[Reader-list] Open Letter to Navin Jindal

[Joshua Soans]

dear Asit, grow Up.

On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 1:57 PM, asit das <asit1917 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
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-- 
Joshua SOANS