FYI on India

[prabhu.guptara@ubs.com]

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Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000 11:48:15 +0100

     The following news release may be of interest to you, so I am passing
     it on to you.  Do use it as you see fit but all follow-up questions
     please to Mr Chandra Kant Shourie, Tel: + 91.7673 -32354; email:
     cshourie@rediffmail.com

     Many thanks

     Professor Prabhu Guptara
     Director, Executive and Organisational Development
     Wolfsberg Executive Development Centre
     (a subsidiary of UBS AG)
     CH-8272 Ermatingen
     Switzerland
     Tel: +41.71.663.5605
     Fax: +41.71.663.5594
     e-mail: prabhu.guptara@ubs.com
     INTERNET: http://www.wolfsberg.com


     RISING FASCIST THREAT TO INDIAN DEMOCRACY

     Famous Indian Journalist's Nephew Suffers New Year's Attack by
     Fascists

     Arun Shourie's nephew suffers New Year Attack by Fascists


     RELEASE DATE: MONDAY 10 JANUARY 2000


     Chandrakant Shourie, the nephew of one of India's most prominent
     journalists, Arun Shourie, was attacked by fascists on New Year's Eve
     in a remote part of Central India. Chandrakant, his wife, their son
     and friends and neighbours suffered in the attack which also damaged
     Mr Shourie's house and property.


     MAIN STORY FOLLOWS....

     Chandrakant Shourie's friends, Sudhir Mishra and Sanjeev Shrivastava
     and family were celebrating New Year together with them. At about
     11.30 another neighbour, Jagat Ram with his wife and two small
     children, also arrived as they had also been invited. Mr Shourie came
     out to welcome them when Pappu Singh, Dibbu Singh, Ganesh Dheemar,
     Vinod Singh, Vasudev Singh and Sharad Singh attacked Mr Shourie.
     However, everyone in the house rushed out to Mr Shourie's rescue and
     when this was done, the party belonging to the house went back into
     the house, before going to report the matter to the Police.

     At 12.05 a.m. Mr Shourie returned from the Police Station along with a
     Police escort. As soon as he stepped out of the car at his gate, he
     was attacked afresh by Ashok Singh, Babu Lal Patel as well as some or
     all of the earlier attackers and possibly some others.

     On hearing the uproar, some of the friends and Mrs Shourie and son
     Ashish Shourie ran out, managed to rescue Mr Chandrakant Shourie
     again, brought him inside the house and locked him in one room for his
     own safety. The attackers then charged the house armed with sticks and
     other lethal weapons and started beating up everyone in sight
     indiscriminately.

     Mrs Shourie suffered a wound on her hand and was protected by others
     even at risk to their own lives. Son Ashish had to get 5 stitches on
     his right hand. Friend and neighbour Sanjeev Shrivastava was hurt in
     his hand also; Mr Shrivastava's father as well as his brother were
     badly beaten up and both sustained head injuries.

     "All this hapenned in the presence of the Police personnel" says Mr
     Chandrakant Shourie, "They were either unwilling or unable to protect
     us".

     Then began the process of lodging police records and undergoing
     medical
     examination. They returned home, exhausted and traumatized at 4.00
     a.m., unlike most people in the world on New Year's Night who were
     able to welcome the dawn of the year 2000 with street parties, or
     special excursions or safely in their own beds.

     Ten days after the incident, the main culprits are still roaming
     freely and are threatening the witnesses and going around saying that
     they will kill Mr Shourie, and cut him into pieces!

     What could cause such strange things to happen?

     When Chandrakant Shourie graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering
     Degree from one of India's premier Engineering Institutes (BIT
     Pilani), he surprised everyone by idealistically deciding not to
     pursue a career in engineering or computing or management but to move
     to Nagod, one of India's most remote and backward places in India, to
     set up a school for the most disadvantaged groups of people there. The
     Shouries belong to the Brahmin caste (the top caste, of priests) which
     has traditionally been scholarly and idealistic. But with financial
     support only from a few family friends, the "school" was much too
     idealistic and not at all scholarly. At the start: Mr and Mrs
     Shourie's bedroom served as the only classroom and the school library
     was the few books that the family itself possessed which they shared
     with the students who came to them.

     But for the poor and the oppressed in Central India - that is, the
     lower castes, the Shudras, the virtual slaves and the untouchables -
     even that little was an enormous boon! No one had taken interest in
     their troubles for hundreds if not thousands of years.

     These "lower caste" people have very little education and capability.
     The higher caste people (Thakurs) enjoy all the priveleges and hold
     all the power in the administration and the police. So when an
     injustice is perpetrated, the poor have no voice.

     Over the twenty years that the Shouries have run their school in
     Nagod, some of these poor people have started turning to the Shourie
     family for help, and in a number of cases they were able to help the
     poor people get redress through proper legal and administrative
     procedures . The people have begun to trust them and come to them in
     their times of trouble. As they help the poor, the Shouries have begun
     to be seen by the ruling castes as a challenge to their centuries-long
     hold over the poor people.

     According to Mr Shourie, "This incident was designed to send a message
     to the poor and the oppressed: 'if we can do this to an educated
     Brahmin like Mr. Shourie in his own home, you poor people are
     certainly not safe from us and should expect no help from them'. This
     incident has nothing to do with personalities but with principles. It
     is a sign of the desperation of the old order as it continues to try
     to prevent education and liberty and market forces from eroding the
     reign of terror which the ruling caste has exercised over this land
     for centuries. If they kill me and my wife and my entire family, will
     they prevent education and liberation from coming to this dark part of
     India? By disabling or removing us from the scene they will limit or
     deprive the poor people of the little help that we have been able to
     give them. But the powerful and the mighty should realise that history
     is against them and they should do as feudal elites in Northern Europe
     for example did when they were in a parallel situation. The Northern
     European elites chose to go along with change and even sponsor change.
     That way their whole land benefited and they themselves are still
     there as the richest sections of their societies. But in other parts
     of Europe, for example Russia, the elites did resisted change. The
     result was that their whole land still suffers from backwardness and
     their traditional elite classes have in any case been completely
     eliminated. In a globalising world, there are new opportunities, we
     should be working together to produce more wealth for everyone, not
     continuing the centuries old game of mystification and oppression".

     Mr and Mrs Shourie's work is extremely highly regarded and the
     prize-winning Indian author Vishal Mangalwadi dedicated his book on
     the New Age to them.

     The left-wing threat from Marxist and Maoist groups in the Sixties and
     Seventies has now been replaced by the threat from fascists who want
     to take over the country, destroy the tradition of Hindu tolerance,
     replace the secular constitution, and take India back into some
     version of the middle ages.

     Fascist activity has been building gradually over the last several
     years but the last year was the worst year on record.

     This new year attack threatens even more fascist activity for the
     festive year 2000.

    BACKGROUND NOTE:

     The Thakurs are the caste of erstwhile feudal landlords of the whole
     of Central/Eastern Inda. They have enslaved the people through fear
     and deception for ages. Many of them are very insensitive and brutal
     people. They are often used by the other high caste people to spread
     terror amongst the poor and the backward caste people. Their rule over
     the people lasted right through the centuries of the Mughal period as
     well as through the centuries of British rule because the British as
     well as the Mughals preferred to rule through existing structures. It
     is only now as Independent India has been able to mobilise resources
     for national reconstruction that the unassailable power of the Thakur
     caste has come under challenge as a result of communication,
     education, transportation, modern finance and market forces and so on.
     Most of the attackers of Mr Shourie were Thakurs (indicated by the
     surname "Singh" in this part of India, but not to be confused with
     "Singh" families from the Punjab who follow the Sikh religion).


     Contact details:
     Mr Chandra Kant Shourie, Tel: + 91.7673 -32354; email:
     cshourie@rediffmail.com


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