Aditya Thackeray, Sadhguru Exchange MoUs As Maharashtra Becomes Fifth State To Join Save Soil Movement
Extending full support to the Save Soil Movement, Maharashtra became the fifth Indian state to sign an MoU with Isha Outreach to officially join the global movement – Save Soil. Maharashtra Environment Minister Shri Aditya Thackeray and Sadhguru, Founder- Isha Foundation, exchanged MoUs in a star-studded event that saw an enthusiastic participation from over 10,000 people in Mumbai’s Jio Convention Center.
“Our planet is our shared asset & responsibility and I am honoured to share stage with Sadhguru and reiterate our commitment towards the great good of the environment by extending Maharashtra’s support to #SaveSoil initiative, spearheaded by @ishafoundation on a global stage,” said Maharashtra Environment Minister Shri Aditya Thackeray.
Our planet is our shared asset & responsibility and I am honoured to share stage with @SadhguruJV and reiterate our commitment towards the great good of the environment by extending Maharashtra’s support to #SaveSoil initiative, spearheaded by @ishafoundation on a global stage. pic.twitter.com/wYRI8GgXI5
— Aaditya Thackeray (@AUThackeray) June 12, 2022
Earlier, Sadhguru handed the Soil Policy Handbook to Maharashtra Chief Minister Shri Uddhav Thackeray who pledged full support to the cause of Save Soil. The handbook offers practical, scientific solutions that governments can put into action to revitalize the soil in their region.
Opening about his decision to go on a painstaking 100-day bike journey for soil, Sadhguru said, “…the only way was if I risk my life at least people will stand up and do something,” he said.
“Soil was a very unpopular subject just 3 months ago,” but since his journey, “2.8 billion have responded in the world,” Sadhguru said.
Aditya Thackeray expressed his concern for soil and said, “We have come to a critical point in our planet today and if we don’t do for this very generation…we might not even see the future generation.” Sharing his realization from his interaction with Sadhguru, he observed, “We are soil, that is where we come from and that is where we eventually go.”
Speaking at the event, Bollywood actress and environmentalist Juhi Chawla reminisced her visit to Cauvery Calling farms and her witnessing agroforestry changing the fortunes of farmers.
Expressing her admiration for Sadhguru’s 100-day 30000 km journey through snow, cold, sandstorms, heat, and heavy traffic, she thanked him for the initiative and observed, “what you want is not for yourself or personal glory, it is for all of us…for all our children whom we love the most.”
Calling 15-18 inches of soil the “cream of the planet”, Sadhguru warned that in the last 40-50 years we have lost 52% of the topsoil when “with the present level of the human footprint if you want to create one inch of soil, it will take 13000 years.” While crediting the green revolution and its methods which saved millions from the horrors of famines in the country, Sadhguru stressed that “our agricultural policies have to change.” Explaining that “there is no one person, one force or one organization wanting to destroy this planet” and that “every one of us knowingly, unknowingly, all of us partners in this destruction” Sadhguru called upon everyone to “become partners in the solution.”
The star-studded event saw the presence of celebs Mouni Roy, Divyanka Tripathi, Rithvik Dhanjani, among others. Sadhguru also joined the Meet Brothers and Khushboo Grewal to lend his voice to the now popular Save Soil song ‘Bandeya’. Soca King Machel Montano mesmerized the audience through his popular Save Soil tracks.
Now an intrinsic part of all Save Soil public events, Radhe Jaggi, a Bharatanatyam dancer along with Isha Samskriti weaved a combination of classical dance and Kalaripayattu to draw home the connection between humans and soil.
In India, nearly 30% of fertile soils in the country have already become barren and are incapable of yield. The primary objective of the Save Soil Movement is to urge all nations of the world to mandate a minimum of 3-6% organic content in agricultural soils through urgent policy reforms. Without this minimum organic content, soil scientists have warned of the imminent death of soil, a phenomenon termed ‘soil extinction.’
At a Save Soil event in New Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined Sadhguru in expressing his whole-hearted recognition of the critical need for and value of the movement. Since Sadhguru’s arrival in India, the Governments of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have expressed their full support for the movement and to bringing about on-the-ground action.
Since the start of his lone motorcycle journey which began on March 21, 2022 and covered Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East, Sadhguru reached the Western port city of Jamnagar, Gujarat on May 29. During the Indian leg of the journey across 9 Indian states, he has passed through Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and New Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
The movement, till date, has touched billions while 74 countries have agreed to act to save their nations’ soils. To a topic undeniably absent in mass awareness, since the start of Sadhguru’s journey across 27 nations, over 2.8 billion people have spoken about soil. Over 15 lakh children in India have written to the Prime Minister, requesting him to act to save the nation’s soil and their collective future.
(This is an official press release from Isha Foundation. The Commune was not involved in creating this content.)
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The Curious Case Of Thiagarajan, The Ex-CBI Officer Who Changed The Course Of Perarivalan’s Case
In 2013, a Tamil documentary titled ‘Uyirvali – Sakkiyadikkum Satham‘, was released. It made a case for the abolition of death penalty by showing the life of Perarivalan, the now-released convicted terrorist in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
The documentary was released by the People’s Movement Against Death Penalty (PMADP), an organization founded by the late Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer.
This organization along with Perarivalan’s mother Arputhammal had launched a massive campaign rallying support for Perarivalan. A website named ‘saveperarivalan.com’ was created as part of the campaign against his death sentence which documented his photos, letters and articles showing how justice had been erred. The documentary was just another attempt to give Perarivalan an image makeover portraying him as a victim.
But this documentary became a watershed moment in the Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case as it changed the course of Perarivalan’s case. It is in this documentary that a former Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officer named Thiagarajan who was given the responsibility of recording the confessions of the convicts said that he erred in recording the statement of Perarivalan.
“I am Thiagarjan. I belong to the Indian Police Service. When Rajiv Gandhi Assassination took place in 1991, I was Superintendent of Police, CBI, Kerala Branch. Since I was an SP who knew Tamil, I was inducted into the team. Everybody in the team were given one assignment. I was given the assignment of recording the confessional statements. I had recorded around 16-17 confessional statements.”, he says in the documentary film.
“What is pricking me is that, at that time Arivu (Perarivalan) told me that he didn’t know why he was being asked to buy them (the batteries) and what they will do with it. He told me that he didn’t know about it at all. But while writing the confession statement I omitted the part where he said he didn’t know about it at all. The investigation was progressing then but I didn’t write that particular statement.” he says.
“Though strictly speaking law expects you to record the statement verbatim word for word and letter for letter, practically we are not doing that.”, the former CBI officer says in his testimony.
Thiagarajan goes on to shift the blame on the judiciary saying that ‘they came to a conclusion superficially’ based on the evidence presented before them.
“I felt it then itself. But nothing coud be done at that stage. That’s why I always felt a little uneasy in Arivu’s case. The confessional statement has not been appreciated the way it should’ve been appreciated.”, Thiagarajan says in that documentary.
Apparently Sivarasan (another convict in the case) had sent a message to Pottu Amman through wireless communication on May 7, 1991 stating that except Subha and Dhanu (the suicide bomber) nobody knew about the assassination plan.
Citing this, Thiagarajan in the documentary says “Automatically, it excludes the prior knowledge that Rajiv Gandhi is going to be assassinated. It excludes the knowledge of everybody else. So, this is a very solid, uncontested, unchallenged, unchallengeable evidence.”.
“I have also played a role in the sense that it was me who recorded the confession. And as I said, one thing, the confession itself is not very clear and the benefit of doubt… why the benefit of doubt, even there is subsequent internal evidence to clearly say that Arviu did not know before hand that Rajiv Gandhi was going to be killed at all. So, if he did not know that there was going to be killing, how can you make him party to the killing? It is illogical. It is against the evidence on record. Therefore, you look at it from any angle, it will be miscarriage of justice if the extreme penalty is carried out. It will be very tragic and unfortunate. That is my firm conviction.”, Thiagarajan says adding that punishing an innocent soul would be an injustice.
“In very good conscience, I thought it was my duty to get in touch with Arivu and his advocates and bring out the true import of the confessional statement so that if possible even at this last minute we can try and save a precious human life.”, Thiagarajan concludes his testimony.
The confessional statement on record reads like this “moreover I bought two nine volt battery cells (Golden Power) and gave them to Sivarasan. He used only these to make the bomb explode.”
The Supreme Court had upheld the confessional statement in the case finding it “believable.”
In an interview to Times of India in light of the documentary’s release, Thiagarajan said “As an investigator, it put me in a dilemma. It wouldn’t have qualified as a confession statement without his admission of being part of the conspiracy. There I omitted a part of his statement and added my interpretation. I regret it”.
Later in a sworn affidavit dated 27 October 2017 submitted to the Supreme Court, Thiagarajan stated that he had omitted to record Perarivalan’s statement where the latter said he did not know the purpose for which the battery was being procured.
But here is an interesting tidbit about Thiagarajan that will raise concerns about his sudden realization on Perarivalan’s confessional statement.
Remember the Sister Abhaya murder case? Abhaya was found dead in a well at the St Pius X Convent in Kottayam, Kerala on March 27, 1992. Twenty eight years later, on 22 December 2020, the special CBI court in Thiruvananthapuram found the two accused – Father Thomas Kottoor and Sister Sephy – guilty of murdering Sister Abhaya.
Thiagarajan, who was the SP of CBI’s Kochi unit back then, reportedly pressured his subordinate officer Varghese P Thomas who was investigating the case, to conclude it as a case of suicide based on the preliminary findings of the crime branch. The crime branch had recorded that Abhaya had committed suicide as she got only 7 marks out of 100 in her first year pre-degree examination. But it was later established that Sister Abhaya was murdered in cold-blood when she found out Father Thomas Kottu and Sister Sephy in a compromising position.
Owing to the continued harassment, Thomas took voluntary retirement despite having 10 more years in service. He alleged that Thiagarajan wanted to make it appear as a suicide to protect the interests of some political leaders.
It is this Thiagarajan who has been accused of manipulating investigations for people in power, had altered the course of Perarivalan’s case which has now resulted in the convicted terrorist being set free.
So, the following questions arise:
1) What made Thiagarajan realize that he erred after so many years?
2) Even if Thiagarajan is right and Perarivalan is the humane saint that he is portrayed to be in the documentary, shouldn’t Arputhammal, politicians, and other activists hold Thiagarajan accountable for negligence and dereliction of duty?
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