Varsha Bhosle and Animal Farm

[Sanjeev Sabhlok <sabhlok@almaak.usc.edu>]

Dear friends,

1. I wonder if you have read/ heard of Varsha Bhosle. Her articles on
Rediff are listed at: 

http://www.rediff.com/news/varsha.htm

Some punch she packs, this woman!

2. George Orwell:

How many of us remember Animal Farm? The humans were overthrown by the
animals (communists) to rid themselves of oppression. What was the result?
The much greater oppression by the pigs who were the new rulers.

Unmitigated power to anyone is scary. I know of how often this kind of
power is used. There was this CRPF officer who was posted in my district
(Barpeta) in 1990. For nearly two years I had battled Bodo terrorism
without one blemish on the human rights of the Bodo villagers. The reports
on atrocities submitted by the Bodo organizations contained pages after
pages of reports on Kokrajhar and other districts, but Barpeta (right in
the middle) was spared.

Then comes this man, trained in the Punjab. He told me over a drink in the
first meeting how he used to plant weapons to show that a particular
person was a terrorist, in order to show an encounter. He tried these
things in my district too. His force went out to a remote village and
caused the rape of women and destroyed houses. Completely unwarranted.
Completely unfair. Completely typical of human nature, wherein power
corrupts a few quite dramatically.

I have known of a senior minister ordering the shooting of hundreds of
people of a "different group" than his community assembled outside a
Police Station, simply because of the hatred he had for them. 

I have seen power at close quarters and I am very afraid of **anyone** in
power - not just Sanjay Gandhi and his types. I want to see every person
in power checked by very strong checks. Our Prime Ministers and Chief
Ministers, for example, should be restricted to just two terms, and it
should be mandated that none from the Prime Minister's family would be
entitled to contest for at least 10 years after the term of the PM/CM
ends.

Sanjeev