VIDROHI --- Long Live the Rebel / Long Live his Revolution --- A Tribute

VIDROHI  --- Long Live the Rebel / Long Live his Revolution --- A Tribute

Meri aatma yahi basti hai, meri audience yahi hai (This is where my soul lives, this is where my audience is 

सारे बड़े-बड़े लोग पहले मर लें
फिर मैं मरूं- आराम से
उधर चल कर वसंत ऋतु में
जब दानों में दूध और आमों में बौर आ जाता है
या फिर तब जब महुवा चूने लगता है
या फिर तब जब वनबेला फूलती है
नदी किनारे मेरी चिता दहक कर महके
और मित्र सब करें दिल्लगी
कि ये विद्रोही भी क्या तगड़ा कवि था
कि सारे बड़े-बड़े लोगों को मारकर तब मरा 

Vidrohi’ Ramshankar Yadav  was a  the revolutionary poet from Jawaharlal Nehru University. He has been living in the campus for the past three decades, writing and reciting poetry. He was ousted from JNU for his rebel attitude  In August 2010, he was thrown out for using abusive language, but was allowed back in after student pressure on the administration.

In 1983, Vidrohi took part in the student movement along with JNU Student’s Union members who were protesting the OBC reservation deprivation. He was an OBC candidate, and joined the hunger strike — at the  cost  his scholarship and home, ultimately he lost his scholarship and rusticated .   On May 8th, 1983, he was arrested and sent to Tihar Jail.He used to sleep  under a tree with his two and a half bags full of possessions hanging from the branches. A documentary about him was recently made by Nitin K Pamnani and Imran called Main Tumhara Kavi Hoon (I am your poet). The film won the best documentary award in the international competition section of the Mumbai International Film Festival.

Away from his faraway home and wife, Vidrohi has chosen the life of a vagabond, roaming around with his bag full of the poetry of rebellion. There is no bitterness between his family members and himself for his chosen lifestyle of living on the streets. He was always living  people’s kindness, living by the people he writes for, of which JNU students play a crucial part. His work on social exploitation , caste, women oppression , national issues are highly incredible. He was into writing and movements not for profit motive but for people emancipation. He lived for a revolution and died for a revolution. It is very sad that he has been neglected by our so called media, which mainly focuses on meaningless topics and baseless issues.

On a Facebook page on Vidrohi, run by students, I was amused to read a  post that said, “Seeing Vidrohi walk barefoot in the bitter cold, a Palestinian student Shadi Farrokhyani asked him, “Where have your shoes gone?’ Vidrohi replied, ‘In that last protest, I took them off and flung them at the cops!”  ( उस दिन प्रदर्शन में फेंक के पुलिस को मार ) ~ That was Vidrohi

I would say that self-conscious emotions underlie his revolt.  Often overlooked by analysts, and especially by political scientists, factors such as collective humiliation, frustration and anger are the fuel for fundamental transformations in our societies. It only needs a spark to cause an explosion of social activism. Vidrohi’s life was the ultimate act of overcoming fears of retribution and death. That’s why it became so mobilizing . Popular anger and frustration are not enough to explain the dynamics of popular revolutions. The likelihood of success, which is defined  as regime change, depends both on the mobilization of the people and on the reaction of authorities.

A revolution constitutes a challenge to the established political order and the eventual establishment of a new order radically different from the preceding one. The great revolutions like French , Russian , Middle East changed not only the system of government but also the economic system, the social structure, and the cultural values of those societies.

The 19th-century German philosopher Hegel was a crucial catalyst in the formation of 20th-century revolutionary thought. He saw revolutions as the fulfilment of human destiny. Hegel’s theories served as the foundation for the most influential revolutionary thinker, Karl Marx . Marx used Hegel’s abstractions as the basis for a plan of class struggle, centred on a fight for the control of the economic processes of society. Marx believed in progressive stages of human history, culminating in the working-class overthrow of the property-owning class. 

The causes of revolution are mainly political, social and economic.  Revolutions take place when the political order fails to correspond to the distribution of property and hence tensions arise in the class structure, eventually leading to revolutions. The cause of revolution is a desire on the part of those who are devoid of virtue and who are motivated by an urge to possess property, which is in the name of their opponents. In other words, the cause of upheaval is inequality. Rebellions occur when men are dishonored rightly or wrongly and when they see others obtaining honors that they do not deserve. If like-minded people join the movement when the government fails to redress their grievances. Revolutions occur when insolence or disrespect is displayed by the other members. A revolutionary climate would be soon created, especially when the state officials become haughty, arrogant and drunk with power, or pay no attention to the genuine problems of the people. This leads to a deep divide in the society, especially between the state and the people. Over a period of time, people’s complaints against corrupt officials increase which culminate into revolutions. Revolutions are also the result of imbalances in the disproportionate increase in the power of the state that creates a gap between the constitution and the society. In the end, the constitution reflects social realities, the balances of social and economic forces.

Revolutionary thoughts and ideas always have an impact on the social order . Bhagat Singh studied the European revolutionary movement and was attracted to anarchism and communism. He became a confirmed atheist, socialist and communist. He was critical of the individual terrorism which was prevalent among the revolutionary youth of his time and realised the need for mass mobilisation by the Communist Party. In his final writings he argued that the party had to organise the workers and the peasantry. The fight around the small economic demands through the labour unions were the best means to educate the masses for a final struggle to conquer political power. Apart from this work it was necessary for the Communist Party to organise a military department. He stated: 'I am not a terrorist and I never was, except perhaps in the beginning of my revolutionary career. And I am convinced that we cannot gain anything through these methods. One can easily judge it from the history of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. All our activities were directed towards an aim, identifying ourselves with the great movement as its military wing. If anybody has misunderstood me, let him amend his ideas. He realised that the overthrow of British rule should be accompanied by the socialist reconstruction of Indian society and for this political power must be seized by the workers. Bombs and pistols were mere symbolic.

Osho rightly observed, “Man has been a calamity, a curse to existence.
Rebellion means making man a blessing to existence, not a curse. It is a risky step, but there is no gain without any risk. And this is such a tremendous change, almost a discontinuity with the past not any modified form of the past society, just a totally fresh and new society. There is no paradox. Here you have to be a rebel, but your rebellion does not mean that you have to go against something which is intelligent, intelligible. You rebel against any stupidity. Any idiocy that happens in the commune, you rebel against it. That is your responsibility, to be on guard that no stupidity, no superstition, starts getting its roots within you. Be alert. Rebellion is your attitude of looking at things, of watching things; what is happening in you and what is happening around you. No rust should be allowed to settle. Your sword of intelligence should remain shining, that's all. And everybody is keeping his own sword shining; nobody else is keeping your sword shining. “

Finally , Vidrohi is not dead , his ideas , his thoughts are immortal. Long live the rebel, long live his revolution , the one track mind. I would like to conclude with Nietzsche lines of The Will to Power: ‘’Do you want a name for this world? A solution for all its riddles? A light for you, too, you best-concealed, strongest, most intrepid, most midnightly men?This world is the will to power and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power and nothing besides. ‘’

Siddhartha shankar Mishra,

The writer is a Lawyer

Sambalpur , Odisha