[Reader-list] Richard Stallman in Calcutta

[V Ramaswamy]

Richard Stallman in Calcutta

Today morning, I read in the newspaper about a public symposium on free 
software in Calcutta, on 16 August. Dr Richard Stallman, president of the 
Free Software Foundation, will be speaking.

Wow! Was I pleased! I must attend. He is one of my heroes. And now that I am 
blogging and self-publishing on the internet I feel even closer in spirit to 
Stallman.

But that gladness was immediately marred by reading the name of another 
speaker. This is a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), who is 
a member of the upper house of India's parliament. He is often on 
television. I dislike everything about him.

The CPI(M) likes to be associated with and patronise "progressive" concerns 
and movements, and personalities. Thus, I once attended a lecture by Prof 
Noam Chomsky in Calcutta in 1996. Nelson Mandela was given a public 
reception in Calcutta in 1990. Prof Amartya Sen had been felicitated after 
his Nobel Prize in economics. Last year, Hugo Chavez addressed a public 
meeting.

But having worked in slums in Howrah and Calcutta since 1996, I have been 
exposed to the reality of what the CPI(M) is about and like at the 
grassroots. This is quite sordid and ugly, and very far away from the 
associations with Chomsky or Stallman.

It made me seethe. I decided I would attend, and when the time came for 
questions from the audience, I would give a scathing knock to that pathetic 
politician. I would say that it was most inappropriate for him to be on the 
same platform as Richard Stallman, as his party's conduct in the state of 
West Bengal, which it has ruled since 1977, demonstrated only systematic 
disregard of transparency; mis-information, dis-information and witholding 
of public information; the party has been about its own empowerment rather 
than people's empowerment; it has patently failed in providing basic 
education to the people; it has disavowed pursuit of total literacy; 
decentralisation has meant distribution of corruption; it has used people's 
ignorance and lack of information to manipulate them; and it has bred a 
culture of cynical middleman-ship, a form of extortion, which has seeped 
into the fabric of the state's people.

So if Microsoft is Mr Enemy - so is Mr CPI(M), and no one should be fooled 
by the pathetic politician's puny pseudo-progressive platitudes.

Truth must be told. The cat must be belled. The bluff must be called. The 
naked emperor must be exposed.

But I began to wonder whether it would not be lacking in taste and grace on 
my part to do this, especially when Richard Stallman is a guest, and has 
probably been invited by some govt agency. As a citizen of Calcutta, I am 
proud and honoured that he is speaking at a public programme in my city. 
Wouldn't my sharp attack on the politician discolour such an important 
occasion?

Could this be done gracefully?

On Richard Stallman's personal home page(http://www.stallman.org/), he 
quotes Mahatma Gandhi:

"You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and 
decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it 
means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with 
his or her whole soul."