportunities for international criminal activity. For instance, preparations for a crime may be made in one country and committed in another; an offender may escape across a border after committing his offence; or he may transfer his illicit gains abroad. Tracing and detaining such offenders, and their eventual extradition, may prove extremely difficult. If these problems have to be overcome police agencies must work together.
A concerted attempt was made to improve police cooperation through the International Criminal Police Commission in Vienna in 1923. It was essentially a European organization and met annually. A degree of mystery still surrounds the years of World War II. The Germans moved its headquarters offices from Vienna to Berlin, but most records have vanished, leaving the allegation that it became an arm of the Nazi state largely unproven. This did not stop the former French President, Mitterand, saying at the opening of the new Interpol buildings in Lyons in 1989 that “the Nazi invasion (of Austria) led to the institution being used for unacceptable ends, against the wishes of its founders and most of it’s members”. After its uncertain wartime history, a broad-based ICPC moved its headquarters in 1946 from Berlin to Paris. New statutes were adopted and Interpol was chosen as the telegraphic address. In 1956 ICPC became International Criminal Police Organisation – better known as Interpol.
Interpol is not an agency of the United Nations though it does collaborate with the latter in certain areas. Like the UN, the membership of Interpol is voluntary. It has become a truly global organization with the number of member countries jumping from 50 in 1955 and 177 in 1997. As an estimated 80 per cent of the traffic going through Interpol’s communication is between European countries, they make a bigger financial contribution. Irrespective of their size and financial contribution all members enjoy equal rights. The supreme governing body of Interpol is its Central Assembly which meets annually and takes all major policy decisions. An executive committee elected by the assembly meets thrice a year to monitor the implementation of the policy decisions.
The General Secretariat is Interpol’s implementing arm and its permanent presence. The Secretary General heading the secretariat is the chief executive officer of Interpol and its moving spirit. The Secretary General is elected by the General Assembly for five years at a time. The secretariat has four divisions – the executive office, the financial controller and the European liaison bureau report directly to the Secretary General. The 300-strong secretariat staff are police officers or administrative and technical personnel.
NARCOTICS
The areas of principal interest to Interpol are offences against persons and property including murder, kidnapping for ransom, terrorism and hostage-taking, traffic in human beings, aerial hijacking, traffic in stolen motor vehicles, clandestine business in firearms and explosives etc; economic and financial crime including currency and document counterfeiting and forgery, fraud of various types involving banking operations and other commercial activities, money laundering, traffic in radioactive substances and environmental crimes; offences involving cultural property such as art theft and trafficking in endangered species of wild life; and drug trafficking and related offences including illicit cultivation, manufacture, transport and sale of drugs. Of the above, narcotics and money-laundering use up the better part of Interpol’s time and resources. It is in respect of these two that our CBI and the Narcotics Control Bureau have the most to do with Interpol.
International conferences on fraud and money-laundering organized by Interpol have strongly urged the member countries to make laws to confiscate the alleged proceeds of crime, even unexplained wealth, using the principle of “reverse onus”. India’s Law Commission has reportedly taken the cue. Lately Interpol has also been collaborating with India’s forest officials and agencies concerned with preservation of endangered species in preventing poaching and smuggling of tiger skins, elephant tusks, rhino horns, etc.
Interpols’ bread and butter is the circulation of crime-related information in what are known as “international notices”. Of the various kinds of notices the red-cornered notice is of utmost concern and urgency to Interpol. It is issued to secure the arrest and the extradition of accused persons.
COOPERATION
Remember CBI activating the red-corner and look-out notice against Quattrocchi (Bofors case) through Interpol in the wake of the Supreme Court upholding the warrant of arrest against him? And for the arrest of Kim Davy in the Purulia arms dropping case? In response to Interpol’s red alert notices, Chandraswamy’s aide Babloo Srivastava was arrested in Singapore, a JKLF leader in Belgium, and drug lord Iqbal Mirza in London. The twin resolution adopted unanimously at the 66th Interpol General Assembly Meet in Delhi in October 1997 – to give legal status to the red alert notices and to create a universal convention on extraditions – may some day become a reality.
Interpol was never intended as an operational force but was concerned to see general cooperation achieved between national police systems and facilitate that by acting as a clearing house of information. Some critics of Interpol see it as Eurocentric. Others find it bureaucratic and cumbersome, besides being remote and distant from on-the-ground policing.
Despite Interpol having moved more directly into tackling terrorism doubts have remained due to a feeling that its worldwide membership could still lead to information in the Interpol network getting into wrong hands. Interpol rejects the criticism but it came in for some defamatory comment when it was alleged that it had withheld information about a Palestinian “guerrilla chief” who visited France for medical treatment in the early 90s. No one, however, questions its pre-eminence in international police matters. It has remained apolitical by and large.
With its high-profile professional image Interpol can step into the next millennium with confidence. If Shengen and Trevi gradually take over Europolicing, Interpol will be able to pay better attention to the rest of the world.
SUDHIR KUMAR JHA
25th November 1999
The Statesman
PRIVATE FINANCING FOR PUBLIC GOOD - THE WAY OF THE BRITISH RAJ
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TAKE A LEAF OUT OF THE RAJ BOOK
There is no harm in imbibing the good, even from those we hate. If we look at our erstwhile colonial masters with unbiased eyes, there is a lot we can learn from them and adopt to our advantage. Private financing for public good is one of them.
Much as we may hate the British rulers, we ought to be beholden to them for the monuments, institutions and systems they bequeathed us. Some of the buildings they built to house colleges, hospitals and Government offices are beautiful specimens of architecture and are landmarks in our cities today. Yet the British were no philanthropists. In fact, they were penny-pinchers at core. But they were clever and resourceful enough to know when to tap funds and get things done without dipping into profits. The British Governors, Commissioners and Collectors involved the local Rajas, landlords and businessmen in this task, cajoling or coercing them as was considered expedient. The Indian ‘haves’ readily responded and donated in cash and kind. In most cases, the motive was a mixture of altruism and self-interest. They wanted to leave behind something for which the posterity would remember them, they also wanted to ingratiate themselves with the British officialdom in the hope of certain favours, most of all for honorifics such as titles of Maharaja, Raja Bahadur, Rai Bahadur, Khan Bahadur, Rai Saheb and Khan Saheb, etc.
As early as the mid nineteenth century, the British prevailed upon these potentates to open a chain of Anglo-vernacular schools in their jurisdictions, this facilitating the introduction of western education in India. The Government also made them partners in promoting higher English education. Premier institutions such as the Patna College in Bihar and the Ravenshaw College in Orissa developed through donations and endowments from the native Sates and local zamindars. The reputed Patna Medical College Hospital would have been stillborn but for the local donors pitching in. Clearance was received from the Government of India in 1921 to set up a medical college at Patna. The project involved heavy capital expenditure but how to palm it off to others? The Prince of Wales was visiting India around the same time. The Government was quick to seize the opportunity and promptly created a Prince of Wales Medical College Fund. A donation in excess of Rs. 15 lakh was collected in no time. While the college was named the Prince of Wales, the donors had to remain content with wards and facilities named after them.
While heath and education were on the top of the agenda, the Government sought private contributions in other fields equally readily. That was how many district towns got their magnificent Town Halls. When the earthquake hit Bihar in 1934, the Government heavily depended on private donations in cash and kind to meet the twin tasks of rehabilitation and reconstruction, in some cases of an entire township. Even memorials to the British monarch and viceroys were raised with the money so collected. The Victoria Memorial of Calcutta, the Taj Mahal of eastern India, are the most outstanding specimens of this exercise.
The Akipur Zoo in Calcutta could not have become the attraction it is without continuous flow of private donations. The Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai (shortly to be named after Chhatrapati Shivaji, if the Government of Maharashtra has its way) owes much to the munificence of people like Ibrahim Ramitulla, Cowasjee Jahangir and the Nawab of Junagadh. The pattern was the same throughout the country. Ironically, these carried the name of a British monarch, Viceroy or Governor. At the best, a plaque in some corner acknowledged the donor.
The Raj had no pretences of being a welfare State. It was a police State and it knew its limitation where public spending was concerned. During over 50 years as a free nation we have stretched the concept of “welfare” State to ludicrous limits. In the process the Government bit more than it could chew. It was suspicious of involving private players in the task of nation-building. Always cash-strapped but still wanting to do everything by itself, it slipped in the core areas of mass literacy and primary health care. The Government failed to nurture even the IITs and IIMs set up during the Nehru era now appealing to their alumni and fishing for sponsors. Centrally funded Delhi University and Jawaharlal University are to follow suit. To add insult to injury while the Indian Council of Historical Research and the Indian Council for Social Sciences Research are languishing for want of funds, the Government has decided to endow a chair of Indian history and culture at the Oxford University at a cost of 1.8 million pound sterling.
Equally said is the story of our heritage sites. Far from erecting new monuments that would make the coming generations proud, we have not been able to look after the ones we have inherited. Rather than throwing its hands up in despair, the Government should draw a lesson or two from the Raj. Fortunately, it does seem to be waking up. The Department of Culture, Government of India, set up the National Culture Fund in 1996 as a funding mechanism “different from the existing sources and patterns of funding for the arts and culture in India”. Donations to the fund, exempt from income tax, are to be used for maintaining the historical sites and developing them as tourist spots. In exchange, the sponsors get advertising space the quantum of which is to be decided by the Department of Culture and the Archaeological Survey of India acting in tandem. The Taj Mahal is not up for grabs but the others are. Only in the year 2K have some offers been forthcoming. Humayun’s tomb in Delhi, a world heritage site, is to be illuminated by the Oberoi group. After Hyatt shied away, the Hotel Association of Northern India has come forward to take over the Red Fort. The Indian Oil Corporation is interested in Qutb Minar. Though the list is long, the restoration of the Sun Temple at Konark and the Ajanta and Ellora caves are the priority. Any sponsors?
But maintenance is not enough. Some long-lasting institutions and monuments ought to be created as also some new facilities developed. One such area crying for help is higher education, technical and professional. Not everyone needs to go to a college. Let institutions of higher professional education be fewer but they be real centres of excellence. Setting them up and then running them efficiently will obviously be an expensive proposition and the State will do well to invite individual promoters of consortia to take up these projects. These should be run as any other business enterprise and not as charitable institutions. Fees will understandably be high and admissions to these will have to be restricted to those who can afford to pay and to the meritorious poor through Government and privately endowed scholarship. Let the institute be named after the promoters if they so wish. In any case, it is not a good practice to name the colleges and universities after political personalities. (We can keep Mahatma Gandhi as an exception). Setting up an Indian School of Business at Hyderabad is a step in the right direction.
We received the legacy of the National Library, National Archives and Natural History Museum in places like Calcutta, Delhi and Mumbai. They have reached a point of saturation and decay. Huge recurring expenditure is involved in preserving and updating the contents and maintaining the structure. Horizons of knowledge have expanded and we need many more archives and museums devoted to subjects such as space technology, oceanography, microbiology etc. For that matter, is a Birla Planetarium in Calcutta or a Tarporewala Aquarium in Mumbai enough for a country of India’s dimensions? Surely we need many more. We talk of environment and global warming but how many botanical parks, comparable to the Shibpur Botanical Garden in Calcutta, have we added during our existence as an independent nation? The Jahangir Art Gallery in Mumbai reportedly remains booked for two to three years in advance, thus denying many potential MF Hussains the opportunity to display their talent. There is need for more art galleries not only in Mumbai but in other cities as well. There must be art lovers among our business barons who will love to set up such galleries and go down in history as patrons of art.
The scope is unlimited. The Government should be the catalyst, offer suggestions and help, and leave the rest to the sponsors (no mailed fist, no pinpricks, please). Once the Government has established its bonafides a generous response can be expected. Our private and public sector behemoths are the present-day Maharajas. The tribe has grown beyond the Tatas and the Birlas. We have Ambanis, Azim Premji, Narayana Murthy and many others and funds can be comfortably taken care of. If the Raj (British) could do it, why can’t we? In fact, we can do better by allowing the promoters and donors to name these after themselves, unlike the British who appropriated the name and sent the benefactors into oblivion.
SUDHIR KUMAR JHA
7th April 2002
HT Sunday Spread
TAKE A LEAF OUT OF THE RAJ BOOK
There is no harm in imbibing the good, even from those we hate. If we look at our erstwhile colonial masters with unbiased eyes, there is a lot we can learn from them and adopt to our advantage. Private financing for public good is one of them.
Much as we may hate the British rulers, we ought to be beholden to them for the monuments, institutions and systems they bequeathed us. Some of the buildings they built to house colleges, hospitals and Government offices are beautiful specimens of architecture and are landmarks in our cities today. Yet the British were no philanthropists. In fact, they were penny-pinchers at core. But they were clever and resourceful enough to know when to tap funds and get things done without dipping into profits. The British Governors, Commissioners and Collectors involved the local Rajas, landlords and businessmen in this task, cajoling or coercing them as was considered expedient. The Indian ‘haves’ readily responded and donated in cash and kind. In most cases, the motive was a mixture of altruism and self-interest. They wanted to leave behind something for which the posterity would remember them, they also wanted to ingratiate themselves with the British officialdom in the hope of certain favours, most of all for honorifics such as titles of Maharaja, Raja Bahadur, Rai Bahadur, Khan Bahadur, Rai Saheb and Khan Saheb, etc.
As early as the mid nineteenth century, the British prevailed upon these potentates to open a chain of Anglo-vernacular schools in their jurisdictions, this facilitating the introduction of western education in India. The Government also made them partners in promoting higher English education. Premier institutions such as the Patna College in Bihar and the Ravenshaw College in Orissa developed through donations and endowments from the native Sates and local zamindars. The reputed Patna Medical College Hospital would have been stillborn but for the local donors pitching in. Clearance was received from the Government of India in 1921 to set up a medical college at Patna. The project involved heavy capital expenditure but how to palm it off to others? The Prince of Wales was visiting India around the same time. The Government was quick to seize the opportunity and promptly created a Prince of Wales Medical College Fund. A donation in excess of Rs. 15 lakh was collected in no time. While the college was named the Prince of Wales, the donors had to remain content with wards and facilities named after them.
While heath and education were on the top of the agenda, the Government sought private contributions in other fields equally readily. That was how many district towns got their magnificent Town Halls. When the earthquake hit Bihar in 1934, the Government heavily depended on private donations in cash and kind to meet the twin tasks of rehabilitation and reconstruction, in some cases of an entire township. Even memorials to the British monarch and viceroys were raised with the money so collected. The Victoria Memorial of Calcutta, the Taj Mahal of eastern India, are the most outstanding specimens of this exercise.
The Akipur Zoo in Calcutta could not have become the attraction it is without continuous flow of private donations. The Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai (shortly to be named after Chhatrapati Shivaji, if the Government of Maharashtra has its way) owes much to the munificence of people like Ibrahim Ramitulla, Cowasjee Jahangir and the Nawab of Junagadh. The pattern was the same throughout the country. Ironically, these carried the name of a British monarch, Viceroy or Governor. At the best, a plaque in some corner acknowledged the donor.
The Raj had no pretences of being a welfare State. It was a police State and it knew its limitation where public spending was concerned. During over 50 years as a free nation we have stretched the concept of “welfare” State to ludicrous limits. In the process the Government bit more than it could chew. It was suspicious of involving private players in the task of nation-building. Always cash-strapped but still wanting to do everything by itself, it slipped in the core areas of mass literacy and primary health care. The Government failed to nurture even the IITs and IIMs set up during the Nehru era now appealing to their alumni and fishing for sponsors. Centrally funded Delhi University and Jawaharlal University are to follow suit. To add insult to injury while the Indian Council of Historical Research and the Indian Council for Social Sciences Research are languishing for want of funds, the Government has decided to endow a chair of Indian history and culture at the Oxford University at a cost of 1.8 million pound sterling.
Equally said is the story of our heritage sites. Far from erecting new monuments that would make the coming generations proud, we have not been able to look after the ones we have inherited. Rather than throwing its hands up in despair, the Government should draw a lesson or two from the Raj. Fortunately, it does seem to be waking up. The Department of Culture, Government of India, set up the National Culture Fund in 1996 as a funding mechanism “different from the existing sources and patterns of funding for the arts and culture in India”. Donations to the fund, exempt from income tax, are to be used for maintaining the historical sites and developing them as tourist spots. In exchange, the sponsors get advertising space the quantum of which is to be decided by the Department of Culture and the Archaeological Survey of India acting in tandem. The Taj Mahal is not up for grabs but the others are. Only in the year 2K have some offers been forthcoming. Humayun’s tomb in Delhi, a world heritage site, is to be illuminated by the Oberoi group. After Hyatt shied away, the Hotel Association of Northern India has come forward to take over the Red Fort. The Indian Oil Corporation is interested in Qutb Minar. Though the list is long, the restoration of the Sun Temple at Konark and the Ajanta and Ellora caves are the priority. Any sponsors?
But maintenance is not enough. Some long-lasting institutions and monuments ought to be created as also some new facilities developed. One such area crying for help is higher education, technical and professional. Not everyone needs to go to a college. Let institutions of higher professional education be fewer but they be real centres of excellence. Setting them up and then running them efficiently will obviously be an expensive proposition and the State will do well to invite individual promoters of consortia to take up these projects. These should be run as any other business enterprise and not as charitable institutions. Fees will understandably be high and admissions to these will have to be restricted to those who can afford to pay and to the meritorious poor through Government and privately endowed scholarship. Let the institute be named after the promoters if they so wish. In any case, it is not a good practice to name the colleges and universities after political personalities. (We can keep Mahatma Gandhi as an exception). Setting up an Indian School of Business at Hyderabad is a step in the right direction.
We received the legacy of the National Library, National Archives and Natural History Museum in places like Calcutta, Delhi and Mumbai. They have reached a point of saturation and decay. Huge recurring expenditure is involved in preserving and updating the contents and maintaining the structure. Horizons of knowledge have expanded and we need many more archives and museums devoted to subjects such as space technology, oceanography, microbiology etc. For that matter, is a Birla Planetarium in Calcutta or a Tarporewala Aquarium in Mumbai enough for a country of India’s dimensions? Surely we need many more. We talk of environment and global warming but how many botanical parks, comparable to the Shibpur Botanical Garden in Calcutta, have we added during our existence as an independent nation? The Jahangir Art Gallery in Mumbai reportedly remains booked for two to three years in advance, thus denying many potential MF Hussains the opportunity to display their talent. There is need for more art galleries not only in Mumbai but in other cities as well. There must be art lovers among our business barons who will love to set up such galleries and go down in history as patrons of art.
The scope is unlimited. The Government should be the catalyst, offer suggestions and help, and leave the rest to the sponsors (no mailed fist, no pinpricks, please). Once the Government has established its bonafides a generous response can be expected. Our private and public sector behemoths are the present-day Maharajas. The tribe has grown beyond the Tatas and the Birlas. We have Ambanis, Azim Premji, Narayana Murthy and many others and funds can be comfortably taken care of. If the Raj (British) could do it, why can’t we? In fact, we can do better by allowing the promoters and donors to name these after themselves, unlike the British who appropriated the name and sent the benefactors into oblivion.
SUDHIR KUMAR JHA
7th April 2002
HT Sunday Spread
BOOK ON PATNA
SUPERCOP PENS A BOOK
Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS was already a familiar name for his book “Raj to Swaraj: Changing contours of police”, which he had come out with in 1995. But for this police officer, who has joined a long list of writers from the bureaucracy, it was a privilege to present his second offering ‘A New Dawn: Patna reincarnated’ to no less than the president Dr. APJ Kalam on his visit here on December 30.
Jha is understandably elated as the Prez while appreciating the effort commented “It was appropriate that the book comes at a time, when there are changes on the horizons of Bihar”. What’s more, he registered his appreciation by calling Jha for a photo-op which Jha says “I’ll never forget”.
The book itself is a tribute to the various greats who built Bihar. Even as it dwells on a smaller time-frame i.e. modern Patna, the running theme is Patna’s transition from tradition to modernity, the ripple effect of western education, the birth of a professional middle class, the social dynamics and the urban sprawl et al.
The book brings out for the first time the enormous contribution made by Anglo Indian, Bengali, Punjabi and Sindhi communities to the cultural and social life of Patna. The book essays back and forth drawing on recollections while adding value to research and is certain to evoke nostalgia among those who had any direct link to the events that shaped Bihar.
The book published by Veerendra Printers, New Delhi is worth a good read.
HT Patna Plus
3rd January 2006
Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS was already a familiar name for his book “Raj to Swaraj: Changing contours of police”, which he had come out with in 1995. But for this police officer, who has joined a long list of writers from the bureaucracy, it was a privilege to present his second offering ‘A New Dawn: Patna reincarnated’ to no less than the president Dr. APJ Kalam on his visit here on December 30.
Jha is understandably elated as the Prez while appreciating the effort commented “It was appropriate that the book comes at a time, when there are changes on the horizons of Bihar”. What’s more, he registered his appreciation by calling Jha for a photo-op which Jha says “I’ll never forget”.
The book itself is a tribute to the various greats who built Bihar. Even as it dwells on a smaller time-frame i.e. modern Patna, the running theme is Patna’s transition from tradition to modernity, the ripple effect of western education, the birth of a professional middle class, the social dynamics and the urban sprawl et al.
The book brings out for the first time the enormous contribution made by Anglo Indian, Bengali, Punjabi and Sindhi communities to the cultural and social life of Patna. The book essays back and forth drawing on recollections while adding value to research and is certain to evoke nostalgia among those who had any direct link to the events that shaped Bihar.
The book published by Veerendra Printers, New Delhi is worth a good read.
HT Patna Plus
3rd January 2006
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Subhas Chandra Bose in Bihar
(Published in HISTORY, Journal of the University of Burdwan, Vol IV, No. 1, 2001)
Subhas Chandra Bose was born and schooled at Cuttack in Orissa. His family had close ties with Bengal but hardly any with Bihar. Bose became known in Bihar only after he spurned the heaven-born Indian Civil Service in 1921, at the age of 24, to join the freedom movement. He was still in his twenties when he started visiting Bihar both as a labour leader and as a Congress worker, often as a protégé of Deshbandhu Chitranjan Das. Bose threw in his lot with Das when, following the annual Congress session at Gaya towards the end of 1922, the latter resigned from the Congress and formed the Swaraj Party—to fight for freedom from within the legislatures. The year 1928 proved annus mirabilis for Bose. Industrial unrest was sweeping across the country. The strike in the Tata Iron and Steel Company had dragged on for months and was on the verge of fizzling out. When the veteran C.F.Andrews had also failed to break the deadlock, Bose was sent for. Bose came, bargained and secured an honourable settlement with the management.. This endeared him to the workers at Jamshedpur and also set the stage for his election as the President of the All-India Trade Union Congress, then the labour front of the Congress. The following year he helped resolve the strike in the Tin Plate Company at Jamshedpur. A decade later he was to tour Bihar extensively under circumstances that were far from happy for him. But let us not anticipate.
Bose always thought himself to be a loyal soldier of the Congress but within the organization he was considered a bull in a china shop. For his Leftist, read Socialist, views he had found a soul mate in Jawaharlal Nehru and at the Calcutta Congress session in 1928 they had together challenged the Motilal Nehru Committee report recommending Dominion Status for India. Bose admired Mahatma Gandhi for giving a definite direction to the Indian freedom movement from 1920 to 1932 but criticised him for the temporary suspension of civil disobedience in 1933. Bose resented the soft and constitutional approach adopted by the Congress Party thereafter. He was deeply hurt when the Congress accepted office. His peers called him a rebel and a radical but Bose was not the one to keep quiet or mince his words. Gandhi thought that responsibility might mellow Bose. With the former’s blessings Bose succeeded Jawaharlal Nehru as the President of the Indian National Congress, at the age of 41. Bose returned the compliments by paying glowing tributes to Gandhi in his presidential address at the Haripura(Gujarat) session in 1938. While the two shared the common goal of independence, they were not in sync regarding the means. Gandhi was prepared to wait and considered it immoral to press for freedom when Britain was on the brink of a war in Europe. Bose, on the other hand, believed in the doctrine popularised by Bal Gangadhar Tilak in the twenties that Britain’s difficulty was India’s opportunity. Ironically, Gandhi had to give the ‘Quit India’ call in 1942 while Britain was still at war.
Gandhi, hoping that Bose would not be running for a second term, proposed Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya for the post. Bose not only contested but also won. Gandhi took his candidate’s defeat rather personally and did not forgive Bose. Bose tried hard to soften Gandhi but failed. For Bose the ensuing Congress session at Tripuri (Madhya Pradesh) in March 1939 was a disaster. He was ill and his brother Sarat Chandra read his speech, in absentia. “ In my opinion we should submit our national demand to the British government and give a certain time limit within which a reply is to be received. If no reply is received within this period or if an unsatisfactory reply is received, we should resort to such sanctions as we possess in order to enforce our national demand…What more opportune moment could we find in our national history for a final advance in the direction of Swaraj, particularly when the international situation is favourable to us? Speaking as a cold-blooded realist, I may say that all the facts of the present-day situation are so much to our advantage that one should entertain the highest degree of optimism”. This was to become the leit motif of his speeches during his tour of Bihar a few months later. This suggestion of an ultimatum was brushed aside by the Working Committee in a resolution, which expressed confidence in Gandhi and by implication conveyed lack of confidence in Bose. An ailing Bose sojourned to his brother’s house at Jamadoba in the Jharia Coalfields to recoup his physical health and mental equanimity. The retreat afforded him further opportunity to observe the condition of the Colliery workers. Only days later a composed Bose announced his resignation from the presidentship of the Congress at the meeting of the All India Congress Committee in Calcutta on 29 April 1939. He had realised that Gandhi was Congress and Congress was Gandhi and that he could do nothing within the Congress without having Gandhi on his side. Though humiliated, Bose’s love and respect for Gandhi remained undiminished. It was Bose who first referred to Gandhi as “ the Father of our Nation “ in one of his broadcasts from Southeast Asia.
Bose was down but not out. With his typical sang-froid, within four days of his resignation he formed another party, which he called Forward Bloc, not as a rival of the Congress but to work ‘within the Congress.’ Bose had the tasks for the Bloc well defined: consolidating the Leftist forces, winning over the majority of the Congress to its viewpoint and prevail upon the congress (read Gandhi) to resume the national struggle. The aim of the Bloc was the establishment of a socialist state within a fully independent India ( Purna Swarajya ). The first all-India conference of the Bloc on 22 June 1939 was followed by the formation of a Left Consolidation Committee. Gandhi was cut to the quick and summary action against Bose followed. He was debarred from holding any office in the Congress organization for three years effective from August. It was virtual expulsion. Far from feeling defensive Bose hit back by launching a weekly journal. A war of words ensued between the Forward Bloc and the Harijan.
Simultaneously Bose launched a mass contact programme to explain the raison d’etre of the Forward Bloc as well as to propagate his views on the national and international situation. And he chose Bihar to start his campaign. He had remained in touch with Bihar as the Congress President and from even before. By now the Kisan Sabha had taken firm root in Bihar. Kisan leaders such as Jai Prakash Narayan and Swami Sahjanand had hailed Bose’s election as the Congress President. Earlier, in February that year Bose had presided over a radical-dominated Political Conference at Chauram Ashram in Gaya district. What follows is neither a chronological nor an exhaustive account of his tours in Bihar; it is only a random sample. Bose was a man in a hurry and his Bihar tours at times resembled an election campaign. His hectic daily schedule started early in the morning and stretched late into the night. Moving from place to place he addressed pre-arranged meetings and also spoke impromptu to the people who thronged by the wayside for his darshan. It must have been tiring but the grand welcome he received made it worthwhile. Welcome arches were erected along the route, which was decorated with flowers, flags and festoons. While Bose’s own political and personal contacts also came handy the logistics of his itinerary were mostly taken care of by Swami Sahjanand and others of the Kisan Sabha. The firebrand Sheelbhadra Yajee was present at most of his meetings but Jai Prakash Narayan and Rambriksha Benipuri also shared the dais off and on. Bose spoke in Hindustani and occasionally, in Bengali –speaking pockets, in Bengali. A master of polemics Bose utilised all the dialectical weapons—attack, repartee, thrust and parry, irony and satire. He was quick to expose the chink in the opponent’s armour and drive his own point home. The government’s approach was one of restraint and caution. Realising that Bose ploughed a lone furrough and that he was quite harmless without the Congress, the government had his movements and speeches covered by the local police and the CID (Special Branch) without in any manner provoking him. Even when the district police and the DIG CID suggested the prosecution of Bose and Sheelbhadra Yajee under the Defence of India Act the government chose to ignore it. Bose’s speeches reported by the CID were routinely put up before Dr. S.K.Sinha as the Prime Minister and later before the Governor or his Advisor who found the speeches stereotyped.
Bose addressed a public meeting, about 10000 strong, at the Tilak Maidan, Muzaffarpur (the largest town in North Bihar) in the evening of August 26, 1939. Some Muslims were also present though their number was small. The meeting, which lasted for about seventy minutes, started with a national song in Bengali language sung in a chorus. Bose was presented with three addresses from the local Kisan Sabha, Majdoor Dal and Navyuvak Dal but these were not read. Charging the British with double standards Bose questioned why their Prime Minister had declared to fight for the freedom of Poland and other countries but denied that freedom to India. If old enemies like Russia and Germany could enter into a Non-Aggression Pact, Bose countered, then the Rightists and Leftists in the Congress could easily come together on a common platform. The situation for India and the Congress was substantially improved in 1939 compared to what it was in 1921 and 1925. There was heightened awareness in favour of freedom; the number of Congressmen had gone up from ten lakhs to fortyfive lakhs;Kisans and Majdoors had organized themselves and joined the freedom movement. In 1921 the people of the Native States had not joined the rest of the country in boycotting the visit of the Prince of Wales but now there was a change of mood there also. Moreover, the Congress was in power in eight states and could sabotage or stalemate the government from within. He was critical of the Congress for having accepted office and thereby supporting the Constitution rather than flouting it. He was prepared to follow any Congress leader, especially Gandhi or Rajendra Prasad, if he led a satyagraha , which might lead to Purna Swaraj. But what was the meaning of Swaraj? It did not mean replacing the white bureaucracy with a brown one. The power to govern should pass from the ‘selected’ few to the ‘elected’ few, to the MLAs and Ministers. The question of bread and freedom were not two different things; political independence and economic freedom were concomitants. In his presidential speech Kishori Prasanna Sinha condemned the Statesman for publishing that not supporting British war effort was tantamount to inviting Germany and Japan to overrun India.
The following day he arrived at Danapur (10 KMs from Patna) by train from where he was taken in a procession to Kachhi Talab, Khagaul where about 3000 persons, including some 25 Muslims, had congregated to hear him. As he mounted the podium there was a low-key black flag demonstration. B. Padamlalji was in the chair. Dr. Saghir Ahsan, Chairman, Reception Committee, read out the welcome address in English. Bose spoke in Hindustani and followed his usual line. Britain’s signing the Munich Pact against her better judgment had exposed her weakness vis-à-vis Germany, Italy and Japan, which were superior in air power. Outlining the genesis of the Forward Bloc he explained how it had come into being when the Congress, rather than following a ‘forward’ programme, had started drifting towards constitutional methods. Gandhi and Rajendra Prasad were all right with the Leftists and Socialists provided they could shake off the slackness, which had crept into the Congress, and gave a clarion call for satyagraha. Swami Sahjanand also spoke in the meeting and said similar things. The Subdivisional Officer of Danapur was present throughout and himself signed the CID reporter’s shorthand book. After the meeting Bose left for the house of Jimut Bahan Sen, a former Congress Minister, where he was to have his lunch.
In late afternoon Bose drove to Patna City where he was given a rousing reception .The area between the hackney stand, Chowk and Mangle’s Tank, the venue of the meeting, was decked up in his welcome. A large gathering at the meeting site, estimated at about 20000, included Sikhs, Muslims and Bengalis. Swami Sahjanand took the chair and Rambriksha Benipuri made the welcome speech. Nine addresses were on offer but only the Bengali Yuvak Sangh was allowed to present its in a silver casket. Bose more or less repeated his earlier speech at Khagaul to the effect that the Leftists, including himself, were all loyal soldiers of the Congress and would join a mass movement if the Congress launched one. From Patna City Bose proceeded to Patna Lawn (now known as Gandhi Maidan) where rowdyism made the meeting impossible. Some students, irked at Bose’s public criticism of Gandhi and Rajendra Prasad, showed black flags and raised slogans of “ Subhas go back ”. Bose left the place in a huff. He was running late but an undeterred crowd of about 5000, including women, waited patiently till he arrived at the venue, the Danapur Cinema compound, at 2030 hours. Some black flags were waved but the SDO Danapur, who was present at the meeting, controlled the situation. After Gandhi’s condemnation of crowd behaviour and Rajendra Prasad’s admonition there were no further disturbances at Bose’s meetings in Bihar.
Driving from Patna in the morning of August 28 Bose was given a grand ovation two miles short of Ara town. He was made to leave his car and mount an elephant. Negotiating several welcome arches the procession reached the compound of the Ara Nagari Pracharini Sabha where Bose spoke to a gathering of about 4000. Swami Sahjanand presided. Four addresses were presented on behalf of the youth, students, Kisan Sabha and Majdoor Sabha. There was no variation in the theme though emphasis changed according to the composition of the audience. The Leftists were only the revolutionary arm of the Congress, Bose asserted. He exhorted the people of Ara to join the Forward Bloc in large numbers to compel the congress to launch a satyagraha without further delay. At the end a resolution was passed to the effect that the people of Ara had full faith in Bose. On his return journey Bose received warm welcome at Bikram (5000) and Bihta (6000) where he dwelt on how the interests of the Kisans were being harmed by the landlords and the government acting in collusion. He attacked the Zamindari system and criticised the British for introducing it. He appealed to the Kisans to organize themselves and also strengthen the Congress by enrolling in large numbers, preferably before the 15th September 1939, the last date for enrolment. Das & Company (still in business at Patna) supplied the loud speakers at Ara and Bikram. Leaving Bihta at 1645 hours Bose and party reached Bakhtiarpur at 2005 hours, behind schedule, as he was stopped and garlanded at several places including Fatuha Bazar. Shyam Nandan Singh MLA was in the chair. After speaking to a gathering of about 2000 Bose proceeded to Barh where about 500 persons heard Bose despite rain and late hours (2145 to 2225 hours). Sheelbhadra Yajee proposed a vote of thanks.
On the 29th August Bose’s entourage arrived at Patna Lawn (now Gandhi Maidan) at 1700 hours. Almost 20000 persons including ladies, mostly Bengali, had been waitngThe dais was tastefully decorated and both the tricolur and red flags were conspicuously displayed. Before the commencement of the proceedings Rambriksha Benipuri and Comrade Anisur Rehman exhorted the audience to shout anti-imperialist slogans and it obliged. Jai Prakash Narayan presided. Benipuri made the welcome speech. Bose spoke for over an hour along familiar lines. Referring to the hooliganism at his aborted meeting two days earlier he called it a shame for Bihar and Patna and lambasted the Indian Nation, one of the two local English dailies, for having played it up. He cautioned against the Divide and Rule policy of the British, which they practised not only between the Hindus and Muslims but also between the Rightists and Leftists within the Congress. Taking a dig at the presence of constables in the meeting he remarked that they had been deputed ostensibly to protect him and Yajee. It was a pity that the Congressmen could not protect their own leaders and depended on policemen to do so. This time no attempt was made to disturb the meeting and the audience, defying heavy shower, patiently heard him.
After the Second World War had broken out there was little change in the content of his speeches but his tone and tenor betrayed greater impatience and stridency. Driving from Jamshedpur to Chaibasa in the afternoon of 4th December 1939 he addressed a 200-strong crowd at Haldipokhar in Bengali. About a thousand people were waiting for him at the Gandhi Park, Chaibasa where memoranda were presented to him in Hindi and in Bengali. Bose first spoke in Hindustani and towards the end in Bengali too. In the evening Bose addressed a predominantly Adivasi gathering (5000). The meeting began with slogans of ‘Adivasi ki Jai’. In the midst of his usual speech he made a general appeal to join the Congress in ‘ lakhs and crores’ to give it the desired direction and thrust. The meeting became important for what Jaipal Singh, the most important Adivasi leader to date, said in his presidential speech. Singh said that the Forward Bloc had oppressed the Adivasis just as the Congress had ignored them. He demanded that the Adivasis could join the Congress only if the Chhotanagpur and the Santhal Parganas was recognised as a separate area for the Adivasis. Incidentally, following a fiery speech by Yajee at a meeting of the District Forward Bloc at Jamshedpur on the 12th December, the government directed the DIG CID that Yajee’s speeches should also be reported in full occasionally.
Bose and Yajee were present at Khunti in Ranchi district on the 17th December. Here the gathering was small but Bose spoke at length. He said he was happy to have come to Ranchi after a lapse of twentyfive years. He felt sad that the Adivasis had to migrate in search of bread as they were deprived at home. Striking a sentimental note he referred to the harsh treatment they received in the Assam tea gardens. All this would end once the British left. It did not matter whether Britain won or lost but the war was bound to sound the death-knell of imperialism. If Britain lost British imperialism would end and if Germany lost Germany’s neo-imperialism (Hitlerism) would end; either way these imperialist powers would be weakened, to India’s advantage. Kisans and Majdoors were only waiting to be led. This was, therefore, the right time to hit at the British government.
On the 24th December Bose addressed meetings at Warisnagar (3000) and Samastipur (1000), both in Darbhanga district. On the 25th December he toured Munger district and addressed gatherings at Lakhisarai (5000), Jamalpur (3000) and Munger Town (3000). People had also collected, to see him and to hear him, at Mokamaghat, Barhaiya, Kajra, Abhaypur and Dharhara where his train stopped. The speeches were repetitive in content and their gist only is being given. The British not only ruled India but also exploited her; thus British imperialism was responsible for both her slavery and poverty. Now was the time, when Britain was engaged in war with Germany, to press for swaraj through a non-violent satyagraha to be to be launched in the near future, implying that if the Congress lagged behind then the Forward Bloc was ready to spearhead it. Britain championed democracy in Poland and elsewhere but denied it to India on the facetious plea that because of the friction between the Hindus and the Muslims India was not fit for independence. The British argued that if they went away the Muslims and Hindus would finish one another. Bose dismissed this logic as puerile. Bose retorted that let the British first leave and then the two communities would sort out their differences as they had done for centuries. Pooh-poohing the bogey of foreign invasion on India created by the British, Bose demanded to know how could the British protect India when their own country was threatened? As for the politics within the Congress he was satisfied after his talks with Gandhi that the Congress was not going to fight the British and that in Gandhi’s opinion the Leftists and the Rightists could not work together. That is why he (Bose) had resigned from the presidentship of the Congress and had formed the Forward Bloc – to force the Congress to take up the fight against the British or else the Bloc would do it if the Congress opted out.
It was January 1940 and Bose was once again back in Patna. It was a winter afternoon and the venue was once again Mangle’s Tank in Patna City. Bose exhorted all those present to celebrate the 26th of January as Independence Day with great gusto even though the Forward Bloc had not withdrawn its opposition to the new Independence Pledge. Benipuri, who presided, outlined the details of the weeklong programme culminating in the flag hoisting on the 26th morning at the same venue. Swami Sahjanand also spoke on the occasion. An hour later Bose was at the Patna Lawn (also known then as Bankipur Maidan and now Gandhi Maidan). Sticking to the stereotyped text he added that the news about the war was very confusing. As all the news came from government-controlled radio bulletins and Reuters, a foreign news agency, the reporting was censored and one-sided. While the British success stories were played up the advances made by Russia and Germany were blacked out. He cautioned not to be taken in by the wartime propaganda and concentrate on making the Independence Day a success. He could not go to Gaya owing to section 144 promulgated there. By the way, the highlight of the 26th January was the speech at Barh in Patna District by Yajee. The government agreed with the Superintendent of Police of Patna that the speech was “ a clear incitement to prevent recruiting or any contribution to the war” but overruled his suggestion to prosecute Yajee under the Defence of India Act.
At Bhagalpur in the evening of 2nd February Bose spoke to a gathering of about 9000, including 60 Bengali ladies. In not-so-veiled attack on Gandhi he ridiculed the wearing of khadi and spinning of charkha, which had become the mascot of India’s freedom movement. Slogans of Inquilqb Zindabad and Subhas Babu ki jai rented the air. While Sheodhari Singh MLA presided, Santlal Singh (later a teacher of Political Science in Patna University) also spoke. Bose was again the main speaker at a largely attended Munger District Students’ Conference held at Begusarai on the 3rd February. Rahul Sankirtyayan was in the chair. At Begusarai Bose enjoyed the hospitality of Satish Chandra Bose (uncle of the eminent eye surgeon of Patna Dr. D.K.Bose), a leading lawyer and active as the Chairman of the Munger District Board though confined to a wheel chair. On the 8th February Bose reached the Jahanabad Thakurbari at 1700 hours, five hours behind schedule. He got up to speak amidst shouts of Subhas Babuki jai and thanked the audience for the grand reception they had given him. He was delighted at the large gathering and apologised for the delay in his arrival. He congratulated the students for having observed a strike on the 26th January and urged them to keep up the pressure. He regretted that Gandhi was spending so much time with the Viceroy and the Congress was veering more and more towards compromise. That was going back on the pledge of complete independence they had taken in at Lahore in 1929 and repeated every year on the 26th January. It would be a shame if the Congress in Bihar again joined the government as was being rumoured. He appealed to the Kisans to attend the Congress session at Ramgarh (Hazaribag district) the following month in lakhs and frustrate any move at compromise with imperialism. Swami Sahajanand elaborated the plans for Ramgarh and told the Kisans how to make their presence felt. A big mashal julus would be taken out there with slogans such as samjhauta murdabad, angreji saltanat murdabad to voice their fight against imperialism, capitalism and zamindari. They must blockade the Congress session by their parallel anti-compromise meeting. At the end Bhairo Singh, who presided, thanked Bose on behalf of the public of Jahanabad.
Bose’s proposed tour of the Jharia coalfields on February 11 and 12 had frightened the colliery owners. The Indian Mining Association, headquartered in Calcutta, apprehending “serious labour disturbances” and “organised sabotage” petitioned the Governor of Bihar to prohibit the entry of Bose into the coalfields. Even the Additional Deputy Commissioner of Dhanbad, swayed by the entreaties of the colliery owners, wanted to prohibit Bose’s entry by a general order. The government wrote back to the IMA declining their request and also dissuaded the Addl. DC from issuing any prohibitory orders. As it turned out the government was proved right. Bose, accompanied by Swami Sahjanand, Sheelbhadra Yajee, Dhanraj Sharma and Shankar Lal, Secretary of the All-India Forward Bloc, reached Dhanbad from Giridih, four hours late, at 2000 hours on February 11. Mostly students and about 200 ladies attended the late evening meeting. The colliery workers attended his three meetings on the 12th. Bose’s political utterances were on known lines. Regarding labour, he endorsed the demand put forward by Satya Bimal Sen, the local labour leader, to demand more than six pice in the rupee, that is 10%, to which most of the owners had already agreed. Bose advised the workers to raise, in one voice and in writing; their demand for a rise in wages and to remain prepared to refer the question to arbitration. A resolution was passed calling upon the owners to concede all the demands within fourteen days. The Headmaster of the Jharia High School presiding over one of the meetings raised eyebrows in the government. The Political (Special) Department drew pointed attention of the Education Department. Bose’s speech at this meeting was sent to the Government of India with the Government of Bihar’s next fortnightly confidential report as a ‘typical’ speech from him.
While the heavy rain literally proved a damp squib for the Congress Session at Ramgarh in Hazaribag district (March 15 to 18, 1939) it did not deter the participants of the All-India Anti-Compromise Conference. Bose was the President and Swami Sahjanand together with Sheelbhadra Yajee was active in the Reception Committee. Hitting at the Rightists Bose observed” …The success of this Conference should mean the death knell of compromise with Imperialism…” In an obvious indictment of Gandhi and an ultimatum to the British Government the Conference resolved to start a country-wide satyagraha on April 6 against India’s forced participation in the war and to make a final bid for independence. Ironically, this also marked the breaking up of the short-lived Left Consolidation Committee. The government’s retaliation was prompt. The other leaders of the Forward Bloc were arrested but Bose was surprisingly left untouched. This also was the end of Bose’s direct ties with Bihar.
Reference:
1. Political (Special) Department, Government of Bihar, file no.491 (1) of 1939
2. Political (Special ) Department, Government of Bihar, file no. 65 of 1940
3. A Beacon Across Asia, edited biography, Orient Longman, New Delhi, 1973.
4. The Indian Struggle, 1920-42, Subhas Chandra Bose, Netaji Research Bureau, Calcutta, 1966
5. Freedom Movement in Bihar vol.2, K.K.Datta, Government of Bihar, Patna,1957.
6. Personal Interviews.
Dr. Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.),
‘NIRVANA’,
Buddha Colony,
Patna - 800 001
Email : sudhirjhapatna@gmail.com
(The author is a former Director General of Police, Bihar)
Subhas Chandra Bose was born and schooled at Cuttack in Orissa. His family had close ties with Bengal but hardly any with Bihar. Bose became known in Bihar only after he spurned the heaven-born Indian Civil Service in 1921, at the age of 24, to join the freedom movement. He was still in his twenties when he started visiting Bihar both as a labour leader and as a Congress worker, often as a protégé of Deshbandhu Chitranjan Das. Bose threw in his lot with Das when, following the annual Congress session at Gaya towards the end of 1922, the latter resigned from the Congress and formed the Swaraj Party—to fight for freedom from within the legislatures. The year 1928 proved annus mirabilis for Bose. Industrial unrest was sweeping across the country. The strike in the Tata Iron and Steel Company had dragged on for months and was on the verge of fizzling out. When the veteran C.F.Andrews had also failed to break the deadlock, Bose was sent for. Bose came, bargained and secured an honourable settlement with the management.. This endeared him to the workers at Jamshedpur and also set the stage for his election as the President of the All-India Trade Union Congress, then the labour front of the Congress. The following year he helped resolve the strike in the Tin Plate Company at Jamshedpur. A decade later he was to tour Bihar extensively under circumstances that were far from happy for him. But let us not anticipate.
Bose always thought himself to be a loyal soldier of the Congress but within the organization he was considered a bull in a china shop. For his Leftist, read Socialist, views he had found a soul mate in Jawaharlal Nehru and at the Calcutta Congress session in 1928 they had together challenged the Motilal Nehru Committee report recommending Dominion Status for India. Bose admired Mahatma Gandhi for giving a definite direction to the Indian freedom movement from 1920 to 1932 but criticised him for the temporary suspension of civil disobedience in 1933. Bose resented the soft and constitutional approach adopted by the Congress Party thereafter. He was deeply hurt when the Congress accepted office. His peers called him a rebel and a radical but Bose was not the one to keep quiet or mince his words. Gandhi thought that responsibility might mellow Bose. With the former’s blessings Bose succeeded Jawaharlal Nehru as the President of the Indian National Congress, at the age of 41. Bose returned the compliments by paying glowing tributes to Gandhi in his presidential address at the Haripura(Gujarat) session in 1938. While the two shared the common goal of independence, they were not in sync regarding the means. Gandhi was prepared to wait and considered it immoral to press for freedom when Britain was on the brink of a war in Europe. Bose, on the other hand, believed in the doctrine popularised by Bal Gangadhar Tilak in the twenties that Britain’s difficulty was India’s opportunity. Ironically, Gandhi had to give the ‘Quit India’ call in 1942 while Britain was still at war.
Gandhi, hoping that Bose would not be running for a second term, proposed Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya for the post. Bose not only contested but also won. Gandhi took his candidate’s defeat rather personally and did not forgive Bose. Bose tried hard to soften Gandhi but failed. For Bose the ensuing Congress session at Tripuri (Madhya Pradesh) in March 1939 was a disaster. He was ill and his brother Sarat Chandra read his speech, in absentia. “ In my opinion we should submit our national demand to the British government and give a certain time limit within which a reply is to be received. If no reply is received within this period or if an unsatisfactory reply is received, we should resort to such sanctions as we possess in order to enforce our national demand…What more opportune moment could we find in our national history for a final advance in the direction of Swaraj, particularly when the international situation is favourable to us? Speaking as a cold-blooded realist, I may say that all the facts of the present-day situation are so much to our advantage that one should entertain the highest degree of optimism”. This was to become the leit motif of his speeches during his tour of Bihar a few months later. This suggestion of an ultimatum was brushed aside by the Working Committee in a resolution, which expressed confidence in Gandhi and by implication conveyed lack of confidence in Bose. An ailing Bose sojourned to his brother’s house at Jamadoba in the Jharia Coalfields to recoup his physical health and mental equanimity. The retreat afforded him further opportunity to observe the condition of the Colliery workers. Only days later a composed Bose announced his resignation from the presidentship of the Congress at the meeting of the All India Congress Committee in Calcutta on 29 April 1939. He had realised that Gandhi was Congress and Congress was Gandhi and that he could do nothing within the Congress without having Gandhi on his side. Though humiliated, Bose’s love and respect for Gandhi remained undiminished. It was Bose who first referred to Gandhi as “ the Father of our Nation “ in one of his broadcasts from Southeast Asia.
Bose was down but not out. With his typical sang-froid, within four days of his resignation he formed another party, which he called Forward Bloc, not as a rival of the Congress but to work ‘within the Congress.’ Bose had the tasks for the Bloc well defined: consolidating the Leftist forces, winning over the majority of the Congress to its viewpoint and prevail upon the congress (read Gandhi) to resume the national struggle. The aim of the Bloc was the establishment of a socialist state within a fully independent India ( Purna Swarajya ). The first all-India conference of the Bloc on 22 June 1939 was followed by the formation of a Left Consolidation Committee. Gandhi was cut to the quick and summary action against Bose followed. He was debarred from holding any office in the Congress organization for three years effective from August. It was virtual expulsion. Far from feeling defensive Bose hit back by launching a weekly journal. A war of words ensued between the Forward Bloc and the Harijan.
Simultaneously Bose launched a mass contact programme to explain the raison d’etre of the Forward Bloc as well as to propagate his views on the national and international situation. And he chose Bihar to start his campaign. He had remained in touch with Bihar as the Congress President and from even before. By now the Kisan Sabha had taken firm root in Bihar. Kisan leaders such as Jai Prakash Narayan and Swami Sahjanand had hailed Bose’s election as the Congress President. Earlier, in February that year Bose had presided over a radical-dominated Political Conference at Chauram Ashram in Gaya district. What follows is neither a chronological nor an exhaustive account of his tours in Bihar; it is only a random sample. Bose was a man in a hurry and his Bihar tours at times resembled an election campaign. His hectic daily schedule started early in the morning and stretched late into the night. Moving from place to place he addressed pre-arranged meetings and also spoke impromptu to the people who thronged by the wayside for his darshan. It must have been tiring but the grand welcome he received made it worthwhile. Welcome arches were erected along the route, which was decorated with flowers, flags and festoons. While Bose’s own political and personal contacts also came handy the logistics of his itinerary were mostly taken care of by Swami Sahjanand and others of the Kisan Sabha. The firebrand Sheelbhadra Yajee was present at most of his meetings but Jai Prakash Narayan and Rambriksha Benipuri also shared the dais off and on. Bose spoke in Hindustani and occasionally, in Bengali –speaking pockets, in Bengali. A master of polemics Bose utilised all the dialectical weapons—attack, repartee, thrust and parry, irony and satire. He was quick to expose the chink in the opponent’s armour and drive his own point home. The government’s approach was one of restraint and caution. Realising that Bose ploughed a lone furrough and that he was quite harmless without the Congress, the government had his movements and speeches covered by the local police and the CID (Special Branch) without in any manner provoking him. Even when the district police and the DIG CID suggested the prosecution of Bose and Sheelbhadra Yajee under the Defence of India Act the government chose to ignore it. Bose’s speeches reported by the CID were routinely put up before Dr. S.K.Sinha as the Prime Minister and later before the Governor or his Advisor who found the speeches stereotyped.
Bose addressed a public meeting, about 10000 strong, at the Tilak Maidan, Muzaffarpur (the largest town in North Bihar) in the evening of August 26, 1939. Some Muslims were also present though their number was small. The meeting, which lasted for about seventy minutes, started with a national song in Bengali language sung in a chorus. Bose was presented with three addresses from the local Kisan Sabha, Majdoor Dal and Navyuvak Dal but these were not read. Charging the British with double standards Bose questioned why their Prime Minister had declared to fight for the freedom of Poland and other countries but denied that freedom to India. If old enemies like Russia and Germany could enter into a Non-Aggression Pact, Bose countered, then the Rightists and Leftists in the Congress could easily come together on a common platform. The situation for India and the Congress was substantially improved in 1939 compared to what it was in 1921 and 1925. There was heightened awareness in favour of freedom; the number of Congressmen had gone up from ten lakhs to fortyfive lakhs;Kisans and Majdoors had organized themselves and joined the freedom movement. In 1921 the people of the Native States had not joined the rest of the country in boycotting the visit of the Prince of Wales but now there was a change of mood there also. Moreover, the Congress was in power in eight states and could sabotage or stalemate the government from within. He was critical of the Congress for having accepted office and thereby supporting the Constitution rather than flouting it. He was prepared to follow any Congress leader, especially Gandhi or Rajendra Prasad, if he led a satyagraha , which might lead to Purna Swaraj. But what was the meaning of Swaraj? It did not mean replacing the white bureaucracy with a brown one. The power to govern should pass from the ‘selected’ few to the ‘elected’ few, to the MLAs and Ministers. The question of bread and freedom were not two different things; political independence and economic freedom were concomitants. In his presidential speech Kishori Prasanna Sinha condemned the Statesman for publishing that not supporting British war effort was tantamount to inviting Germany and Japan to overrun India.
The following day he arrived at Danapur (10 KMs from Patna) by train from where he was taken in a procession to Kachhi Talab, Khagaul where about 3000 persons, including some 25 Muslims, had congregated to hear him. As he mounted the podium there was a low-key black flag demonstration. B. Padamlalji was in the chair. Dr. Saghir Ahsan, Chairman, Reception Committee, read out the welcome address in English. Bose spoke in Hindustani and followed his usual line. Britain’s signing the Munich Pact against her better judgment had exposed her weakness vis-à-vis Germany, Italy and Japan, which were superior in air power. Outlining the genesis of the Forward Bloc he explained how it had come into being when the Congress, rather than following a ‘forward’ programme, had started drifting towards constitutional methods. Gandhi and Rajendra Prasad were all right with the Leftists and Socialists provided they could shake off the slackness, which had crept into the Congress, and gave a clarion call for satyagraha. Swami Sahjanand also spoke in the meeting and said similar things. The Subdivisional Officer of Danapur was present throughout and himself signed the CID reporter’s shorthand book. After the meeting Bose left for the house of Jimut Bahan Sen, a former Congress Minister, where he was to have his lunch.
In late afternoon Bose drove to Patna City where he was given a rousing reception .The area between the hackney stand, Chowk and Mangle’s Tank, the venue of the meeting, was decked up in his welcome. A large gathering at the meeting site, estimated at about 20000, included Sikhs, Muslims and Bengalis. Swami Sahjanand took the chair and Rambriksha Benipuri made the welcome speech. Nine addresses were on offer but only the Bengali Yuvak Sangh was allowed to present its in a silver casket. Bose more or less repeated his earlier speech at Khagaul to the effect that the Leftists, including himself, were all loyal soldiers of the Congress and would join a mass movement if the Congress launched one. From Patna City Bose proceeded to Patna Lawn (now known as Gandhi Maidan) where rowdyism made the meeting impossible. Some students, irked at Bose’s public criticism of Gandhi and Rajendra Prasad, showed black flags and raised slogans of “ Subhas go back ”. Bose left the place in a huff. He was running late but an undeterred crowd of about 5000, including women, waited patiently till he arrived at the venue, the Danapur Cinema compound, at 2030 hours. Some black flags were waved but the SDO Danapur, who was present at the meeting, controlled the situation. After Gandhi’s condemnation of crowd behaviour and Rajendra Prasad’s admonition there were no further disturbances at Bose’s meetings in Bihar.
Driving from Patna in the morning of August 28 Bose was given a grand ovation two miles short of Ara town. He was made to leave his car and mount an elephant. Negotiating several welcome arches the procession reached the compound of the Ara Nagari Pracharini Sabha where Bose spoke to a gathering of about 4000. Swami Sahjanand presided. Four addresses were presented on behalf of the youth, students, Kisan Sabha and Majdoor Sabha. There was no variation in the theme though emphasis changed according to the composition of the audience. The Leftists were only the revolutionary arm of the Congress, Bose asserted. He exhorted the people of Ara to join the Forward Bloc in large numbers to compel the congress to launch a satyagraha without further delay. At the end a resolution was passed to the effect that the people of Ara had full faith in Bose. On his return journey Bose received warm welcome at Bikram (5000) and Bihta (6000) where he dwelt on how the interests of the Kisans were being harmed by the landlords and the government acting in collusion. He attacked the Zamindari system and criticised the British for introducing it. He appealed to the Kisans to organize themselves and also strengthen the Congress by enrolling in large numbers, preferably before the 15th September 1939, the last date for enrolment. Das & Company (still in business at Patna) supplied the loud speakers at Ara and Bikram. Leaving Bihta at 1645 hours Bose and party reached Bakhtiarpur at 2005 hours, behind schedule, as he was stopped and garlanded at several places including Fatuha Bazar. Shyam Nandan Singh MLA was in the chair. After speaking to a gathering of about 2000 Bose proceeded to Barh where about 500 persons heard Bose despite rain and late hours (2145 to 2225 hours). Sheelbhadra Yajee proposed a vote of thanks.
On the 29th August Bose’s entourage arrived at Patna Lawn (now Gandhi Maidan) at 1700 hours. Almost 20000 persons including ladies, mostly Bengali, had been waitngThe dais was tastefully decorated and both the tricolur and red flags were conspicuously displayed. Before the commencement of the proceedings Rambriksha Benipuri and Comrade Anisur Rehman exhorted the audience to shout anti-imperialist slogans and it obliged. Jai Prakash Narayan presided. Benipuri made the welcome speech. Bose spoke for over an hour along familiar lines. Referring to the hooliganism at his aborted meeting two days earlier he called it a shame for Bihar and Patna and lambasted the Indian Nation, one of the two local English dailies, for having played it up. He cautioned against the Divide and Rule policy of the British, which they practised not only between the Hindus and Muslims but also between the Rightists and Leftists within the Congress. Taking a dig at the presence of constables in the meeting he remarked that they had been deputed ostensibly to protect him and Yajee. It was a pity that the Congressmen could not protect their own leaders and depended on policemen to do so. This time no attempt was made to disturb the meeting and the audience, defying heavy shower, patiently heard him.
After the Second World War had broken out there was little change in the content of his speeches but his tone and tenor betrayed greater impatience and stridency. Driving from Jamshedpur to Chaibasa in the afternoon of 4th December 1939 he addressed a 200-strong crowd at Haldipokhar in Bengali. About a thousand people were waiting for him at the Gandhi Park, Chaibasa where memoranda were presented to him in Hindi and in Bengali. Bose first spoke in Hindustani and towards the end in Bengali too. In the evening Bose addressed a predominantly Adivasi gathering (5000). The meeting began with slogans of ‘Adivasi ki Jai’. In the midst of his usual speech he made a general appeal to join the Congress in ‘ lakhs and crores’ to give it the desired direction and thrust. The meeting became important for what Jaipal Singh, the most important Adivasi leader to date, said in his presidential speech. Singh said that the Forward Bloc had oppressed the Adivasis just as the Congress had ignored them. He demanded that the Adivasis could join the Congress only if the Chhotanagpur and the Santhal Parganas was recognised as a separate area for the Adivasis. Incidentally, following a fiery speech by Yajee at a meeting of the District Forward Bloc at Jamshedpur on the 12th December, the government directed the DIG CID that Yajee’s speeches should also be reported in full occasionally.
Bose and Yajee were present at Khunti in Ranchi district on the 17th December. Here the gathering was small but Bose spoke at length. He said he was happy to have come to Ranchi after a lapse of twentyfive years. He felt sad that the Adivasis had to migrate in search of bread as they were deprived at home. Striking a sentimental note he referred to the harsh treatment they received in the Assam tea gardens. All this would end once the British left. It did not matter whether Britain won or lost but the war was bound to sound the death-knell of imperialism. If Britain lost British imperialism would end and if Germany lost Germany’s neo-imperialism (Hitlerism) would end; either way these imperialist powers would be weakened, to India’s advantage. Kisans and Majdoors were only waiting to be led. This was, therefore, the right time to hit at the British government.
On the 24th December Bose addressed meetings at Warisnagar (3000) and Samastipur (1000), both in Darbhanga district. On the 25th December he toured Munger district and addressed gatherings at Lakhisarai (5000), Jamalpur (3000) and Munger Town (3000). People had also collected, to see him and to hear him, at Mokamaghat, Barhaiya, Kajra, Abhaypur and Dharhara where his train stopped. The speeches were repetitive in content and their gist only is being given. The British not only ruled India but also exploited her; thus British imperialism was responsible for both her slavery and poverty. Now was the time, when Britain was engaged in war with Germany, to press for swaraj through a non-violent satyagraha to be to be launched in the near future, implying that if the Congress lagged behind then the Forward Bloc was ready to spearhead it. Britain championed democracy in Poland and elsewhere but denied it to India on the facetious plea that because of the friction between the Hindus and the Muslims India was not fit for independence. The British argued that if they went away the Muslims and Hindus would finish one another. Bose dismissed this logic as puerile. Bose retorted that let the British first leave and then the two communities would sort out their differences as they had done for centuries. Pooh-poohing the bogey of foreign invasion on India created by the British, Bose demanded to know how could the British protect India when their own country was threatened? As for the politics within the Congress he was satisfied after his talks with Gandhi that the Congress was not going to fight the British and that in Gandhi’s opinion the Leftists and the Rightists could not work together. That is why he (Bose) had resigned from the presidentship of the Congress and had formed the Forward Bloc – to force the Congress to take up the fight against the British or else the Bloc would do it if the Congress opted out.
It was January 1940 and Bose was once again back in Patna. It was a winter afternoon and the venue was once again Mangle’s Tank in Patna City. Bose exhorted all those present to celebrate the 26th of January as Independence Day with great gusto even though the Forward Bloc had not withdrawn its opposition to the new Independence Pledge. Benipuri, who presided, outlined the details of the weeklong programme culminating in the flag hoisting on the 26th morning at the same venue. Swami Sahjanand also spoke on the occasion. An hour later Bose was at the Patna Lawn (also known then as Bankipur Maidan and now Gandhi Maidan). Sticking to the stereotyped text he added that the news about the war was very confusing. As all the news came from government-controlled radio bulletins and Reuters, a foreign news agency, the reporting was censored and one-sided. While the British success stories were played up the advances made by Russia and Germany were blacked out. He cautioned not to be taken in by the wartime propaganda and concentrate on making the Independence Day a success. He could not go to Gaya owing to section 144 promulgated there. By the way, the highlight of the 26th January was the speech at Barh in Patna District by Yajee. The government agreed with the Superintendent of Police of Patna that the speech was “ a clear incitement to prevent recruiting or any contribution to the war” but overruled his suggestion to prosecute Yajee under the Defence of India Act.
At Bhagalpur in the evening of 2nd February Bose spoke to a gathering of about 9000, including 60 Bengali ladies. In not-so-veiled attack on Gandhi he ridiculed the wearing of khadi and spinning of charkha, which had become the mascot of India’s freedom movement. Slogans of Inquilqb Zindabad and Subhas Babu ki jai rented the air. While Sheodhari Singh MLA presided, Santlal Singh (later a teacher of Political Science in Patna University) also spoke. Bose was again the main speaker at a largely attended Munger District Students’ Conference held at Begusarai on the 3rd February. Rahul Sankirtyayan was in the chair. At Begusarai Bose enjoyed the hospitality of Satish Chandra Bose (uncle of the eminent eye surgeon of Patna Dr. D.K.Bose), a leading lawyer and active as the Chairman of the Munger District Board though confined to a wheel chair. On the 8th February Bose reached the Jahanabad Thakurbari at 1700 hours, five hours behind schedule. He got up to speak amidst shouts of Subhas Babuki jai and thanked the audience for the grand reception they had given him. He was delighted at the large gathering and apologised for the delay in his arrival. He congratulated the students for having observed a strike on the 26th January and urged them to keep up the pressure. He regretted that Gandhi was spending so much time with the Viceroy and the Congress was veering more and more towards compromise. That was going back on the pledge of complete independence they had taken in at Lahore in 1929 and repeated every year on the 26th January. It would be a shame if the Congress in Bihar again joined the government as was being rumoured. He appealed to the Kisans to attend the Congress session at Ramgarh (Hazaribag district) the following month in lakhs and frustrate any move at compromise with imperialism. Swami Sahajanand elaborated the plans for Ramgarh and told the Kisans how to make their presence felt. A big mashal julus would be taken out there with slogans such as samjhauta murdabad, angreji saltanat murdabad to voice their fight against imperialism, capitalism and zamindari. They must blockade the Congress session by their parallel anti-compromise meeting. At the end Bhairo Singh, who presided, thanked Bose on behalf of the public of Jahanabad.
Bose’s proposed tour of the Jharia coalfields on February 11 and 12 had frightened the colliery owners. The Indian Mining Association, headquartered in Calcutta, apprehending “serious labour disturbances” and “organised sabotage” petitioned the Governor of Bihar to prohibit the entry of Bose into the coalfields. Even the Additional Deputy Commissioner of Dhanbad, swayed by the entreaties of the colliery owners, wanted to prohibit Bose’s entry by a general order. The government wrote back to the IMA declining their request and also dissuaded the Addl. DC from issuing any prohibitory orders. As it turned out the government was proved right. Bose, accompanied by Swami Sahjanand, Sheelbhadra Yajee, Dhanraj Sharma and Shankar Lal, Secretary of the All-India Forward Bloc, reached Dhanbad from Giridih, four hours late, at 2000 hours on February 11. Mostly students and about 200 ladies attended the late evening meeting. The colliery workers attended his three meetings on the 12th. Bose’s political utterances were on known lines. Regarding labour, he endorsed the demand put forward by Satya Bimal Sen, the local labour leader, to demand more than six pice in the rupee, that is 10%, to which most of the owners had already agreed. Bose advised the workers to raise, in one voice and in writing; their demand for a rise in wages and to remain prepared to refer the question to arbitration. A resolution was passed calling upon the owners to concede all the demands within fourteen days. The Headmaster of the Jharia High School presiding over one of the meetings raised eyebrows in the government. The Political (Special) Department drew pointed attention of the Education Department. Bose’s speech at this meeting was sent to the Government of India with the Government of Bihar’s next fortnightly confidential report as a ‘typical’ speech from him.
While the heavy rain literally proved a damp squib for the Congress Session at Ramgarh in Hazaribag district (March 15 to 18, 1939) it did not deter the participants of the All-India Anti-Compromise Conference. Bose was the President and Swami Sahjanand together with Sheelbhadra Yajee was active in the Reception Committee. Hitting at the Rightists Bose observed” …The success of this Conference should mean the death knell of compromise with Imperialism…” In an obvious indictment of Gandhi and an ultimatum to the British Government the Conference resolved to start a country-wide satyagraha on April 6 against India’s forced participation in the war and to make a final bid for independence. Ironically, this also marked the breaking up of the short-lived Left Consolidation Committee. The government’s retaliation was prompt. The other leaders of the Forward Bloc were arrested but Bose was surprisingly left untouched. This also was the end of Bose’s direct ties with Bihar.
Reference:
1. Political (Special) Department, Government of Bihar, file no.491 (1) of 1939
2. Political (Special ) Department, Government of Bihar, file no. 65 of 1940
3. A Beacon Across Asia, edited biography, Orient Longman, New Delhi, 1973.
4. The Indian Struggle, 1920-42, Subhas Chandra Bose, Netaji Research Bureau, Calcutta, 1966
5. Freedom Movement in Bihar vol.2, K.K.Datta, Government of Bihar, Patna,1957.
6. Personal Interviews.
Dr. Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.),
‘NIRVANA’,
Buddha Colony,
Patna - 800 001
Email : sudhirjhapatna@gmail.com
(The author is a former Director General of Police, Bihar)
RED ALERT OR CRYING WOLF
‘Red alert’ is a term much abused by the media. It is not a term to be found in the lexicon of the government or the administration. Even the Blue Book governing the arrangements for the protection of the President and the Prime Minister does not use this expression. Even the Webster dictionary does not mention it. It is only the media which advertises this grim-sounding expression to sensationalize a situation. Following a terrorist attack in J&K, a Naxalite raid in Andhra Pradesh or a kidnapping in Bihar , the print as well as electronic media screams that the administration has declared a ‘red alert’. Red Alert isn't really an alert status as much as a sign that things have already gone wrong. History records many instances of deadly strategic surprises. Alert, red or otherwise, was sounded only after Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1940, Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington and not before. Had the United States gone to Red Alert a few minutes after the first plane hit the World Trade Center, the attack on the Pentagon, the plane crash in Pennsylvania and, perhaps, the second World Trade Centre attack would probably have been averted.
In the Indian context, as a knee-jerk reaction police departments' plans typically include stationing a lot of personnel in visible locations and upping neighborhood patrols. After having pressed the panic button the media forgets all about it. Red alert conveys that something like an emergency has been declared but it forgets that Protective Measures for a Severe Condition are not intended to be sustained for substantial periods of time. Operating at a permanently high level of alert carries its own potentially damaging costs. But you never read or hear of a ‘red alert’ being withdrawn or rescinded.
An alert is the declaration of a threat perception and the colour red conveys danger at its severest. It is in this sense that we can trace ‘red alert’ to the period of the Cold War. Cold War refers to the rivalry that developed during the second half of the twentieth century between countries espousing different political ideologies. The Soviet Union and its satellite states, often referred to as the Eastern bloc, were on one side. The United States and its allies were on the other, and were usually referred to as the Western bloc. Beginning at the end of World War II in 1945, the Cold War lasted until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. During the Cold War, both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. built immense early warning systems to guard against surprise, full-scale nuclear attacks. Initially, the greater amount of information that these systems collected reduced vulnerability to surprise attacks. But as the systems became more sophisticated, each side faced a new dilemma. Various innocent activities could be interpreted by an overly sensitive system as the initial stages of an all out attack. So to reduce the risk of launching a false preemptive attack, the superpowers built alert systems that decreased the sensitivity of the system to incoming information. They color-coded the threat-assessment scheme. Above "Elevated Risk (coloured Orange)," where the country would likely remain at for the duration of the war, there was only one level: "Severe Risk" a.k.a. Red Alert.
A virtual genre of topical fiction sprang up in the 1950s spinning grim tales of just how close to nuclear destruction the world could be. Peter George’s 1958 novel Red Alert painted the worst of all possible worst-case scenarios in the Cold War – an American General loses his reason and orders full-scale nuclear attack on the USSR. It was originally published in the UK as “Two Hours to Doom” – with George using the nom de plume “Peter Bryant”. Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler’s later bestseller Fail Safe so closely resembled Red Alert in its premise that George sued on the charge of plagiarism and won an out-of-court settlement.
‘Red Alert’ has come alive once again for the US government following the September 11 attack. In its war on terrorism it has revived the colour coding of threat perception. A Red Alert would meanthere is a severe risk of terrorist attack or that an attack is imminent or may already be under way. A red alert would also tear away virtually all personal freedoms to move about and associate.All non-critical functions will cease; non-critical would be almost all businesses, except health-related. As the war on terrorism is likely to go on for along time, it will be interesting to observe how the US resolves the confrontation between security and freedom.
Nearer home, let the media not colour-code its own perception of a situation. It should confine its duty to convey to the public any do’s and don’ts that the administration may prescribe in a given situation. It must realise that there is a difference between alerting and alarming the public. If it cries wolf, read red alert, too often it will lose credibility and may not be taken seriously when the situation may warrant. In the mean time, if it must go on red-alerting let it do so to warn against mounting threat from Tsunami, global warming and endangered biodiversity.
(Sudhir Kumar Jha)
The author is a former Director General of Police, Bihar. He can be contacted at sudhirjhapatna@gmail.com
In the Indian context, as a knee-jerk reaction police departments' plans typically include stationing a lot of personnel in visible locations and upping neighborhood patrols. After having pressed the panic button the media forgets all about it. Red alert conveys that something like an emergency has been declared but it forgets that Protective Measures for a Severe Condition are not intended to be sustained for substantial periods of time. Operating at a permanently high level of alert carries its own potentially damaging costs. But you never read or hear of a ‘red alert’ being withdrawn or rescinded.
An alert is the declaration of a threat perception and the colour red conveys danger at its severest. It is in this sense that we can trace ‘red alert’ to the period of the Cold War. Cold War refers to the rivalry that developed during the second half of the twentieth century between countries espousing different political ideologies. The Soviet Union and its satellite states, often referred to as the Eastern bloc, were on one side. The United States and its allies were on the other, and were usually referred to as the Western bloc. Beginning at the end of World War II in 1945, the Cold War lasted until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. During the Cold War, both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. built immense early warning systems to guard against surprise, full-scale nuclear attacks. Initially, the greater amount of information that these systems collected reduced vulnerability to surprise attacks. But as the systems became more sophisticated, each side faced a new dilemma. Various innocent activities could be interpreted by an overly sensitive system as the initial stages of an all out attack. So to reduce the risk of launching a false preemptive attack, the superpowers built alert systems that decreased the sensitivity of the system to incoming information. They color-coded the threat-assessment scheme. Above "Elevated Risk (coloured Orange)," where the country would likely remain at for the duration of the war, there was only one level: "Severe Risk" a.k.a. Red Alert.
A virtual genre of topical fiction sprang up in the 1950s spinning grim tales of just how close to nuclear destruction the world could be. Peter George’s 1958 novel Red Alert painted the worst of all possible worst-case scenarios in the Cold War – an American General loses his reason and orders full-scale nuclear attack on the USSR. It was originally published in the UK as “Two Hours to Doom” – with George using the nom de plume “Peter Bryant”. Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler’s later bestseller Fail Safe so closely resembled Red Alert in its premise that George sued on the charge of plagiarism and won an out-of-court settlement.
‘Red Alert’ has come alive once again for the US government following the September 11 attack. In its war on terrorism it has revived the colour coding of threat perception. A Red Alert would meanthere is a severe risk of terrorist attack or that an attack is imminent or may already be under way. A red alert would also tear away virtually all personal freedoms to move about and associate.All non-critical functions will cease; non-critical would be almost all businesses, except health-related. As the war on terrorism is likely to go on for along time, it will be interesting to observe how the US resolves the confrontation between security and freedom.
Nearer home, let the media not colour-code its own perception of a situation. It should confine its duty to convey to the public any do’s and don’ts that the administration may prescribe in a given situation. It must realise that there is a difference between alerting and alarming the public. If it cries wolf, read red alert, too often it will lose credibility and may not be taken seriously when the situation may warrant. In the mean time, if it must go on red-alerting let it do so to warn against mounting threat from Tsunami, global warming and endangered biodiversity.
(Sudhir Kumar Jha)
The author is a former Director General of Police, Bihar. He can be contacted at sudhirjhapatna@gmail.com
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