If Medha Patkar was the “box item” girl of the Narmada anti-dam saga, Himanshu Kumar is fast emerging as the poster boy in the Maoism story.
No newspaper, magazine or television article on “the gravest threat to internal security” is complete without a mention of (or quote from) Kumar, whose non-governmental organisation Vanvasi Chetna Ashram in “ground zero” of Maoist activities, Dantewada, was torched in May this year.
In Delhi recently, the “Gandhian human rights activist from Dantewada” was the cynosure of the swish set at the fifth anniversary celebrations of Tarun J. Tejpal‘s e-zine turned magazine, Tehelka*.
After holding forth eloquently for 30 minutes on tribals, poverty, disease, despair, neglect, pro-people this, anti-people that, surely Himanshubhai‘s heart should have skipped a beat, as he slung his jhola over his shoulder, to hear the emcee—Tehelka executive editor Shoma Chaudhury—announce that cocktails would be served on the on the other lawn?
Whyte & Mackay was one of the sponsors of the evening.
Champagne socialism?
Cognac communism?
Perrier proletarianism?
Evian egalitarianism?
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Link via Nikhil Moro in Dallas, Texas
* Disclosures apply
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Watch the first three parts here: One, two, three
Also read: Campaign to free Laxman Choudhury
BBC journalists secure abducted cop’s release
IJR 
My heart skipped a beat when Shoma came forth and led us to where the cocktails were. Himanshu’s must’ve skipped quite a few.
Now that we’ve listened to a depressing story (which is more than most would ever do), I think we deserve our fair share of
champagne.
Hey Himanshu! Want some champagne before the campaign?
How ironic.thos is a cruel joke on the tribals these people pretend to represent