[Reader-list] Open Letter to Navin Jindal

[asit das]

Open Letter to Navin Jindal

<http://kractivist.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/jindal.jpg>
 <http://kractivist.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/jindal1.jpg>

Dear Mr Jindal,
I just finished watching a few videos showing security forces mercilessly
beating villagers in
Orissa<http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=20.15,85.5&spn=1.0,1.0&q=20.15,85.5%20%28Orissa%29&t=h>,
along with some heartrending pictures of the attack. One of the pictures
was of a year and a half old child with a broken foot, another of a seventy
year old woman with her blood <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood> drenched
face, and yet another of a tear stricken eighty year old man with blood
oozing from his forehead. Another video shows a laborer lying on a hospital
bed with his broken leg, moaning from an unbearable pain, and unable to
work for next three months.

I was seized with uncontrollable anger and shame as I watched these videos.
I was ashamed of myself that while all these atrocities were being
perpetrated, I was powerless to stop them. And who was the target of my
anger? This I will describe in this letter.

Mr Jindal, According to one survey, you are the richest person in this
country. You make more than 66 crore rupees annually. That comes to more
than 5 crore rupees per month. As per Government economists, any villager
who earns more than Rs 28 per day is not considered poor. So according to the
Government <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government>, your income is 66000
times the income of an average person above the poverty line.

I cannot believe that you are so much richer than a person earning Rs 28 a
day because you work 66000 times harder. You acquired your ill-gotten
wealth by robbing the indigents of this country of the resources hidden
beneath their lands, and by selling them. Do you see any difference between
a hood who knives and robs someone on the one hand, and you who rob the
poor by shedding their blood, on the other? You may disagree, but the poor
on whom you have unleashed such brutality with the help of police and local
hoods, cannot see even an iota of difference.

The civilized urban dwellers of this country are awed by your patriotism
because the Supreme Court of
India<http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=28.622237,77.239584&spn=0.01,0.01&q=28.622237,77.239584%20%28Supreme%20Court%20of%20India%29&t=h>,
as per a case filed by you, passed a judgment according to which every
citizen of this country can hoist the tricolor every day at his or her
home. But do you think that people mercilessly beaten by your hoods would
be enthused to hoist the tricolor when the police and the Government who
swear by it forcibly acquire their lands, and anyone brave enough to ask
for compensation is brutally beaten by your hoods, and the police stands by
silently during this open and ferocious attack on the public.

Mr Jindal, this tricolor is symbolic of the equality between you on the one
hand, and the millions of poor people
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty>of this country for whom you
have nothing but contempt, on the other. You
should be thankful that the indigents of this country are not aware of this
powerful symbolism, or else they would have grabbed you by the collar,
dragged you out from your palatial dwellings, beaten you and brought you to
the police station <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_station> where the
station in charge would have thrown you in prison, had his oath to the
tricolor been sincere. But, Mr Jindal, it is clear you insist on soaking
this tricolor with the blood of innocent people. Don’t you dare to turn the
tricolor red. Otherwise the poor will drench this tricolor in their own
blood, fly it, and then stand you in a queue, where you will be forced to
work all day like other poor people to earn a daily wage of Rs 28. You run
a management college. Do your students know that a vast gulf separates what
your college teaches, and the barbarism inherent in your own ‘management
style’? Do the students of the Jindal Global Law
School<http://www.jgls.org/>know how its founder routinely tramples
upon and has complete contempt for
Law and Constitution.

In order to intimidate and harass villagers demanding compensation, you
entrap them in false cases in faraway provinces, so that no one would dare
to raise their voice against you. Before every land grab, your hired goons
brutally attack anyone who dares to raise their voice against you. You
bribe the police who throw such activists in prison. Just a few days ago,
the Chhattisgarh<http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=21.27,81.6&spn=1.0,1.0&q=21.27,81.6%20%28Chhattisgarh%29&t=h>Hight
Court filed a summons against you, but given the contempt your
company has for the Law, it did not even accept the notice. How can they
even dare to serve the court order, when it is your money that pays for all
the police vehicles in the Raigadh district, and when it is your money that
has built all the police stations? Do you also teach the Law students in
your college such brilliant ways to circumvent the Law?

To facilitate land grab for your benefit, the Junglemahal region of West
Bengal<http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=22.5697,88.3697&spn=1.0,1.0&q=22.5697,88.3697%20%28West%20Bengal%29&t=h>is
now infested with Government troops. These poor soldiers are now
fighting against the poor people of the region resisting the armed might of
the State. The poor are killing each other. When this brutal war is over,
when the poor have killed each other to the last, and when you have seized
their lands, you will sell the precious mineral wealth underneath these
lands to foreign multinationals.

You may call this lawless looting business as usual. But your violent,
brazen and shameless deeds are continuously stoking the anger of millions
in this country. We will make every effort to channel this anger lest it
dissipate, so that they can realize the ideals of equality, and social and
economic justice which form the bedrock of our Constitution, and so that
India becomes a real democracy rather than the pathetic caricature it has
become, where the faux symbolism of the tricolor matters more than its
meaning.

If, after reading this letter, you think that I am wrong, I am willing to
engage in a public discussion with you on these issues.
Himanshu Kumar