Naxalbari

During the mid 1960s Charu Mazumdar and Kanu Sanyal organized an ultra leftist faction in CPI (M) in northern Bengal. In 1967, a militant peasant uprising took place in Naxalbari, led by the Mazumdar-Sanyal group. This group would later become known as the Naxalites. The same year, Mazumdar and Sanyal broke away and formed the All India Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR), which in turn founded the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) in 1969, with Mazumdar as its General Secretary.

From:-
The Heart of our Darkness
by Mohan Guruswamy

It's All Gibberish

Gibberish, when done with absolute intensity, takes us out of our logical mind and into the realms of the mysterious and spiritual. Here are some guidelines for Gibberish meditation; it will take you no more than 10 minutes to practise each stage respectively.

First Stage: Throw thoughts out; get rid of gibberish

1. While sitting, close your eyes and begin to utter nonsense sounds - any sounds or words, so long as they make no sense.
2. Just speak any language that you don't know!
3. Allow yourself to express whatever needs to be expressed within you. Throw everything out.
4. The mind thinks, always, in terms of words. Gibberish helps to break up this pattern of continual verbalisation. Without suppressing your thoughts, you can throw them out.
5. Let your body likewise be expressive.

Second Stage: Moving into a great silence

1. Just sit in a space of deep silence, stillness and relaxation.
2. Go inwards, deeper and deeper, just like an arrow.
3. Penetrate all the layers and hit the centre of your existence.

The Gibberish technique is a wonderful tool to get rid of anger and frustration. However, it is not only about removing negativity. It also helps the practitioner express and enjoy positive emotions such as joy or excitement. It gives you an opportunity to feel free and uninhibited.

When the troubles first erupted in the predominantly tribal village of Naxalbari and began spreading to other areas in West Bengal, a popular slogan then was "China's Chairman is our Chairman". It may not have fired the minds of the rural masses, but it caught on in the university campuses all over the country. Many students of Delhi's elite St. Stephens College even went underground to fight for the revolution. But they soon, like their compatriots from Kolkata's elite Presidency College, discovered that revolution was not a dinner party, or even a seminar.

But the Indian Adivasi regions have been troubled much before the advent of Naxalism or Maoism, as some prefer it. The Naxalite leadership, which is mostly non-Adivasi, has however managed to superimpose its ideological orientation on the long prevalent disaffection of the tribal people. While the Maoists have managed to exploit the tribal unrest over their exploitation and the destruction of their traditional homelands, it would be wrong of the Indian State to tar the Adivasi unrest as naxalism.

China's present Chairman no longer inspires the Naxalites, as the first Chairman did

From the Naxalite groups who held that China was the center of the world revolution, a substantial number now have gone over to the position that the CPC has betrayed world revolution. The CPC's authoritative documents produced in the sixth plenum of the CC, the eleventh and twelfth congresses, have become for them the bedrock of revisionism and betrayal of Mao Zedong thought. The blind and dogmatic adherence to Mao Zedong thought as the essence of Marxism-Leninism of the epoch- a position that the CPC itself does not maintain now-is the key to the ideological disarray these groups have reached. The Marxist; Volume: 3, No. 1; January- March 1985.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the biggest liar of them all?

Often white-collar workers in cities make it to work late, thanks to traffic gridlocks and the late running of suburban trains and buses. But there are compulsive latecomers who lie their way out of trouble and their superiors' censure, citing these very travel hazards as excuses for lateness. Occasionally the lies are seen through, though. Author Charles Lamb, who once worked as a clerk in the East India Company office, was not as fortunate as modern-day officegoers. A chronic latecomer at work, Lamb had no excuses to account for his tardiness. And he was truthful. When his boss sought an explanation for his unpunctuality, Lamb replied coolly, "Sir, though I always arrive late, I make up for it by leaving the office early."

Adivasi

Although terms such as atavika (Sanskrit for forest dwellers), vanvasi or girijan (hill people) are also used for the tribes of India, Adivasi carries the specific meaning of being the original and autochthonous inhabitants of a given region, and was specifically coined for that purpose in the 1930s. Over a period of time, unlike the terms "aborigines" or "tribes", the word "adivasi" has also developed a connotation of past autonomy, which was disrupted during the colonial period in India and has not been restored. Opposition to usage of the term is varied, and it has been argued that the "original inhabitant" contention is based on dubious claims and that the adivasi - non-adivasi divide that is created is artificial. It should also be noted that in Northeast India, the term Adivasi applies only to the Tea tribes imported from Central India during colonial times, while all tribal groups refer collectively to themselves by using the English word "tribes". Thus, generally speaking the term Adivasi is used to refer to the tribal communities in Hindu dominant areas.