Rats - And The Sinking Ship

The photo accompanying this post is from Jaitapur on the Konkan Coast just north of Goa, where a State-owned nuclear power plant is slated to come up. This photo appeared in Outlook, and shows our State Police meting out rough treatment to locals opposed to the forcible seizure of their lands, and also opposed to a nuclear facility in their area for reasons of safety. The report in Outlook says this about the Central State's choice of Jaitapur as a site for a nuclear power plant:

But in 20 years, as many as 92 quakes have been recorded here [Jaitapur], with the severest of them in 1993 measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale. The region is officially seismically marked as Zone III — Zone V being the worst category. And despite the elevation of the site on a plateau, concerns about a tsunami refuse to fade. It is perhaps keeping this in mind that Commerzbank, the German bank backing the project, pulled out even before the Japanese crisis, citing the “sustainability and reputational risk” involved.

There is another report, this time in Tehelka, which chronicles abuses of power by the State Police - who seem to be on the side of our The State and not The People, and must therefore be looked upon as Predators, not Protectors. The report begins saying that "lock-ups, prisons and court cases have become an integral part of the lives of Jaitapur’s residents." The opening para ends saying that this "scenic village" has been turned into a "state of dystopia."

[Dystopia is the opposite of Utopia: that is, a place where conditions of life are dreadful.]

Tehelka goes on to say that Section 144 of the Indian Penal Code (relating to unlawful assembly) has been in force in Jaitapur since August, 2010, in order to "maintain peace." They say false cases have been lodged against activists opposing the nuclear power plant. They add that the latest from the State Police is the arrest of 14 persons including a prominent nuclear plant opposer, Dr. Milind Desai.

The new chief minister of Maharashtra - who took over when the last chap was replaced by the CONgress High Command in Nude Elly because of his direct involvement in the Adarsh building scam - is the very same fellow who flanked Chacha Manmohan when he signed the nuclear deal with Sarkozy: Prithviraj Chavan, who then Minister for Science and Technology in Nude Elly. Tehelka says Prithviraj Chavan is "the PM’s point man for the Jaitapur plant and all other new n-plants coming up in the country." Thus, the new CM is very keen on seeing the project through.

However, when this chief minister visited the area, 10,000 locals turned up to meet him, shouting, “No nuclear power, no nuclear plant.” Writing about this public appearance of the CM, Tehelka says:

In front of a gathering of 10,000 Chavan had no choice but to listen to them, but he was visibly annoyed sitting on the dais, helpless.

When he finally spoke, Chavan stressed in an uncharacteristically aggressive tone the ‘misconceptions’ and misleading reports the locals were made to believe. He invoked national pride and the competition with China to justify the successful completion of the project, but appeared to have ignored local sentiment.

Thus, this new CM is an agent of Nude Elly - and a traitor to his own Maharashtrian people. Nude Elly, on its part, has committed High Treason against these simple and innocent village folk - as I wrote in a recent post.

In any case, electricity production by our The State should be opposed by all right-thinking citizens - if they desire regular, uninterrupted power supply. Electricity must be privatised - and private power producers will choose the fuels that are cheap and safe. Full liability will apply to them in case of accidents. This is what ought to be.

Let us turn to the people at the top - in Nude Elly. A timely column by Pritish Nandy - who has also been a Rajya Sabha MP (Shiv Sena!) - is titled "A ship about to sink." Here are some chosen quotes:

The Indian Political Philharmonic Orchestra must be the world’s most amazing cacophony of rogues, rascals and robbers. 

But now, enough is enough. Neither [Manmohan] Singh nor Pranab Mukherjee, nor anyone else is capable any more of saving this Government. It’s neck deep in its own sticky sleaze.... Look at Singh, wan and waylost.

But that doesn’t mean they are not malevolent. These are people who are destroying India from within. They are not just robbing you, me, and the exchequer. They are destroying institutions, subverting laws, vandalising our heritage and history, and trying to build a dazzling, amoral edifice of crime and corruption unprecedented in the nation’s history. It’s a scary scenario that could turn the land of the Mahatma into one gigantic Gotham City with a flyover to hell.

I had begun this post with the abuses of power being committed by the State Police against innocent people - and they are the rats in this sinking CONgress ship.

I am now even more convinced that every citizen should get himself a gun. We must all be fully capable of defending ourselves - against the State Police, who are our oppressors.

My ideal is India before the Police Act of 1861 - ironically, the very same year that Rabindranath Tagore, the poet who dreamed of an India "where the mind is without fear and the head is held high," was born. Till then, the "civilians" of the East India Company ruled without police support. All that these HEICS civilians did was maintain land records up-to-date and settle disputes.

In England, there were no policemen till 1829, when Sir Robert Peel established the Bobby of London - who remains unarmed.

And in good, old America, every town elected its own Sheriff - while every citizen was armed.

There is the other ideal too - of the Anglo-Saxon tribes of old, who had no notion of crimes other than "crimes against the individual," which were treated as Torts. I wrote about this "superior justice" of restitution (as against the retribution of today) just the other day.

Enough of these rats of the State Police. Let them go down with the sinking Pirate Ship of State. Let us be free. And let us be secure with our own arms.