LETTERS

Issn 0012-9976
Ever since the first issue in 1966,
EPW has been Indias premier journal for Maoist Violence I of fighting for the poor. These facilities are
comment on current affairs
used by the oppressed. The Maoists are
and research in the social sciences.
It succeeded Economic Weekly (1949-1965),
which was launched and shepherded
by Sachin Chaudhuri,
who was also the founder-editor of EPW.
I would like to congratulate you for
writing the editorial Violence of the
Oppressed (EPW, 8 June 2013). What
nothing but underworld gangs and they
indulge in extortion and forcible recruit-
ment. Their violent means have seriously
As editor for thirty-five years (1969-2004)
you have written is correct. But you have impeded development and it is in their
Krishna Raj
gave EPW the reputation it now enjoys. not written three important things. vested interests that no development takes
First, the violence of the oppressors place in the regions they control. It is high
editor
C Rammanohar Reddy have partly also dehumanised the op- time that the government uses air power,
EXECUTIVE Editor
pressed, even their revolutionary lead- like armed drones and foliage penetration
aniket Alam ers. At the moment, revolution is a far radars, to tackle these ruthless terrorists.
Deputy Editor cry and for the oppressed adivasis what Deendayal M Lulla
Bernard DMello matters today is bare survival. It is an- Mumbai
web Editor ger and thirst for revenge that drive the
subhash rai Maoist fighters when they kill their op- J S Verma
Senior Assistant Editors pressors. It is naive to demand of them
Lina Mathias
Srinivasan ramani
copy editors
Prabha Pillai
that they should respect the Geneva
Conventions; they probably have not
even heard of such things.
S riram Panchus article A Tribute to
J S Verma (EPW, 11 May 2013) was
informative and illuminated the imprint
jyoti shetty Second, it is true that central India is wit- of the late Jagadish Sharan Verma on the
Assistant editor nessing the biggest grab of tribal land after Indian judicial system and public life. I
P S Leela
Columbus. But can Indias middle class would like to add that one of his key con-
editorial Assistant
lubna duggal and the common people, other than the tributions was to our educational system
production
adivasis, prosper without this process? Can through his report on teacher education.
u raghunathan India become an economic superpower Justice Verma was the chairman of the
s lesline corera without this process? The answer is, No. high-powered commission appointed in
suneethi nair
The alternative is to give up this whole May 2012 by the Supreme Court on teacher
Circulation
Gauraang Pradhan Manager pursuit of prosperity. There are, after all, education. The commission submitted its
B S Sharma limits to growth. Gandhiji knew this, but report Vision of Teacher Education in
Advertisement Manager our present-day leaders appear ignorant. India: Quality and Regulatory Perspec-
Kamal G Fanibanda Finally, even if the pursuit of prosper- tive in August 2012. The report recognised
General Manager & Publisher ity is given up, unbridled population the absence of an institutional mecha-
K Vijayakumar
growth will continue to cause conflict nism in the National Council for Teacher
editorial
edit@epw.in and violence. Paul Ehrlich said long ago, Education (NCTE) to review norms and
Circulation addressing political activists of the left, standards of teacher education institutions
circulation@epw.in
Whatever your cause, it is a lost cause in a continuous and systematic way. The
Advertising
advertisement@epw.in unless we control population. commission recommended that the NCTE
Economic and Political Weekly Saral Sarkar should develop comprehensive guidelines
320-321, A to Z Industrial Estate Kln, Germany for innovative teacher education program-
Ganpatrao Kadam Marg, Lower Parel
Mumbai 400 013 mes as well as a teacher education, assess-
Phone: (022) 4063 8282 II ment and accreditation centre. J S Verma
FAX: (022) 2493 4515
has left us a worthwhile legacy.
EPW Research Foundation
EPW Research Foundation, established in 1993, conducts
research on financial and macro-economic issues in India.
I do not subscribe to the views ex-
pressed in the editorial, Violence of
the Oppressed (EPW, 8 June 2013). Your
Vargheese K A
Azim Premji University
Bangalore
Director
k kanagasabapathy editorial supports Maoist violence, which
C 212, Akurli Industrial Estate is wrong. Every day police atrocities take Attacking INSAF
Kandivali (East), Mumbai 400 101
Phones: (022) 2887 3038/41 place but hapless citizens do not resort
to violence. Similar is the case with vic-
W e the undersigned are shocked
Fax: (022) 2887 3038
epwrf@vsnl.com
tims of judicial excesses or corruption, and dismayed at the Government
Printed by K Vijayakumar at Modern Arts and Industries,
151, A-Z Industrial Estate, Ganpatrao Kadam Marg,
who may have no voice, and yet do not of Indias action against Indian Social
Lower Parel, Mumbai-400 013 and resort to violence. Action Forum (INSAF), a national coali-
published by him on behalf of Sameeksha Trust
from 320-321, A-Z Industrial Estate,
The Maoists attack bridges, railway tion of 700 peoples movements, social
Ganpatrao Kadam Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai-400 013. stations, hospitals and other public action groups and progressive intellec-
Editor: C Rammanohar Reddy.
institutions. This goes against their claim tuals with an active presence in 15 states
4 june 15, 2013 vol xlviII no 24 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

of India. According to a communication
from the home ministry dated 30 April
2013, the INSAF bank account has been
frozen because its activities are prejudi-
cial to the public interest.
Over the last few years, INSAF has es-
tablished its identity as a platform where
independent and autonomous secular
and democratic groups can come togeth-
er in pursuit of their common aims of
protecting democracy, resisting iniqui-
tous forms of globalisation and combat-
ing communalism. INSAF members have
been in the forefront of democratic pro-
tests against religious fundamentalism
and communal violence.
INSAF has made important interven-
tions in public debates on issues of
national concern including land grabs by
Indian companies in Africa, violations of
technical and statutory norms in respect
of mining, deforestation and nuclear
energy generation projects, in the deploy-
ment of black laws such as Armed Forces
(Special Powers) Act against human rights
defenders and with respect to state vio-
lence against dalits, adivasis and minority
religious groups.
Recently, INSAF has petitioned the
Supreme Court to knock down the new
Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act
(FCRA) rules that give the government
unchecked powers to throttle the activi-
ties of organisations working for public
causes by branding them political and
blocking their access to foreign funds.
The INSAF petition highlights the dra-
conian nature of Rule 3(vi) which debars
non-governmental organisations from
political actions. Under these rules, the
government arrogates to itself the power
to take action against any group that ha-
bitually indulges in bandhs, hartals, rasta
roko, rail roko, or jail bharo. All of these
are non-violent and democratic forms of
protest and assertion that emerged from
our freedom struggle and are now recog-
nised around the world as legitimate
forms of protest.
Ironically, action has been taken us-
ing powers under Section 13 of the new
FCRA rules against the only organi-
sation challenging the home ministry
about it!
The action against INSAF is yet another
attempt by the state to undermine the
Economic & Political Weekly EPW june 15, 2013
democratic process and dismantle consti-
tutional guarantees of rights and freedoms
under the pretence of national security
and national interest. We stand with
INSAF in asserting the constitutional right
of every citizen of India to participate in
governance, which includes the right to
question, challenge and oppose the poli-
cies of the state through peaceful, non-
violent and democratic means.
Harsh Mander, L Ramdas, John Dayal,
Vasanth Kannabiran, S P Udaykumar,
Dayamani Barla, Bezwada Wilson, Farah
Naqvi, Ashish Kothari, and 340 others.
Indranath Majumder
I n the early 1980s, I found an early
Routledge edition of Maurice Dobbs
Russian Economic Development since the
Revolution in a rare book stall at the Cal-
cutta Book Fair. The owner knew my
face. He wanted Rs 20 for the book. Un-
employed, I was not in a position to pay
that amount. After knowing that, the
owner told me to pay whatever I could; I
bought the book for Rs 10. After a few
days, I visited the same stall. The owner
requested me to exchange the book for
an Indian reprint so that he could sell
the foreign edition to a wealthy customer
for the higher price. I disagreed and he
laughed. He was Indranath Majumder.
Majumder was born in the Khulna dis-
trict of Bangladesh in 1933. He came to
West Bengal in the early 1950s.
Majumder had the experience of par-
ticipating in the library movement in
West Bengal as an ordinary member and
he visited villages in the 1950s. On the
advice of some well-wishers, he started a
small book-selling and publishing con-
cern, Subarnarekha, in the 1960s. Ini-
tially, he specialised in old and rare
books on Indology. He had a gut knowl-
edge of both books and buyers. He often
collected specific books for specific buy-
ers; Indian and foreign scholars visited
Web Exclusives
The following articles have been uploaded in the past week in the Web Exclusives section of
the EPW website. They have not been published in the print edition.
Read them at http://epw.in
(1) The Voice of Jharkhand Moushumi Basu
(2) The Geopolitical War: Syrias Descent into Turmoil Stanly Johny
Articles posted before 8 June 2013 remain available in the Web Exclusives section.
vol xlviII no 24
LETTERS
his dingy office in central Calcutta to
find books they needed.
Subarnarekha published some quality
books, both in Bengali and English.
These include facsimile editions of
Upendrakishore and Sukumar Roys classic
books, Somnath Hores Tebhager Diary,
Radharaman Mitras Kalikata Darpan,
the autobiography of the great theatre
personality Binodini, Amar Katha, and
Arun Nags edited 19th century text, Sa-
teek Hutom Pyanchar Naksha. Sumanta
Banerjees book, In the Wake of Naxal-
bari, and essays in honour of Samar Sen
bearing the title, The Truth Unites, were
also published by Subarnarekha.
Indranath Majumder led a bohemian
life. In his younger days, he used to visit
Khalasitola, a famous pub in Calcutta,
for consuming indigenous liquor. He
came to know literary giants in Bengal
in the addas at Khalasitola. His list of
friends included Kamalkumar Majum-
der, Sunil Gangopadhyay and Shakti
Chattopadhyay. Majumders bohemian-
ism was not a mismatch with his passion
for books and his trade. He often gifted
rare books to his book-lover friends.
Later in his life, Majumder opened a
branch of Subarnarekha at Rabindranath
Tagores Santiniketan. The bookshop is
adjacent to the Visva Bharati University
campus. Indranath Majumder died this
year on the birth anniversary of Tagore.
Immediately after his death, Visva Bharati
University has served legal notice on
Subarnarekha to vacate this place. This
symbolises death of a rare tradition.
Arup Kumar Sen
Kolkata
Corrigendum
The article Indias Dream Run, 2003-08:
Understanding the Boom and Its Aftermath
by R Nagaraj, published on 18 May 2013,
contained some errors. These have been cor-
rected and the correct version has been placed
on the EPW website. A misalignment of the
columns in Table 1 has also been corrected.
5
LETTERS
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6 june 15, 2013 vol xlviII no 24 EPW Economic & Political Weekly