Infection draining?

Robert Silverstein
My Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, 23rd edition, defines infection this way: “A disease caused  by microorganisms, esp. those that release toxins or invade body tissue.” (P. 1242.) Toxin is defined as “a poisonous substance, a poison.” (P. 2373.)
Four days ago I sent out a lengthy piece titled, “Abscess Open, Infection Draining.” But there seems to be signs that the toxins are attempting to mutate and continue to poison the “body” politic.  Metaphors can only be carried so far. Even I can't honestly call these lowlife microorganisms; they are human beings and I must address them as such. In response to Ravi's Letter, a number of these people have presented written defences to the Ravi allegations. I will try to address, and dispose of, the most  important ones. First, The Naga Rising. This group, from the time it came into existence, has consisted of a bunch of  arrogant blowhards, who want nothing more than to see their words in print, but, as here, have nothing to offer the Naga people.
In one Nagaland based newspaper  (July 1st), they have an article titled, “The State of Affairs,” which attempts to do a legal analysis of Article 371A(1)(b). This attempt is meant to show that the subsection that Ravi may use to address law and order issues in Nagaland is obsolete and is improperly used in the present  situation. If you have nothing better to do, feel free to waste your time reading it. But keep in mind the  following. If this group of dilettantes were serious, they'd go to the branch of the High Court in  Kohima, or to the High Court itself in Guwahati, and get an injunction to prevent Ravi from using the  section.  They won't do that because of one or more the following: they are intellectually and physically lazy,  they only know how to bloviate in articles, and/or they know that they will lose. In any case, they and  their article are useless.  (Nor will any of the other individuals or groups that are complaining about the subsection go to the  courts, for the same reasons.)
Here's the definitive answer to all of the complaints against Ravi, the fact that Ravi knows and no one else recognizes or will admit to: Ravi has the only backing that matters, the Prime Minister of India.  And if he has moved forward with the Letter, it was with the full knowledge of the PM. Nothing else  matters. The other groups I will briefly mention all have one thing in common: they have nothing to gain and  everything to lose by changing the status quo. They are now, as the expression goes, making out like bandits, because they are bandits, of the violent variety. First, let me dispose of the kiddie corps. In the same paper (June 30th; articles also appeared in the  other state papers as well), the Naga Students' Federation (NSF), as the title indicates, “Accuses Ravi of attempting to 'overthrow elected Gov't.'” The kiddies have accused Ravi of doing this, “'in his attempts to earn some personal brownie points.” That is the astute analysis of these kiddies. A man who has been at the top of the national government  in security affairs for decades is doing all this for brownie points. Wow.  Within the last year or so, a regional tribal hoho representing a number of tribes, recommended to the  NSF to stay out of politics and go back to school to read a book or two. It is obvious that these ignorant little boys have not taken that advise. I will close with this relevant fact: The NSF is as guilty of extortion as all the other groups, and they  use threats to get the money they demand. The kiddies have a rather pathetic cover for this extortion:  they go from business to business offering to sell them useless garbage, like pencils, puzzles, and other  crap that is useless to any business. And they make clear that if the businesses do not buy the stuff, they will suffer the consequences.
They are the same lowlifes as the rest of the extortionists. Before I get into this section, I want to emphasize a trait of the educated Nagas. I don't mean educated  in the sense of having wisdom, but educated in the sense that they learned how to speak and write  enough English to publish articles and editorials in the papers.  The trait is this. They all pour words out on a page with the hope that they will drown the reader with  enough words that they may fool the reader into believing that they have said something of substance,  even though the great percentage of the time they have said nothing worthwhile, nothing relevant.  Their attitude is, if you throw enough shit against the wall, some of it will stick, the reader being the  wall. At the end of my last article, I pointed out that the WC of the NNPGs and the NSCN (IM) (hereafter  IM) both, in separate articles, tried to double talk the reader into believing that the taxation for the  support of the Naga nationalist movement was legitimate. But I reminded the reader that taxes are first  addressed in bills in an assembly, and if passed, the legislation becomes law.  The law is not made by a bunch of corrupt murderers. Keep that in mind when I briefly discuss the  lengthy piece just published by the Nagaland State Government, below. Since those two groups tried to justify their extortion, there are other groups that have come forward to criticize Ravi, the latest of which is the Janata Dal United Nagaland, one of a number of political parties and other organizations which would very much like to maintain the status quo.
And now I want to discuss the response of the Nagaland State Government itself. It is a (numbered) 20- paragraph letter of over three pages. I read the whole thing carefully. Please go back to my  observation above, that the Naga “educated” people are in the habit of throwing every statistic, figure,  and comparison at the reader with the hope that, at the end, by exhausting the reader, the latter will  throw up his or her hands and conclude that, well, the government is not that bad after all.
Paragraph four. Despite all such challenges (it is mentioned that Rio, in 1995, not yet CM, survived an  assassination attempt), “the Constitution has always been upheld.”   This, of course, is a bald-faced lie. The state has been controlled by IM for decades. As I pointed out  many times before, the IM, by article in the state papers, shut down all businesses in Dimapur on  Sundays for religious reasons. The IM did that, not the Assembly. The IM, not the government. And the 60 members of the Assembly never said a word at the time, or  since!
Paragraph five. Example two. The state government crawled out of its obligation under the Constitution of India to  hold elections to elect women to urban local bodies. I watched, trapped in my hotel in Kohima, while  the government did nothing while the tribals rioted, burned property, intimidated women who wanted  to register to run for office not to do so, and just watched as the election collapsed, with the CM, now  the brave head of the opposition, resigning. Not only that, but since that January 2017 travesty, the state government has had a number of  resolutions to “study” the situation in order to reschedule the election. All 60 in the legislature, will NEVER reschedule that election. That's what they do, duck  responsibilities, even ones mandated by the Indian Constitution. And I could continue. The constitution is never “upheld” by these Assembly members if it takes any  courage to do so.
“The overall law and order situation in the State continues to be normal and peaceful.” This is another blatant lie. The only peace in Nagaland is the peace of terror and death. And it's been that way for decades. The fact that Rio and his government would publish such foolishness is a sign that he has contempt for the Naga people and knows that no one will contradict him because they are in fact too afraid to do so. Paragraph six through eleven roll out all the empty statistics on arrests. Statistics are thrown out  comparing Nagaland to Manipur and Assam on overall crime. But Ravi is talking about extortion, that is, the continual bleeding of the Naga people until they are bled white. This is the state's attempt to  bury the reader in irrelevant facts. Ravi talks about convictions, that is, the lack of them. Here's what the state has to say about convictions: (Para. 13) “The conviction rates, which in any situation is dependent on various factors [I didn't know  that?], has also received due attention of the Government. The capacities of the Investigating Officers  are being built by imparting several trainings [sic] to them in a structured manner. Steps have been  taken for upgrading the forensic capabilities in the State and regular review meetings are being taken in the districts with all concerned for sorting out legal issues and ensuring rise in the conviction rates.”
This paragraph says it all, describes this whole article, as an article that is complete nonsense. Some functionary was asked to put down some useless verbiage, being told that the readers  will not notice, and even if they do notice, they will not care. There is not a word about the conviction rate of those who commit extortion or how high in the chain  of command the defendants were. And those “review meetings” of a bunch of terrorized citizens in the districts will produce what has been produced for decades, not a conviction of any worth. Paragraph seventeen. This is a joke. In 2013, on December 17th to be exact, a “Resolution” was passed by the legislature to eliminate the power of the governor to control the transfer and appointments of  senior government officials, such as what Ravi said he will be doing under section b. If that resolution  was not honored by Ravi, it “would be against the principles of democracy and would be viewed as anti-people....”
This paragraph describes the exact opposite of reality. There is no democracy in Nagaland. An  election every five years does not make a democracy. The reality on the ground is that the state is a  dictatorship under the rule of the IM, period. And if anything, the status quo is “anti-people.” As far as resolutions are concerned, the state government passes them whenever they want to convince  the people that they are doing something. They have passed a number of them giving their full support  to the peace process, even though their “full support” is meaningless. And as I pointed out, their  resolutions to study the possibility of new elections of women to ULBs is an exercise of eyewash,  utterly meaningless. The article mentions that, “Nagaland got adjudged the best performing small State in Law and Order by the India Today Group of State's survey for two years in a row.”  I remember reading this and laughing. One of two things happened to win this. Either the government  gave the Group the same empty statistics that are in this article and the latter did no confirmation on  them, or the Centre suggested that the award be given to the state to encourage it to actually do  something about the travesty of the rule of law in Nagaland. Either way, the recognition was, and is,  meaningless. Finally this. In the July 2nd issue of another newspaper an OP-ED piece appears by a certain gentleman, titled, “Calling a spade a spade by our Hon'ble Governor.”  It is a lengthy and well-reasoned defence of the Governor and his actions as laid out in his Letter. He  calls the actions of each of the insurgent groups “gangsterism,” and points out that “the state police have become a partner in crime collecting their share of taxes in check gates along with a half dozen armed groups.” He ends his article this way: “Thank you once again for calling a spade a spade, and for being the peoples [sic] Governor. And rest  assured, we love you and stand solidly behind you.” As do I, and as all of you should.  A peculiar fact. Another paper has a lengthy summary of the government's article defending itself  on its front page, and also the full editorial within the paper. But nowhere is the said article to be  found. Nor is it present in two other papers. Funny that.
An articulate vigorous  defence of Ravi's actions only appears in one but nowhere else. I wonder why? In closing, remember: all the toxins must be neutralized. When any are still in active, the people are in grave danger.
The writer is Vietnam war veteran