Spring thunder on India's bosom -2

[red cat]

This thread continues from the original one:

India is losing Maoist battle (http://www.revleft.com/vb/india-losing-maoist-t117578/index.html)

The name of the thread is a metaphoric reference to the Naxalbari insurrections made by the Peking Radio. It is also what the Indian Communists have lovingly called their movement ever since. :)

[red cat]

Maoist military success sets back mining investment strategy (http://indianvanguard.wordpress.com/2010/04/09/maoist-military-success-sets-back-mining-investment-strategy/)

Posted by Rajeesh on April 9, 2010



Business Week, April 7, 2010


Deadliest Maoist Raid Highlights Mittal, Posco India Challenge

The deadliest attack on Indian security forces in four decades of left-wing conflict underscores the challenge companies including ArcelorMittal, Posco and NMDC Ltd. face in investing in mineral-rich states.


Maoist rebels killed 76 officers in an ambush yesterday in the eastern state of Chhattisgarh, where NMDC operates its biggest iron-ore mine. In neighboring states, ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steelmaker, and South Korea’s Posco have yet to start their $32 billion projects because of protests over land.


Resistance from property owners, some backed by Maoist or Naxalite rebels, and delays in approvals for land and mines have stalled more than $80 billion of projects in India that would double national steel output. Yesterday’s attacks are a setback to India’s efforts to rid the eastern states of left-wing guerillas and open up regions rich in iron ore, coal, bauxite and manganese to investment.


“If the global players had got a footprint in India they could have really made a good return on their investment,” said Abhisar Jain, metals and mining analyst with ICICI Securities Ltd. in Mumbai. “India as a whole will stand to lose if no global player is able to put up its plant here.”


The Naxalite rebels, named after the 1967 peasant uprising in the West Bengal village of Naxalbari, have waged a violent campaign against the government, police and landowners for more than four decades to install communist rule. It was greeted as “a peal of spring thunder” by China’s People Daily at its birth during the political purges of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution.


High Risk

“Most of the mining assets in India are present in the Maoists belt, which is a threat as more mining can’t take place and new leases can’t be executed,” Santha Sheela Nair, secretary at the mines ministry, said in a March 5 interview.


ArcelorMittal, which aimed to build two mills, one each in Jharkhand and Orissa states, has yet to acquire any land needed to set up the 12 million ton plant in Jharkhand, said a director at the state’s industries department, asking not to be identified as he isn’t authorized to speak to the media. The company hasn’t also acquired land in Orissa. Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal declined to comment on yesterday’s attacks.


“Containing the Naxal movement is integral to raising India’s energy and mineral self sufficiency,” Deutsche Bank AG’s Abhay Laijawala and Anuj Singla wrote in an April 2 report. “Unless the Naxal resistance abates, the high levels of risk associated with doing business in Naxal-infested areas will deter investment.”


Local Opposition

Posco’s $12 billion steel unit and iron-ore mine in Orissa has been delayed for five years as the company is unable to acquire almost 90 percent of the land required for the project due to opposition from the local population. The company has also not been able to secure any mines.
“When you are setting up projects of this size there are bound to be some people who will dissent,” Posco India General Manager Simanta Mohanty said yesterday in an interview. “The challenge before us is to mobilize the support of the people and get the required land.”


Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh-based NMDC, Asia’s third-biggest iron ore producer, posted a 40 percent decline in third-quarter profit after a slurry pipeline used for transporting ore was damaged by Maoists. The company, in which the government sold an 8.38 percent stake last month, mentioned rebel attacks as one of the risk factors in the sale document. The company has plans to raise production capacity by 67 percent to 50 million tons by 2015.


Watchtowers, Patrols

NMDC said yesterday’s incident hadn’t disrupted its biggest mine as the company protects its facilities with barriers and security patrols.
“Mining operations in the Bailadila mines are normal,” NMDC Chairman Rana Som said yesterday in a telephone interview. “The mine area is surrounded by several layers of fencing and we monitor the area from watchtowers.”


India needs to counter the terror tactics that risk hampering industrial growth, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, or Ficci, said in a November report.


“Just when India needs to ramp up its industrial machine to lock in growth and when foreign companies are joining the party, Naxalites are clashing with mining and steel companies essential to India’s long-term success,” the report said.


At the Niyamgiri Hills in Orissa, the tribal population and non-governmental agencies oppose a bauxite mine planned by Vedanta Aluminium Ltd., a unit of London-based Vedanta Resources Plc. Construction has been delayed for more than four years.


“What can the company give us?” Niranjan Acharya, who lives in the area and “absolutely” opposes the Vedanta mine, said in an interview with Bloomberg UTV. “How much employment can they possibly generate? Our livelihood is Niyamgiri, we get everything from there. If the mining happens, 10 to 20 years down the line this place will become a desert, what will the people here do then?”


To win over the population, the federal government is proposing laws to quicken mine allocation and land acquisition. The law will allow companies to give annuities to the families displaced from mining areas, besides a one-time compensation.


“The aim is to involve the local population in the developmental activities of the region so they do not feel left out and resort to opposition” Mines Secretary Nair said.

[red cat]

Kolkata – prominent human rights activist Kirity Roy arrested (http://indianvanguard.wordpress.com/2010/04/09/kolkata-prominent-human-rights-activist-kirity-roy-arrested/)

Posted by Rajeesh on April 9, 2010


Statement from MASUM, Source: Sanhati


HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER HARASSED

Well-known human rights activist Mr. Kirity Roy, Secretary of Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM) and National Convenor, Program Against Custodial Torture and Impunity (PACTI) was arrested illegally, harassed and indicted in frivolous charges on 07th April 2010 in connection with holding People’s Tribunal on Torture


Background

MASUM organized a People’s Tribunal on Torture (PTT) at Moulali, Kolkata on 9th and 10th of June, 2008 a programme as part of the project of NPTTI (National Project on Preventing Torture in India). Nearly 1200 victims and their families were present and 82 victims of torture narrated their plight before the panel members, consisting of illustrious persons of national repute in the public tribunal.


Though it is a well-known practice all over the world since past half a century, MASUM has been framed for the same questioning the legality of doing same, quite unknown incident to this effect by Kolkata police.
The quashing for the above FIR is scheduled to be heard by Hon’ble High Court Calcutta on 08/04/2010. The said case was initiated for holding People’s Tribunal on Torture, a project under National Project on Preventing Torture in India on 09/06/2008 and 10/06/2008 at Kolkata.


Today’s (07th April 2010) Harassment

Today (on 07 April 2010), a huge contingent of police consisting at least 25 plain cloth police personnel led by Inspector S. Ghosal, Inspector Biswas and Sub-Inspector Pervez except only three uniformed police personal of local police station with rifles & revolvers appeared at the residence of Mr. Kirity Roy at Srirampore, District – Hooghly, West Bengal, India at about 09:45 AM and arrested him in connection with Taltala PS case No.134 of 2008 dated 09/06/2008 and GR 1487/08 under sections 120B/170/229 of Indian Penal Code by Anti Terrorist Cell, Detective Department, Kolkata Police. The arresting police officials disguised themselves by not wearing uniform, thus violating the DK Basu judgement. Though a ‘Memo of Arrest’ was issued, it was evident that they arrived at Mr. Kirity Roy’s residence with a pre-set ‘Memo of Arrest’. It was not prepared at the place of arrest again violating DK Basu judgement guidelines. It is only on demand by the arrestee that the address of arresting place was included in the ‘Memo of Arrest’ by a different person than who had earlier prepared the ‘Memo of Arrest’ amounting to fabrication of official document as per their whims. It is to be noted that he was deprived to even attend nature’s call before arresting him and later even not allowed to contact any lawyer of his choice, which is in contradiction to the rights ensured under Article 22 of Indian Constitution. Mr. S Dhar, the Investigating Officer of the abovementioned criminal case was not present at the place of arrest amongst the arresting police personnel while Mr. Roy was arrested.
Later, at about 1:45 PM he was brought in the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM), Bankshall Court, Kolkata court lock-up. Even upto this time, despite pleading repeatedly, Mr. Roy was not allowed to contact lawyer of his choice. He was detained in the lock-up purposefully without forwarding the required documents by the police to the court. In consequence hearing on the bail petition for the arrestee, Mr. Kirity Roy got delayed. It is only at about 4:35 PM that the appearing advocates brought the CMM’s attention to this matter. Then, after few minutes the records and documents in connection with this case was produced by the prosecution before the CMM. The public prosecutor vehemently objected to granting bail in favour of the arrestee. Notwithstanding his objections, the learned court heard at length the submissions made by the defending advocates and granted the arrestee ad-interim bail. During this course, the arrestee was never been produced physically before the CMM, which is again a sheer violation of rights assured as per Indian Constitution.


After completing due formalities, the arrestee was released from the court lock-up at about 6 PM. It is relevant here to mention that the charge-sheet is submitted by the police on 07 April 2010 in connection with the abovementioned criminal case against eight accused persons naming (1) Mr. Kirity Roy, State Director of National Programme on Prevention of Torture in India (NPPTI), (2) Mr. Abhijit Dutta, Advocate, SLO of NPPTI, (3) Mr. Henry Tiphagne, Advocate, National Director of NPPTI, (4) Mr. Subhasis Dutta, Advocate, SLA NPPTI, (5) Mr. Subhrangsu Bhaduri, SPA NPPTI, (6) Ms. Sushmita Roy Chowdhury, DHRM NPPTI, (7) Ms. Tanusree Chakraborty, DHRM NPPTI, and (8) Ms. Aditi Kar, DHRM NPPTI under sections 120B (Criminal Conspiracy), 170 (Personating a public servant), 229 (Personation of a juror), 467 (Forgery of a valuable security …. or to receive a money), 468 (Forgery for the purpose of cheating) and 420 (cheating) of Indian Penal Code. Though police initially started the proceeding, as mentioned in the FIR, with first three sections (i.e 120B, 170, 229), later they added the other three penal provisions (i.e 467, 468 and 420) in the charge-sheet. The court took this fact into judicial observation that those three penal sections were added in the charge-sheet by police without the prior knowledge and permission of the court. It is to be mentioned that the said NPPTI was implemented by MASUM in West Bengal, India during 2006-2008.


The paradox of the police proceedings is that, Mr. Abhijit Dutta, assistant secretary of MASUM and a practicing lawyer had been summoned under section 160 of Criminal Procedure Code by the Officer-in-Charge, Anti-Terrorist Cell, Detective Department, Lalbazar, Kolkata on 04 April 2010 in connection with the abovementioned case. He duly attended the office and was examined by the investigating officer, Mr. S Dhar. However, quite surprisingly, he is also being framed in the charge-sheet as accused reflecting him an absconder. Similar proclamation has been made against other six accused in the charge-sheet.


We are drawing your attention as gross procedural violation and judicial misappropriation: -


Though the police investigation should have been completed within six months as per sections charged, it took around one year and ten months to submit the same.
Today’s arrest was an attempt by the police to hinder the high court case, intentionally arresting him on 07th April 2010, just a day before the high-court hearing date.
This is an attempt to curb the dissenting voice against the authoritarian approach of the police administration and the government. As MASUM has grown to be a reliable platform to voice the victim’s angst and anguish, now they are trying to suppress their democratic spirit of upholding the law and rights of people.
The very act of the state government shows that they want to combat human rights activities by the Anti-Terrorist Cell of police.
The guidelines on police arrest laid down by the apex court in DK Basu case are not followed in West Bengal.
The governments of India, in particular, the West Bengal government waged war against the peace loving and law abiding citizen and taking all undemocratic means to crush the democratic value.

MASUM wants to convey deep regards to all friends who rushed to Bankshall court in solidarity. Sramajibi Hospital, Bondi Mukti Committee, Ganatantrik Adhikar Raksha Samiti, HRLN, Ekhan Bisangbad, DISHA, Nagarik Mancha, Human Rights Law Network & Asian Centre for Human Rights, People’s Watch, SICHREM, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, OMCT (World Organisation Against Torture) & FIDH.


************************************************** **************************************
Statement by Asian Centre for Human Rights

Arrest of prominent human rights activist, Kirity Roy, condemned
- UN Human Rights Chief and NHRC urged to intervene -

New Delhi: Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) today condemned the arrest of Mr Kirity Roy, Secretary of Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM) by the Anti Terrorist Cell of Kolkata Police this morning as a desperate act to silence dissent in West Bengal and demanded his immediate and unconditional release.


Mr Roy was arrested from his residence at Serampore, Hooghly in Kolkata at around 9 AM today in connection with Taltala Police Station case no. 134/2008 dated 9 June 2008 under Section 170 (Personating a public officer), Section 179 (refusing to answer public servant authorized to question), Section 229 (Personation of a juror or assessor) and Section 120B (Criminal Conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code against Mr. Kirity Roy and others of MASUM. This case was registered for organizing a People’s Tribunal on Torture on 9-10 June 2008 at Kolkata.


Mr Kirity Roy was only one of the organizers of the People’s Tribunal on Torture. The panelists included Ms. Pamela Philipose, Executive Director, Women Feature Service, Mr. Ashok Chakravarti, former Senior Director, NHRC, Justice Malay Sengupta, Ex- Chief Justice Sikkim High Court, Dr. Mohini Giri, former Chairperson, National Commission for Women, Mr. Ashutosh Mukherjee, ex-District & Sessions Judge, Dr. Tapas Bhattacharjya, Dr. Satyajit Ash, M.D., Psychiatrist, MON Foundation, Dr. Sreemantee Chaudhuri, Psychiatrist, Dr. A. K. Gupta, Head of Forensic Medicine, Calcutta Medical College, among others.


Mr Roy challenged the validity of FIR No. 134/2008 before the Calcutta High Court (Kirity Roy versus State of West Bengal & others vide WP No. 25022(W) of 2008) but on 26 August 2009 Justice Sanjib Banerjee of the Calcutta High Court dismissed the writ petition on the ground that police investigation is necessary to find out whether the petitioner organized a parallel judiciary. Mr Roy filed an appeal (MAT 1219/2009) along with a Stay Application (C.A.N. 10511/2009) in the Division Bench of Chief Justice Mohit Ranjan Shah and Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh. The Division Bench of Calcutta High Court is scheduled to hear the case tomorrow i.e. 8 April 2010.


“The arrest of Mr Kirity Roy just one day ahead of the hearing on the validity of the FIR by the Calcutta High Court is a clear attempt to subvert justice and persecute the human rights defenders in this country. This is nothing but a desperate act to silence any form of dissent in West Bengal.” – stated Mr Suhas Chakma, Director of Asian Centre for Human Rights.
ACHR has urged the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms Navi Pillay and National Human Rights Commission of India to intervene for the unconditional and immediate release of Mr Kirity Roy.

[red cat]

Orissa: Their Crime Was They Were Boys (http://indianvanguard.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/orissa-their-crime-was-they-were-boys/)

Posted by Rajeesh on April 10, 2010

Close to a village where police shot Adivasis dead last November, 13 minors have been jailed for ‘waging war against the State’. BRIJESH PANDEY reports from Koraput district of Orissa. Photographs by ANSHIKA VARMA

Police did not disclose that six people mentioned in the FIR as adults were minors, one of them just 13 years old

MY SON Narsingh is only 15. Yet he was mercilessly beaten and arrested by the police. Police are calling him a Naxal and a threat to the State. Are the police so weak that a young boy has become a threat to them?” asks a distraught Morapa Wano. Narsingh is one of six minors in Orissa’s Naxalite-infested Koraput district, almost astride the border with Andhra Pradesh, who have been charged under Sections 121 and 121A (waging war against the State) of the Indian Penal Code.


A TEHELKA team travelled nearly 100 km by motorcycle from Koraput town to reach Jangdivalsa village, where children as young as 13 have been arrested, to find out the truth and make sense of the events. The first 60 km of the journey feels as if one is heading for a vacation —the beautiful hills and scenic surroundings make it a most unlikely war zone. The tryst with nature comes to a rude jolt 5 km ahead of Narayanpatna where a company of CRPF, sitting on both sides of the road, armed with machine guns and mortars, stares you in your face. Our guide instructs us not to look them in the eye unless we wish to invite trouble. A further 3 km up the hill and we come across one more company of CRPF, armed with heavy weaponry, inspecting the nooks and corners of the hills and keeping a close vigil on those entering the area.


http://www.tehelka.com/channels/News/2010/Apr/17/images/morapa.jpgMy son is being called a Naxal. Are the police so weak that a young boy has become a threat to the State?’ MORAPA WANO, Mother of Narsingh, 15


Narayanpatna is where the Indian Reserve Battalion, a paramilitary force stationed at the local police station, opened fire on 150 Adivasis protesting in front of the station on November 20 last year. Two Adivasis — members of the Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangh (CMAS) which has been fighting for the Adivasis’ right over land — died in the firing and 60 villagers were injured. The Adivasis were part of a 150-strong group protesting against excesses committed by police and paramilitary forces which entered their villages during search and combing operations.


Police claimed the tribals had laid siege to the police station and fired at them, prompting retaliatory fire. Eight days later, it punished the villagers of Jangdivalsa for being supporters of the CMAS. Police descended on the village around 7 am on November 28, 2009, surrounding it from all sides. The men were beaten brutally. Even women and children were not spared. The mayhem continued till noon.


BRANDED NAXALS AND JAILED The 13 teenagers charged with ‘waging war against the State’ and attempt to murder
JANGDIVALSA VILLAGE
PUALA BHEEMA, 13
KADURKA BHEEMA, 15
PUALA MALATI, 15
KANDAGIRI PENTA, 15
MANDINGI SIMA, 14
HIMRIKA MADANA, 15
PUALA TAMANNA, 15
PODAPADAR VILLAGE
SANJIB NACHIKA, 15
WADERKA BIJAY, 14
NARSINGH WADEKA, 14
BHALIAPUT VILLAGE
KUMBRA HAZANKA, 15
TAMA NACHIKA , 15
DOMSIL VILLAGE
SISIR WANGDUKA, 15


TEHELKA, which visited Narayanpatna last November to unearth the truth, was back in Orissa a few days ago to investigate how much the Jangdivalsa juvenile arrests owe to the November firings. Villagers there told our team that police refused to believe that they had nothing to do with the Narayanpatna protest. “They just dragged us out of our house and we were beaten mercilessly. We thought they would spare our children but they showed no mercy,” said Vishwanath, among a handful who were fortunate enough to not be in the village at the time of the police crackdown.


Bala, 11, was another of the fortunate few, away grazing cattle at the time of the attack. When he returned, he saw his father writhing in pain in their hut. Speaking in the local Kondhi dialect, translated into broken Hindi to us by a villager, Bala says: “My father was very worried about my elder brother Penta [15]. He feared that those whom police had taken away would be killed and branded as Naxals. He heaved a sigh of relief when he came to know that they were not killed but taken to jail.”


http://www.tehelka.com/channels/News/2010/Apr/17/images/bala.jpg Lucky survivor Bala, 11, was away grazing cattle when police struck. His brother Penta, 15, was not so lucky.


http://www.tehelka.com/channels/News/2010/Apr/17/images/jurko.jpg Lucky survivor Jurko Wadeka was roughed up by the police and her husband and sons arrested


http://www.tehelka.com/channels/News/2010/Apr/17/images/setaiyah.jpg Brutalised Setaiyah was pushed around by police when they came to arrest her son, Kadurka Bheema, 15

Police claimed they had arrested 15 people, including local civil rights activists Tapan Mishra and Padmanava Sahu, from the area. All 15 were charged with waging war against the nation and possession of explosives. What was not disclosed was that six people mentioned in the FIR as adults were minors, including a child as young as 13.


At Podapadar village nearby, the situation was not much different. Here too, juveniles were taken into custody, shown as adults and charged with serious offences. Jurko Wadeka, a villager, says: “My husband and two sons were beaten up and then forcibly taken to jail. When we protested, the police also roughed us up. I just hope that this ordeal ends quickly for us.”


MOST OF the villagers we spoke to requested us not to publish their names. They say that with ‘Operation Green Hunt’ having been launched on April 1, they are at risk. Clearly, the fear of a police backlash is very strong. The police version, as expected, is rather different. The FIR filed in the case says the police “received credible information that some members of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), armed with firearms, explosives and other weapons would assemble at Jangdivalsa [on November 28] and finalise a plan to attack the police station to snatch arms and ammunition. Acting on this information, a police party along with the Special Operations Group and Cobra forces proceeded to Jangdivalsa village and surrounded it.” The FIR goes on to add that police spotted a group of armed men that had “congregated on the northern side of the forest”. Some of them managed to escape on seeing the police but “we were able to nab 15 activists and recovered a lot of firearms and detonators and one bow and arrow”, the FIR says. On interrogation, the men “told us that they were planning to destroy a bridge and damage a mobile phone tower in the locality. We arrested them and produced them in the court”, it adds.


Among those arrested was Puala Bheema, 13. He was charged with the same offences as the rest, but was lucky enough to be sent off to the juvenile centre in Behrampur. The other five juveniles were not so fortunate — they were bundled off to the district jail in complete violation of the Juvenile Justice Act, which states that children cannot be imprisoned with adults and hardened criminals.


V Balakrishna, a lawyer representing the juveniles in court, says: “They [police] killed two tribals in Narayanpatna when they demanded their rights [to land] and protested police highhandedness and now they are terrorising these villagers to ensure they desist from making such demands in the future. What they are not realising is that they are literally pushing them into the hands of Naxals.”


‘What about our police stations being blown to bits and arms looted by Naxals?’ fumes the Koraput SP

Interestingly, police no longer insist that all those arrested were adults. TEHELKA has in its possession schoolleaving certificates of two of the accused, proving that they are juveniles. When asked about juveniles being arrested and being charged with offences like waging war, the Koraput SP, Amit Sahu, shot back angrily: “What about us? What about the fact that our police stations are blown to bits and arms looted by these people? Don’t we have some rights?” Regaining his composure, Sahu added: “We are screening such cases and will forward a list to the court of individuals which we think are juvenile.” Asked if the officers who violated the Juvenile Act would be pulled up, he replied: “No comments.”


Rajendra Prasada Sahu, the public prosecutor at Jeypore court in Koraput, is more candid. He admitted that there were 14-15 juveniles in jail right now and district authorities are trying to resolve the matter. “On March 23, 2010, there was a meeting of senior officers in the circuit house at Koraput, including the Collector, SP and District Judge. We had a discussion about these juveniles. Even the SP expressed unhappiness about the manner of their arrest. The accused are in the age group 15-16. We also went to the jail to meet them. We are trying to find a solution.” But even he steered clear of the alleged violation of the Juvenile Act. However, the court staff, on condition of anonymity, told TEHELKA that even basic arrest procedures had not been followed. After the case was brought before the court, not a single statement had been recorded from the 15 accused.


Balakrishna does not think the errant police officers will be punished. “It is doubtful that police will act against its own brethren. What is bothering me most is the fact that those poor juveniles who don’t even know Oriya have to put up with hardened criminals. How they must be fending for themselves is beyond comprehension.” The lawyer hopes that since the matter is now in the public domain, authorities might act fast and try to undo the injustice meted out to the juveniles.


Two days after the TEHELKA team left Koraput, a landmine was set off in Govindpalli in the neighbouring Malkangari district, killing nine Special Operations Group personnel. Considering that police intensified random arrests after Maoists triggered a blast in Koraput — to halt combing operations following the November 20 firing — the latest blast could trigger a fresh round of hostilities. The war continues.


WRITER’S EMAIL

brijesh

[red cat]

‘Maoists are the govt for Dantewada tribals’ (http://indianvanguard.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/maoists-are-the-govt-for-dantewada-tribals/)

Posted by Rajeesh on April 10, 2010


http://media2.intoday.in/indiatoday/images/stories/041010100629Maosit225.jpg



How could the Maoists hold their sway in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada region and massacre 76 CRPF personnel on Tuesday without suffering many losses themselves? The bloodbath took place despite the heavy presence of security forces there for the last five years and the ongoing Operation Green Hunt against the rebels. The answer is simple: The Maoists have the total support of local tribals, most of whom belong to the Muriya or Gothikoya sect.


A social activist from Andhra Pradesh’s Khammam district, J. Venkatesh, said: “In the latest attack on the CRPF forces, these tribals played a major role. There were about 200 Maoists, but the number of Muriya tribals involved was double. The tribals attacked the forces with arrows, swords and axes.” He added: “The tribals form a large part of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) of the Maoists. They don’t understand the Maoist philosophy.


All they know is to simply follow the commands given by top leaders.” The tribals have developed animosity towards the police forces because they have been the worst victims of CRPF atrocities during Operation Green Hunt and earlier combing operations. Inquiries revealed that Chintagufa, where the recent massacre took place, witnessed the killing of 16 innocent tribals last October. They were declared as Maoists.


Since then, the tribals had been waiting for an opportunity to take revenge. “There is hardly any instance of real Maoists getting killed in real or fake police encounters. No Maoist leader worth mentioning was arrested or killed. All the forces have been doing all these days in the name of Operation Green Hunt is harassing and killing local tribals by branding them as Maoists. So obviously, they treat the police as their enemies,” a schoolteacher in Dornapal said.


The Maoists have also taken on the government’s role. They are reportedly taking care of the needs of tribals in the deep forests. Locals in Dantewada talk about “people’s governments” (janatana sarkars) in the tribal hamlets, where the Maoists have established local self-governments – they have set up schools and banks run by the tribals, created irrigation facilities by constructing check dams on streams, introduced collective farming and run revenue administration.


“For them, the Maoists are the real government since they have not seen any other officer coming to them so far. So, they are prepared to lay down their lives for the rebels,” the teacher added. According to Manoj Shukla, whose family fled from Chintalnar to settle in Dornapal and ran a grocery shop, the Maoists have the locals completely in their grip.


“The police forces have never made an attempt to take the tribals into confidence and bring them into the mainstream. They treat the tribals with contempt and the tribals treat the police as the enemy,” he said. As revolutionary balladeer and Maoist emissary Gaddar remarked, it is not totally a conflict between the police forces and the Maoists. “The police have waged a war against the people and they are now retaliating. It’s a real people’s war,” he said.


India Today (http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/92174/Top%20Stories/%27Maoists+are+the+real+govt+for+tribals+in+Dantew ada%27.html)

[red cat]

Pitched battle over ‘Operation Green Hunt’ at JNU (http://indianvanguard.wordpress.com/2010/04/11/pitched-battle-over-operation-green-hunt-at-jnu/)

Posted by Rajeesh on April 11, 2010


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mrY4h8hhw8g/SxWL7LJyKvI/AAAAAAAAANY/U0P5EnVWQGM/S1600-R/dsc000185.jpg



NEW DELHI: The Jawaharlal Nehru University campus became a battleground on Friday night when members of disparate student organizations clashed over what was seen as an attempt to oppose operation green hunt.


The National Students Union of India (NSUI), Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Pari-shad (ABVP) and Youth for Equality (YFE) came together to allege that a campus function by the JNU Forum Against War on People was used by Maoist supporters to celebrate the Dantewada killings. But the organizers said the meeting was only meant to oppose Operation Green Hunt launched by the government.


The NSUI national general secretary, Shaikh Shahnawaz, recalled: “Members of Democratic Students Union (DSU) and All India Students Association (AISA) organized a meeting to celebrate the killing of 76 CRPF personnel in Chhattisgarh. They were even shouting slogans like ‘India murdabad, Maovad zindabad’. How can this be allowed inside a Central university?”


To oppose the holding of the function, NSUI and ABVP activists took out a march to the venue where a clash broke out among the students. “How can an administration let anti-India activities take place? Such organizations which celebrate the death of security personnel should be banned, just like SIMI was,” said a PhD scholar from Tapti Hostel, Bharat Kumar.


The university administration said no permission had been taken to organise the meeting. Condemning the incident, vice-chancellor B B Bhattacharya said: “By organizing such a meeting at this point of time when the nation has lost 76 precious lives is very insensitive on their part. Moreover, they have not taken any permission, which is a typical JNU attitude of defying rules just for the sake of it. Now that they managed to get the desired provocation, the campus will see a series of ritualistic protests to seek media attention, which is unfortunate. A few students and our security received minor bruises.”


Samar Pandey, a member of the JNU Forum Against War On People, said that permission had been taken for the meeting. “NSUI and ABVP students tried to disrupt the meeting against ‘Operation Green Hunt’ and misbehaved. We took permission and pasted our pamphlets,” he said.


Interestingly, this issue has brought together arch-rivals ABVP and NSUI against DSU and AISA while Students Federation of India (SFI) is seen taking a neutral stand though a few of its activists were spotted with the ABVP-NSUI alliance. YFE has been carrying out a candlelight vigil since the Dantewada day to salute the martyrs while NSUI and ABVP will now observe an anti-Naxal week on the campus.


Meanwhile, the assistant dean of students, Sachidanand Sinha, said: “We will not allow peace on campus to be disrupted. We will take suitable action on Monday.”

[Saorsa]

This should be merged back with the original India thread and stickied.

[pranabjyoti]

Report on Torture in India under Congress-led Government

By Ka Frank http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-grieving-police-spo-killing-e1271207336639.jpg?w=400&h=267 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-grieving-police-spo-killing.jpg)Grieving victims of police killling in Chhattisgarh

New Delhi: The Asian Centre for Human Rights has the pleasure to share its latest report, “Torture in India 2010”. It is available at: http://www.achrweb.org/reports/india/torture2010.pdf
The report shows that taking 2000-2001 as the base year, custodial deaths have increased by 41.66% persons under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government between 2004-2005 and 2007-2008. This includes 70.72% increase of deaths in prison custody and 12.60% increase of deaths in police custody.
“It is the ‘aam aadmi’ (common people) who are the majority victims of torture and other inhuman and degrading treatment. However, the UPA government has failed to address the violations of the rights of, mainly, the aam aadmi.” – stated Mr Suhas Chakma, Director, Asian Centre for Human Rights while releasing the report at the Foreign Correspondent Club.
The ACHR welcomes the fact that the UPA government has taken a number of measures to address the economic rights of the ‘aam aadmi’ and problems of the vulnerable groups through enactment of various legislations such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the ‘Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act 2008, the Right to Education Act, the Domestic Violence Act, the Commission for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005, the Forest Rights Act and legislation for 50% reservation for women in local bodies, the panchayats, and the current commitment on the Women’s Reservation Bill and the Food Security Bill.
However, the UPA government has failed to show the same alacrity to legislate against torture. Though the Cabinet approved the decision to introduce the Prevention of Torture Bill, 2010 before the parliament and ratify the UN Convention Against Torture, the Bill is being treated as “state secret”.
Among the torture cases in 2009, “Torture in India 2010” highlighted the= torture of American journalist Joel Elliot by the Delhi Police in the early morning of 6 October 2009. Based on the statement and photographic evidence, the Asian Centre for Human Rights filed a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission of India on 12 October 2009 among others demanding prosecution of the guilty and award of compensation of US$ 500,000 to Joel Elliot.
The NHRC registered the case (No. 2989/30/8/09-10), and on 29 October 2009 issued notice to the Commissioner of Police, New Delhi calling for a report within four weeks. Over five months have passed since the notice was issued, the NHRC in its website as of 8th April 2010 states that “Response from concerned authority is awaited.”
If an American journalist can be subjected to such torture in the capital of India, one can imagine the plight of the Indian “aam aadmi”.
Joel Elliot was undoubtedly lucky – he was not killed in police custody. One Vinod Sharma from Gulabi Bagh area of New Delhi whose blackened eyes swollen with frozen blood – exposing that he was brutally boxed before he died – was published by The Hindustan Times on 8 April 2010. There are hundreds of victims of custodial death across the country whose plight never makes it to the newspapers.
Among the armed opposition groups, the Naxalites or Maoists are the worst human rights violators and regularly resort to “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture” in blatant violation of the International Humanitarian Law. On 11 March 2009, the Maoists dragged Kedar Singh Bhotka (45 years) and his brother Ganesh Singh Bhotka from their house at Gurudih village under Katkamsandi police station in Hazaribagh district in Jharkhand. They were allegedly tied to a tree and tortured by the Maoists. Thereafter, while Ganesh was released, his brother Kedar, who was a government school teacher, was killed for being an alleged “police informer”.
The Asian Centre for Human Rights believes that impunity is the root cause of increasing torture. While the government fails to establish accountability for acts of torture perpetrated by the armed groups like the Maoists, both the Central government and the state governments also refuse to provide sanction for prosecution under section 197 of the
Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). In December 2009, the Bombay High Court asked the Maharashtra government to explain why it had rejected the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID)’s plea to prosecute 10 officers of Mumbai Police in the Khwaja Yunus murder case. The Maharashtra government had sanctioned the prosecution of four minor officers but let off 10 senior officials despite the CID establishing their roles in the custodial death of Yunus in January 2003.
In the report, “Torture in India 2010”, the Asian Centre for Human Rights recommended to the Government of India to hold public discussion on the Prevention of Torture bill, 2010 with all stakeholders including the civil society groups and enact the same in 2010 itself; implement the recommendations of the Law Commission of India to make consequential amendments to the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (insertion of section 114b) to provide that in case of custodial death the onus of proving of innocence is fixed on the police; and repeal section 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code to uphold the supremacy of the judiciary.
We thought you would find the report of interest.
Yours sincerely,
Suhas Chakma, Director
Nothing unique, if you oppose the system, these are very natural consequences in DEMOCRATIC India.

[pranabjyoti]

Paramilitary Force Suspends Anti-Maoist Operations in Chhattisgarh

By Ka Frank http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-crpf-e1271204625876.jpg?w=400&h=214 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-crpf.jpg)
Times of India
Dantewada Effect?
RAIPUR: The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has suspended the anti-Maoist campaign in Chhattisgarh’s forests following the massacre of 75 troopers, state police sources said Monday.
“That attack has shocked the CRPF men in Bastar,” a high level source in the Chhattisgarh Police told IANS. Reached over telephone in Jagdalpur town, a CRPF officer refused to comment. ”I cannot say yes, I cannot say no (to what you are saying),” the officer told IANS. “You may talk to our people in Delhi.”
Sources in the Chhattisgarh Police said while their men were continuing search operation against Maoists in the sprawling forested area of Bastar, the CRPF was not giving them the usual support – for now.
“The anti-Maoist operation has been hit hard after the killing of 75 CRPF troopers April 6,” the police source said. “For the time being they are in their camps. No operation from CRPF is on in the jungles now,” the source said. ”I hope the CRPF will soon get over the setback and join the police for intensified combing of the forests,” the source said.
Seventy-five CRPF personnel and a lone Chhattisgarh policeman were slaughtered by Maoist guerrillas in the forests of Dantewada district in Bastar region April 6 in the worst attack of its kind in India.
Since then, CRPF personnel have complained to journalists, on the condition of anonymity, that weapons provided to them are of poor quality and that some of their camps even lack drinking water.
Among the main CRPF camps are Pollampalli and Dornapal in Dantewada district and Chote Donjar in Narayanganj district.
Bastar region, where the Communist Party of India-Maoist runs a de facto state, covers around 40,000 sq km of mostly forested area inhabited mainly by triabes.
According to official sources, 14 CRPF battalions are deployed in Chhattisgarh. Thirteen of them are based in Bastar in the south while one battalion is in the northern district of Surguja bordering Jharkhand.
Meanwhile, the Chhattisgarh government has raised the ex-gratia payment for government employees and police personnel from Rs.5 lakh to Rs.15 lakh.
The ex-gratia amount will be in addition to a group insurance cover amounting to Rs.10 lakh for each government employee and policeman posted in Maoist-infested area.


There are more to come in future.

[red cat]

Police action:Families Flee Dantewada Villages (http://indianvanguard.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/police-actionfamilies-flee-dantewada-villages/)

Posted by Rajeesh on April 12, 2010

Fearful of anti-Maoist operations after the Dantewada attack, many families in the district are now fleeing the villages even as Chhattisgarh Chief Minister today launched a major drive to reach out to people in Naxal hotbeds in rural areas.


Security forces have launched a massive manhunt to nab the Maoists after the deadly ambush that killed 76 personnel on 6 April.


Tension prevails in Chintalnar, Mukram and Tarmetla villages, about 500 kms from here, with the police questioning residents, official sources said.
During the ambush, security forces had gunned down eight Maoists, including Rukmati, a self styled section commander hailing from Mukram. Many residents have fled this village fearing police action, they said.
The other Maoists belonged to Rehadgatta, Pamra, Karigundam, Kodapalli, Rengam, Murpalli and Jadka villages which are a stronghold of the Naxals. Sources said that several families from these villages have also taken shelter at other places since the Maoist attack.


Collector, Dantewada district, Reena Kangla said that there was no report of any major exodus from these villages.


However, she admitted that the villagers were fearful after the attack.
"Some villagers have gone to nearby towns but you cannot say that they are fleeing the villages," she said.


Launching a major drive for "good governance" in rural areas, Chief Minister Raman Singh today visited the camps for Naxal-affected in Dantewada to take stock of the situation and assured the people of all necessary help.


Singh announced that the monthly honorarium of Special Police Officers will be raised from Rs 2150 to Rs 3,000 and that ration cards will be issued to them.


In Doranpal village in south Bastar, the chief minister announced several measures for the welfare of the people, including expansion of the local school.


Singh asked the villagers about problems related to electricity and water supply and functioning of the public distribution system.


Officials said that the drive led by the chief minister will be in two phases. The first leg will be till April 16 and the second from April 19 to April 23 during which officials will visit 20,000 villages and address the grievances of the people.


Meanwhile, a massive manhunt is on nab the red rebels, including their leaders, involved in last week’s gruesome killing for which three persons – Papa Rao, Ramana and Hidma – have emerged as prime suspects.


Born in Andhra Pradesh’s Warangal district, Rao, a general secretary of Maoists’ Jagarbandhu area committee, is known to be the right hand man of Ramana, the special general secretary of Dandakarnya region.


Dandakaranya is the forest tract in the country’s central-southern region covering parts of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra where the banned CPI-Maoist virtually runs a parallel government. Outlook (http://news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx?679257)d At: Apr 12, 2010 17:25 IST

[red cat]

‘Police killed my brother’, alleges Mukram adivasi (http://indianvanguard.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/%e2%80%98police-killed-my-brother%e2%80%99-alleges-mukram-adivasi/)

Posted by Rajeesh on April 12, 2010





http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-ab3gTb8xb3dLg.gif

Moonchasing (http://moonchasing.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/%E2%80%98police-killed-my-brother%E2%80%99-alleges-mukram-adivasi/) April 12, 2010


http://moonchasing.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/rdi0486.jpg?w=450&h=298&h=298


‘This is where we found his body.’ Says Mandgroo Kunjam (45), pointing out the spot where he found his older brother’s body on the 10th of April, 2010. This was the same area where 76 CRPF jawaans were killed on Tuesday.


‘There was blood coming out of his ears. He was badly beaten.’ Continued Mandgroo. His brother Suklu Kunjam, aged around 60 was allegedly apprehended from his home in the village of Mukram by the police on Wednesday, the day after the Mukrana encounter. Villagers found his body only on Saturday morning. Superintendent of Police Amresh Mishra claims that he received no information about any such incident.


The village of Mukram is the closest village to the site of the ambush. It has four ‘sections’ or ‘paras’– Pujaripara, Patelpara, Nadipara and Bojapara consisting of over 130 homes and almost all of them are now empty. Every house has been locked, livestock has been abandoned, the mahua left uncollected. The few residents of Chintalnar claim that all the Muria tribals left to live further in the jungles, in fear of further police action.


http://moonchasing.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/rdi0477.jpg?w=450&h=284&h=284


The 10th of April was also supposed to be market day at Chintalnar for the Muria tribals of all the nearby villages but there wasn’t a single tribal seen at Chintalnar.


Interestingly, exactly a year ago on the 10th of April, another encounter had taken place near the village of Chintagufa where 10 CRPF jawaans were killed with over 19 wounded. The situation for the CRPF posted between Chintagufa and Chintalnar has not improved either.


The company that was ambushed on Tuesday consisted of CRPF jawaans from three different companies – A Company, C Company, and G Company of the 62ndnd posted at Chintalnar had an opportunity to speak to the press where they expressed their own complaints – ‘Around 80% of us suffer from malaria at some point or the other’, ‘The INSAS is not a good gun, it only maims, never really kills,’ ‘We live under tin roofs, and its more than 45 degrees here,’ ‘There are no SPOs here,’ ‘None of us speak Koya, how are we going to communicate with the tribals?’, ‘Everyone in this area is a Maoist or supports them in some way or the other’. battalion. Around 20 jawaans of the 62


“In First Strikes itself, 26 Jawaans were killed”


http://moonchasing.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/rdi0472.jpg?w=450&h=298&h=298

According to intelligence sources, 26 of the CRPF jawaans were killed in the first contact with Maoists before they could even return fire, in the Mukrana forests of Dantewada in the early morning of the 6th of April.
“The first strike itself must’ve struck terror into the minds of the remaining forces’, according to source in the intelligence agencies. It is yet unconfirmed whether the CRPF was moving or whether they were merely sitting down. The ambush didn’t take place on a hillock as many say, but in an opening in the forest.”


Meanwhile, the Maoists have released a statement signed by Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee member Ramanna who is known to have hailed from Warangal and has been active with the tribals of Chhattisgarh since the 1980’s. In the statement he claims that around 300 Maoists were present during the attack while only eight of them were killed, including one section Commander Rukhmati who also hails from the village of Mukram. He also claims that they have stolen 75 weapons – 21 AK47s, 38 INSAFs, 7 SLR, 6 LMG, one stengun and one two-inch motor.


All of the Maoists killed in the attack are adivasis. At least half of them hail from villages that have been burnt down or attacked by the Salwa Judum. For instance Comrade Vagaal hails from Regagatta near Bhejji that was burnt down in the first few months of the inception of the Salwa Judum. Three more Maoists hailed from Pamra, Mukram, Kondapalli, that are villages where killings have taken place, according to petitions filed in the Supreme Court.

[Saorsa]

Comrade Azad, spokesperson of the CPI (Maoist), recently gave this long and indepth interview to the Hindu.

http://beta.thehindu.com/multimedia/archive/00103/Edited_text_of_12_2_103996a.pdf

[red cat]

P. Chidambaram, Whose ‘Home’ Minister? Just Plain Resign And Go! (http://indianvanguard.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/p-chidambaram-whose-home-minister-just-plain-resign-and-go/)

Posted by Rajeesh on April 13, 2010

By Trevor Selvam


Countercurrents.org

Instead of offering to quit, Mr. Chidambaram should very simply have resigned and walked away. That would have shown some genuine morality, not the play acting and drama associated with trying to salvage his bruised ego by “offering”to resign.


Real moral people make up their minds, talk to their family and friends the night before, take their special South Indian two yard coffee from stainless steel cups in the morning and then send in their resignation. Khalas! No ifs or buts, sir!— as you had clearly stated a while ago to the Maoists. No conditions, no tentativeness—please ABJURE from drama therapy. The nation does not need it.


Mr. Chidambaram is not up to the task that he has defined for himself. He is a lawyer, a business executive, a one time academic, expert in corporate representation, suave spokesperson for collapsed megalomaniac organizations like Enron and enviro-pillaging Jurassic outfits like Vedanta. How can he be a Minister for “Homes”? Why does Prime Minister Manmohan Singh put up with such ineptitude camouflaged by hollow intellectualism and pedantic pronouncements on law and order?


To be a Home Minister (quaint term is it not for someone who has razed 640 villages to the ground and displaced a few hundred thousand people from their HOMES into strategic hamlets?) you must recognize 62 years of ineptitude at HOME, first. He should first try and understand why several million citizens of this country, who regard the hills and mountains as their “homeland” and were the first citizens of this country, do not want to be moved from their “homes.”


What has Mr. Chidambaram done so far?


He has held several high level meetings with dishonest, deceitful police officers. These are the same police officers who said Chatradhar Mahato had one crore rupees insurance and a house in Orissa. They never apologized for spreading such Goebbels-like trash. These are the same Police officers who openly disregard Supreme Court directives to produce missing people that they had arrested in Dantewada. These are the same Police Officers who shot Lalmohan Tudu, President, Pulishi Santrash Birodhi Janasadharaner Committee (Peoples’ Committee against Police Atrocities) and two other persons, Yubaraj Murmu and Suchitra Murmu, in front of their families at Narcha village near Kantapahari in Lalgarh, during the night of 22nd February and then declared they were killed in an armed encounter. Subsequently, they have tried to weasel out of their own statements. These are the same police officers who will not let Sodi Sambo speak out. These are the same Police officers who are hounding well known human rights activists and charge sheeting them or arresting them. Not a single Police Officer engaged in such deceitful, murderous activities have been charge sheeted, never mind suspended or fired by Mr. Chidambaram.


Mr. Chidambaram has flirted with the same police chiefs of Dantewada and Bastar who masterminded the shooting of witnesses of rapes and massacres of adivasis by the CRPF and Selwa Judum, the same police officers who carry out the chopping of breasts of 70-year old women and the fingers of a 4 year old whose parents had already been executed. He confers and confabulates with the same police force (with a variety of reptilian, feral names) who on an average week carry out wanton killings in the name of “encounters” ranging from 5 to 10 Adivasis victims. Has anyone tallied up the civilian, non-Maoists, killed by Mr. Chidambaram’s police forces in the last one year alone? It would make the plight of the 76 hapless CRP personnel who were ambushed, a drop in the bucket. Why is no one bringing up those numbers? Hello! Shoma Chaudhry of Tehelka? Are you listening?


Mr. Chidambaram thought he had so smartly provoked the CM of Bengal Mr. Bhattacharya—“the buck stops at the CM’s office”—and then the buck stopped at his desk after the Dantewada ambush and all he does is say “Something has gone wrong, somewhere.” Is this a low budget horror movie we are watching here or enacting primary school idiom tutorials… like people in glass houses… etc etc?


Mr. Chidambaram had already called the Naxalites, savages, butchers and cowards. He plants this terminology, so that the NDTV/Times Now crew can hyperventilate, salivate and freely use terminology like “terrorists, massacre, and carnage” with impunity. Despite that when the Naxalites offered a 72 day ceasefire, he did not have the gumption to pick up the phone and talk. Here is a man who said that in 72 hours he can respond to the Naxalites! He could have done it secretly, taken the initiative to work out a deal, but instead he wanted a fax!! What a typically feudal Indian bureaucratic cop out for the Minister of all Cops! In a quiet moment, Mr. Chidambaram should seclude himself and ask his God, if he himself is responsible for this ambush and as well as the Silda attack and the Koraput one as well.


Mr. Chidambaram knows perfectly well that the Indian Government has spoken to the openly secessionist Hurriyat in Kashmir, has spoken to Underground leaders of the North East, even arranged meetings outside the country to meet them. And he wants a fax from people who even his own Service Chiefs have declared as citizens of the country and would not like to bomb, strafe and kill? Mr. Kishenji, the Maoist military commander, has openly declared that the Maoists would be the first people to defend the country and fight the Taliban if they tried to foment their type of fundamentalist nonsense in India.


Mr. Chidambaram does not want to talk to people who know the facts and the terrain and the history of this land. He likes to talk to people who are trained by foreign counter-insurgency experts, guerrilla warfare school masters who mouth platitudes about warfare and keep scratching their heads why the graduates of their famous anti-guerrilla schools are not following Standard Operating Procedures. There are apparently 48 well-known instructions on how to deal with insurgents. Well, sir, here is your problem! You see, real guerrillas create a new set of situations from point number 49 onwards, when you have just learned the first 48! That is what makes a true guerrilla. Your management training must have told you to “think out of the box.” Well, the guerrillas have been doing just that for a long time now. You are talking to the wrong people, Mr. Chidambaram!


Mr. Chidambaram and his new found supporters in the BJP, who have openly sided with his plight, must know that until and unless the Godhra massacre hoodlums are prosecuted and that includes Mr. N(azi) Modi and as well the Congress leaders of Selwa Judum and the 1984 carnage against Sikhs, (who by the way include several sitting MPS and even his cabinet colleagues) let us not talk shop about violence and non-violence.
There must be someone out there in Delhi who knows better, overcomes the usual clichés of “democracy, law and order and justice” and comes out with a refreshing new agenda that recognizes that India must face up to this new reality. It will simply not go away like a bad dream. It is time for India to comprehend that there is a reality outside of the rancid parliamentary ethos and the accompanying parliamentary parties; that there are thousands if not millions of activists who are advancing refreshing new ways to advance the welfare of this country and not cater to the 100 families who own more than 25% of India’s wealth; that ways have to be found to overcome this police state that is passed of as the world’s largest democracy; that a new alliance must be built by the broadest possible agreement of the people who are assembling today against this war on the people of India declared by Mr. Chidambaram himself. There must be someone out there, who can be a better “Home Minister.” Someone who will meet with civil society activists, constitutionalists, lawyers, doctors, engineers, writers, artists, rights activists, journalists who are against this displacement which is at the root of the problem.


It is time for Mr. Chidambaram to go! He has failed the nation, the first citizens of the country and the hopes and aspirations of the majority of the people who have not benefitted an iota from the neo-liberalist onslaught that he and his mentor, the Prime Minister of this country, have unleashed. It is better that he cuts the drama now and walks away.

[red cat]

Stop Operation Green Hunt: People’s Tribunal (http://indianvanguard.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/stop-operation-green-hunt-peoples-tribunal/)

Posted by Rajeesh on April 13, 2010
http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-ab3gTb8xb3dLg.gif
Operation Green Hunt was in the dock at a people’s tribunal in the capital over the weekend and the verdict of the jury was loud and clear: Guilty.


Organised by civil society groups, the “Independent People’s Tribunal on Land Acquisition, Resource Grab and Operation Green Hunt” heard the testimonies of tribal people, activists, academics and experts from Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. The final recommendations of the jury advised the government to “Stop Operation Green Hunt and start a dialogue with the local people.”


Among the jury members were Justice P.B. Sawant, Justice H. Suresh, Yash Pal, V. Mohini Giri, P.M. Bhargava, and K.S. Subramanian. In their observations, they noted that “state violence has been accentuated by Operation Green Hunt in which a huge number of paramilitary forces are being used mostly on the tribals. The militarisation of the state has reached a level where schools are occupied by security forces.”


They also warned that if peaceful resistance was violently crushed, the government “could very well be sowing the seeds of a violent revolution demanding justice and rule of law that would engulf the entire country.”
The jury recommended that all compulsory acquisition of agricultural or forest land be stopped. The forced displacement of tribal people needs to end, and rehabilitation started immediately. It called on the government to declare the details of all MoUs and industrial and infrastructural projects proposed in these areas and stop all environmentally destructive industries.


The paramilitary and police forces need to be withdrawn, and dissenters must not be victimised, said the jury. It also recommended the formation of an Empowered Citizen’s Commission to investigate and recommend action against those responsible for human rights violations of tribal communities.
(http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article395650.ece)

(http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article395650.ece)
The Hindu (http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article395650.ece)

[red cat]

People’s Tribunal Jury : Interim Observations And Recommendations (http://indianvanguard.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/peoples-tribunal-jury-interim-observations-and-recommendations/)

Posted by Rajeesh on April 13, 2010

By People’s Tribunal Jury

12 April, 2010

Icawpi.org (http://icawpi.org/en/peoples-resistance/news/402-peoples-tribunal-jury--interim-observations-and-recommendations-)

The jury heard the testimonies of a large number of witnesses over three days from the States of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa as well as some expert witnesses on land acquisition, mining and human rights violations of Operation Green Hunt. The immediate observations of the Jury are as follows:


Tribal communities represent a substantial and important proportion of Indian population and heritage. Not even ten countries in the world have more people than we have tribals in India. Not only are they crucial components of the country’s human biodiversity, which is greater than in the rest of the world put together, but they are also an important source of social, political and economic wisdom that would be currently relevant and can give India an edge. In addition, they understand the language of Nature better than anyone else, and have been the most successful custodian of our environment, including forests. There is also a great deal to learn from them in areas as diverse as art, culture, resource management, waste management, medicine and metallurgy. They have been also far more humane and committed to universally accepted values than our urban society.


It is clear that the country has been witnessing gross violation of the rights of the poor, particularly tribal rights, which have reached unprecedented levels since the new economic policies of the 90’s. The 5th Schedule rights of the tribals, in particular the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act and the Forest Rights Act have been grossly violated. These violations have now gone to the extent where fully tribal villages have been declared to be non-tribal. The entire executive and judicial administration appear to have been totally apathetic to their plight.


The development model which has been adopted and which is sharply embodied in the new economic policies of liberalization, privatization and globalization, have led in recent years to a huge drive by the state to transfer resources, particularly land and forests which are critical for the livelihood and the survival of the tribal people, to corporations for exploitation of mineral resources, SEZs and other industries most of which have been enormously destructive to the environment. These industries have critically polluted water bodies, land, trees, plants, and have had a devastating impact on the health and livelihoods of the people. The consultation with the Gram Sabhas required by the PESA Act has been rendered a farce as has the process of Environment Impact Assessment of these industries. This has resulted in leaving the tribals in a state of acute malnutrition and hunger which has pushed them to the very brink of survival. It could well be the severest indictment of the State in the history of democracy anywhere, on account of the sheer number of people (tribals) affected and the diabolic nature of the atrocities committed on them by the State, especially the police, leave aside the enormous and irreversible damage to the environment. It is also a glaring example of corruption – financial, intellectual and moral – sponsored and/or abetted by the State, that characterizes today’s India, cutting across all party lines.


Peaceful resistance movements of tribal communities against their forced displacement and the corporate grab of their resources is being sought to be violently crushed by the use of police and security forces and State and corporate funded and armed militias. The state violence has been accentuated by Operation Green Hunt in which a huge number of paramilitary forces are being used mostly on the tribals. The militarization of the State has reached a level where schools are occupied by security forces.


Even peaceful activists opposing these violent actions of the State against the tribals are being targeted by the State and victimized. This has led to a total alienation of the people from the State as well as their loss of faith in the government and the security forces. The Government – both at the Centre and in the States – must realize that it’s above-mentioned actions, combined with total apathy, could very well be sowing the seeds of a violent revolution demanding justice and rule of law that would engulf the entire country. We should not forget the French, Russian and American history, leave aside our own.


Recommendations:


1. Stop Operation Green Hunt and start a dialogue with the local people.


2. Immediately stop all compulsary acquisition of agricultural or forest land and the forced displacement of the tribal people.


3. Declare the details of all MOUs, industrial and infrastructural projects proposed in these areas and freeze all MOUs and leases for non-agricultural use of such land, which the Home Minister has proposed.


4. Rehabilitate and reinstate the tribals forcibly displaced back to their land and forests.


5. Stop all environmentally destructive industries as well as those on land acquired without the consent of the Gram Sabhas in these areas.


6. Withdraw the paramilitary and police forces from schools and health centres which must be effectuated with adequate teachers and infrastructure.


7. Stop victimizing dissenters and those who question the actions of the State.


8. Replace the model of development which is exploitative, environmentally destructive, iniquitous and not suitable for the country by a completely different model which is participatory, gives importance to agriculture and the rural sector, and respects equity and the environment.


9. It must be ensured that all development, especially use of land and natural resources, is with the consent and participation of the Tribal communities as guaranteed by the Constitution. Credible Citizen’s Commissions must be constituted to monitor and ensure this.


10. Constitute an Empowered Citizen’s Commission to investigate and recommend action against persons responsible for human rights violations of the tribal communities. This Commission must also be empowered to ensure that tribals actually receive the benefit of whatever government schemes exist for them.


The Independent People’s Tribunal took place from 9th – 11th April, 2010, at the Constitution Club, New Delhi. This was organized by a collective of civil society groups, social movements, activists, academics and concerned citizens in the country. The people’s jury, comprising of Hon’ble Justice P. B. Sawant, Justice H. Suresh, Professor Yash Pal, Dr. V. Mohini Giri, Dr. P. M. Bhargava, and Dr. K.S. Subramanian heard testimonies from the affected people, social activists and experts from Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, and West Bengal.

[red cat]

Rights oganisations seek withdrawal of forces (http://indianvanguard.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/rights-oganisations-seek-withdrawal-of-forces/)

Posted by Rajeesh on April 13, 2010


http://beta.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/00103/12VZVIJREG2MEET_103585f.jpg

B.D. Sharma, former IAS officer addressing a meeting organised against Green Hunt, in Bhadrachalam on Sunday. Varahara Rao is also seen. Photo: G.N. Rao


Leaders of different tribal organisations and rights organisations on Sunday wanted the government to withdraw security forces tasked with the “green hunt“ and restore peace in the tribal heartland. They organised a rally here denouncing the anti- naxalite operations carried out targeting the innocent tribal communities causing large-scale displacement in the country.


The tribals and the organisations fighting for the cause of the tribals were not against development and they were basically for the kind of the development, which would be implemented according to conditions of the tribals by fully recognising their rights over the resources of land, said the speakers.


Dr. B. D. Sharma, convenor, National Campaign for Eradication of Inequality and former collector of Bastar district, said the tribals were fighting for their self-defence. They were fighting against exploitation and any one fighting with them representing the corporate interests would only make a war.


They were not animals to be hunted down, he said. It is an insult on the tribals to call the fight a “green hunt”. He said the forests and the resources belong to the tribal communities and even if the government ventured to exploit the recourse without the consent of the tribals, it would amount to thieving. Even if it was an insect, it would hit back when trampled upon.


How could be the tribals be expected to surrender their rights over the resources meekly, he questioned. The Constitution had given them the right to defend themselves, he said.


Varavara Rao said in his address that that no multi-national company could venture into the Bastar forests that was endowed with rich natural resources ever since the Maoists could make it their base in 1980. But the BJP government that came back to power was going all out to woo the multi-nationals and rolling out a red carpet for them undermining the interests of the tribal communities. The ‘green hunt’ was to protect the interest of the MNCs. The tribals and their women were killed and subjected to vile indignities in the Bastar forests.


Kranti Chaitanya, APCLC secretary, called for an end to ‘green hunt’.

[red cat]

Report on Independent People’s Tribunal (http://indianvanguard.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/report-on-independent-people%e2%80%99s-tribunal/)

Posted by Rajeesh on April 13, 2010
Independent People’s Tribunal (Day 1)


Posted on Radical Notes (http://radicalnotes.com/journal/2010/04/10/independent-peoples-tribunal-day-2/)

(http://radicalnotes.com/journal/2010/04/10/independent-peoples-tribunal-day-2/)

Press Release: 9th April, 2010



INDEPENDENT PEOPLE’S TRIBUNAL ON LAND ACQUISITION, RESOURCE GRAB AND OPERATION GREEN HUNT
9th – 11th April, 2010, Constitution Club, New Delhi

Stop structural violence against adivasis

Stop destructive development and restore the faith of the adivasis in the Indian Constitution

The Independent People’s Tribunal on Land Acquisition, Resource Grab and Operation Green Hunt, organized by Citizen’s against Forced Displacement and War on People, kicked-off today to a packed hall, consisting of students, academics, activists and the media. The Independent People’s Tribunal is being held in New Delhi, Constitution Club.


Dr. Vandana Shiva, well-renowned environmental activist presented the inaugural address and spoke about the “urgent need to develop democratic spaces”, such as the IPT. She said “the complex issues related land acquisition, mining and exploitation of the tribals as well as mechanisms of state suppression need to be discussed in a open manner by concerned individuals and intellectuals without the threat of arrest”. Advocate Prashant Bhushan, continuing in a similar vein, referred to the mining mafia that was bleeding the nation of its resources. According to him “rampant mining is displacing adivasis from their lands and leading to the ecological ruin of India’s forest land”. He questioned the logic of undertaking such activity ‘in public interest’ when 80% of the profits were pocketed by private companies, while people were left dispossessed and left to suffer health hazards. Mr. Bhushan then introduce the People’s Jury comprising of Hon’ble (Retd) Justice P. B. Sawant, Justice (Retd) H. Suresh, Dr. V. Mohini Giri, Professor Yash Pal, Dr. P. M. Bhargava and retired IPS officer Dr. K. S. Subramanian. (Jury Bios are attached at the end of the press note). The first session was also addressed by Mr. S P Shukla who spoke about the deep injustice being met out to the tribals and the unfair polarisation of the debate in the media and the state. He said that violence by the Maoists was representative of years of injustice suffered by the poor in these lands and that use of excessive force, clamping down on democratic spaces by arrests and detention of activists like Binayak Sen would only exacerbate the situation. He strongly recommended that the State should engage in widening the discussion on the issue if it wanted to solve it. Dr. B D Sharma, a retired civil servant and ex-chairman of the SC/ST Commission, Bastar spoke about the continuous denial of rights of the tribals by the state – in the form of violations of the Vth Schedule of the Constitution, Panchayati (Extension) to Schedule Areas, Forests Rights Act.


Day 1 of the Independent People’s Tribunal focussed on the current situation in Chhattisgarh. Sudha Bhardwaj, lawyer and labour rights activist, Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha deposed on the intricate nexus between the State and Corporations in expropriating the land for industrial and mining purpose. She deposed on the ground situation in Chhattisgarh where in gross violation of the PESA Act, gram sabhas were being manipulated to take decisions on land use and sale, against collective community decision-making process. According to Sudha the scale of corruption was enormous. The district officials were facilitating the transfer of tribal land, flouting all legal and procedural conduct. She recommended that there should be strict enforcement of the Forest Rights Act and procedures of granting environmental clearances. In all cases, corporate acquisition of tribal land was to be stopped to restore the faith of the tribals in the State. Goldy M George, rights activist in Chhattisgarh also reiterated the corporate land grab and pointed out to the number of secret MOUs that were being signed, without adequate public consultation. Activists in these areas were being targeted by insidious campaigns by the State and corporates. The politics of alienation of the tribals was part of a larger strategy to use the politics of genocide in the game of Power. Harish Dhawan, human rights activist, Peoples Union for Democratic Rights spoke about the terror unleshed by the Salwa Judum and its role in the current operations.


The second part of the session focused on narratives by tribals, from the state of Chhattisgarh. The general narratives were different in details but similar in the pattern – atrocities by the police and Sulwa Judum SPOs; torture, interrogation and illegal detention for being an alleged ‘naxal’ supporter. Lingaram who was tortured and forced to join the Judum spoke about how the Gram Panchayats were mute to the cause of the tribals, and in fact, detrimental to their existence. He questioned the enormous amount of money spent since independence on the ‘welfare plans’ for the tribals and the lack of any progress in this regard. Lamenting on the lack of education and health services, he said that tribals needed development on their terms and not of the kind that was being enforced upon them from all quarters. Himanshu Kumar, Gandhian activist, spoke about the advisory, legal and rehabilitation support provided by the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram to the tribals and the consequent attempts by the state to squash the same by terrorizing villagers. Dr. Binayak Sen, offered a different perspective on structural violence that is embedded in the treatment meted out to the tribals. According to him, statistics on malnutrition revealed a severe hunger crisis and are emblematic of the neglect that these regions had been subjected to for long. He derided the state for using the development rhetoric when masses were dying of hunger and malaria.


The Independent People’s Tribunal will continue from 9th – 11th April, 2010, at the Constitution Club, New Delhi. This is organized by a collective of civil society groups, social movements, activists, academics and concerned citizens in the country.
Independent People’s Tribunal (Day 2)


Social Scientists, Experts and Adivasi representatives depose before the Jury;
Testimonies on Land Grab and Government/Corporate Atrocities in Jharkhand and West Bengal

A poignant session (9.4.2010) on Chhattisgarh and the situation of adivasis was presented at the Independent Peoples Tribunal on Land Acquisition, Resource Grab and Operation Green Hunt on 9.4.2010. This was followed by a second session focusing on two other states (where the Operation Green Hunt has recently commenced) with presentations and depositions on 10.4.2010. Speakers from Jharkhand and Orissa testified on numerous violations of laws, relating to land acquisition, tribal protection, pollution, and other violations of the Indian Constitution by corporations and the state governments.


At the Jharkhand session, several eminent speakers, including academics and leaders of popular resistance movements spoke about the situation of displacement, resistance and the looming threat of Operation Green Hunt recently commenced in Jharkhand as well. Prem Verma, spoke about the strength of the movements that have powerful grassroots support and have been largely successful in their struggles to keep their land.
Dr. Alex Ekka, spoke on the umbilical relationship between tribals and their forests. He said: “Our worldview is cosmocentric. Every being has a place in this worldview, whether it is a rock, a bird, or a person. This is the worldview that will lead to a sustainable and peaceful life on what we adivasis call our Mother Earth.”


James Topo spoke emphatically on the pathetic state of education in tribal areas. The content of textbooks is completely irrelevant to the needs and context of adivasi children with the content-writers unable or unwilling to grasp that difference. The failure of education is exploited by officials; an example was given of a land acquisition officer giving a cheque to a tribal, assuring him that it was only a record of their conversation.
Gladson Dungdung, a tribal rights activist spoke on the atrocities on civilians in the name of Operation Green Hunt in Jharkhand since March 2010. Adivasis in the area are experiencing this operation in the form of harassment, detention, looting and beating. The result, as it is being manifested now, and only likely to grow, is that the village economy has ground to a complete halt, threatening the delicate balance of sustenance on which the adivasis survive. Fear has set it, villagers are unwilling to go into the forest to collect minor forest produce, rural markets are empty and all democratic space for protest has been closed to the adivasis. Migration out of the forest has commenced. Gladson Dungdung stated: “Operation Green Hunt is not for cleansing Maoists but for establishing corporate houses in the mineral corridor, which was labeled the Red corridor only after the State realized that corporations were not signing MoUs for certain areas where protest was likely. The adivasis will never give their land – we tell the steel corporations that we don’t want to eat steel, we want to eat foodgrains.”


Dr. Bani of the Azadi Bachao Andolan spoke of the many hurdles faced in the successful struggle to stop the huge NTPC thermal power plant, which would have ruined thousands of acres of prime agricultural land. Most members of the Andolan have at least 10 false cases booked and pending against them. He spoke of the farce that is the public hearing for approval of projects. Hearings scheduled say, for 6th April at a distance of 20 km from the site of construction (in violation of the law) get secretively held on the 5th April, 11pm, to dissuade people from attending and participating (sited from a real 2009 incident).


Dr Bani also mentioned demonstrated alternatives to power production (touted as a mode of development) for example, where the government wants to buy land with mineral resources worth 40-60 crore/acre for a pittance from farmers, ABA have instead started small power plants, fully owned by the villagers, which utilize the local coal resources to power 50-60 households and all revenues would be split evenly between the villagers. He stressed on importance of development that was locally imagined and with locals benefitting and deciding on operations and economics.


Radha Krishna Munda of the Jharkhand Jungle Bachao Andolan spoke of ground realities in the implementation (or lack thereof) of the Forest Rights Act in Jharkhand. Additionally he talked of the harassment that adivasis and popular movements are facing. “An atmosphere of suspicion and intimidation has been created” he said – instead of implementing the Forest Rights Act, the nexus of police, civil administration and Forest Department is actively conniving with corporations to illegally give away adivasi land.


The West Bengal session saw a re-presentation of protests and peoples movements consistently dubbed Maoist in the past, Lalgarh being an example. Local activists and leaders of peoples’ movements are being branded as Maoists, a common thread that was also seen in the testimonies from Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. Sujato Bhadro talked about the grave situation in Lalgarh, where a day after the Chief Ministers convoy was blown up, the police attacked villages 40 km away and mistreated the villagers. A village woman’s eyes were brutally gorged in the attack, another miscarried her baby. Currently, joint forces in the “affected areas” run amok, in violation of Constitution of India and international norms to which India is a signatory. People are being abducted, not produced in 24 hours and night raids are being conducted. In an unprecedented move, the entire area of Lalgarh has been governed under Section 144 of the CRPC since 17th June 2009.


Anup Mandal, a marathon runner at the national level, spoke of being beaten by the police despite protesting about his lack of any Maoist connection and had to be recognised and rescued by a journalist after considerable damage. He was confined to bed for 4 months, putting an end to his dreams of competing at the international level. He said: “I want the SP to be held responsible; as it was due to him that my life was ruined.”
Montu Lal and Gajen Singh, activists, also testified on atrocities in Lalgarh. Government has set aside funds for Joint Forces and for the Harmat Vahini but there is no funding for the poor. People have evacuated the villages and the paramilitary forces have taken measures that seem to be designed to take vengeance on people – such as polluting village wells and forcibly recruit people for petty work. “It feels like these are actions of a foreign occupying force”.


The Independent People’s Tribunal will continue from 9th – 11th April, 2010, at the Constitution Club, New Delhi. This is organized by a collective of civil society groups, social movements, activists, academics and concerned citizens in the country.
Independent People’s Tribunal (Final Day)

The Independent People’s Tribunal concluded today with the jury comprising of Justice (Retd.) Sawant, Justice (Retd.) Suresh, Professor Yash Pal, Dr. P. M. Bhargava, Dr. Mohini Giri and Dr. K S Subramanian presenting an interim recommendation report to the public, Government and the media on the issues of on Land Acquisition, Resource Grab and Operation Green Hunt. The interim report was drafted by the jury members after three days of deliberations and hearings of depositions and testimonies from affected people and activists from the states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa.


Presenting the recommendations of the jury before the media, public and Government, Justice (Retd.) Sawant said “There is a perception within the Goivernment and media that by organising meetings like the IPT, we, everyone present in this room are supporting the Maoists and the death of the 76 CRPF jawans. Let me clarify this position for once and for all: We are not supporting the Maoists. We do not support violence in any form, State or otherwise. We here are discussing problems of the tribals and the crisis that is pushing people to a brink of desperation and escalating the cycle of violence.” It is clear that the state had let the tribals and the poor of this land down. Instead of restoring their faith in the Constitution of India, its judiciay and its spirit, the Government asked for abjuring of violence. “Are these morals only to be remembered in such times, and to be forgotten when atrocities are committed by the state itself?” Dr. P M Bhargava noted that the civil society needs to stand resolute in resisting the current development paradigm and that the case of the BT Brinjal was a case in point for small victories of the people. “The patience of the masses is running out if some serious rethinking is not.” Dr. Mohini Giri lamented on the fact that the Government took no notice of People’s Tribunals like these and recommendations that emanated from it. She criticised the Government for their lack of understanding of the issues that were affecting people and implored them to do so immediately.
The interim report of the Jury states “gross violation of the rights of the poor, particularly tribal rights, which have reached unprecedented levels since the new economic policies of the 90’s. The 5th Schedule rights of the tribals, in particular the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act and the Forest Rights Act have been grossly violated. These violations have now gone to the extent where fully tribal villages have been declared to be non-tribal. The entire executive and judicial administration appears to have been totally apathetic to their plight. It could well be the severest indictment of the State in the history of democracy anywhere, on account of the sheer number of people (tribals) affected and the diabolic nature of the atrocities committed on them by the State, especially the police, leave aside the enormous and irreversible damage to the environment. (Attached is the interim jury report).


The first session of the day took stock of the situation in Orissa with regards to industrial and mining projects, land acquisition and people’s resistance movements against such displacement, disposession. Addressed by activists Praveen Patel, Praful Samantra, Abhay Sahu and photographer Sanjit Das, the narratives pointed out to how corporate greed colluding with government officials was bleeding out the tribals. Praveen Patel presented a paper on the ‘Political Economy of Mining’ and pointed out that under the current policy, foreign companies were getting away with virtual robbery, taking huge profits, paying very little in taxes and in fact exacting a huge price from the poor (especially tribals) who are displaced and who suffer severe health and livelihood impacts from the rampant pollution.
The problematic exploitation of iron and bauxite ore was further highlighted in Praful Samantra’s talk. For example, the sites containing the most bauxite ore are located atop mountains and correspond to the sources of numerous streams. Mining the ores amounts to ruining the water supply for the adivasis living in the area, while leaving the company with zero liability. Protests are suppressed in a manner similar to that seen in other states: “…in the last year 14 people have been shot dead. In the last 6 months, villagers have been banned from leaving their areas, even to go to the hospital. In September 2009, 30 innocent villagers were put in jail and branded as Maoists. We went there and fought for them because they were innocent. The administration assured us that they would be released but they are still in jail now. Their families are starving now.”


Abhay Sahu, a leader of the Anti-POSCO movement, spoke about the situation on ground. Local people have been protesting the proposed port project, to be built by POSCO which would ruin the lucrative beetle vine cultivation as well as destroy the livelihood of lakhs of fishermen. He testified on the intimidation tactics used by the State-company nexus to kill the protests: “On 29 November 2007, state and company goons set fire to a village in my area. They occupied all schools and building in the area. When people started fighting back, the police had to abandon their posts.”
Lingaraj Azad, a tribal rights activist, talked about the delicate balance of nature in Niyamgiri, Orissa where the Dhongria Kondh tribe has dwelled for centuries. The Niyamgiri hill is under threat from Vedanta Resources for its bauxite reserves. “We have abundant herbs and trees. In the hills, there are 8000-9000 people in 200 villages. These people know nature and nature knows them. Soil, earth, water, trees—these are regarded as God and prayed to. They have no material possessions except Nature and all of it. There is no concept of private property, it is all for common use”. The Niyamgiri mining project has been receiving international media attention after the human-rights violations at Vedanta mining sites were made public.


Ajit Bhattacharjea, a journalist, stressed that lands in tribal areas were community property and did not belong to the State. Handing these lands to corporates needed to stop. Banwari Lal Sharma appealed to the politicians: “We need to spread a message of peace and make these politicians understand that we are not their enemies but we are all friends. When they sell away the country they are selling away parts of themselves.”


The session after break saw several eminent personalities addressing the audience, including Arundhati Roy, Shoma Chaudhury, Bianca Jagger, Arun Aggarwal, Kavita Srivastava and Advocate Shanti Bhushan. Arun Aggarwal presented a well researched paper on the Economics of Mining. According to him, revenue from mining activities to the state accounted for a measly 1.4% of total profits while the rest was pocketed by the corporation. The politics of mining was so complicated and corrupt that the nexus could be tracked between the corporations, politicians and police. For him, the fact that the ultra left movement was situated in areas of mineral wealth concentration, mining activities and displacement of people was a point of great importance and not to be ignored. He recommended that all mining activity should be conducted by Government owned enterprises so that the profits could be distributed more equitably. Shanti Bhushan, in a surprise address, asked the civil society to not remain silent but condemn violent acts by Maoists. Accepting the fact that tribals had been exploited for years, he added that civil society’s silence on condemning the recent carnage was being perceived as their support of Maoist violence. “How can you accept an armed resistance and overthrow of the State with violence? What is the agenda of the Maoists? If they mean well, then why don’t they give up arms and participate in elections? Let it be all done in the open.” Shoma Chaudhury, Editor-Features, Tehelka spoke on the role of the media and accepted that the debates and discussions on television channels were resolutely and sadly binary. The discussions on these topics needed to be made more complex, because they required a combination of solutions. “Keeping out perspectives – whether the Government’s, Civil Society’s or the general public will only narrow down the discourse on these complex problems that we find ourselves in. This exclusion in itself is a very dangerous trend and needs to be arrested”. She added “There is no place for violence in a democracy. Agreed. However, did democracy exist in the states of Chhattisgarh, Orissa? Democracy does not only mean election. The judiciary, police, forest officials and magistrates all represent India’s democratic structure and it is these very institutions that have failed the people.” Bianca Jagger, returning from a visit to Orissa, spoke about her experience with the Dongria Kondh tribe. She said that despite being a foreigner she related to the problem of India’s tribals. Her experience of having worked as a human rights activist in Latin and Central America shows that indigenous communities everywhere are being pressurised by the current development paradigm. Saying that there is a lot to be learnt from indigenous communities and their ecologically sustainable lifestyle, she added “I request the Government of India to retrospect into why there is an armed insurrection to begin with?”. Arundhati Roy began by asking a very poignant question “Does the government want war or peace?”. In the current context of anti-maoist operations and rampant industrial activity that was displacing people, she said “it seems to me that war is a synonym for creating an ideal investment climate.” According to her, in the 1970’s and 80’s, democracy was the single largest threat to imperialist, capitalist western nations, who overthrew democracies in Latin America. Now however war is being in Afghanistan and Iraq to install democracy and all its associated institutions. She questioned the nature of democracy, as it existed today, saying that “democracy and democratic institutions have been reduced to being vessels of Free Market Capitalism”.

[red cat]

Anuradha Ghandy: The Inspiring Life of a Maoist Leader, Remembering Anu on her Second Death Anniversary (http://indianvanguard.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/anuradha-ghandy-the-inspiring-life-of-a-maoist-leader-remembering-anu-on-her-second-death-anniversary/)

Posted by Rajeesh on April 13, 2010


Kobad Ghandy


http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-anuradha-ghandhi.jpg?w=215&h=320&h=320

Remembering Anu on her Second Death Anniversary

On April 12, 2008 a beautiful life got suddenly extinguished. Anuradha Ghandy passed away at the young age of 54 due to the late detection of the killer disease, falciperum malaria. On that day, the Indian people, particularly its oppressed women, lost a blooming flower that spread its fragrance in many parts of the country. Two years is a long time, yet the fragrance lingers on. The sweet scent like from an eternal blossom, intoxicates the mind with memories of her vivacious and loving spirit.
Even here, in the High Risk Ward of Tihar jail, the five sets of bars that incarcerates us, cannot extinguish the aroma that Anu radiates in one’s memories. The pain one suffers here seems so insignificant, compared to what she must have faced on that fateful day.


I still remember the first day I met her, way back in mid 1972. The sparkle and brightness that radiated from her childlike face, never dimmed through all the torturous years of struggles and enormous sacrifice. The same bubbly spirit, the same dynamism, and the same active and sharp mind of youth, remained till the very end.


The purity of her soul, her deep commitment to the oppressed, never allowed her to be weighed down by any kind of hardship—physical or mental. That is why the wear and tear of life could not extinguish her youth and exuberance. It was only the deadly and incurable systemic sclerosis which struck her in 2002 that suddenly resulted in her ageing overnight.


http://indianvanguard.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/anu.jpg?w=209&h=459 (http://indianvanguard.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/anu.jpg)



Though her face grew drawn, she never allowed the disease to destroy her spirit. The fire for a full life, in the service of the country and its people, did not diminish, even an iota. Till her very last day, from six in the morning to twelve at night she was continuously on the move—meeting people, travelling, reading, writing and even cooking and cleaning herself. Though the disease was slowly eating away her organs—her lungs, her kidneys, her heart—and crippling her fingers, Anu knew no rest. Even her arthritic knees, which grew more and more painful, did not stop her climbing stairs, trekking days in the forests, and often being on her feet from morning to night.


Was it will power? Was it commitment? Yet, her exhaustion, her pain, never showed on her face; she never complained. And, to those meeting her, they could not realise what she was going through.


Anu’s life traversed many paths. She was a brilliant student at school, where the progressive and democratic atmosphere of her family played a key role in moulding her. It was in her college days she became a student activist and leader. In the post-emergency period, having by then become a lecturer, she became one of the leading human rights activists in the country. After moving to Nagpur in the early 1980s, not only did she become an All India face of the revolutionary cultural movement, she developed as Maharashtra’s foremost revolutionary personality in Nagpur/Vidarbha.


Together with her job as post graduate professor in Sociology, she became a well known militant trade union leader. She led many a worker’s struggles and even went to jail a number of times. In addition, she became a popular face of the women’s movement in the region. Together with this, she also had a deep impact on the intelligentsia—lecturers, students, lawyers, writers and social activists—of Nagpur and Vidarbha. But, most importantly her main impact was on the dalit movement in Vidarbha, particularly Nagpur.


With her incisive knowledge of the dalit/caste question and her thorough study of Ambedkar’s writings, she was able to effectively challenge the deeply entrenched dalit leadership, with a scientific and Marxist interpretation of the issue. With Nagpur being the centre of the dalit movement, we shifted our residence to Indora—the biggest dalit basti in Maharashtra. Her impact on dalit youth was enormous and she became a regular invitee at most dalit functions.


People of Nagpur fondly remember this senior professor, staying in dalit basti, cycling away throughout the city in the famous Nagpur blazing sun.
After Nagpur/Vidarbha Anu shifted to work amongst the most backward tribals, living in the forests amongst them, sharing their weal and woe. And finally, in her last six to eight years she focussed on the oppressed women of our country, educating them and arousing them for their emancipation and liberation from poverty.


Through all these ups and downs we were sometimes together, often apart for months. But, the time we got together were the most cherished periods of my life. Her fiercely independent thinking acted as a great help to rational understanding of events, people and issues. There was no other person with whom I have had as vehement debates. This normally brought a balance to my often one-sided views.


Anuradha had the rare ability to combine activism with theoretical insight. In spite of her day-to-night activities she was a voracious reader and prolific writer—writing in English, Hindi and Marathi. Though she wrote on many a topic, her writings on the dalit/caste question and women’s issues have been important contributions to a scientific understanding of two very important societal aspects of India.


But what Anu would be remembered for most is her beautiful nature. At a time when communism has degenerated throughout the world—Russia, China, East Europe having collapsed and most other parties degenerated—Anuradha’s nature stood as an ideal. Where power—even petty power—tends to corrupt; where ego, self-interest and craze for leadership/fame eats into the vitals of many a movement, Anu was indeed exemplary. She remained unaffected from the time she was an ordinary cadre to that of a well known figure and big leader.


The same simplicity, straight forwardness… childlike innocence. Her face was a reflection of her emotions—unable to lie, manipulate others or indulge in intrigue. Besides, her ability to bond with all—from the simplest tribal to topmost intellectuals—is indeed legendary. Anu had the beauty of innocence, yet maintaining the sharpness of intellect and dynamism of a professional. It is this combination that gives Anuradha her eternal fragrance.


Kobad Ghandy


Tihar Jail No.3

[red cat]

Interview with Azad, spokesperson, Communist Party of India (Maoist) (http://indianvanguard.wordpress.com/2010/04/14/interview-with-azad-spokesperson-communist-party-of-india-maoist/)

Posted by Rajeesh on April 14, 2010



http://beta.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/00103/TH14_MAOIST_PIC_103972f.jpg



ARMED STRUGGLE: Younhttp://indianvanguard.wordpress.com/Users/Rajeesh/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.pngg Communist Party of India (Maoist) cadre at a training camp inside the jungles in Jharkhand State. ‘Our attempt will always be to target the enemy who is engaged in war against us,’ party Spokesperson Azad said. Photo: AFP

In an exclusive interview to The Hindu, Azad, Spokesperson of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), answers in writing questions on his party’s attitude to dialogue with the Union government.


The written questions were sent in the second week of March and the answers received at the end of the month. The 11,400-word text of the interview is available at The Hindu (http://beta.thehindu.com/news/resources/article396694.ece)’s website.

click here for Full text of interview with Azad, spokesperson, Communist Party of India (Maoist) (http://sites.google.com/site/indianvanguardorg/interviewAzadcpimaoist.pdf?attredirects=0)

An edited excerpt:

There have been statements in recent months by government and Maoist leaders saying they favour talks but each side seems to lack seriousness. There has also been an element of theatre, with Kishenji and P. Chidambaram exchanging statements through the media. Could you clarify whether Kishenji’s statements can be treated as authoritative pronouncements of the CPI (Maoist) central leadership in pursuance of a national strategy? Or are these tactical announcements by him keeping only the specifics of the West Bengal situation in mind.

Our party leadership has been issuing statements from time to time in response to the government’s dubious offer of talks. But to generalise that there is lack of seriousness on both sides does not correspond to reality. To an observer, exchanging statements through the media does sound a bit theatrical. But the stark fact is the lack of seriousness has been the hallmark of the government, particularly of P. Chidambaram. It is Mr. Chidambaram who has been enacting a drama in the past four months, particularly ever since his amusing 72-hour-abjure-violence diktat to the CPI (Maoist) last November. As regards Kishenji’s statements, they should be seen with a positive attitude, not with cynicism. Though our Central Committee has not discussed our specific strategy with regard to talks with the government at the current juncture, as a Polit Bureau member, Comrade Kishenji had taken the initiative and made a concrete proposal for a ceasefire. Whether his statements are the official pronouncements of our Central Committee is not the point of debate here. What is important is the attitude of the government to such an offer in the first place. Our Central Committee has no objection to his proposal for a ceasefire.


Mr. Chidambaram says the Maoists should “abjure violence and say they are prepared for talks… I would like no ifs, no buts and no conditions.” Now ‘to abjure’ can mean to renounce or forswear violence, or even to avoid violence, i.e. a ceasefire. What is your understanding of Mr. Chidambaram’s formulation?

This is a pertinent question as no one knows exactly what Mr. Chidambaram wants to convey. Some interpret his statement to mean Maoists should lay down arms. Some say it means unilateral renunciation of violence by Maoists. Yet others say what this could mean is a cessation of hostilities by both sides without any conditions attached. The Home Minister himself displayed his split personality, not knowing what exactly he wants when he says Maoists should “abjure violence.” To a layman this proposal obviously implies that the State too would automatically put a stop to its inhuman atrocities on the adivasis, Maoist revolutionaries, and their sympathisers. But not so to our Home Minister! When you ask what our understanding of Mr. Chidambaram’s formulation is, our answer is: the real intent is not a ceasefire between the government and the Maoists, like that with the NSCN, but an absurd demand for a unilateral renunciation of violence by the Maoists.


Mr. Chidambaram wants the Maoists to surrender. Or else his paramilitary juggernaut would crush the people and the Maoists under its wheels. While repeating that he never wanted the Maoists to lay down arms — as if he had generously given a big concession — he comes up with an even more atrocious proposal: Maoists should abjure violence while his lawless forces continue their rampage creating more Gachampallis, Gompads, and so on. Not a word does he utter even as inhuman atrocities by his forces are brought to light by magazines like Tehelka, Outlook, and, to an extent, some papers like yours.


The Maoists also have their preconditions. In a recent interview to Jan Myrdal and Gautam Navlakha, Ganapathi listed three demands for any kind of talks: “1. All-out war has to be withdrawn; 2. The ban on the Party and Mass Organisations has to be lifted; 3. Illegal detention and torture of comrades has to be stopped and they be immediately released.” He added that if these demands are met, then the same leaders who are released from jails would lead and represent the Party in talks. Are these realistic preconditions? For example, the “all out war” can be suspended first before it is “withdrawn”, i.e. a ceasefire, so why insist on its withdrawal at the outset? Are you asking for a ceasefire or something more than that?

I concur with the logic of your arguments. It is logically a valid argument that such demands could be resolved in the course of actual talks and not as a precondition for talks. But you must also understand the spirit of what Comrade Ganapathi said. What he meant when he said the government should withdraw its all-out war is nothing but a suspension of its war, or in other words, mutual ceasefire. Let there be no confusion in this regard. What Chidambaram wants is a unilateral ceasefire by Maoists while the state continues its brutal campaign of terror. On the contrary, what the CPI (Maoist) wants is a cessation of hostilities by both sides simultaneously. This is the meaning of the first point. A ceasefire by both sides cannot be called a precondition. It is but an expression of the willingness on the part of both sides engaged in war to create a conducive atmosphere for going to the next step of talks.


Ganapathi also wants the ban on the party and its mass organisations lifted and prisoners released. Usually in negotiations of this kind, the lifting of a ban is one of the objects of talks rather than a precondition. And the release of political prisoners an intermediate step. Is the Maoist party not putting the cart before the horse?

If peaceful legal work has to be done by Maoists as desired by several organisations and members of civil society, then lifting of the ban becomes a pre-requisite. Without lifting the ban on the party and mass organisations, how can we organise legal struggles, meetings etc. in our name? If we do so, will these not be dubbed as illegal as they are led by a banned party? According to us, the ban itself is an authoritarian, undemocratic, and fascist act. Hence the demand for the lifting of the ban is a legitimate demand, and, if fulfilled, will go a long way in promoting open democratic forms of struggles and creating a conducive atmosphere for a dialogue. What Comrade Ganapathi had asked for is that the government should adhere to the Indian Constitution and put an end to the illegal murders in the name of encounters, tortures, and arrests. We must include the term ‘murders,’ which is missing in the third point. There is nothing wrong or unreasonable in asking the government to stick to its own Constitution. As regards the release of political prisoners, this could be an intermediate step as far as the nature of the demand is concerned. However, to hold talks it is necessary for the government to release some leaders. Or else, there would be none to talk to since the entire party is illegal. We cannot bring any of our leaders overground for the purpose of talks.


What do the Maoists hope to achieve with talks? Are you only looking to buy time and regroup yourselves — which is what the government said you did during the aborted dialogue in Andhra Pradesh? Or is it part of a more general re-evaluation of the political strategy of the party, one which may see it emerge as an overground political formation engaged in open, legal activities and struggles, and perhaps even entering the electoral fray directly or indirectly at various levels in the kind of “multiparty competition” that Prachanda says is necessary for the communist movement?

The proposal of talks is neither a ploy to buy time or regroup ourselves, nor is it a part of the general re-evaluation of the political strategy of the party that could lead to its coming overground, entering the electoral fray and multi-party competition as in Nepal. You asked me what we want to achieve with talks. My one sentence answer is: we want to achieve whatever is possible for the betterment of people’s lives without compromising on our political programme of new democratic revolution and strategy of protracted people’s war. People have a right to enjoy whatever is guaranteed under the Indian Constitution, however nominal and limited these provisions are. And the government is duty-bound to implement the provisions of the Constitution. We hope the talks would raise the overall consciousness of the oppressed people about their fundamental rights and rally them to fight for their rights. Talks will also expose the government’s hypocrisy, duplicity, and its authoritarian and extra-constitutional rule that violates whatever is guaranteed by the Constitution. So talks would help in exposing the government’s callous attitude to the people and may help in bringing about reforms, however limited they may be.


Another important reason is that talks will give some respite to the people who are oppressed and suppressed under the jack-boots of the Indian state and state-sponsored terrorist organisations like the Salwa Judum, Maa Danteswari Swabhiman Manch, Sendra, Nagarik Suraksha Samiti, Shanti Sena, Harmad Bahini, and so on.


Would the Maoists be prepared to establish their bona fides on the question of talks by announcing a unilateral ceasefire or perhaps the non-initiation of combat operations (NICO) after a particular date so as to facilitate the process of dialogue?

It is quite strange to see intellectuals like you asking the Maoists to declare a unilateral ceasefire when the heavily armed Indian state is carrying out its brutal armed offensive and counter-revolutionary war. How would unilateral announcement of ceasefire or NICO after a particular date establish the bona fides of our party on the question of talks? What purpose would such an act serve? It is incomprehensible to me why we are asked to “display this generosity” towards an enemy who has the least concern for the welfare of the people. And how would this “generous Gandhian act” on our part facilitate the process of dialogue with the megalomaniacs in the Home Ministry who do not spare even non-violent Gandhian social activists working in Dantewada and other places?


The Maoists are engaging in armed struggle but have not hesitated to use violence against non-combatants. The beheading of a policeman, Francis Induvar, while in Maoist captivity, was a blatant violation of civilised norms and of international humanitarian law, which the Maoists, like the Government, are obliged to adhere to. If civil society condemns the security forces for killing civilians in Chhattisgarh and elsewhere and demands that the guilty be punished, it has an equal right to condemn the Maoists whenever they commit such crimes.

Our attempt will always be to target the enemy who is engaged in war against us. Non-combatants are generally avoided. But what about the intelligence officials and police informers who collect information about the movement of Maoists and cause immense damage to the movement? It is true most of them do not carry arms openly or are unarmed. What to do with them? If we just leave them they would continue to cause damage to the party and movement. If we punish them, there is a furore from the media and civil society. Caught between the devil and the deep sea! Our general practice is to conduct a trial in a people’s court wherever that is possible and proceed in accordance with the decision of the people. Where it is not possible to hold the people’s court due to the intensity of repression we conduct investigation, take the opinion of the people and give appropriate punishment.


I agree there is no place for cruelty while giving out punishments. I had clarified this in one of my earlier interviews while referring to the case of Francis Induvar. But it is made into a big issue by the media when a thousand beheadings took place in the past five years by the police-paramilitary and Salwa Judum goons. Do you really think the government is adhering to the law?


Just recently, two of our party leaders — Comrades Shakhamuri Appa Rao and Kondal Reddy — were abducted from Chennai and Pune respectively by the APSIB and the Central Intelligence officials and were murdered in cold blood in the early hours of 12th March. What is civil society doing when such cold-blooded murders are taking place in police custody? When our comrades hear of these cold-blooded murders committed by the APSIB or other officials of the state, it is natural that their blood would boil and they will not bat an eye-lid to hack any of the perpetrators of these inhuman crimes, say a man from APSIB or Grey Hounds, to pieces if he fell into their hands.


In the war zone, the passions run with such intensity, which one cannot even imagine in other areas or under normal circumstances. Could someone who has seen women being raped and murdered, children and old men being murdered after hacking them to pieces in the killing fields of Dantewada and Bijapur, ever give a thought to your so-called non-existent international laws when the perpetrator of such crimes happens to fall into their hands? The pent-up anger of the masses is so intense that even the party general secretary will perhaps fail to control the fury of the adivasi masses when they lay their hands on their tormentors.


Why has the CPI (Maoist) decided to reach out through the columns of a newspaper to clarify its views on the issue of a ceasefire and talks?

I think the media can play a role in carrying the views of a banned party to the government and the people at large, particularly at a time when facts regarding our party are distorted, misinterpreted, and obfuscated in a meticulously planned manner. And when there is no scope for a dialogue given the determination of the rulers to carry out their pre-programmed war offensive, we think it appropriate to reach out to the people at large through the media too. I thank The Hindu for the thought-provoking and incisive questions it has placed before our party. We look forward to more of such interaction with the media in future.

[red cat]

News:

I got this report just now. Gautam Navlakha and Arundhati Roy are speaking in Kolkata right now. Apparently their speeches are very radical, and the urban masses have responded hugely. There are dense crowds even outside the hall spread to a great distance.

Updates will follow.

[pranabjyoti]

AWTW: Operation Green Hunt — India’s state terror (http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/awtw-operation-green-hunt-indias-state-terror/) Posted by n3wday (http:///) on April 15, 2010

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Kasama has received the following detailed overview of the Indian government’s building offensive against revolutionary forest strongholds of tribal peoples and Maoist fighters. This came to us from A World To Win news service (http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/AWorldToWinNewsService/).
Operation Green Hunt: India’s state terror


5 April 2010. A World to Win News Service. Indian authorities have reported that the anti-Maoist military offensive called Operation Green Hunt has suffered significant blows.
On 3 April guerrillas killed at least 10 policemen and injured 10 more in a landmine attack on a police bus in the eastern state of Orissa. On 5 April, in Dantewada district in the state of Chhattisgarh, they first ambushed soldiers carrying out a jungle patrol and then ambushed a second unit sent to rescue the first. As we go to press fighting is reported to be continuing. India’s Home Minister P Chidambaram said “Something has gone very wrong. They seem to have walked into a trap set by the [Maoists] and casualties are quite high” – the security forces are said to have lost 72 soldiers. Soutik Biswas, reporting from Delhi for BBC, describes the attack as “a blow to the government” and concludes that “the government is in for a long and difficult war.”

In late 2009, with an array of military forces, hi-tech support and utmost cruelty, the government of India launched Operation Green Hunt. India is economically on the move and its rulers are eager to upgrade their partnership with global imperialism. They cannot tolerate the fact that large swaths of the country are no longer under their control, and are determined to crush anything that stands in their way, especially the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and the masses hungry for radical change who make up the army they lead.
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This unprecedented internal military offensive is taking place in the forests and hills that are the homeland of many different Adivasi tribes in the central and eastern Indian states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkand, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal. Indian and international corporations are itching to tear up these lands to get their hands on the riches that lies under them, minerals like bauxite, coal and iron ore. The forests are a source of livelihood for the Adivasis, but to be able to use them they have had to struggle against the forest police, local police and vigilante groups like the Salwa Judum who destroy their crops, steal their farm animals, rape the women and kill young and old alike.
Since the early 1990s through an economic liberalization fostered by the then finance minister Manmohan Singh (now prime minister), India has been on a fast track to playing a more major role in the global economy. In the process the contrast between the fabulously rich and the desperately poor has widened tremendously. In between, a growing middle class of call centre agents, IT specialists, market research company employees, etc., has grown to 200 million. India has been welcomed into the fraternity of global nuclear powers on signing a joint nuclear treaty with the U.S. in 2008. The economic growth rate has been around 8 percent for a number of years and the country’s elite is bursting with self-confidence in their ability and desire to exploit superprofits from the productive forces, the enormous pool of cheap labour and land and mineral resources. There has been no trickle-down to the bottom rungs of society. Instead the situation for about half of India’s people has become worse since liberalization.
One such group of exploiting capitalists are the Tatas. The Tata family owns the sixth largest steel company in the world and some of its companies are located on the edges of the tribal areas. Tata has lined up a number of “greenfield” projects in and outside of India to expand their steel production by millions of tonnes. A greenfield project is one built where nothing has been constructed before, so the land is cheap and there is no need to remodel or demolish any existing structures or pay other large expenses. Tata has already signed agreements with the government to build industrial sites on tribal lands in Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
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Operation Green Hunt’s precursor was the Salwa Judum, vigilante militias funded by the governing parties and local state governments. The leaking of a draft government report stating that Salwa Judum was first funded by Tata and Essor Steel created an outburst in the press; that part was subsequently edited out of the final version. Salwa Judum recruited those local people who could be bought to work as bullies and informers, sometimes offering free mobile phones in exchange for information. For those they couldn’t buy, they exercised a reign of terror. The official figure of emptied villages in Chhattisgarh is 644. Thousands of villagers were murdered. Thousands were arbitrarily arrested and left rotting in jail. Over 300,000 people were displaced. In attempting to separate the people from the CPI (Maoist), nearly 50,000 were forced to live in Vietnam-style strategic hamlets. Villagers who did not move into the hamlets were considered Maoists by the authorities. Independent journalists and intellectuals who tried to report on these atrocities were beaten, jailed or otherwise prevented from investigating Salwa Judum’s actions.
During this same period Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared the CPI (Maoist) the “gravest internal security threat” to India. The “land to the tiller” views of CPI (Maoist) are in contradiction to India’s rising capitalist development at its most competitive and cutthroat. As a CPI (Maoist) cadre told the activist and author Arundhati Roy (http://kasamaproject.org/category/authors/arundhati-roy-authors/),
“They want to crush us, not only because of the minerals, but because we are offering the world an alternative model. “
Some accounts of life under the shadow of Salwa Judum
The following are soundbites from a major article by Roy called “Walking with the Comrades”. (Easily located online (http://kasamaproject.org/2010/03/21/walking-with-the-comrades/), the article gives her views on the situation among the tribals and the history of CPI [Maoist] – both the advances, setbacks and necessary retreats forced on them by the state – as told to her by various members and supporters.) They are accounts from women who are part of Krantikari Adivasi Mahila Sangathan, a mass organization led by CPI (Maoist) that claims a membership of 90,000 women. The KAMS takes up issues like forced marriages, bigamy, domestic violence and the need to break with traditional tribal thinking that oppresses women. When the men are taken away, these women also go en masse to the jails and sometimes succeed in getting them released.
“As police repression has grown in Bastar, the women of KAMS have become a formidable force and rally in their hundreds, sometimes thousands, to physically confront the police. The very fact that the KAMS exists has radically changed traditional attitudes and eased many of the traditional forms of discrimination against women. For many young women, joining the party, in particular the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army, became a way of escaping the suffocation of their own society. Comrade Sushila, a senior officer of KAMS, talks about the Salwa Judum’s rage against KAMS women. She says one of their slogans was Hum Do Bibi layenge! Layenge! (We will have two wives! We will!) A lot of the rape and bestial sexual mutilation was directed at members of the KAMS. Many young women who witnessed the savagery then joined the PLGA and now women make up 45 percent of its cadre. Comrade Narmada sends for some of them and they join us in a while.
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“Comrade Rinki has very short hair. A bob-cut as they say in Gondi (language). It’s brave of her, because here, ‘bob-cut’ means ‘Maoist’. For the police that’s more than enough evidence to warrant summary execution. Comrade Rinki’s village, Korma, was attacked by the Naga Battalion and the Salwa Judum in 2005. At that time Rinki was part of the village militia. So were her friends Lukki and Sukki, who were also members of the KAMS. After burning the village, the Naga battalion caught Lukki and Sukki and one other girl, gang raped and killed them. ‘They raped them on the grass,’ Rinki says, ‘but after it was over there was no grass left.’ It’s been years now, the Naga Battalion has gone, but the police still come. ‘They come whenever they need women, or chickens.’
“Ajitha has a bob-cut too. The Judum came to Korseel, her village, and killed three people by drowning them in a nallah [stream or canal]. Ajitha was with the [guerrilla] militia, and followed the Judum at a distance to a place close to the village called Paral Nar Todak. She watched them rape six women and shoot a man in his throat.
“Sumitra tells the story of two of her friends, Telam Parvati and Kamla, who worked with KAMS. Telam Parvati was from Polekaya village in South Bastar. Like everyone else from there, she too watched the Salwa Judum burn her village. She then joined the PLGA and went to work in the Keshkal ghats [an area in Chhattisgar] . In 2009 she and Kamla had just finished organizing the March 8 Women’s Day celebrations in the area. They were together in a little hut just outside a village called Vadgo. The police surrounded the hut at night and began to fire. Kamla fired back, but she was killed. Parvati escaped, but was found and killed the next day.
“Comrade Laxmi, who is a beautiful girl with a long plait, tells me she watched the Judum burn thirty houses in her village Jojor. ‘We had no weapons then,’ she says, ‘we could do nothing, but watch.’ She joined the PLGA soon after. Laxmi was one of the 150 guerrillas who walked through the jungle for three and a half months in 2008, to Nayagarh in Orissa, to raid a police armoury from where they captured 1,200 rifles and 200,000 rounds of ammunition.”
The Adivasis, through with the PLGA lead by the CPI (Maoist), succeeded in putting up stiff and effective resistance to the Salwa Judum.
Over the last year in Lalgarh, in the state of West Bengal, an important movement arose against police repression and a major corporate development project planned by the state government. Unnerved by their tenacious resistance, the government meted out terrible atrocities to the tribals. Consequently over a 1,000 villages formed People’s Committees against Police Atrocities (PCPA). They demanded that the officials responsible for the atrocities be punished. They threw out the existing administrative structure, and started constructing a new society, building roads, digging wells, distributing land and creating collective agricultural formations. They started schools, built clinics, and invited doctors and nurses from outside. They are trying to build a self-reliant economy and develop a collective agriculture. The Maoists played a leading role in this from the beginning.
The struggle in Lalgarh gained support from many progressive forces throughout the country and internationally. It demonstrated that the Salwa Judum was insufficient to drive the tribals off their land. As a repressive force, it was inadequate for the task.
Enter Operation Green Hunt
With Operation Green Hunt the burning, killing, looting, torturing and raping has increased exponentially. Unlike Salwa Judum this operation is coordinated by the central government, which predicts a long and bloody war until the tribal area is “sanitized” and the Naxalites (as the government calls the Maoists) defeated. More than 100,00 military and paramilitary troops are being sent into the Adivasi areas. The plan is for the occupiers to gradually spread from one “sanitized” area to another. Twenty Warfare Training Schools are being built in India. Mahmohan Singh recently spent $18 billion in the U.S. to buy huge amounts of military supplies and munitions, including the latest state-of-the- art global positioning systems and night-vision- capable automatic rifles. Drones are being provided by Israel. And the Israeli Mossad is training Indian police as snipers. Media reports suggest that their mission is to assassinate leaders of the CPI (Maoist) and the mass movement.
According to numerous well-documented reports from sources not necessarily friendly to CPI (Maoist), 30 to 40 tribal people are being killed each week in the Adivasi belt. In Goompad village, Chhattisgarh, witnesses who reported a police massacre were disappeared. (Tehelka.com, 24 February, 2010). On 22 February, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) murdered one such leader, Sri Lalmohan Tudu, the elected president of the People’s Committee against Police Atrocities, and two other people in Lalgarh. Conflicting police versions emerged about how Tudu died. One said he was killed while attacking a police camp, another that he was with a Maoist squad and was apprehended in a CRPF raid. Eyewitness accounts say he was killed near his home and his body was dragged into the paddy fields nearby.
Tudu was one of the main representatives of the PCPA in negotiations with officials of the state government. At no time was he accused of being a Maoist. According to Tudu’s wife, the authorities “had been hunting him since last June. He tried to come to the house that day but he was kidnapped that night. We heard gunshots and feared the worst. We never found out what had happened until the next morning when we heard his body was in the morgue.” A member of a democratic rights organization said there is a shoot-on-sight order against the Maoists but “nobody knows what a Maoist is. Police say everybody is a Maoist.” The villagers say, “in the eyes of the police, the cows and chickens are Maoist”. (World News, 8 March 2010)
The military has set up camps in the forests and along streams and ponds. They have closed schools and taken school buildings for their own use. They have cordoned off the area around the forests, preventing the Adivasis from getting food and marketable items that allow them to earn a livelihood and access to water. And they are trying to prevent the Maoists from merging with and being nourished by the masses of Adivasis.
One third of the world’s poor
Although the statistics vary, by most accounts one third of the world’s poor lives in India. The World Bank says 42 percent of India’s 1.2 billion people live on $1.25 per day. A United Nations study says 72 percent live on $2 or less a day. And an Indian government report from the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector says that 70 percent of Indians live on half a dollar a day (Reuters, 10 August 2007). Tribals, lower castes and Muslims are especially numerous among those desperately poor sections of the people, working and living under conditions as bad or worse as any in the world. The global market is moving into the centre of many people’s lives in a new way, with devastating effects even among the somewhat better off parts of rural India. For instance, the government and international organizations have pressured Indian farmers to plant crops to compete on the global market. Unable to pay their debts when prices slumped or bad weather conditions destroyed their crops, thousands of them have found no way out but suicide.
Dr Binayak Sen, internationally renowned for the voluntary health clinic for the rural poor in Chhattisgarh he has run since 1981 and a human rights activist, recently lectured a university crowd on “Violence and justice in our times”, describing how Operation Green Hunt is worsening health conditions for an already undernourished population. He said that over 50 percent of tribals have a body mass index of 18.5. According to the standards set by the Health Organisation, this means that the population is in a state of famine. Dr Sen was recently released after two years in a Chhattisgarh prison on charges of “treason and waging war against the state”. He was accused of passing a letter from a Maoist prisoner he had been treating medically in jail to someone on the outside. After an international outcry, he was released on bail. (14 March 2010, Indian Express) During Arundhati Roy’s “Walk with the Comrades”, one of the very few doctors in a camp visited by her expressed a similarly dire view. Many diseases that result from long term anaemia are on the rise, in addition to the “usual” diseases like malaria that are preventable or can be attended to if you have access to medicines.
The grim life-and-death character of what Operation Green Hunt means to millions of tribals in India’s heartland is not lost on many thinking individuals, irrespective of their views on Maoism. Until recently such wide-scale military mobilizations were reserved for India’s war with Pakistan over Kashmir or against the secessionist movements in the eastern part of the country. A movement against OGH is gaining momentum in many parts of the India, despite the risk of being tarred with the “terrorist” brush or labelled a Maoist by the Indian government. This opposition and resistance comes from a wide-ranging political spectrum. OGH has created significant polarization in society. Within this, there are contrasting views.
Some oppositional voices focus on the fundamental violation of human rights underway to further the interests of India’s corporate elite, Tata, Essor and Vedanta, who have made several billion-dollar deals with the government to plunder the riches in the hills and forests occupied by the Adivasis in the areas “infested” by the Maoists. Some understand why the Maoists, with their different view of how the world can be, represent an attractive force to the Adivasis. Despite its regional and global ambitions the Indian state fails to provide public services like health care and education, minimal employment, safe drinking water, food, seed plant credits or even law and order for the Adivasis and the rest of the “poorest of the poor”. Instead the state has served them daily humiliation, oppression and superexploitation.
An article in Frontline magazine, no friend of the Maoists, wrote the following:
” [T]he state has lost legitimacy in tribal India. It is laughable to claim that its project of militarily overpowering the Maoists has popular support. Its police force is inefficient, corrupt, trigger-happy and anti-poor. The State represents little more than predatory, rape-and-run industrial groups, besides super-corrupt Ministers (like Madhu Koda who allegedly amassed wealth equivalent to a fourth of Jharkhand’s tax revenue in three years). It is no accident that the Centre has intervened to assert its full coercive power in an area that contains much of India’s immense mineral and forest wealth, now under transfer to private capital. If the operation continues, the civilian death toll is liable to rise from several hundred to several thousand a year, as had happened in Argentina and Peru, where 50,000 to 100,000 people ‘disappeared’ in decades-long counter-insurgency operations. ” ([I]Frontline, issue 6, 13-26 March 2010)
Others contend that the masses are caught between “two fires”, the Maoist army and the state military apparatus. In India this idea is called the “sandwich theory”. It claims to see the armed might of the state and forces for revolution as equally bad. They object to the “war on the people” and say the line between civilian and military targets is being blurred, as though it would be okay to hunt down the revolutionary Maoists. Some uphold the use of Greyhounds, an elite anti-Naxal force who will be marauding in the jungles, specializing in guerrilla tactics to counter those of the Maoists. This view does not correspond to reality, because the violence of the state whose armed forces rain terror on the masses in order to maintain the exploiters’ rule is not the same as the liberatory violence of the oppressed rising up.
In a very different sense, the masses of Adivasis are caught between two fires: that of the enemy directed against the revolution and the fire of everyday exploitation and oppression. When they understand the interconnectedness of that, they come to learn that revolution is the only way out.
Support from AWTW.

[pranabjyoti]

The other side of transactions in a violent system (http://www.icawpi.org/en/analysis/opinion/410-the-other-side-of-transactions-in-a-violent-system)

Sumanta Banerjee It is understandable that human rights/civil liberties organizations should come out with statements deploring the killing of security forces (e.g. PUDR press statement on the wiping out of 75-odd CRPF personnel in Chhattisgarh on April 6) on the purely humanitarian ground that any loss of life is deplorable. But civil society groups or individuals who view the issue from a larger perspective need to take a more rigorous and clear-cut stand. If they agree that the fundamental issues raised by the Maoists are right, even if they do not accept their tactics (in other words, if they are well-disposed towards the basic Maoist critique of the present exploitative system and sympathize with their efforts to build up alternative structures of egalitarian governance in their areas of control, without supporting their tactics of indiscriminate killings of innocent civilians), they have to recognize the stark reality.
The stark reality is that the confrontation between the recalcitrant Indian state (which is adopting an oppressive neo-liberal model of development) and its opponents (the rural poor and tribal villagers who are facing displacement by that model) is fast acquiring the dimensions of a civil war. In such a war situation, the liberal-bourgeois pacifists can condemn both the disputing parties, and wash their hands off, shouting: "plague on both houses." But can we afford to withdraw and refuse to take sides in this war ?
If we are opposing the Indian state's neo-liberal model of development and its oppressive policies to impose it on our people by displacing them from their homes, we should define our position with regard to the various popular protest movements that are breaking out in different forms - ranging from Gandhian non-violent types like the Narmada Banchao Movement or the anti-steel plant agitation in Kalinganagar on the one hand, to armed resistance by forest-dwellers and tribal people organized under Maoist leadership on the other. The mainstream media propaganda builds up a peculiar dichotomy between these two types of movements - describing the former as part of 'democratic' protest, and denouncing the latter as 'terrorism' - as if the Maoist movement is not democratic. It is as if protests and agitations can be termed democratic only if they are non-violent. But what if thousands of people in a particular area, comprising the majority of the population, decide to opt for armed resistance, after their non-violent forms of protest are violently suppressed by the state ? This is what is happening in Chhattisgarh. The reasons why the tribal people in Dandakaranya have taken up arms have been well-documented - not only by human rights activists, but also by no less an important body than the Planning Commission Experts Group in its report on extremist-affected areas a few years ago. For years together, their basic needs had not only been ignored by the state, but whenever they tried to assert their economic demands through peaceful democratic avenues - like demonstrations asking for higher prices for tendu leave collection, or access to forest produce - they were ruthlessly suppressed by the police.
What needs to be asserted - and which is deliberately suppressed by the mainstream media - is that even the non-violent protest movements (accepted as 'democratic' by the bourgeois-liberals) are violently opposed by the state through the use of military force (witness the experience of the Narmada Banchao movement, or of the Gandhian Himangshu whose ashram in Chhattisgarh was destroyed by the police). If the followers of these non-violent movements, after their disillusionment with the 'peaceful' means of constitutional protest, take up arms tomorrow to protect their homes and occupations, should we denounce them as 'terrorists' ?
The Home Minister, P. Chidambaram says that the Naxalites have forced a war on the Indian state and its people. It's the other way round. The Indian state has forced a war on the Indian poor by imposing on them a corporate sector-induced model of development - threatening wide sections of rural people ranging from the villages of Orissa, Jharkhand in the east to Rajasthan and Haryana in the north, who are being ousted from their lands. They are breaking out in protest demonstrations. The state responds by resorting to violence to suppress them. It has built up a well-structured a military network consisting of a variety of forces going under the names of CRPF, CISF, Special Operation Group, Eastern Frontier Rifles, etc. in various states. Exposures by independent reporters (in magazines like TEHELKA) have revealed how the senior officials and their juniors in these para-military forces have been consistently killing innocent people in false encounters, raping women, burning villages, not only in Maoist-dominated villages of Chhattisgarh, but also in Manipur and other parts of the north-east. The CRPF in particular has earned a notoriety for atrocities in areas wherever they had been deployed. The national media may shed tears for the death of the 75-odd CRPF soldiers in Chhattisgarh. But then, these soldiers, by being cannon-fodders of the Indian state, however tragic it might be, suffered the fate that - I'm sorry to say - they deserved. Should the bourgeois-liberals and human rights activists shed tears for the young dedicated Nazi soldiers (who massacred the Jews), and were killed in reprisal by the Soviet Red Army ? Surely, there should be a limit to the tolerance that bourgeois-liberalism allows!.
To come back to the latest incident of the Maoist attack on the CRPF camp in Chhattisgarh.... if we accept it as a part of a civil war, such killings are inevitable (just as the CRPF killings of Maoists) in a violent system that has been institutionalized by the Indian state. The difference between the CRPF violence (involving 'false encounters', raping of tribal women, burning their homes, etc.) on the one hand, and the Maoist violence on the other (which means attacks on oppressive landlords and the police and para-military forces like the CRPF which come to the aid of the landlords) - has to be distinguished by civil society groups.
(Sanhati, 7 April)
http://www.icawpi.org/en/analysis/opinion/410-the-other-side-of-transactions-in-a-violent-system

[pranabjyoti]

Gujarat : Rights activists being branded and jailed (http://www.icawpi.org/en/peoples-resistance/news/413-gujarat--rights-activists-being-branded-and-jailed)


Dangs is the smallest and perhaps the most scenic Adivasi district of Gujarat. As you soak in the beauty and breathe the fresh air, Ashish Pawar, a young Adivasi activist acting as a guide, struggles to explain why his "god", activist Avinash Kulkarni, who has been branded a Maoist by police, was arrested. Fearing a similar fate for himself, he adds, "I don't even understand what Naxalism or Maoism means."
In south Gujarat, police arrested at least nine "Maoists" in February and March claiming they received information from the Orissa government that Naxals were preparing for a violent movement in the state. But so far, Gujarat Police have not produced any evidence - except alleged confessions by those arrested - that they were involved in any armed, violent or anti- State activity. Before this, police have not registered any Maoist activity in the region since 1998.
In what appears to be a two-pronged strategy, activists like Kulkarni who are working with tribals to ensure they get ownership of their forest land are dubbed Maoist and arrested. At the same time, tribals are themselves being divided along Hindu vs tribal lines and turned into Hindutva acolytes.
The recent arrests come at a time when the Adivasis of Dangs thought they had learned to deal with the "tyranny" of forest authorities through legal instruments like the Forest Rights Act (FRA). Among those arrested is prominent Gandhian and forest rights activist Avinash Kulkarni, 55, whom the tribals deeply respect. Kulkarni was arrested from the house of fellow Adivasi activist Bharat Pawar on March 26 in the administrative headquarters of Dangs. An MPhil in political science, Kulkarni has been charged with "waging war against state" besides organising and participating in "unlawful" assembly of people in Dangs and Surat. His associates say Kulkarni has been arrested to "create a possibility of dividing" the Adivasi Maha Sabha (AMS), a conglomerate of 40 tribal rights groups comprising some 30,000 tribals who are involved in a robust movement in Gujarat's tribal areas seeking the implementation of the FRA.
The arrest of Kulkarni, Bharat and Sulat Pawar has created such an atmosphere of fear in Dangs that it threatens to halt the peaceful tribal forest rights movement spearheaded by AMS in south Gujarat. AMS members say they will carry on working for the tribal rights of "jal, zameen and jungle (water, land and forest)" under the constitutional provisions of the FRA. But police visits to their houses have left them frightened. "Earlier, people would agitate against the forest authorities. Avinashbhai taught us new legal methods to approach the government for our legal rights," says Ashish, 27, who has worked with Kulkarni in Dangs since 2005, when the FRA was enacted. "Now we are scared that we will also be caught." Ashish says that after the arrests, his father, Gulab Bhai, a tribal elder, was told by the Dangs DSP that he should not organise any protests or assemble people. Tribals in the area say police visited several villages in the Dangs to deliver similar messages.
Those connected with social and democratic movements in the south Gujarat tribal belt are enraged by the arrests of the activists. "For Chief Minister Narendra Modi's government, the FRA is like a gun in the hands of the tribals," says Rohit Prajapati, a prominent Vadodara-based activist and AMS member. There is a widespread impression among south Gujarat civil society members that if the FRA is implemented properly it will create serious problems for Modi because of "commitments" he has given to the paper, tourism and mining industries in Dangs and other tribal areas of the state. "Some forest areas will need to be leased to industry," says Prajapati. "Even the judiciary go along when national interest is invoked."
A GROWING sense that "Naxalism" is being invented by the state to "scuttle" the tribal rights movement and "neutralise" the AMS is spreading in Gujarat's tribal belt. On April 4, hundreds of tribals from Kim, Ulpad and Mangrol Adivasi tehsils assembled in Surat to protest the "arrests in the name of Naxalism".
There are reasons to believe that the Naxal label has proved very useful for Gujarat and that the state government is going slow in implementing the FRA. In Dangs, not a single "patta" - legal papers for ownership of cultivation land in the forest area - has been handed over to any tribal claimant so far. "The Gujarat government does not like social justice movements. The arrests are aimed at stopping the legal tribal rights movements," says Uttam Parmar, a Gandhian tribal rights activist who has been involved in justice movements for years.
Parmar also points to the second line of the Gujarat strategy: that the Modi government has been actively encouraging - with official support - the "Hinduisation" of tribal culture. "A Hindu ethos is being imposed on the tribals - whose civilisational culture is far different from that of Hindu culture," Parmar adds. In 2007, the state government allowed the illegal felling of 600 trees on the Chamak Dongar hill and built on it a temple for Shabri, a devotee of Ram. A small pond in Subir village was renamed 'Pampa Sarovar', the place where Ram supposedly met Shabri. The site was later used by the VHP and RSS to establish a fifth Kumbh Mela (Shabri Kumbh). "An imaginary history is being created to strip Adivasis of their identity and rights to the forest," Parmar says. Today, the entire Dangs' hillocks are dotted with Hanuman temples.
The Dangis say the BJP, the RSS and the VHP have no history of speaking up for Adivasis and have instead created friction between them and Christian missionaries working in the area. "They [the government] did not even ask us before dismantling symbols of our deities here," says Pawar, "The government is simultaneously creating a communal emergency in the state."
Officials of the Rajpipla Social Service Society (RSSS), a legal aid NGO and part of AMS in the tribal belt, are dismayed by the arrest of Kulkarni and his associates. Kulkarni has worked with the RSSS for more than a decade and was preparing for a Peoples' Tribunal for Forest Rights in the coming months. The organisation, parts of whose work has been funded by the Union Ministry of Rural Development, claims it has provided legal assistance to tribals in at least two lakh court cases over the last two decades. "AMS can vouch that Avinash and Bharat [Pawar] are not involved in violent or illegal activity," says Xavier Manjooran, a senior RSSS office bearer and AMS activist. "The Gujarat government was sorry that they didn't have Naxals or Maoists."
Kulkarni's lawyer, Kirit Panwala, says there is nothing illegal about his current activities. "[Kulkarni] may get harassed because of his past," Panwala says. Manjooran adds that when Avinash came from Maharashtra to work among the Dang tribals in 2002, he revealed that he was once a member of CPI-ML Janashakti but had quit the party. The party is not banned. But according to Surat police sources, Kulkarni has "confessed" that he is still a member and participated in two recent party meetings in Surat.
"The government has the right to deal with any violent movement in Gujarat. But it is important that the government action does not jeopardise the lives of people and activists who are working for the rights of Adivasis," Panwala says.
But Gujarat police suspect Kulkarni is involved in organising a Maoist rebellion in the south of the state. Although officially police are tight-lipped about details of what has come to light after interrogating six alleged Maoists arrested outside Dangs, officials privately say that Niranjan Mahapatra, arrested one week before Kulkarni, has identified him as being involved in Maoist activity in Gujarat. Kulkarni now faces charges of sedition.
The work that Kulkarni and his associates have been involved with in Dangs for two decades points to a possible solution to the Naxal or Maoist problem that has captured the country's attention. Arresting the likes of him may amount to taking away Adivasis' legal means to secure their rights as prescribed in the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution and the FRA. Could Gujarat police be shooting the messenger?
(Tehelka, April 17)
Those who want to see "STALINIST":) rule in reality, come and visit Gujarat.

[pranabjyoti]

We Don’t Need No Thought Control (http://www.icawpi.org/en/analysis/opinion/412-we-dont-need-no-thought-control)

Rona Wilson
JNU'S BID TO CURB FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY IS AN `OPERATION GREEN HUNT' ON CAMPUS

THEY SAY every major structural shift of the State's policy options is preceded by a commensurate enactment of law. Perhaps what is unfolding in higher education in India, especially in campuses like JNU, are ominous portents of further authoritarianism in university education in India. The HRD minister set to open the huge education market for foreign capital as and when the Foreign Universities Bill is passed — yes, another SEZ is in the making.
So it was natural when the JNU administration came out with a curious circular on March 23 from the office of the Provost, duly attested by the Dean of Students, stating unequivocally that henceforth all seminars, public meetings, film or documentary screenings, and exhibitions will only be allowed if they does not compromise national integration, harmony and security. It was accompanied by a new application which stipulated, for the first time, that permission must be taken for such events a week in advance. It contained queries about the participants — if there would be debate and discussion after the meeting, the topic and so on. This circular has reportedly been withdrawn following protests from students and teachers. This all is happening as the JNU administration tries to avoid the increasing demand of ensuring reservations in faculty positions.

On April 9, who all had come together to disrupt a cultural programme organised by the JNU Forum Against War on People, the broad platform of students and organisations opposed to `Operation Green Hunt' (OGH)? The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and Youth For Equality (YFE), the ABVP and NSUI'S anti-reservationist B-team. And what were their slogans? That OGH should start from JNU and the usual branding of anyone and everyone as `anti-nationals'. The unruly crowd went on howling and heckling the students, with security standing mute witness. Then, they started destroying equipment: they took away the audio-mixer, broke one of the loudspeakers and started pelting stones at the venue. Some students had to be taken to hospital. The screening of Costa Gavras' masterpiece Missing could not be done, but the rest of the programme — protest songs and the nukkad natak — were put up. The administration later came up with the excuse that prior permission was not taken, but that's no pretext to allow anybody to disrupt a student programme.


Apart from programmes organised by campus student groups, there is hardly any reflection, academic or otherwise, among faculty on such unprecedented and violent change to the lives and livelihoods of millions of Adivasis of this country. There is hardly any reflection on farmer suicides or the poorest of the poor dying of starvation or malnutrition. So much for the sensitivity of the `educated middle class'.

The background for this show of lumpenism by the ABVP-YFE-NSUI was very much provided by the university's circular. The memo was a green light to stifle whatever liberal voices of dissent were left in campuses like JNU. The ABVP-YFE-NSUI combine was correct: SEZ policy in higher education should come up with its own OGH, and the ABVP-YFE-NSUI has turned out to be the Salwa Judum SPOs — mind you, this has been the historical role of all these groups: to be fundamentally opposed to any form of democratic assertion, let alone liberal opinions. Who said that the OGH was limited to the jungles of central and eastern India? Of course, our Home Minister has denied its very existence to begin with!
(Tehelka, 16th April)
The real nature of world's biggest DEMOCRACY.

[pranabjyoti]

A Primer on India’s Maoists: Who Are They and What Do They Want? By Ka Frank http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-plga-with-kid-e1271538754455.jpg?w=380&h=252 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-plga-with-kid.jpg)
by Rita Khanna
This is meant to be a simple and brief exposition of the goals and strategies of the Maoist movement in India for people who may not have much awareness about it and are confused by the propaganda in the mainstream media. This does not go into the arcane debates about mode of production in India, the debates among communist revolutionaries over strategy and tactics etc. This aims at people who, for example, are perplexed why the Maoists, instead of trying to ensure safe drinking water like an NGO, rather, often resort to violent activities against the Government.
The Indian government is launching a full-scale war against the Maoist rebels and the people led by them in different parts of the country. The initial battles, without any formal announcement, have already started. For this purpose, they intend to deploy about 75,000 security personnel in parts of Central and Eastern India, including Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhand. The government will organize its regular air-force in addition to paramilitary and specially trained COBRA forces. The air-force has begun to extend its logistic support.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P. Chidambaram have declared the Maoist rebels to be ‘the biggest internal security threat’ to India and a hindrance to ‘development’. The mainstream media seem to have taken them at their face value. Their publications and television programmes seem to be building a war-hysteria against the Maoist rebels regardless of the fact that this attack by the government will be directed against some of the most deprived of the Indian people. Indeed this is turning into a war of the state against its own people!
While paying lip service at times to the notion that the current people’s insurgency led by the Maoist rebels has its root in decades of vicious exploitation of the poor, especially the dalits and tribals, the blare of government propaganda tries to convince us that the Maoist rebels are dangerous, blood-thirsty terrorists determined to establish their areas of influence. The Government is preaching that the Maoists can go to any extent to maintain their influence in these areas – by either preventing the government from undertaking development activities or using the power of their guns, killing disobedient individuals. Their ideology is to terrorise the common people, wrest power from the democratically elected governments and destroy the entire fabric of the society.
The government and the media want us to believe that the only people, apart from a few romantic misguided intellectuals, who willingly support Maoists are the poor, ignorant, uneducated, uninformed tribal people. They seem to claim that no sensible, intelligent person living in a society like ours would support them voluntarily. But is this a true picture?
Could it be that the Maoist rebels are supporting and organizing the poor, exploited people to fight oppression, to establish a more egalitarian society where the wealth of our growing economy will be spread among all, not merely among a very small minority? Could it be that in the name of suppressing the Maoists, the state is going all out to break the backbone of these poor peoples’ fight? Could it be that the government is planning to wage a war, in our name, against our own sisters and brothers to help line the pockets of the rich?
In this hour of crisis, we must ask those questions that the government seeks to suppress.
What do we really know about the Maoist rebels, their ideology, their plans and programs? Why does the government need to go to war against its own people and inside its own territory? Are the Maoists really blocking development? Who are these Maoists anyway and what do they want?
Let us take one question at a time.
Who are these Maoists?
The Maoists are revolutionaries mainly consisting of the extremely poor people including a large number of dalits and tribals. They come mainly from the toiling masses of India and they are trying to organize the vast population of such masses of this country. They seek to arm and train them so that these masses can resist the onslaught of the rich. In this effort they go beyond the idea that mass movements should focus on some specific issues like increase of wages, better health care, more honesty of public servants and so forth.
The view of the Maoist rebels is that the poor and exploited people must first and foremost establish their own democratic political power and their own state power in various places. This is because without controlling state power, the poor and the exploited can at most hope for only limited improvements in their living conditions, i.e., so long as it does not inconvenience the rich who usually control the state power. So, the Maoists mobilize the poor to fight against the existing state, even armed fight if possible, as they consider the existing state to be a set of agents acting for the big multinational corporations, rich landlords and the wealthy in general.
The fight is an extremely challenging and unequal one as the rich are aided by the government bureaucrats, the police and even the military. Also, contrary to what the Government and the mainstream media are propagating, the Maoist rebels are actually completely opposed to individual killings, they openly denigrate such stray terrorism-like acts. What they have been attempting to build up is a mass movement, even armed, to take on the violence of the ruling classes and its representative state machinery.
The Maoist movement was born in India in the late 1960s, after a radical section of political workers broke away mainly from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPIM) because they felt the CPIM and other such parties like CPI, RSP, etc. had discredited themselves with their opportunist politics of placating and compromising with the rich. The movement has a long history of development. The present party, CPI (Maoist), came into being in 2004 by the merger of a number of fraternal organizations.
Is development in India arrested because the Maoist rebels are blocking it?
What is the state of the people of India at present? With its current high rate of growth, this is also a country of abject poverty and extreme inequality. Home to 24 billionaires (second largest in Asia according to Forbes), India can also boast of 230 million people who go to bed on a half empty stomach (World Hunger Report).
A country whose economy grows at 9% cannot feed its own population – at least 50% of the people live below the official poverty line and 47% of children below the age of three are underweight (World Bank report, Undernourished children: A call for reform and action). In this so called ‘hub of knowledge economy’, only 11% of the total population can afford higher education and 50% of the students drop out before class eight to start living as casual labourers (Education Statistics, Ministry of Human Resource Development). This is true of most of India not just the areas where Maoist influence and control is high. Then how can we say that development in India is being blocked by Maoists?
Maoists do not oppose ‘development’ at all, they only oppose the ‘pro-rich development’ at the expense of destitution or often total destruction of the poor. For example, in Dandakaranya region of Chhattisgarh they oppose setting up of helipads but there, the poor themselves, led by the Maoist rebels, have built irrigation tanks and wells for help in agriculture something the Indian government did not bother to do. The Indian government routinely blames the Maoist rebels that they blow up schools! But what the Government tries to suppress is that these blown-up school buildings were actually being used or requisitioned to become camps for security personnel!
And what changes do they want? Why do they want these changes?
(1) Overhauling the entire structure of oppression instead of piecemeal reforms
In addition to all the woes described above, India is also a country, where thousands of Muslims can be butchered in broad daylight by fascist Hindu forces (the most widespread and gruesome such pogrom in recent times happened in Gujarat in 2002), while the ministers and police look the other way. And these features are not stray results of the misdeeds of a few villains. The existing socio-political system in India has a built-in mechanism which ensures that the common masses would be oppressed by a rich and powerful few. Widespread systemic violence is required and is routinely applied by the Indian state so that common people remain disciplined and do not revolt in the face of oppression.
(2) Land to the tillers and destruction of the landlord class
About 60% of the Indian population is still dependent on agriculture. However the primary input, land, is predominantly concentrated in the hands of a few landlords and big farmers. Close to 60 percent of rural households are effectively landless [NSS report]. The elite in the villages, by their collusion with the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats have blocked any meaningful land reforms. In the last four decades the proportion of households with little or no land (landless and marginal farmer households) has increased steadily from 66% to 80%. On the other hand the top ten percent rural households own more land now than in 1951 (Source: NSS report).The Maoist revolutionaries want to change this to ensure equitable distribution of land. They do not deter from collective armed fight of the landless and poor peasants and the poor rural labourers against the existing state power for achieving this goal.
(3) Freedom from moneylenders and traders
Indebtedness in rural India has been increasing by leaps and bounds especially in the recent decades. Public rural banks are closing down due to relaxation of government regulation. Therefore, instead of securing credits from public institutional sources, rural folk are now being forced to approach the village money lenders (who are often big landlords or rich farmers as well) on a larger and larger scale. Unscrupulous traders are adding to the misery of the poor peasants. They sell spurious inputs to small and marginal peasants at exorbitant prices. They also make huge profits by buying their harvest at throwaway prices and selling them in urban areas at a premium.
Not-so-well-off peasants, in this no-win situation, of course end up needing substantial credit. Private moneylenders and various for-profit financial companies take advantage of this situation by extracting enormous sums from peasants. Interest rate could be as high as 5% per month. The BBC News reported that more than 200,000 farmers have committed suicide in India since 1997 under the pressure of such indebtedness. The Maoist rebels want to change this.
(4) End of caste system and eradication of untouchability
It is well known that the caste system is still thriving in India. Economically it keeps the overwhelming majority of the people in dire poverty and politically it suppresses their fundamental democratic rights. Often the lower castes are robbed of their human dignity. They are even denied access to public facilities like some sources of drinking water, schools etc. An expert group of the planning commission reports that in 70% villages lower caste people cannot enter places of worship and in more than 50% villages they don’t have access to common water sources (Expert committee report to the Planning Commission (http://planningcommission.gov.in/reports/publications/rep_dce.pdf)).
According to an NCDHR report, on average, 27 atrocities (including murder, abduction and rape) against dalits take place every day. The well-off landed sections in the villages still come mainly from the upper castes. They use brahminical ideology to try to keep all other sections of the population under domination. The same is true for usurers, merchants, hoarders, quarry owners, contractors-all mainly come from the upper castes. In short, the upper castes are still very much in command in all aspects of rural life. Often with their own private army of goondas they run a parallel raj. The Maoists want to break this stranglehold of the upper castes and ensure equal rights for dalits and adivasis.
(5) Freedom from exploitation by foreign multinationals and its local partners
Since 1991, foreign capital in alliance with big capitalists like Reliance, Tata and state bureaucrats, has penetrated vast sectors of the Indian economy. Every sphere of our life, starting from road construction, electricity generation, communication networks to food retail, health and education are under direct control of this coterie. In the name of ‘development’ thousands of acres of land are being transferred to big business and multinationals. For example, in Bastar, Chattisgarh, in the name of Bodh Ghat dam, tens of thousands of Adivasis are being forcibly evicted from their “jal-jangal-zameen” (water-forest-land). In Niyamgiri, Orissa the land which is the abode of several Dongria tribes has been handed over to the multinational Vedanta group which will completely destroy the livelihood of these tribes affecting more than 20,000 people. The state government and the mainstream opposition parties of the state are actively supporting such activities. The Maoists, over the years, have been resisting such plunder.
(6) Ensuring people’s democratic rights
It is well known that elections are often a sham in India. The parliament, as we have seen several times, is a bazaar where the rich and the super-rich can buy the MPs. According to ADR (Association of Democratic Reform), the average asset of an MP has gone up to 5.12 crore in 2009 from Rs 1.8 crore in 2004. In our democracy the erstwhile rajas and maharajas, like Scindias, are still proliferating and controlling the local economy and polity at many places.
And we also know the state of judicial system in our country. Salman Khans and Sanjeev Nandas can kill by running cars over common people and still they can escape the law for very long, perhaps forever. B.N. Kirpal, the judge, who arbitrarily ordered that Indian rivers be interlinked, ignoring the resulting ecological and human calamity, joined the environmental board of Coca-Cola after he retired. The Maoists want to establish people’s court where poor people can get true justice. In fact, such courts run in many places where the Maoist movement is strong.
(7) Self-determination for the nationalities
The Indian government ruthlessly suppresses national aspirations of a number of people. These people and their land became part of India by accident – because the British raj annexed their homeland or a despotic king wanted their land to be a part of India. Lakhs of Indian troops have been deployed in Kashmir and north-eastern states to curb such struggles of the people in these states for their national self-determination. Since 1958, AFSPA has been imposed in north-eastern states, which allows armed forces to conduct search and seizure without warrant, to arrest without warrant, to destroy any house without any verification and to shoot to kill with full impunity. In Kashmir, there is 1 military personnel for every 15 civilian. Cold blooded murders, like those of Thangjam Manorama Devi, Chungkham Sanjit, Neelofar and Asiya Jan, are carried out frequently in the name of ‘countering terrorism’. The Maoist rebels seek to establish freedom of self determination for all nationalities.
So, to sum up, the new society the Maoists want to establish will have the following components:
-Land to the poor and landless. Later on cooperative farming is to be established on voluntary basis.
-Forest to the tribal people.
-End of rule of the rich and the upper caste in villages and uprooting of caste system. Uproot all discriminations based on gender and religion.
-Seizure of the ill gotten wealth and assets of multinational corporations and their local Indian partners.
-Self determination for the nationalities, political autonomy for the tribes.
-Establish a state by the poor, for the poor where the present day exploiters would be expropriated.
-Participation of people in day to day administrative work and decision making. Democracy at the true grassroot level with people having the power to recall its democratic representatives.
In summary: ensuring that all types of freedom, rights and democracy for all sections of toiling masses.
What have the Maoists-led people’s struggles achieved so far?
Information in this section is taken, purposely, from the expert group report to the planning commission (http://planningcommission.gov.in/reports/publications/rep_dce.pdf), which is available on the web.
Contrary to what the media try to portray, the government’s own report says that the movement led by the Maoist rebels cannot be seen as simply blowing up of police stations and killing individual people. It encompasses mass organization. Mass participation in militant protest has always been a characteristic of such mobilisation.
Although the Maoists by their own admission are engaged in a long term people’s struggle against the oppression by the present India state, their movement has already achieved some short term successes in improving the condition of the poor people.
Maoist movement in India was built around the demand of ‘land to the tillers’. Numerous struggles, led by the Maoists, have been fought all over the country especially in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, to free land from the big landholding families. In many such cases landlords have been driven away from the villages and their land has been put in the possession of the landless poor. But the police and paramilitary do not allow the poor to cultivate such lands. In Bihar, landless Musahars, the lowest among the Dalits have struggled and have taken possession of fallow Government land. This has had the support of Maoists.
Under the leadership of the Maoists the adivasis have reclaimed forest land on an extensive scale in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, Orissa and Jharkhand. The adivasis displaced by irrigation projects in Orissa had to migrate to the forests of Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh in large numbers. The forest department officials harassed and evicted them on a regular basis. The movement led by the Maoists put an end to this.
In rural India the Minimum Wages Act remains an act on paper only. In the forest areas of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Maharashtra, and Jharkhand, non-payment of the legal wages was a major source of exploitation of adivasi labourer. Maoists-led struggles have put an effective end to it. These struggles have secured increases in the rate of payment for picking tendu leaves (used for rolling beedies), washing clothes, making pots, tending cattle, repairing implements etc. The exploitation previously had been so severe that as a result of the sustained movement led by Maoists the pay rates of tendu leaves collection have over the years increased by fifty times.
The movement has given confidence to the oppressed to assert their rights and demand respect and dignity from the dominant castes and classes. The everyday humiliation and sexual exploitation of labouring women of dalit and tribal communities by upper caste men has been successfully fought. Forced labour, begari, by which the toiling castes had to provide obligatory service for free to the upper castes was also put an end to in many parts of the country.
In rural India, disputes are commonly taken to the rich and powerful of the village (who are generally the landlords) and caste panchayats, where the dispensation of justice is in favour of the rich and powerful. The Maoist movement has provided a mechanism, usually described as the ‘People’s Court’ whereby these disputes are resolved in the interests of the wronged party.
Why then, does the government need to go to war against its own people led by these rebels instead of hailing them as true patriots?
There is a simple answer. Chattisgarh, Orissa are rich in mineral wealth that can be sold to the highest multinational bidder. The only obstacle standing between the corrupt politicians and ALL THIS MONEY are the poor, disenfranchised tribal people (and the Maoists leading them). So, this war. This is not something new in India or for that matter in other parts of the world. Mobutu’s corrupt regime selling off the Belgian Congo piece by piece to the US, Belgium and other countries comes to mind. In the sixty years of independence from direct colonial rule, the Indian state has been doing the same. It has systematically impoverished the overwhelming majority to serve the interest of a powerful few and their foreign friends.
The impending war to evict the tribal people from their villages, in the pretext of eliminating the Maoists, will be fought at the behest of big corporations, who want to control and plunder our resources such as mineral, water and forest. It is high time that we recognize this pattern of waging war which will be fought by the poor on both sides, but will benefit only the big capitalists and their cheerleaders in the government.
Radical Notes (http://radicalnotes.com/journal/2009/11/19/war-against-the-maoists-but-who-are-they-and-what-do-they-want/), November 19, 2009
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Another article.

[pranabjyoti]

One Year of People’s Struggle in Lalgarh (West Bengal)

By Ka Frank http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-pcpa-mass-meeting-in-chakadoba-e1271539278730.jpg?w=420&h=315 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-pcpa-mass-meeting-in-chakadoba.jpg)PCPA meeting in Chakadoba

by Amit Bhattacharyya, Professor of History, Jadavpur University, Kolkata
The Indian ruling classes and the central government they have set up to serve them have very recently declared one of the most unjust and brutal wars against the people which is quite unprecedented in the history of our country. Such a massive mobilization of armed forces, paramilitary forces, police forces and air forces totalling around 1 lakh personnel, along with US-Israel military assistance of various types only highlights the magnitude of the war.
They have identified the Maoists as the ‘greatest threat to the internal security of the country since independence’ i.e, the security of the Indian ruling classes. The entire forested region in central and eastern India have been divided into seven Operating Areas, which they want to ‘clear’ within the next five years of all resistance, including that by the Maoists and other Naxalite organizations. A massive amount of money to the tune of Rs.7300 crore has already been earmarked for meeting the cost of this war.
Needless to state, this war against the people is being waged in the interests of foreign capital and domestic big comprador capital. Hundreds of MoUs have been signed between imperialists and domestic sharks and the central and state governments that would further intensify the process of plunder and loot of our vast natural resources and bring more displacement and add to the misery and ruin in the lives of the impoverished people of our country.
Lalgarh, nay, the Jangal Mahal region, is a region that, as the central home minister Mr. P. Chidambaram declared, would be treated as a laboratory to undertake experiments in dealing with this ‘greatest internal threat’ and then to utilize that experience for crushing resistance in such states like Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa. We propose to deal with the great Lalgarh movement that has already found its rightful place in the history of just struggles of our country.
The ongoing struggle in Lalgarh, nay, Jangal Mahal has already completed one year in early November 2009. This struggle is totally different from any other recent movement in our country. If Singur faced the initial experience of defeat, Nandigram could take pride in having tasted victory in course of a long bloody battle against the anti-people ‘left-front’ government and terror perpetrated by the hermads backed by the ruling CPI(M). The struggles waged in both Singur and Nandigram were directed against the land-grab movement resorted to by domestic big comprador capital and foreign imperialist capital. In both Singur and Nandigram, the parliamentary parties played some role, although in the case of the latter, the Maoist party that rejects the parliamentary path did play some role. In the case of the Lalgarh movement, on the other hand, parliamentary parties were actually rejected by the people and the Maoist party played a major role.
In one sense, the Lalgarh movement began in a different context. It started as a response against the brutality perpetrated by the police on 5 November 2008. It was, at the same time, a fight against age-old deprivation and humiliation and for the assertion of dignity and the rights of the people. However, if one takes into account the land mine attack on the WB chief minister on 2 November 2008–the day the corporate house of the Jindals inaugurated the Shalboni steel plant (it was a SEZ), then that event possibly acted a catalyst that started a snow-balling process. In that sense, it started as a response to the land-grab movement also, like those in both Singur and Nandigram.
The Lalgarh movement can be divided into five phases: A) From 5 November 2008 to the day the dates for parliamentary elections were announced. B) From that day to 16 May when results were declared throughout the country. From 17 May 2009 to 17 June just one day before ‘Operation Lalgarh’ was started. D) From 18 June 2009 when the joint forces started moving into Lalgarh to 26 October when decisions were taken by the PCAPA to form the people’s militia. E) From the formation of the ‘Sidhu-Kanu Gana Militia’ on 27 October till date. The day coincided with halting the Rajdhani Express by the members of the PCAPA demanding the release of Chhatradhar Mahato, release of political prisoners and the withdrawal of joint forces. Each of these phases has its distinctive features. If one studies the movement, one will be able to see that it was not just a movement against land grab or just for the assertion of the rights of the adivasis or against age-old humiliation suffered by the tribal people; it was more than that. And that broader aspect gradually unfolded itself as movement rolled on. One of those major aspects of the movement is their advocacy of a pro-people new model of development-a model that definitely shows the imprint of the Maoist party. This aspect of the movement hardly received any attention from the urban intellectuals. Let us take up that neglected, but very important aspect first.
New Model of Development
The model of development the Indian ruling classes and their political representatives have adopted ever since they came to power in 1947 was the policy of dependence on foreign capital and technology, which actually means the selling out of our country’s economy, water, land and vast natural resources to foreign imperialist capital and domestic comprador big capital for rapacious plunder and loot. It was the Naxalbari movement and the CPI(M-L) led by Charu Mazumdar that first raised the demand for radical land reforms, opposition to and the confiscation of imperialist capital, and at the same time formulated the blueprint for alternative model of development. That programme could not be implemented by the Communist revolutionaries of the first phase of struggle for reasons into which we would not enter at present.
At a later period, the Maoists put into practice an alternative development programme in the Dandakaranya area covering mineral-rich states like Madhya Pradesh, Maharastra, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. The main elements of this programme are the rejection of foreign capital and technology, self-reliance, equitable distribution of resources and property among the people, distribution of land to the tiller, all-round development in the countryside based on people’s initiative and voluntary labour, and the weeding out of foreign influence and control over our economy, society, culture and politics.
As in Dandakaranya, such attempts are being made even at the rudimentary level in the Jangal Mahal area of West Bengal. This is evident from the following newspaper report captioned ‘Welcome to India’s newest secret state’ by Snigdhendu Bhattacharya: “Here across a 1,000 sqkm area bordering Orissa in West Medinipur district, the Maoists over the last 8 months have quietly unleashed new weapons in their battle against the Indian state: drinking water, irrigation, roads and health centres…carefully shielded from the public eye, the Hindustan Times found India’s second ‘liberated zone’, a Maoist-run state where development for more than 2 lakh people is unfolding at a pace not seen in 30 years of ‘left front’ rule. Apart from taking over the organs of the state and most notably the executive and the judiciary, the Maoists here have built at least 50 km of gravel paths, dug tube-wells and tanks, rebuilt irrigation canals and are running health centres, with the help of local villagers” (HT, 10 June 2009).
Another daily reported under the caption “Lalgarh Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (Maoist) Rise and rot of a rebel ’state’” that the People’s Committee-Maoists began the following schemes: Jobs for landless–work in development projects in lieu of Rs.60-80 per day; building kutcha roads, culverts and water reservoirs and digging deep tube-wells; bringing medical teams from Kolkata; lending money to repair and build cheap houses (The Telegraph, 24 June 2009).
The first attempts were made by the PCAPA soon after it was born. It set up village committees each of which consisted of 5 men and 5 women, where decisions were taken on the basis of mutual discussion. That was followed by the formation of women’s wings and youth wings of the committee. These were democratic bodies some of which bear the imprint of the old adivasi society and some, particularly the women’s wing, is new and signified the true empowerment of women.
In June 2009, before the deployment of the joint forces for ‘Operation Lalgarh,’ a team comprising seven students belonging to the Democratic Students’ Union, JNU, New Delhi and two journalists visited Lalgarh and adjoining areas for an on-the-spot investigation. That report throws some light, even if at a rudimentary level, on the development programme initiated by the people. Since then, many new steps were taken in this direction, as is reported by different sources. However, because of the existing situation and the imposition of Section 144 against entry into the region, joint fact-finding missions could not be undertaken, despite attempts from several quarters. So this report is the last published on the region. Let us state some of the features.
A) Agriculture and Land distribution: Anyone going to Jangal Mahal would be able to realize that the much trumpeted ‘land reform’ programme of the ‘left-front’ government does not have any presence there. In areas where trees have been cut to introduce land reforms, nothing has been done and vast tracts have been allowed to be converted into waste lands. Although the WB government through an act of 2004 vowed to distribute these lands among the landless adivasis, nothing has as yet been done. On the contrary, the WB government and the CPI(M) that rules it had decided to hand over thousands of acres of those lands for the setting up of a SEZ to the corporate house of the Jindals whom they are committed to serve as its most trusted lackeys against the interests of the people. Faced with such government apathy and deprivation, it was quite natural for the people of Jangal Mahal to organize under the banner of the PCAPA to initiate true land reform programme.
The Committee initiated a programme to ensure full rights of the adivasis over forest land to the landless with adequate facilities for irrigation. Opposing the government policy of welcoming multinational seed companies the PCAPA opted to build seed cooperatives through the promotion of organic fertilizers prepared with either forest ash or cow-dung.
Another important step is land distribution. The village committee decided to ensure 1 bigha [0.13 hectares in West Bengal, or 1/3 acre] of land for the landless and 15 kathas [0.10 hectares] for peasants with less land and no land for those having 5 bighas or more. The JNU team visited Banshberia village and were witness to a land distribution meeting. However, one problem was that land was not in an arable condition due to the senseless plantation of eucalyptus trees by the state government as part of its ’social forestry’ project that was promoted by the World Bank. The plantation of such eucalyptus trees was aimed at drying up the land so as to facilitate future extraction of mineral resources from the region. It is a nefarious anti-people conspiracy deliberately hatched by corporate foreign capital and domestic capital with the backing of both the central and state governments. In order to undo the damage to the soil, the people decided to grow fruits and vegetables there for at least two seasons before it becomes fit hopefully for paddy cultivation again. Side by side, it was also decided that the lands of ‘new landlords’ such as those of the CPI(M) leaders like Anuj Pandey, Bimal Pandey or Dalim Pandey-the rural bosses-rogues-cum-moneylenders who had amassed millions by expropriating the wealth and land of the peasants as also by swindling money from governmental projects– would be confiscated and distributed among the real owners.
B) Irrigation: In the dry Jangal Mahal belt, where rainfall is scanty, special attention is needed. However, one cannot see anything of the sort. The government has built a huge canal that runs from Mayurbhanj in Jharkhand to Midnapur town so as to provide water to the field when the rainy season was over. However, because of faulty construction, the huge canal remains dry throughout the year and the pipes that open to the fields remain completely choked. The Committee, in response to this governmental mal-development, started building small check dams and lock gates that would store the water during monsoons and preserve water flowing down from natural streams. Such a check dam was in the process of construction at Bohardanga village when the DSU team visited the place.
C) Construction of Roads: If one goes to the Lalgarh villages, one will be struck by the absence of roads worth its name. During the monsoon the roads are muddy and water-logged and virtually impossible to walk on. Transferring patients, pregnant women or dead bodies become difficult tasks. The villagers of Adharmari complain that the transportation facilities are pathetic and during monsoon, the village gets totally cut off from the world outside. The same is true for many other villages as well. The Committee took up this issue and constructed roads with red-stone chips which are locally available at a cheap price. The construction was done through voluntary labour, as in the Dandakaranya region.
It is an example of participatory development where human resources are mobilized for developmental work for the people. During the Yenan phase (1937-45) of the Chinese revolution, this principle of Mao Tse-tung was applied in many regions and helped in unleashing the creativity of the masses. In villages such as Korengapara, Shaldanga, Bahardanga, Papuria, Darigera etc, it was the villagers themselves who took part. This was unlike the earlier government projects where helplessly witnessed from a distance their development funds being siphoned off by the corrupt CPI(M) party members and government officials. According to Chhatradhar Mahato, the spokesperson of the PCAPA, unlike the state which builds 1 km of road spending Rs.15,000 [$320], the Committee could build 20 kms spending only Rs.47,000.
D) Water, Shelter and Health facilities: A dry and arid region that Jangal Mahal is, it is difficult to get drinking and irrigation water. The Committee took initiative to set up mini tube-wells and install submergible pumps. The people also gave voluntary labour to facilitate irrigation. The Committee also took steps to ensure that government projects like the Indira Avaash Yojana reached those who needed it most. There was hardly any medical facility in the whole zone. The Committee took the initiative to set up health centres at Kantapahari, Belpahari and Chakadoba. It was a people’s health centre with an ambulance van and a team of doctors from Kolkata. Nearly 1,500 persons visited the centres everyday for treatment. These health centres are now under the occupation of the joint forces and converted into paramilitary camps.
E) Education, Culture and Social Awareness: In the charter of demands placed by the Adivasi Moolbasi Janasadharaner Committee and published from Purulia, the adivasi people demanded promotion and spread of the Santhali and Kurmali languages and alchiki script. In fact, a large number of indigenous languages have gone into oblivion due to the domination of one or two languages. Quite naturally demands have been raised for the recognition of the Santhali language. This year (2009), 21st February-observed as the ‘Language Day’ in both West Bengal and Bangladesh-was observed as a Black Day. It was an expression of protest against the cultural domination by the Bengali language.
In fact, as has been reported in the press, as a result of globalization and the domination of one language over another, thousands of indigenous languages had already gone into oblivion and many more are awaiting the same fate all over the world. These developments take place before our very eyes, but we hardly pay any attention to them. In fact, the Lalgarh struggle has put forward the demand for the restoration of the nearly extinct languages of the people. The reality is that in areas where people’s struggles are very strong, the possibility of the regeneration of local languages is a reality, and the local artists, writers and singers make their marks in respective fields of activity. In this way do extinct languages appear again. Dandakaranya has had the same experience.
Traditional weapons comprise an integral part of the adivasi culture. Thus if any restrictions are imposed on the display of such weapons by the government, the adivasi people would treat it as an infringement on their traditional culture. On 5 June 2009, the Kolkata police put a restriction on the display of such weapons at proposed rally to be organized jointly by the CAVOW-an all-India women’s organization– and the women’s wing of the PCAPA. The women’s wing has also initiated campaigns against consumption of liquor, superstition, pornography and domestic violence. The Matangini Mahila Samiti(MMS) has earlier took steps in this direction in Nandigram.
F) People’s Court: The system of justice that prevails in our country is, needless to say, meant to serve the ruling classes. In Lalgarh, the people set up their own court-the People’s Court. Here decisions are taken by the people and punishment, if any, is meted out. There was much criticism from some quarters (civil rights activists and others) against such a system of justice.
G) Fight against Environmental Pollution: Environmental pollution caused by three sponge-iron factories came under the Committee. These three factories had been causing immense pollution in the area for the last 15 years. There was a mammoth gathering of more than 12,000 people on 7 June 2009 at Lodhashuli village near Kharagpur town where decisions for the boycott of the factories was taken.
It is clear that the Committee had integrated local day-to-day issues with the broad struggle against state repression. Needless to say, this would not have been possible without the active participation of the Maoists. This has been an entirely new experience in the history of West Bengal. It did not happen in the first phase of the Naxalbari struggle. Without the active participation of the broad masses of Jangal Mahal, this alternative model of development at Maoist initiative, could not be implemented.
Intellectual Reaction to the Maoist presence and the role of the Maoists
It is crystal clear that the intellectual response to the Lalgarh struggle is basically different from what we had seen during the Singur and Nandigram struggles. Here, they did not stand up to state repression in the way many people expected them to do. On the contrary, they have become very critical of what have been going on in the region. Those who came forward at the early stage later retracted and kept mum. Meanwhile, the tide was blowing for a ‘change’; the total isolation of the CPI(M) got reflected in the elections, and one section among the intellectuals found it more attractive to keep closer to the prospective winner-the TMC-in the approaching elections and receive bouquets and cushy jobs as ‘biddwajjans’ (learned personalities). (However, as later events have shown, some of them did not have either the wisdom or the minimum courage to stand up to state repression and constant intimidation coming from the corridors of power. In the face of such timid response from this section of intellectuals, the present writer feels the absence of late Samar Sen much).
In fact, artists and writers who visited Lalgarh and met Chhatradhar Mahato after the beginning of ‘Operation Lalgarh’ seemed to have been particularly concerned with extracting a statement from Chhatradhar Mahato condemning Maoist violence and also openly distancing the PCAPA from them, as only then would they be in a position to mediate between the state and the PCAPA. One well-known prize-winning writer informed us through an article published in a Bengali daily Bartaman that the destruction of Anuj Pandey’s palatial building was the outcome of a secret understanding between the CPM and the Maoists, as that would fetch a massive amount of money for the CPM boss from the insurance company. In this way, she exposed her appalling poverty of thinking; at the same time, she also sought to tarnish the heroic struggle of Jangal Mahal and humiliate the people fighting for their dignity and for justice. One can only pity such intellectuals. What is important for our purpose now is that the response of this section of the urban literati depends on the part played and influence exercised by the Maoists in the Lalgarh struggle.
Main points of criticism
First, the people of Jangal Mahal had been continuing their movement quite well. It is the Maoists who entered the scene from outside and made a total mess of everything and misguided and derailed the movement. It is their violent activities that brought joint forces into the scene. The result is that the people are now being sandwiched between state terror and gun-toting Maoists or ‘non-state’ actors, as civil rights organizations such as the APDR are fond of describing it. The most bitter attack, however, came from the two Delhi-based historians-Sumit Sarkar and Tanika Sarkar. In a journal they wrote an article in the most malicious manner, some portions of which are as follows:
“Maoists have done incalculable harm to the movement. Their activities and intentions are shrouded in mystery, their secret terror operations express total indifference to human lives, their arms deals lead them…into shady financial transactions with rich and corrupt power brokers…They come into an already strong and open mass movement, they engage in a killing spree discrediting the movement, and then they leave after giving the state authorities a splendid excuse for crushing it” (Economic & Political Weekly, June 27-July 10, 2009).
Second, it is the Maoists who have derailed the movement towards a violent and undemocratic path. These are the main points of attack, although there are other minor points. For the time being, we will concentrate on these points.
Maoist presence
Chhatradhar Mahato has stated that the People’s Committee consists of different political forces, the Maoists included. The Maoists have mass base. They are in their place as we are in ours. The Maoist leader, Kishenji made a press statement that they had been working in Lalgarh from the 1990s. In fact, from the historical point of view, the MCC had been active in the region from the 1980s and the CPI(M-L) People’s War in places such as Belpahari, Garbeta, Shalboni, Lalgarh, Banshpahari, Ramgarh, Sarenga etc from the mid-1990s. The issues over which they fought were as follows: against corruption in the panchayets; to ensure proper distribution of grants coming through government projects such as forest preservation samiti which rightfully belong to the adivasis; against the felling of trees useful to the people; for raising the price of kendu leaves etc.
People in the urban areas can still remember the extent of police repression in the zone from 2001-02. Behula Kalindi and Sulochana Kalindi of Belpahari were forced to undress by the raiding police party to enable the police forces ascertain their sex. When Jaleswar Soren was not found in his house, his ten-month pregnant wife, Sulekha Soren was taken away and sent to Midnapur central jail which the government calls ‘correctional home’ on charges of waging war against the state. Pyalaram Mahato, an 87-year old man who was even unable to walk alone as his jail-mates would testify, was charged with the ‘offence’ of being a People’s War squad member. A woman named Meena Sardar of Belpahari was so traumatized by what the raiding police party did to herself, her mother and her house that she lost her mental balance; when she was released on bail after spending months in jail, she became totally mad, stayed at her home with her mother by becoming a ‘liability’, and ultimately died in that state without any treatment. One can distinctly remember also how Prof. Kaushik Ganguly was arrested and beaten up at police lock-up, how Abhijit Sinha, a government official, was haunted by the fear of being arrested and tortured by the police and how he died near railway lines under mysterious circumstances in 2002.
The Jhinka jungle that has become news during ‘Operation Lalgarh’ for being a Maoist hideout, is the area where the body of the People’s War activist, Ashim Das @ Kanchan was found with marks of wound on all parts of the body some years back. It was, according to the findings of civil rights bodies, a case of fake encounter killing. Many village houses were destroyed, ravaged and looted by the police and paramilitary forces. People were beaten brutally as if such acts of torture were the birthrights of the state forces, property was looted, kerosene oil was dropped into wells which were the only source of drinking water for the villagers, grain was mixed up with cooked rice, house-deeds, documents, ration cards and other things were simply taken away never to be returned. Civil rights bodies such as APDR had published many fact-finding reports of such despicable acts done by the WB police forces. However bitter it might sound, the fact is that a large section of city intellectuals paid no attention to these things at that time and were only too concerned with receiving patronage from the West Bengal government.
The reality is that the Maoists did not fall from the sky, nor did they come from a different planet; their social root lies in the soil of Jangal Mahal, however disturbing it might sound to the (a-)historians and sections of those ‘learned personalities’. The list of proclaimed Maoist ‘offenders’ that the police forces have furnished will show that with the sole exception of Kishenj who hails from Andhra Pradesh, all others are sons and daughters of the soil-either adivasi or non-adivasi. Some of them are Sasadhar Mahato, Jagori Baske, Karan Hembrom, Bimal Mandi, Jyotsna, Tarit Pal, Sudip Chongdar and Sumitra Sardar. (HT, Kolkata Plus, 26 June 2009). According to reports, all of them did political work in the region at one time or other. Thus the statement that the Maoists are external to the movement, that they have just entered the scene all on a sudden and taken control of it, does not have any factual basis at all.
As to the ’sandwich’ theory circulated by sections of the intellectuals and the media, it can be said that the advocates of this theory hereby have actually been portraying the masses in a way that they are devoid of any thinking of their own, that they are like unthinking, unfeeling robots who can only follow, but cannot lead. In this way, these urban intellectuals, themselves keeping a safe distance from the actual field of battle, pose as being possessed of all earthly knowledge and from whom the ‘ignorant’ adivasis must learn the art of how to conduct the movement. The sooner these ‘learned’ fellows come to their senses the better.
Peaceful ‘democratic’ movement and armed ‘undemocratic’ movement
The Lalgarh movement has given rise to debates that are old in states such as Andhra Pradesh, but new in states such as West Bengal. Such issues had come up time and again from within human rights organizations and ‘civil society’ whenever armed resistance developed or revolutionary armed struggles gained in strength. The issue has been hotly debated earlier within the APCLC (Andhra Pradesh), PUCL, PUDR, APDR, BMC (WB) and very recently within Lalgarh Aandolan Samhati Mancha (Lalgarh Movement Solidarity Forum) or Lalgarh Mancha (Lalgarh Forum). According to some intellectuals, the ‘peaceful and democratic’ movement of the adivasi masses of Lalgarh was derailed by the Maoists and it took a violent turn as a result. The view that comes up is that democratic struggle should be peaceful, and when it takes a violent turn and the people get armed, then it loses its democratic character. To them, ‘democracy’ is identified with order and peace, and if there is disorder and violence, then it becomes un-democratic. Needless to say, such ideas have been very carefully and successfully planted by the state propaganda machinery through media and other means and well-known historians as also intellectuals have become victims of such campaigns.
History, however, proves otherwise. It is not the people but the state which is armed to the teeth, and it is the state again which uses all conceivable methods of violence to keep people under subjugation. Peace-loving people are thereby forced by the state to raise the banner of armed resistance, as the real perpetrators of violence leave behind for them no option other than that. History is replete with many such examples. The great slave revolt under Spartacus against the might of Rome in 73BC that shook the slave empire to its foundations was not at all a peaceful affair; on the contrary, it was armed and violent in nature. Was it undemocratic in character? The great peasant rebellion in Germany under Thomas Munzer in the 1520s was clearly armed and violent. Was it also undemocratic? The great Taiping peasant rebellion in mid-19th century China (1851-64) also was one of the greatest peasant revolts and very much an armed affair. Was it undemocratic? The history of British India is also full of examples of armed anti-colonial struggles such as the Great Revolt of 1857 or those by Bhagat Singh, Surya Sen, Bagha Jatin, V.G. Pingle and many others. Many revolutionaries courted martyrdom with the aim of making our country free from colonial subjugation. Could those movements be branded as ‘undemocratic’? The reality is that all these struggles represented the genuine interests and aspirations of the Indian people and were just and democratic in character.
In the class society of today, class contradictions, conflicts and sometimes, class wars are inevitable. The ruling classes had always exploited the majority of people, killed and maimed them, perpetrated terror and, in this way, extracted the sole right, the legitimacy to perpetrate terror against the people whom they pretend to serve. Names such as the ‘Greyhound’, ‘Cobra’, ‘Scorpion’, ‘Jaguar’ and many other state-trained police-butchers only betray the violent character of the Indian state. Whenever, in response, the oppressed people themselves take up arms, break that state monopoly over the means of violence and ‘legitimacy’ enjoyed by the state to control masses, the ruling classes raise the bogey of law and order and utilize that legitimacy to drown people’s movement in pools of blood. If anybody calls that resistance struggle ‘terrorism’, then that ‘terrorism’ definitely is of a different character.
That reminds one of Mark Twain, the American writer. At the centenary year of the French Revolution in 1889, he wrote a novel entitled A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. The Jacobin period or the period of Danton and Robespierre during the French Revolution has been branded by many as the ‘Reign of Terror’. While criticizing such a view, Mark Twain wrote:
“There were two ‘Reigns of Terror’, if we would but remember and consider it: the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the ‘horrors’ of the minor Terror, the momentary terror, so to speak; whereas, what is horror of swift death by the axe compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty and heartbreak? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over, but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror-that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves”.
Mark Twain was not a revolutionary; however, his inquisitiveness and sensitivity helped him arrive at a truth. In the late 1920s, Mao Tse-tung talked about terror of two types, while he analyzed the Hunan peasant uprising. One was white terror or counter-revolutionary terror; and the other was red terror or revolutionary terror. He wrote:
“A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an act of insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another. A rural revolution is a revolution by which the peasantry overthrows the power of the feudal landlord class. Without using the greatest force, the peasants cannot possibly overthrow the deep-rooted authority of the landlords which has lasted for hundreds of years. The rural areas needed a mighty revolutionary upsurge, for it alone can rouse the people in their millions to become a powerful force”.
These facts are not unknown to the writers, historians and others who ruminate about their craft and actually keep a safe distance from the field of battle; however, whenever it comes to connecting them with the present situation, they fail to seek truth from facts, their logical mind ceases to respond, their sense of history suddenly loses its steam, and they betray their utter inability to grasp the essence of that historic struggle.
It has become obvious that the Lalgarh struggle has posed a serious problem to the civil rights movement, democrats and sections of the urban intellectuals. When the masses were attacked and tortured, when they protested through processions, meetings, petitions and other ‘democratic’ methods as permissible by the government, and did not raise the banner of armed resistance, the city-bred intellectuals stood by their side and raised their voice. There was no problem in Singur and Nandigram; in the case of the latter, despite the presence of armed resistance, as the mainstream TMC party was also active there.
But the Lalgarh story was entirely different. Here the urban literati are confronted with the emergence of the resisting warrior masses and in their presence, are at a loss what to do, what position to take. This is an entirely new situation, unlike any in West Bengal for many years. This entirely new situation has placed them in a dilemma, and they are yet to cope with and digest it and then take a position on it. That is why we find sections of the APDR, APCLC, PUDR, editors of some little magazines and others condemning both state and ‘non-state’ violence in their statements, articles and public speeches. The transformation of the ‘repressed masses’ into ‘warrior masses’ have reduced them to such a pitiable condition!
On 16 September 2009, one English daily organized a thought-provoking discussion in Kolkata with the caption ‘Surely the Maoist is not one of us’. Most of the speakers sought the genesis of the Maoist emergence in the ‘failure of the system to deliver’. Let us quote a few lines from the report: “When a landlord takes away a villager’s wife, keeps her in his house to sexually abuse her and orders the husband to go away when he pleads with him for returning his wife to him and his two children, what is he supposed to do? Mouth platitudes about non-violence and peace? ‘Or take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them?’ In one such case a youth in Andhra Pradesh went straight into the jungle, organized a group of about 25,000 people, killed the landlord and ended by being Maoists”. This is part of the speech delivered by Prof. Hargopal from Andhra Pradesh, which only corroborates the view that it is the oppressive state that breeds armed resistance (The Statesman, 17 September 2009).
There is one important point on which we believe most of the people will be in agreement, the Maoists included. This is related to the death of civilians, of medical staff, government officials on polling duty in the Jangal Mahal region over the last few months or common innocent civilians. As to the deaths due to mine blasts of the medical staff and polling officials in the Belpahari area of West Medinipur some months ago, the Maoists have tendered apology time and again as those civilians were mistaken as security forces. One may note here in passing that Kshudiram Bose, the revolutionary from Bengal, made a similar mistake when he killed the Kennedy couple, instead of the notorious magistrate Kingsford back in the 1910s and was hanged by the British rulers. These acts-even though done unknowingly-were rightly criticized by cross-sections of the people. In the recent period, another such act took place, this time in Jharkhand. One intelligence official, Francis Induwar, was beheaded by the Maoists. That raised a hue and cry among the central home department and media in varied magnitude. While the Maoists later, as reported in the press, made self-criticism for adopting such a method of exterminating an enemy. However, this particular act needs a bit more consideration.
First, the first two instances were clear cases of mistaken identity, but the third one was not. It is related to the method of killing, and not the killing as such. The region in which he was killed is a tribal belt, and sharp weapons such as axes, knives etc are used by the tribals as their traditional weapons. Let us simply cast aside for the time being the veil of ‘civilization’ from our person and for a time keep in mind the hard reality that in the name of this very ‘civilization’ as created by capitalism and its clients in countries like India, the ruling classes had over the decades only perfected the methods of torture on people, prisoners and all dissident voices not only in Vietnam, Afganistan or Iraq, but also in Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, Nagaland, Assam, Andhra Pradesh and other states that would put to shame even some of the most brutal characters in history. While most of us will, in all likelihood, disapprove of the adoption of such a method of beheading for killing a ‘foe’, one can legitimately ask the ruling elite, sections of the media and the security forces whom they train up for committing unheard-of-barbarity on their own people whether they–the perpetrators of violence-themselves have the moral right to raise such moral questions at all.
Second, this part of criticism appears to me to be quite amusing and self-contradictory. As has been pointed out before, sections of the urban literati and some civil rights activists have expressed their disapproval in the taking up of arms (meaning firearms) even for self-defence by the adivasis of Jangal Mahal. The urban literati would rather accept their wielding of traditional weapons, but not the firearms. If that is the case, then what is the harm in beheading a person as in that case traditional weapons rather than firearms were used.
Let us now pass on to another aspect. The major section of the ‘civil society’ of West Bengal has learnt to accept state-sponsored violence as natural and somewhat legitimate, in the sense that it can be taken for granted. To them, therefore, the perpetration of state terror against the people of Lalgarh is the legitimate application of legitimate violence(we include in it arrests, interrogation, long period of incarceration, not to speak of torture in police and jail custody); they had never questioned or challenged the legitimacy of that state-sponsored violence. What they are concerned about is that there should be no excess and the casualties should be less. They talk only about legality, about laws being trampled down, but hardly talk about justice. They do not question the system; they only tell the government to abide by rules and not to deviate from them. To them, governments are elected and thus have broad support of the people, and that these do not have any class character of their own. But when the Lalgarh masses dared to take up arms in response to that state-sponsored violence and used the same weapon against the state machinery and the CPM hermads to pay the oppressors back in their own coin, and renounced the ‘democratic and peaceful’ path as looked at by that section of the ‘civil society’, then that resistance struggle which is legitimate and just from the people’s point of view, came to be considered impermissible under the law and would merit criticism and even condemnation from their side.
To some people, there is hardly any difference between state-sponsored violence and ‘non-state’ violence and both are condemnable; in the eyes of some APDR people, 90% condemnation is to be reserved for the former and 10% for the latter. The same is the attitude of some of the editors of Bengali little magazines/ periodicals such as Aneek-as is evident in signature campaigns–which quite religiously devotes some pages in its issues to the condemnation of the ‘non-state’ ’senseless’ violence committed by the Maoists or the resisting warrior masses of Lalgarh. The pertinent question here is: could the violence committed by the state against the people and that done by the people against the state agents be the same? Would they also denounce-even if not in the same breadth–the ‘violent’ struggles as championed by Bhagat Singh, Surya Sen or the peasant rebels in Telengana? Would they condemn the heroic armed resistance and national liberation struggles of the people of Vietnam, Afganistan or Iraq? Every year, the Indian state is spending millions on the modernization of its forces whose main purpose is to subdue and crush people’s movements, while lakhs of people are dying every year out of malnutrition and hunger. Have they ever challenged the legitimacy of the state to rule? Have they ever demanded large-scale demobilization of armed forces and paramilitary forces and the diversion of that massive amount of money to the cause of people’s real development? Struggles can be of different types-just and unjust. If they make no distinction between just struggles and unjust struggles, between the violence perpetrated by the state forces and hermads/salwa judum goons on the one hand and the violence committed by the armed people, on the other, then they would have also to denounce the long tradition of people’s heroic armed resistance down the ages both in our country as also outside.
The struggle in Jangal Mahal is not a spontaneous movement; it has been a politically conscious movement, as its process of unfolding made it clear. By now, it is obvious that the Maoists have been playing a major part in it. The urban literati should not grudge it, because who is to lead and guide the movement, what form that movement would take is to be decided by the sons of the soil themselves, and not by those who keep a safe distance from it.
The movement is coming out with new features, new methods of struggle at regular intervals-participation by the broadest masses, ingenuity, alternative model of development, formation of people’s militia (‘Sidhu Kanu Gana Militia’ drawing its name and inspiration from the past, from the names of two Santhal leaders of the mid-19th Santhal rebellion in colonial India), women coming into leadership and probably also taking part in policy-making-all these and many other things have made the movement stand apart from others that preceded it. The direction that it is taking drives home the fact that some concrete political ideology, a fair amount of knowledge about military strategy and tactics and seasoned political brains stand behind it as guiding spirits. Without the active role of the Maoists, the movement would not have taken such a shape. This constitutes its main strength.
At the same time, the presence of the Maoists and the resisting warrior masses is also the reason why sections of the urban literati keep aloof from it. It appears that had the adivasi people kept aside firearms (AK-47s, landmines etc) and took up their traditional weapons (bows and arrows, axes etc) to stand up to the combined assault of the CRPF, COBRA, Straco, BSF, EFR, Greyhound, American satellite, state intelligence, army, air force and of course, the CPM hermads and in that totally unequal war inevitably lost the battle, these intellectuals would have derived silent pleasure (or if not so, would have been stimulated to take the field), and like during Nandigram, would have given the call for a big procession (silent, of course!) with candles and with giant banners again demanding ‘Hang Butcher Buddhadev’ (or Butcher Chidambaran also?), and would have again derived much pleasure by seeing their own faces in newspapers and TV channels. Lalgarh would thus have turned into a second Nandigram. It would have been defeated. And like the peasant rebellions in China, which were utilized by ruling classes throughout ages to initiate dynastic changes due to the absence of new productive forces and correct political ideology, the Lalgarh struggle would also have been utilized, as Singur and Nandigram struggles have been utilized recently for election battles, to initiate ‘change’ in the way sections of the urban literati, not to speak of the parliamentary political parties, envision it.
Whether one likes it or not, the struggle of Lalgarh has moved in a different direction. This constitutes its strength. For those who long for a society where human values would triumph over the lust for profits, the Lalgarh struggle holds the promise of hope for the future.
Today, the Lalgarh struggle is not confined within the borders of Jangal Mahal region. It has extended far beyond, providing inspiration to people of other states; it has also been accepted as the new symbol of defiance and resistance by the democratic and freedom-loving people in other countries of the world. Movements in solidarity with the Lalgarh struggle have already developed in the urban areas of West Bengal as also in other states; solidarity gatherings, meetings and conventions have also been taking place in foreign countries such as UK, Greece etc. The central government has joined hands with the American intelligence and state governments and initiated the ‘Operation Greenhunt’ against the people of our country-in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal and other states in the name of combating the Maoist movement.
The central home minister, P. Chidambaram did not mince words when he said that they were treating the Lalgarh operation as laboratory for experimentation and that his policy would be one of ‘zero tolerance’ towards the Maoists. It is a clear threat to the people; it means state-sponsored genocide and brutality to be perpetrated against the people. They are doing it because they have already pledged (through MOUs etc) to hand over vast stretches of our country full of natural resources to the hands of domestic and foreign big capital for rapacious plunder and loot, and those who are resisting this plunder—Maoists and others–have been singled out for attack and extermination in the name of ‘development’. The people of Lalgarh have stood up against this with their heads held high. Today or tomorrow, all the intellectuals, human rights activists, teachers, artists, writers and other democratic people would have to take some stand. Should they allow our country’s natural resources to be sold out to corporate capital by the central and state governments which would bring more ruin to our country, or should they stand up as true patriots to oppose it?
Over the last decade and more, there had been much military collaboration, besides collaboration of other types, between the American and Israeli governments, on the one hand, and the Indian government, on the other. The American FBI has opened its office in the capital, if not also in other Indian cities, many years back and joint military exercises between the American and Indian armed forces have been taking place regularly in Mizoram and other areas. American and Israeli military officials are keeping regular contacts with their Indian counterparts. And if armed resistance of the Indian people and Communist revolutionary movements develop further despite the massive armed mobilization by the central and state governments for the ‘Operation Green-hunt’-and I am not talking only of Maoist insurgency-then, as it appears now, a time will not be long in coming when the people of India would have to confront American soldiers on the Indian soil.
Confronted with such an eventuality, how would the civil rights activists, intellectuals, editors of little magazines and other sections of urban literati react? How would they respond when they would see people of their own country, their brothers and sisters dying, falling down but rising up again and putting up armed resistance against the foreign aggressors like that in Indochina in the wake of the American imperialist aggression? Would they condemn that people’s armed struggle then also, as some of them are doing today, on the ground that that struggle smacked of violence? Would they behave and act like patriots, or would they act like unthinking robots and still keep on murmuring that the aggressors also have their right to life?
In 1932, one year after the Japanese aggression in China, Soong Ching Ling, the wife of Sun Yat-sen and one of the leading personalities of the China League, a civil rights body, wrote an article on the duties of the League. China at that time was torn by civil war between the Communist Party and the Kuomintang and was controlled by a number of imperialist powers in one way or the other. In that article, she dealt mainly with the plight of the political prisoners in China (the overwhelming majority of whom were the communists), voicing demands for their unconditional release. When confronted with the question whether the China League supported the revolution (meaning Communist revolution), Soong Ching Ling made it clear that the League stood for the ultimate victory of the people and the assertion of their rights, and that victory could be attained only through revolution. Urban literati and civil rights activists in India may find the essay quite illuminating.
Let us now come back to India. Many of us living in India still do not know who to look forward to for guidance and leadership; but what many of us do feel is that how we live today is far removed from how we ought to live, that the present system has already outlived its utility, has been failing to deliver and that some fundamental change is necessary in the interests of the majority of the people. Is Lalgarh showing the way?
It is high time that we should raise our collective voice against this unjust war waged by the central and state governments against our own people, and also demand large-scale demobilization of armed forces and paramilitary forces and the diversion of that massive amount of money from the nefarious goal of committing genocide on our people to the task of creating a new society fit for human living.
Countercurrents, January 7, 2010
Regarding the Lalgar movement.

[pranabjyoti]

To some people, there is hardly any difference between state-sponsored violence and ‘non-state’ violence and both are condemnable; in the eyes of some APDR people, 90% condemnation is to be reserved for the former and 10% for the latter. The same is the attitude of some of the editors of Bengali little magazines/ periodicals such as Aneek-as is evident in signature campaigns–which quite religiously devotes some pages in its issues to the condemnation of the ‘non-state’ ’senseless’ violence committed by the Maoists or the resisting warrior masses of Lalgarh. The pertinent question here is: could the violence committed by the state against the people and that done by the people against the state agents be the same? Would they also denounce-even if not in the same breadth–the ‘violent’ struggles as championed by Bhagat Singh, Surya Sen or the peasant rebels in Telengana? Would they condemn the heroic armed resistance and national liberation struggles of the people of Vietnam, Afganistan or Iraq? Every year, the Indian state is spending millions on the modernization of its forces whose main purpose is to subdue and crush people’s movements, while lakhs of people are dying every year out of malnutrition and hunger. Have they ever challenged the legitimacy of the state to rule? Have they ever demanded large-scale demobilization of armed forces and paramilitary forces and the diversion of that massive amount of money to the cause of people’s real development? Struggles can be of different types-just and unjust. If they make no distinction between just struggles and unjust struggles, between the violence perpetrated by the state forces and hermads/salwa judum goons on the one hand and the violence committed by the armed people, on the other, then they would have also to denounce the long tradition of people’s heroic armed resistance down the ages both in our country as also outside.Actually this kind of "critics" are a very good armor for the Indian state for a long time. Their mentality is like that, you may attack head of the states as person, BUT DON'T ATTACK THE STATE AND THE SYSTEM. Actually, this kind of mentality also reigns in the minds of some "revolutionary" communist leaders like Santosh Rana, Kanu Sanyal and Ashim Chatterjee and also in some small city dwelling groups. During the the last 30 years, their activities were nothing more than "symbolic" protests and they withdraw themselves whenever they face slightest attack from the state or pro-state forces. THEY ARE NOW THE "CRITICS" OF MAOISTS.:laugh:
Actually this is a very good example of petty-bourgeoisie characteristics about whom Marx wrote on a letter to Engels "they are not dependable except when they are rejoicing in bear pubs after a win". We have noticed their "revolutionary" character after the incidents of Singur and Nandigram, when the hate against the CPI(Marxist) led Left Front Govt of West Bengal is just outrageous. But, in the case of Lalgar, where the movement began to question the state system itself, their stances changed and they become busy in to show that they are as much "anti-Maoist" as "misuse of power by SOME police officer". That's a very good example of petty-bourgeoisie character, which become "revolutionary" when the situation is very hot but stepped back with slightest possibility of state counter strike.

[pranabjyoti]

Arundhati Roy Among India’s Naxalbari: A Debate, Part 1 (http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/2010/04/18/arundhati-roy-among-indias-naxalbari-a-debate-part-1/)

Posted by n3wday (http:///) on April 18, 2010
This was originally posted on kafila.org (http://kafila.org/2010/03/22/response-to-arundhati-roy-jairus-banaji/). H/T to J. Ramsey.
Arundhati Roy’s powerful article Walking with the Comrades (http://kasamaproject.org/2010/03/21/walking-with-the-comrades/) touched off an intense debate within India. To provide a snapshot, we are posting a critique and a response to Roy’s piece.

“…[A]re we seriously supposed to believe that the extraordinary tide of insurrection will wash over the messy landscapes of urban India and over the millions of disorganised workers in our countryside without the emergence of a powerful social agency, a broad alliance of salaried and wage-earning strata, that can contest the stranglehold of capitalism? Without mass organisations, battles for democracy, struggles for the radicalisation of culture, etc., etc.? Does any of this matter for her?”
Response to Arundhati Roy: Jairus Banaji

This is a guest post by JAIRUS BANAJI
Arundhati Roy’s essay “Walking with the Comrades” is a powerful indictment of the Indian state and its brutality but its political drawbacks are screamingly obvious. Arundhati clearly believes that the Indian state is such a bastion of oppression and unrelieved brutality that there is no alternative to violent struggle or ‘protracted war’. In other words, democracy is a pure excrescence on a military apparatus that forms the true backbone of the Indian state. It is simply its ‘benign façade’. If all you had in India were forest communities and corporate predators, tribals and paramilitary forces, the government and the Maoists, her espousal of the Maoists might just cut ice. But where does the rest of India fit in? What categories do we have for them? Or are we seriously supposed to believe that the extraordinary tide of insurrection will wash over the messy landscapes of urban India and over the millions of disorganised workers in our countryside without the emergence of a powerful social agency, a broad alliance of salaried and wage-earning strata, that can contest the stranglehold of capitalism? Without mass organisations, battles for democracy, struggles for the radicalisation of culture, etc., etc.? Does any of this matter for her?
http://mikeely.wordpress.com/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/wordpress/img/trans.gifIn Arundhati’s vision of politics the only agent of social change is a military force. There are no economic classes, no civil society, no mass organisations or conflicts which are not controlled by a party (or ‘the’ party). There is no history of the left that diverges from the romantic hagiographies of Naxalbari and its legacies, and there is, bizarrely, not even a passing reference to capitalism as the systemic source of the conversion of adivasis into wage-labourers, of the degradation of their forms of life and resources and of the dispossession of entire communities. In Arundhati, the vision of the Communist Manifesto is reversed. There Marx brings the Communists in not to prevent the expansion of capitalism but to fight it from the standpoint of a more advanced mode of production, one grounded in the ability of masses of workers to recover control of their lives and shape the nature and meaning of production. The primitive communism in terms of which she sees and applauds the programme of the CPI (Maoist) recalls not this vision of the future but the debates around the possibility of the Russian mir (the peasant commune) forming the basis for a direct transition to communism. On that issue Marx was, as always, profoundly internationalist, speculating that ‘if the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for the proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land [the mir] may serve as the starting point for a communist development’. That didn’t happen, the revolution in Russia remained isolated, it was subverted internally by the grip of a leadership every bit as vanguardist as Kishenji, and if we don’t learn from history, we cannot truly speak as the beacons of hope that Arundhati sees the Maoists as. It is not hope but false promises that will lie at the end of the revolutionary road, aside from the corpses of thousands of ‘martyrs’ and many more thousands of nameless civilians who of course had no control over ‘the’ party.
Opinion of a "Russian" and "revolution" expert, who perhaps in his whole life never feel any urge to even go through the pages of communist manifesto, can not even name the three basic laws of dialectic materialism, don't have any idea about the history of Soviet Union after 1917, but already LEARNED that how "leaders of a vanguard party" lead PEOPLE'S REVOLUTION in a WRONG direction. After 1991 events, at least India are still full of such EXPERTS and I am requesting people to JUST IGNORE them as much as possible. Otherwise, they will just give you headaches, nothing more.

[pranabjyoti]

West Bengal: Police Search for Doctor who Treated Maoists By Ka Frank http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100420/images/20mao.jpg
The Telegraph, April 20, 2010
Asansol, April 19: Police swooped down on an Eastern Coalfields colony on the outskirts of Asansol town at two this morning in search of a doctor who had allegedly been treating Maoists, sometimes at home and sometimes deep in the forests of Bengal’s guerrilla turf.
Samir Biswas, 63, who had retired as superintendent of Eastern Coalfields’ main hospital in Asansol, was missing when 16 police jeeps surrounded the bungalow.
Neighbours, some of whom described the bachelor Biswas as the good doctor, said he used to frequently go missing from the quarters in which he lived even three years after retirement. “We have launched a hunt for him,” said Burdwan superintendent of police R. Rajsekharan.
When the police knocked on the doctor’s door, Susanta Pal, a help who has been with him for 13 years, opened it. A room-by-room search followed in which cupboards were flung open and mattresses overturned. Pal was detained and arrested later for allegedly “waging war against state”.
The police claimed to have found Maoist literature, magazines and photographs. “We went to arrest the doctor following specific information about his Maoist links. Biswas used to treat the guerrillas and frequently visit Jungle Mahal,” Rajsekharan said.
Another officer said the police had also found bus and train tickets that suggested Biswas had travelled to Lalgarh, 175km away, and even Chhattisgarh. “In a steel trunk belonging to Susanta, we have found Maoist leaflets that asked people to war against the enemy of the people,” the officer said.
From the quarters, the team led by additional superintendent of police Prasun Banerjee went to Biswas’s ancestral house in Asansol town. His elder brother Subhas, 70, a retired railway employee, and nephew Kinsuk, a mobile phone mechanic, were detained and released later.
This is the first time the police have zeroed in on a qualified doctor for alleged Maoist links after picking up several quacks over the past few months. Officers said the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities ran at least 20 medical camps in the Lalgarh region, ostensibly for tribal welfare but actually to help wounded guerrillas.
“Biswas was actively involved in the Naxalite movement of the 1970s and had been arrested in 1971,” an Asansol officer said.
In Calcutta, officers of the CID’s Naxalite wing said he was a known Maoist sympathiser. “The CPI (Maoist) is trying to spread its network in the Durgapur-Asansol area by taking the labourers in the region dotted with small industries into confidence. The doctor enjoys the support of local people because he treats people free.”
The police apparently have transcripts of Biswas’s phone conversations that indicate his contacts with Maoists.
The ECL colony at Panchgachhia houses managers, executives, doctors and supervisors. One of Biswas’s neigh-bours, Manas Das, who was woken up by the raid, said: “We had a doctor-patient relationship… never thought he could be linked with Maoists.”
In Chhattisgarh, Dr Binayak Sen spent almost two years in jail for alleged Maoist links. The man credited by many for reaching medicine to some of the country’s poorest was finally granted bail by the Supreme Court last May.
The Trinamul Congress blocked a road for over three hours from 8am today protesting the “police harassment of a good doctor”. “He is a very helpful man. He can’t be a Maoist,” said a youth wing leader.
This article had an introduction by Red Barricade: “We don’t know to the doctor whether it is important to know who the patient is. We also don’t know whether it is ethical to deny treatment to “Maoists” or anybody whom the doctor doesn’t like personally.
Or, only the “Maoists” don’t have the right to receive treatment? Then what should a doctor do? Before start treatment of a patient must the doctor make sure that the patient is not “Maoist”? Then what should a patient do? Before visiting a doctor must the patients visit local police station to receive a non-Maoist certificate?
By the way, Can any doctor deny treatment of anybody say, Sashi Tharoor the former external affair minister just because the doctor doubts his honesty? We really don’t know."
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/west-bengal-police-search-for-doctor-who-treated-maoists/#more-2332
BEAWARE! WE JUST SUSPECT AND ....................

[pranabjyoti]

Statement Promoting the Unity of Maoist Forces in India (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/statement-on-promoting-the-unity-of-maoist-forces-in-india/) April 21, 2010 by Ka Frank by the Communist Party of India(Marxist-Leninist) Naxalbari
The 22nd of April will mark the 41st anniversary of the foundation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) under the leadership of comrade Charu Mazumdar. This year’s commemoration of this historic occasion has an added importance.
It will be taking place in the context of the all-out counter-revolutionary war launched by the Indian state under the code name Operation Greenhunt and the growing countrywide mobilisation against it. Operation Greenhunt is primarily directed against the People’s War being waged in the Central-East regions of India under the leadership of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). This war is a continuation of the great Naxalbari armed peasant rebellion that broke the shackles of revisionism in the Indian communist movement.
The present situation has two important characteristics – the all-out drive of the enemy and the unprecedented mobilisation of the people. This poses the task of earnestly promoting the unification of all Maoist forces into an even more powerful vanguard. This is not merely a matter of quantitative increase. Primarily, it raises the task of synthesising the rich and diverse experiences of Maoist practices over the years in this continent-like country. The need to defeat Operation Greenhunt by spreading the flames of People’s War throughout the country gives added importance to this synthesis.
The successful completion of the Indian revolution is of great importance for the world revolution. In these days, where the global crisis of the imperialist system is pushing people throughout the world into untold misery, let us redouble our efforts to press forward.
Build the Party all Across the Country!
Spread the Flames of People’s War!
Defeat the Counter-revolutionary Operation GreenHunt!
Unity statement.

[pranabjyoti]

India: Two Weeks of Brutal Attacks on People’s Rights

By Ka Frank http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-cop-with-raised-lathi-e1271899563949.jpg?w=400&h=298 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-cop-with-raised-lathi.jpg)
Campaign for Survival and Dignity - 01 April 2010
Clashes have erupted across the country as the forest authorities and other agencies move to crush those who are trying to uphold democracy, people’s control over resources, and the law. In Gujarat, Assam, UP, and Orissa, people are being falsely arrested, police opening fire and houses being burned (on March 21st, March 30th, March 16th and March 30th respectively).
They have asked for nothing except their legal rights over their resources, and they have been shot at, beaten up, jailed and killed. Is the government’s favorite phrase – the “rule of law” – to mean that the police should act as hired gunmen for the Forest Department and companies?
In Gujarat, Avinash Kulkarni and Bharat Powar are in jail, accused of sedition, conspiring to wage war against the State and membership, support for and funding a terrorist organisation. Kulkarni and Powar are activists of the Dangi Mazdoor Union (DMU), a democratic organisation that for 15 years has engaged in mass struggles for people’s rights. They are members of the Gujarat-wide federation Adivasi Mahasabha (affiliated to the Campaign for Survival and Dignity), which has been engaged in the struggle for the Forest Rights Act and for democratic control over the forests.
But for the Forest Department and those who benefit from their control, the law itself is the problem, so anyone who speaks of the law must be a terrorist. Indeed, the FIR against them does not describe a single incident or criminal offence; it is a rhetorical description of “increasing Naxal activity” in south Gujarat. In normal times it would be thrown out, but today, this is enough to land someone in jail indefinitely. The situation is so outrageous that even the Congress party walked out of the Assembly in protest on March 25th.
In Dhemaji, Assam, the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti, a people’s organisation, organised a protest of 12,000 people on March 30th. Their demands? Implement the Forest Rights Act, clean up the PDS and halt the construction of big dams. The government’s response? The CRPF fired in the air, used tear gas and lathi charged the protesters. More than 100 were injured and 23 admitted to hospital, of whom two are in critical condition. The district KMSS president was arrested and slapped with various false non-bailable cases. The KMSS general secretary, Akhil Gogoi, is facing a series of false cases and has been described by the government as – what else? – a “Maoist.”
In Sonebhadra, Uttar Pradesh, on March 16th, the Forest Department and local goondas attacked adivasi protesters (organised by the National Forum of Forest Peoples and Forest Workers) who were reclaiming lands from which they had been illegally evicted in August 2009. The forest guards were armed and beat the protesters. Many were wounded, including a pregnant woman, who miscarried as a result of the beating. All the wounded were denied medical treatment. Four people, who were wounded themselves, were arrested and are still in jail. In fact it was the August 2009 eviction, not the protest, that is the criminal offence.
In Kalinganagar, Orissa, the site of the massacre of 14 adivasi protesters in 2006, the police have gone on the rampage again. On March 29th, the day after the District Collector agreed to hold discussions with the Bistapan Birodhi Jan Manch on the construction of a road on their lands, the road construction was begun anyway. When the people protested on the 30th, 29 companies of police were deployed and went on the rampage. They were joined by goondas associated with the BJD and the Tata Group. One protester was shot in the legs, more than 50 have sustained injuries; houses were burned, property looted, and cattle killed. The attackers even desecrated the memorial to those killed in 2006. The police have cordoned off the area and are blocking entry.
Meanwhile, Operation Green Hunt leaves a trail of death and destruction across central India. For anyone who values democracy, law and basic humanity, these should be days of outrage.
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/india-two-weeks-of-brutal-attacks-on-peoples-rights/#more-2360
THE WORLD'S BIGGEST DEMOCRACY:laugh::crying::blink::lol::p:wub:

[pranabjyoti]

Orissa: Adivasis Protest Attacks on Villages by 500 Tata Goons (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/orissa-adivasis-protest-attacks-on-villages-by-500-tata-goons/)

April 23, 2010 by Ka Frank

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-kalinganagar-rally-e1271978038972.jpg?w=380&h=295 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-kalinganagar-rally.jpg)Rally in Kalinganagar against construction of Tata Steel plant.

The following letter of protest from the organization leading the struggle against forced displacement by Tata Steel in Kalinganagar, India was endorsed by the South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD) in Vancouver, B.C. and forwarded to the Indian Consulate there.
To all democratic parties, organizations and individuals supporting the struggle of the Adivasis and Dalits against forcible displacement.
The people of India know about the struggle of the Adivasis in Kalinganagar and the martyrdom of 14 Adivasis in the struggle against forcible land acquisition by the Tatas in 2006. While that struggle is continuing, fresh attacks have started on the villages of Chandia, Baligoth, Chama Kutli, Gobarghati, Garhpur, Belhari and Ambagaria in Kalinganagar. The Tatas want to broaden the Expressway connecting Daitary Mines to Paradip Port. So they want to evict the Adivasis and acquire their land. The people are opposed to this and they have refused to vacate their villages.
Now the Tatas have formed an armed group of nearly 500 men They are all armed with guns..At 11 AM on 30th March 2010, this armed gang assisted by Orissa State Police and some BJD (Biju Janata Dal) activists attacked the village Baligota. 22 villagers including six women got gunshot injuries. The marauder gang dishonoured the women, burnt the houses of the movement leaders and smashed three motorcycles and 25 bicycles. They looted all goats and hen from the village. Since the attack was sudden and the people unprepared, so they could not resist..
The movement against forcible land acquisitions by the Tatas is being led by Bisthapan Birodhi Janamancha, Sukhinda. Our movement is a peaceful and democratic movement. We only want that the right over Jal, Jangal and Jameen should remain with the Adivasis. We appeal to all democrats to kindly restrain the Orissa government and stop the murderous assault by the Tata armed forces.
We want to point out that there are enough barren lands in Sukhinda which can be used for construction of roads without evicting the Adivasis. We are under siege and it is very difficult for us to communicate with outside world. Please treat this message as an SOS and do something.
Rabindra Jarika 14 April 2010
Appended below is a letter of protest SANSAD wrote in response to information received from India re displacement of adivasis.
Shri Ashok Das, Consul General of India in Vancouver
201-325 Howe Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6C 1Z7
April 17, 2010
Re: Protesting atrocities against adivasis and dalits
The following letter from Bisthapan Birodhi Janamancha in Jajpur district of Orissa informs us of a most distressing incident of atrocity against adivasis/tribals/aboriginal people in the village of Baligota on the morning of March 30, 2010. We strongly protest this atrocity perpetrated by the mercenaries of the Tatas with the apparent complicity of the state of Orissa and the larger campaign to displace adivasis from their land in the interest of corporations, of which this incident is a part. Such violence against the most oppressed people in India to promote the profits of corporations in the name of “development” is repulsive to all democratic and fair-minded people. Such violence is similar to that of the settler colonists against the aboriginal people of North America, Africa, and Australia. It is similar to the violence against the aboriginal people in South America. today. As such we join all democratic people in India and the world in condemning the genocidal violence against the people of the forest in the interest of a so-called development that destroys lives, ways of life, and the environment.
We urge you to present this protest to the Government of India.
Tribal people against the WORLDS BIGGEST DEMOCRACY:lol:.

[pranabjyoti]

Chhattisgarh: Maoists Attack 4 Paramilitary Camps

By Ka Frank http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-plga-lineup1-e1271976884978.jpg?w=380&h=252 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-plga-lineup1.jpg)
Another article from India reported that 6 camps were attacked.
NEW DELHI, April 21 (UPI) — India’s Maoist rebels attacked four security forces camps in the eastern central state of Chhattisgarh where they had killed 75 government militia two weeks ago.
Gun battles continued for up to two hours Tuesday, the Central Reserve Police Force said. But there were no casualties on either side during attacks by up to 400 rebels in the Dantewada district in the early evening.
The attacks are the latest battles between security forces and the Maoists, often called Naxalites because they originated in the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal in India’s remote forested and mineral-rich far eastern reaches.
The Naxalites are one of the larger splinter rebel groups from India’s legal communist parties and have been fighting a low-level but sometimes deadly campaign against state and central governments since 1967.
They demand more of the wealth from the natural resources be spread among the poor. Many of the landless general population support the Naxalites against what they see as a central government neglecting their basic living, education and health needs.
Last weekend several Maoists dressed in CRPF uniforms fired at security guards of the former Border Security Force Director General E. N. Rammohan. He was in the district on a fact-finding tour as part of his report on the events that led up to the April 6 fatal attack when CRPF personnel were caught unaware in dense forest 3 miles from their base camp.
Only seven of the 82 militia survived. The dead included a deputy commandant and an assistant commandant of the CRPF and a head constable of the state police force.
The attack prompted the government to appoint Rammohan’s inquiry the next day. Rammohan, 69, is examining the response of the state police and the CRPF both during the ambush and in the post-ambush rescue operations.
The attack by the Naxalites was a blow to efforts by the federal government to turn the tide in the decades-long battle that has picked up pace in the past year.
Upward of 6,000 people have died in Naxal attacks over the past two decades, Indian Ministry of Home Affairs figures indicate. But since 2004 on average of nearly 600 people have been killed each year, with a surge in deaths to 1,134 last year.
The dead soldiers were part of Operation Green Hunt, an ongoing military offensive by 50,000 CRPF soldiers and tens of thousands of regular policemen started last November to track down Naxalites within the so-called Red Corridor in eastern India.
Home Minister P. Chidambaram said on national television that something must have gone “drastically” wrong for the CRPF soldiers to have been ambushed in Chhattisgarh. He later offered his resignation over the ambush but it was rejected by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
“It was a huge comedown for a man whose tough talk and no-nonsense attitude after the (Nov. 26, 2008) terrorist attack on Mumbai earned him and his party, the Congress, handsome political dividends,” an analysis by the Times of India said.
The ambush has highlighted the need for the government to open other avenues to end the fighting. Singh is said to have accepted an idea, long put forward the Minister for Tribal Affairs K. L. Bhuria, to form a National Tribal Advisory Council.
The council will be a platform for central and state governments to discuss issues concerning the welfare and development of tribal communities, The Times of India said. Bhuria’s ministry has also been asked to fast-track a draft national tribal policy that has been in the making since 2006.
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/chhattisgarh-maoists-attack-4-paramilitary-camps/#more-2366
FIGHTING CONTINUED

[pranabjyoti]

New Attacks on Legal Tribal Rights Movement in Gujarat

By Ka Frank http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-state-map.gif?w=435&h=521 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-state-map.gif)Gujarat is in northwestern india

Tehelka, April 24, 2010
DANGS is the smallest and perhaps the most scenic Adivasi district of Gujarat. As you soak in the beauty and breathe the fresh air, Ashish Pawar, a young Adivasi activist acting as a guide, struggles to explain why his “god”, activist Avinash Kulkarni, who has been branded a Maoist by police, was arrested. Fearing a similar fate for himself, he adds, “I don’t even understand what Naxalism or Maoism means.”
In south Gujarat, police arrested at least nine “Maoists” in February and March claiming they received information from the Orissa government that Naxals were preparing for a violent movement in the state. But so far, Gujarat Police have not produced any evidence — except alleged confessions by those arrested — that they were involved in any armed, violent or anti- State activity. Before this, police have not registered any Maoist activity in the region since 1998.
In what appears to be a two-pronged strategy, activists like Kulkarni who are working with tribals to ensure they get ownership of their forest land are dubbed Maoist and arrested. At the same time, tribals are themselves being divided along Hindu vs tribal lines and turned into Hindutva acolytes.
The recent arrests come at a time when the Adivasis of Dangs thought they had learned to deal with the “tyranny” of forest authorities through legal instruments like the Forest Rights Act (FRA).
Among those arrested is prominent Gandhian and forest rights activist Avinash Kulkarni, 55, whom the tribals deeply respect. Kulkarni was arrested from the house of fellow Adivasi activist Bharat Pawar on March 26 in the administrative headquarters of Dangs. An MPhil in political science, Kulkarni has been charged with “waging war against state” besides organising and participating in “unlawful” assembly of people in Dangs and Surat. His associates say Kulkarni has been arrested to “create a possibility of dividing” the Adivasi Maha Sabha (AMS), a conglomerate of 40 tribal rights groups comprising some 30,000 tribals who are involved in a robust movement in Gujarat’s tribal areas seeking the implementation of the FRA.
‘A Hindu ethos is being imposed on the tribals — whose civilisational culture is far different from that of Hindus’
The arrest of Kulkarni, Bharat and Sulat Pawar has created such an atmosphere of fear in Dangs that it threatens to halt the peaceful tribal forest rights movement spearheaded by AMS in south Gujarat. AMS members say they will carry on working for the tribal rights of “jal, zameen and jungle (water, land and forest)” under the constitutional provisions of the FRA. But police visits to their houses have left them frightened. “Earlier, people would agitate against the forest authorities. Avinashbhai taught us new legal methods to approach the government for our legal rights,” says Ashish, 27, who has worked with Kulkarni in Dangs since 2005, when the FRA was enacted. “Now we are scared that we will also be caught.” Ashish says that after the arrests, his father, Gulab Bhai, a tribal elder, was told by the Dangs DSP that he should not organise any protests or assemble people. Tribals in the area say police visited several villages in the Dangs to deliver similar messages.
Those connected with social and democratic movements in the south Gujarat tribal belt are enraged by the arrests of the activists. “For Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s government, the FRA is like a gun in the hands of the tribals,” says Rohit Prajapati, a prominent Vadodara-based activist and AMS member. There is a widespread impression among south Gujarat civil society members that if the FRA is implemented properly it will create serious problems for Modi because of “commitments” he has given to the paper, tourism and mining industries in Dangs and other tribal areas of the state. “Some forest areas will need to be leased to industry,” says Prajapati. “Even the judiciary go along when national interest is invoked.”
A GROWING sense that “Naxalism” is being invented by the state to “scuttle” the tribal rights movement and “neutralise” the AMS is spreading in Gujarat’s tribal belt. On April 4, hundreds of tribals from Kim, Ulpad and Mangrol Adivasi tehsils assembled in Surat to protest the “arrests in the name of Naxalism”.
There are reasons to believe that the Naxal label has proved very useful for Gujarat and that the state government is going slow in implementing the FRA. In Dangs, not a single “patta” — legal papers for ownership of cultivation land in the forest area — has been handed over to any tribal claimant so far. “The Gujarat government does not like social justice movements. The arrests are aimed at stopping the legal tribal rights movements,” says Uttam Parmar, a Gandhian tribal rights activist who has been involved in justice movements for years.
PARMAR ALSO points to the second line of the Gujarat strategy: that the Modi government has been actively encouraging — with official support — the “Hinduisation” of tribal culture. “A Hindu ethos is being imposed on the tribals — whose civilisational culture is far different from that of Hindu culture,” Parmar adds. In 2007, the state government allowed the illegal felling of 600 trees on the Chamak Dongar hill and built on it a temple for Shabri, a devotee of Ram. A small pond in Subir village was renamed ‘Pampa Sarovar’, the place where Ram supposedly met Shabri. The site was later used by the VHP and RSS to establish a fifth Kumbh Mela (Shabri Kumbh). “An imaginary history is being created to strip Adivasis of their identity and rights to the forest,” Parmar says. Today, the entire Dangs’ hillocks are dotted with Hanuman temples.
The Dangis say the BJP, the RSS and the VHP have no history of speaking up for Adivasis and have instead created friction between them and Christian missionaries working in the area. “They [the government] did not even ask us before dismantling symbols of our deities here,” says Pawar, “The government is simultaneously creating a communal emergency in the state.”
Swamped Unlike Hindus, the Dang Adivasis have traditionally worshipped nature and animals
Officials of the Rajpipla Social Service Society (RSSS), a legal aid NGO and part of AMS in the tribal belt, are dismayed by the arrest of Kulkarni and his associates. Kulkarni has worked with the RSSS for more than a decade and was preparing for a Peoples’ Tribunal for Forest Rights in the coming months. The organisation, parts of whose work has been funded by the Union Ministry of Rural Development, claims it has provided legal assistance to tribals in at least two lakh court cases over the last two decades. “AMS can vouch that Avinash and Bharat [Pawar] are not involved in violent or illegal activity,” says Xavier Manjooran, a senior RSSS office bearer and AMS activist. “The Gujarat government was sorry that they didn’t have Naxals or Maoists.”
Kulkarni’s lawyer, Kirit Panwala, says there is nothing illegal about his current activities. “[Kulkarni] may get harassed because of his past,” Panwala says. Manjooran adds that when Avinash came from Maharashtra to work among the Dang tribals in 2002, he revealed that he was once a member of CPI-ML Janashakti but had quit the party. The party is not banned. But according to Surat police sources, Kulkarni has “confessed” that he is still a member and participated in two recent party meetings in Surat.
‘THE GOVERNMENT DID NOT EVEN ASK US BEFORE DISMANTLING SYMBOLS OF OUR DEITIES HERE. IT IS CREATING A COMMUNAL EMERGENCY,’ SAYS PARMAR
“The government has the right to deal with any violent movement in Gujarat. But it is important that the government action does not jeopardise the lives of people and activists who are working for the rights of Adivasis,” Panwala says.
But Gujarat police suspect Kulkarni is involved in organising a Maoist rebellion in the south of the state. Although officially police are tight-lipped about details of what has come to light after interrogating six alleged Maoists arrested outside Dangs, officials privately say that Niranjan Mahapatra, arrested one week before Kulkarni, has identified him as being involved in Maoist activity in Gujarat. Kulkarni now faces charges of sedition.
The work that Kulkarni and his associates have been involved with in Dangs for two decades points to a possible solution to the Naxal or Maoist problem that has captured the country’s attention. Arresting the likes of him may amount to taking away Adivasis’ legal means to secure their rights as prescribed in the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution and the FRA. Could Gujarat police be shooting the messenger?
Tehelka, Vol 7, Issue 16, Dated April 24, 2010
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/new-attacks-on-legal-tribal-rights-movement-in-gujarat/#more-2382
The WORLD'S BIGGEST DEMOCRACY is showing its true color step by step every day.

[pranabjyoti]

‘You only serve the party here, not the people (http://www.icawpi.org/en/analysis/media/419-you-only-serve-the-party-here-not-the-people)

Kabir Suman, the maverick musical genius and activist, who resigned as an MP, tells PARTHA DASGUPTA he rues the state of politics in India
Wasn't your resignation inevitable?
You could say so. I am a product of the peoples' movement. I am a self-proclaimed anarchist. I am a political man by all means but not a man of politics. The Singur-Nandigram uprising brought me to the centrestage of West Bengal's anti-government politics and I was persuaded to contest an election by some well-meaning friends and a large section of the civil society as well as Mamata Banerjee. Everyone thought I was just the right man to function as the 'people's voice' in Parliament. Little did I know then that for a first time MP, to be able to raise a point in Parliament is almost impossible. Add to it the fact that I was continually harassed, humiliated and slighted in public by a section of the Trinamul Congress leadership. I couldn't take it any more. I was losing my identity.
Do you feel that you have let down the many poor people who voted for you?
But I was forced to step down in a way. There is so much infighting in the party and corruption is so rampant, and incompetence at all levels just stares at your face. I am an absolute misfit for the kind of environment I was thrown into. In the 10 months that I have been an MP, I have been able to get some 40 deep tube wells dug in areas that never had access to clean drinking water for decades. But I had to get this done through NGOs. I could not trust the panchayats run by the Trinamool to do the job. There have been instances where I had to bribe panchayat office-bearers to get a development job done. Can you beat that?
Why did your relationship with Mamata sour?
I saw Mamata as a leader of the people. I saw her as the only hope against the CPM atrocities in Bengal. But the moment she scored this spectacular victory in the Lok Sabha elections, I saw her change dramatically. She refused to stand by the poor tribals of the three western districts of West Bengal where they are being subjected to unimaginable atrocities perpetrated by both the CPM and the joint forces in the name of Operation Greenhunt. I could see she did it because she does not consider the tribals as her vote bank. I was shattered. I lost respect for her.
Is it disillusionment with Mamata or a clash of personalities?
This is not the Mamata I knew when we were comrade-in-arms during the peoples' movement. I wouldn't say a clash, but certainly a mismatch in personalities - mine and that of the others in the political system. Politicians are a different breed. I can not speak their language. Certainly not lead their lives...
Their lives?
Politicians eat, sleep and breathe money. They are in the business just to make a fortune. I am a misfit in the system.
Why have you resigned now over an apparently insignificant issue?
It was not insignificant. It was a coordinated effort by the leadership to belittle me in my constituency.
How do you rate parliamentary democracy in India?
I was honestly disappointed. It is not democracy but oligarchy. You only serve the party, not the people. A peoples' representative is a misnomer. I asked [Finance Minister] Pranab Mukherjee if I had the right to dissent with respect to a few policies of the government in spite of being a member of a party that is a part of it. He could not answer my question. I do not see an iota of love in the hearts of our politicians for the people, the country, the environment, the world that we live in. I do not belong here.
http://www.icawpi.org/en/analysis/media/419-you-only-serve-the-party-here-not-the-people
The true nature of DEMOCRATIC OPPOSITION, which, sorry to say, have a huge mass support at present behind them. The condition and true nature of opposition is much worse in the other states of India. This party, Trinamool (grass root) Congress will come in power in near future by riding the wave of peoples movement, which has been started by the incidents of Singur and Nandigram. Isn't this an example of how bourgeoisie democratic parties betray people?

[pranabjyoti]

Brazilian Peasants Lead Protest against Operation Green Hunt (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/brazilian-peasants-lead-protest-against-operation-green-hunt/)

April 24, 2010 by Ka Frank The demonstration occurred on April 19th, 2010 in front of the Indian Embassy in Brasilia, and was organized by LCP-Liga dos Camponeses Pobres (League of Poor Peasants).
It was also attended by representatives of : CEBRASPO Centro Brasileiro de Solidariedade com os Povos (Brazilian Center of People’s Solitarity), Liga Operária (Workers League), ILPS Brasil (Internacional League of People Struggle), ABRAPO-Associação Brasileira de Advogados do Povo (Brazilian Lawyers Association for the People), MEPR – Movimento Estudantil Popular Revolucionário (Popular Revolutionary Student Movement), MFP- Movimento Feminino Popular (Women’s Popular Movement) and Frente Revolucionária de Defesa dos Direitos do Povo (Revolutionary Front for the Defense of Peoples Rights).
http://www.youtube.com/ligaoperaria#p/u/0/wSTSNjigo0o
Part of worldwide protest. Like to see more like this in more parts of the world.

[t.shonku]

Kabir Suman, the maverick musical genius and activist, who resigned as an MP, tells PARTHA DASGUPTA he rues the state of politics in India
Wasn't your resignation inevitable?
You could say so. I am a product of the peoples' movement. I am a self-proclaimed anarchist. I am a political man by all means but not a man of politics. The Singur-Nandigram uprising brought me to the centrestage of West Bengal's anti-government politics and I was persuaded to contest an election by some well-meaning friends and a large section of the civil society as well as Mamata Banerjee. Everyone thought I was just the right man to function as the 'people's voice' in Parliament. Little did I know then that for a first time MP, to be able to raise a point in Parliament is almost impossible. Add to it the fact that I was continually harassed, humiliated and slighted in public by a section of the Trinamul Congress leadership. I couldn't take it any more. I was losing my identity.
Do you feel that you have let down the many poor people who voted for you?
But I was forced to step down in a way. There is so much infighting in the party and corruption is so rampant, and incompetence at all levels just stares at your face. I am an absolute misfit for the kind of environment I was thrown into. In the 10 months that I have been an MP, I have been able to get some 40 deep tube wells dug in areas that never had access to clean drinking water for decades. But I had to get this done through NGOs. I could not trust the panchayats run by the Trinamool to do the job. There have been instances where I had to bribe panchayat office-bearers to get a development job done. Can you beat that?
Why did your relationship with Mamata sour?
I saw Mamata as a leader of the people. I saw her as the only hope against the CPM atrocities in Bengal. But the moment she scored this spectacular victory in the Lok Sabha elections, I saw her change dramatically. She refused to stand by the poor tribals of the three western districts of West Bengal where they are being subjected to unimaginable atrocities perpetrated by both the CPM and the joint forces in the name of Operation Greenhunt. I could see she did it because she does not consider the tribals as her vote bank. I was shattered. I lost respect for her.
Is it disillusionment with Mamata or a clash of personalities?
This is not the Mamata I knew when we were comrade-in-arms during the peoples' movement. I wouldn't say a clash, but certainly a mismatch in personalities - mine and that of the others in the political system. Politicians are a different breed. I can not speak their language. Certainly not lead their lives...
Their lives?
Politicians eat, sleep and breathe money. They are in the business just to make a fortune. I am a misfit in the system.
Why have you resigned now over an apparently insignificant issue?
It was not insignificant. It was a coordinated effort by the leadership to belittle me in my constituency.
How do you rate parliamentary democracy in India?
I was honestly disappointed. It is not democracy but oligarchy. You only serve the party, not the people. A peoples' representative is a misnomer. I asked [Finance Minister] Pranab Mukherjee if I had the right to dissent with respect to a few policies of the government in spite of being a member of a party that is a part of it. He could not answer my question. I do not see an iota of love in the hearts of our politicians for the people, the country, the environment, the world that we live in. I do not belong here. I think this shows the true nature of Indian Democracy,even a well known singer can't speak against operation green hunt then what can a common man do?,so you all can see that both opposition like TMC and ruling party like CPI(marxist)and Indian National Congress are basically brothers in arms when it comes to waging war against poor ,the reason behind this is simple all these democratic,constitutional,"legal" parties are funded by corporate houses during election,THIS IS THE TRUTH BEHIND DEMOCRACY.
SO WE CAN SEE THAT PARTIES WHO CRUSH DOWN COMMON PEOPLES ARE BRANDED "LEGAL" AND PARTIES WHO SUPPORT POOR PEOPLES RIGHTS ARE BANNED.
India's Democracy is by the corporates,for the corporates,of the corporates.

[pranabjyoti]

Let us have a look in brief, at what the people have built through their Development Committees in the villages in Dandakarnya, and what the State wants to destroy. It will give us a glimpse of what the Maoists hold as a vision for the progress and development of our country – development which is indigenously and self reliantly built, one which is people oriented and is constructed in the course of the people’s democratic participation, and one which cares for this land and its resources. Such development which will free us from the stranglehold of imperialist capital and its dictates. A course of action which can only be executed by the truly patriotic.


The biggest reform undertaken is that of land. They have distributed lakhs of acres of land among every peasant household. And no one is allowed to keep more land than one can till. Thus doing away with unnecessary hiring of labour in agriculture. Even the Patels who used to oppress people and fleece them through unpaid labour have been allowed to retain land they can manage with their family’s labour. No non-tribals are allowed to own land there.
Women are also given property rights over land.
They have developed agriculture from the primitive form of shifting every one or two years, to systematic settled farming. They were taught to sow, weed and harvest the crops. They cultivate both their own private lands as well as co-operative fields for community use. The development of agriculture is being done without using chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
They have introduced a wide range of vegetables like carrot, radish, brinjal, bitter gourd, okra, tomato etc., which the tribals of remote areas had never seen or tasted.
They have planted orchards of bananas, citrus fruits, mangoes, guavas etc.
They have built dams, ponds, and water channels for breeding fish and for the purpose of irrigation. All this has been done through collective labour and the produce is distributed free to every household.
They have dug wells for safe drinking water. The industrial projects have destroyed underground water sources, and streams have been polluted to such an extent, that the fish and water life have died as also the vegetation around it. Many fruit trees have stopped flowering around these water resources.
They have set up rice mills in a number of villages. These mills have freed women from the daily pounding of paddy for extracting grain. Many of these mills have been destroyed by Salwa Judum which was launched by the government, which talks so much about development in these areas.
They have built a health care system which reaches every tribal peasant in every village. Each village has a Medicine Unit which has been trained to identify diseases and distribute medicines to the villagers. The health of the tribals rates only second in priority to the fight against exploitation and oppression.
The women participate equally in these developmental activities. Special attention is paid to the issue of patriarchy and that is why they come forward equally to defend their rights and lands.
They run schools. The schools built by the government are completely non-functional and are usually used by the police and paramilitary forces when they raid villages. That is one reason the people pull down these pucca structures which have become symbols of repression.
They have published books and magazines in the Gondi language. As a result, it is for the first time that this language has found a place in the written world. Songs, articles and anecdotes written by the Gond people are published in the magazines brought out by the movement. These are the initial steps to develop this ancient language which has been neglected, just as the people have been. Though there is no existing script in Gondi, they use devnagri script.
The remunerative prices for Tendu leaf collection and wages for the cutting of bamboo and timber is fixed by the Maoist movement taking into consideration the interests of the tribals.
Trade in the movement area goes on without hindrance. The traders are not allowed to cheat the tribals in haat bazaars. The movement announces remunerative prices for the jungle produce and paddy which the traders agree to. The presence of guerrillas ensures fair trade practices. On the other hand, the traders feel happy that there is no danger of theft or robberies in the movement controlled areas and they can move about there, freely.
They have their own justice system. People’s Courts are held to settle various disputes among the people, as well as with the oppressors.
Theft, robbery, cheatings, murders for property and personal gains have vanished.
Sexual harassment and rape by the forest department, the contractors and the police has become a thing of the past. Now the women walk freely in the jungle whether it is day or night.
Democratic functioning has been introduced at the village level onwards. The Gram Rajya Committees (now called Revolutionary Peoples Committees) function at the head of various committees like Development Committees which look after agriculture, fish farming, education, village development, Medicine Units etc.
The women and children have their own organizations in almost every village. The tribal peasants have their separate organization, with units in every village.
Almost every village has units of People’s Militia which take up the responsibility of defense of the village.
Cultural organizations thrive in these jungles as the tribals have great affinity for cultural activities. These organizations propagate through songs, dances, plays and other art forms, on all the issues whether local, national or international.
The movement has been able to prevent starvation deaths in its areas.

http://bannedthought.net/India/CPIMIB/index.htm
Kindly notice that the process of development is very much similar with post revolution Russia, where languages of backward tribal areas of Siberia had been developed by linguistic experts. I am very much sure, the Human Development Index of the Maoist controlled areas is much better than rest of India and growth of GDP is much higher too. IN SHORT, THE MAOISTS ARE RUNNING THE STATE MORE SUCCESSFULLY THAN THE PRESENT INDIAN RULERS.:thumbup1:
I think the Latin American leaders like Chavez, Morales and others can learn a good deal from Indian Maoists in this regard. If the Vth International can make a platform for such exchanges, then I am totally in the support of the establishing of the Vth International. Latin American comrades, specially who are fighting there on the side of leaders like Chavez, Morales and others, kindly come here and give your valuable opinion regarding the activities of Maoists in India and Nepal. I think exchange of thought and data are really beneficial for both sides.

[pranabjyoti]

India: Heightened Repression against Opponents of Operation Green Hunt

By Ka Frank http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-cop-with-lathi-at-ready-e1272500828969.jpg?w=400&h=302 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-cop-with-lathi-at-ready.jpg)
26 April 2010. A World to Win News Service.
As part of Operation Green Hunt, the Indian government is trying to instil fear among Indians inside and outside the areas where they intend to clear out the Maoists. Progressive forces of a variety of political opinions who have expressed opposition to this operation face threats, intimidation and arrests. Among them is the well-known author and activist Arundhati Roy, who created a major stir with her article “Walking with the Comrades” published online at Dawn.com (http://dawn.com/).
Launched late last year, Operation Green Hunt is an unprecedented military offensive against the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and the masses hungry for radical change who make up the army they lead. This war is being waged in the jungles and forests that are home to the tribal peoples known as Adivasis in central and eastern India (Chhattisgarh, Jharkand, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal). For generations the Adivasis have had to fight to maintain use of this land, even though the Indian Constitution supposedly guarantees their rights to it. Laden with mineral resources, the land is coveted by national and international corporate exploiters.
In Dangs, Gujarat, several people have been arrested recently based on information from police in the state of Orissa. Among them was Avinash Kulkarni, a prominent follower of Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy and forest rights activist taken into custody 26 March. He was preparing for a People’s Tribunal, a long-standing method for the basic masses who have no recourse to the legal system to expose government crimes against them. Kulkarni has been charged with “waging war against the state”, and organising and participating in “unlawful” assemblies of people in Dangs and Surat.
Associates say Kulkarni has been arrested to “create a possibility of dividing” the Adivasi Maha Sabha (AMS) that he leads, an alliance of 40 tribal rights organisations comprising some 30,000 tribal people, part of a robust movement in Gujarat’s tribal areas seeking the implementation of the Forest Rights Act. The police say that Kulkarni was involved in organising a Maoist rebellion in the south of Gujarat.
On the morning of 7 April, a contingent of 25 police arrested activist Kirity Roy for “impersonating the judiciary”. His “crimes” include trudging the interiors and borders of West Bengal, fact-finding and documenting extra-judicial killings, custodial death, rape, mysterious disappearances and police torture. Roy was elected a board member of Amnesty International and an NGO representative at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. In June 2008 he helped organize People’s Tribunals in nine states across India, as part of a National Project on Preventing Torture in India.
In Kolkata, 82 brave women and men told their stories to a local Tribunal. There was the family of Santosh Mondal. The police chased him for being a smuggler. To escape he dived into a lake. The family says the police went after him in a speedboat and the propeller blades killed him. There was Radha Rani Ari – gang-raped by parliamentary party goons in Nandigram village in 2007. She insists on justice, but no police station will register her complaint.
The Jawaharlal Nehru University administration in Delhi released a circular on 23 March stating unequivocally that seminars, public meetings, film or documentary screenings, and exhibitions would be allowed only if they do not “compromise national integration, harmony and security”. On 9 April, a cultural programme was organised by the JNU Forum Against War on People, a broad platform of students and organisations opposed to Operation Green Hunt. A right-wing student group attacked the programme and called for Operation Green Hunt to be implemented at the University. These reactionaries destroyed equipment and threw stones. Several injured progressive students had to be hospitalised.
Although the scheduled screening of the Costa-Gavras film Missing (about the U.S.-backed 1973 coup in Chile) could not take place, the rest of the programme did. During this attack, security guards stood by silently and observed. The administration excused this inaction, saying that the students against Operation Green Hunt had not obtained prior permission for their programme.

Controversy rages throughout India around Arundhati Roy’s stand with the Maoist and Advisais. Chattisgarh police are considering bringing charges against her in connection with some passages in her “Walking with the Comrades” that allegedly violate the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act of 2005. An individual legal complaint against her has already been lodged. It states that Arundhati’s essay “sought to not only ‘glorify’ the Maoists but also denigrate the country’s established system, including the judiciary.”
In a hostile interview with Roy 16 April on CNN-IBN, Sagarika Ghose baits her, demanding to know if Roy still upholds “the tone of sympathy” with the Maoist cause she expressed in her essay after a guerrilla ambush of an Operation Green Hunt military unit in Dantewada which led to the death of 76 government troops. Ghose asks why she is “the writer India loves to hate.”
She replies that it is the people who have a stake in the things she opposes in her writing who hate her, not the people who are the victims. While Roy carefully upholds her advocacy of non-violence, she also points out, “Hundreds of people who are not known have been picked up and jailed. There is a whole bandwidth of people’s movement from the non-violent ones outside the forests to the armed struggle inside the forests which have actually held off this corporate assault, which I have to say has not happened in anywhere else in the world.”
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/04/29/india-heightened-repression-against-opponents-of-operation-green-hunt/#more-2584
The WORLD'S BIGGEST DEMOCRACY is now breaking its own rules to fight the "BIGGEST INTERNAL THREAT". As per the norms of medical council of India, no doctor can refuse a patient for his political ideology or any other reason and HE IS NOT ABIDE BY ANY LAW TO INFORM THE POLICE ABOUT THE POLITICAL IDENTITY OF HIS PATIENT. But, recently the police of West Bengal arrested one doctor in the city of Asansol for TREATING MAOISTS.
Readers, HOW MUCH CIVILIZED THE WORLD'S BIGGEST DEMOCRACY IS?

[pranabjyoti]

Review/Interview about New Book on India’s Maoist Movement

By Ka Frank http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-plga-training1-e1272331041918.jpg?w=400&h=270 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-plga-training1.jpg)PLGA (People's Liberation Guerilla Army) in training

‘Jangalnama: Travels in a Maoist Guerrilla Zone’; Author: Satnam; Penguin Books, pp 206; Price: Rs.250
Reviewed by M.R. Narayan Swamy
This is undoubtedly India’s answer to ‘Red Star Over China’, the epoch-making story of what the then obscure Mao was up to in China’s rural areas at the head of a nascent Communist party that eventually took power in 1949. When American Edgar Snow came out with the classic of a book, the world sat up and took notice.
The Indian Maoists of Bastar are of course not an unknown commodity. Yet there has been no account of what they are doing in the huge, forested land of poverty amid plenty known as Bastar, a story as exhaustive and moving as this racy eye-opener of a book.
Unlike most books on Indian Maoism, this one does not dabble in ideology, party documents and polemics. Like Snow did decades ago, Satnam, a committed Leftwing writer-activist from Punjab, focuses on the impoverished people and the revolutionaries he meets in Bastar. He spent two months in the forests, living with his subjects to study why Maoists are on the ascendency in the mineral-rich region where governments have existed only in the form of greedy contractors and corrupt policemen, leaving the mass of tribals to wallow in poverty, disease and illiteracy while outsiders strip away Bastar’s minerals.
The book was originally published in Punjabi early this decade . What has been published now is an excellent English translation by Vishav Bharti. But readers need not worry. The story that unfolds may have been written yesterday, so vivid is the harshness of jungle life; and those jungles are still the same. If anything, some of what the guerrillas said about their plans for the future seems to be coming true.
Bastar is where cadres from the former People’s War Group (PWG), after facing reverses in adjoining Andhra Pradesh, first set up base in the 1980s. Those were hard times. Few tribals were ready to embrace outsiders. That was then. Today this is where the Communist Party of India-Maoist rules supreme, keeping at bay an Indian state determined to bring Bastar to the ‘mainstream’. After reading this book, few people will buy the cliche that Naxalites are India’s biggest internal security threat. They may be a threat to multinationals and others eager to exploit Bastar’s wealth but they are certainly no threat to the region’s tribal population.
Who are the tribals who form the backbone of the Maoists? ‘They are neither Hindus nor Muslims nor Christians. They have never heard of Ram, Mohammad or Christ. They eat cow’s meat, hunt pigs and eat insects too! Even today, many go without wearing clothes. Sin, charity, pity, cruelty, wickedness and psychological disorders have no place in their lives.’ Although they live on territory that is India’s most mineral-rich, they have been ‘herded like animals, and used for clearing the forests or digging the earth’ and their women abducted. ‘The tribals languish in the same miserable existence of hunger, disease, death and helplessness.’ Few cross the age of 50.
Who are the Maoists?
Satnam meets a mixed band of young men and women committed to the cause of revolution. There are plenty of Gond tribals; there are those who speak Telugu, Bengali and Hindi. There is also a scientist and a doctor. The guerrillas he meets are always in uniform, perennially armed, ever alert. When the guerrillas enter a village, the entire village turns up to welcome them and plies them with rice, vegetables and water. ‘When they set up camp, villagers take turns to carry out chores and take responsibilities.’ But ‘each guerrilla has only one set of uniform, which has to be washed, dried, and worn again’. They don’t camp in one spot more than one night. They drink water from the river. Diseases are a constant threat. They eat the tribal food. More than half the fighters are young women. ‘They love life, but they don’t care about death.’
Why are the Maoists popular among the ordinary folks?
For one, their entry into Bastar has ended the reign of contractors who loot and cheat, and policemen who abuse. Today tribal women can walk in the forests alone. Starvation deaths do not take place in Maoist areas. Prostitution is passe; so are human sacrifices. The Maoists have helped tribals construct dams to store rain water; set up mango, guava and lime orchards; rice mills in several villages where grain can be husked at nominal rates. Tribals are provided basic education, and medicines that they have never got from the government.
So are the guerrillas on the road to victory?
The CPI-Maoist knows its strength and weaknesses. A party leader admits ‘the revolutionary movement has had little, or no, success in influencing the country’s politics’. Also, building the party in cities has proved to be difficult – and dangerous. Maoist organizations are proving difficult to run. There is a serious dearth of activists – and weapons. But the guerrillas are confident. ‘Even though we have started off at a slow pace, we will soon gain momentum.’ Another Maoist says: ‘Our battle can’t be fought only in Bastar; it has to spread to the entire country.’
(26.04.2010 – M.R. Narayan Swamy can be contacted at [email protected])
Below is an interview with Satnam, the author of Jangalnama:
Activist and writer Satnam’s book Jangalnama openly sides with the Maoist cause, firing salvo after another at the powers that be
“In Bastar, different kinds of fires burn – the fire in the empty belly, the fire of the jungle and the fire of the revolution ¦ the fire in the stomach is like a pyre on which one is burnt alive. The fire of teak, bamboo and other forest produce keeps houses of contractors and traders warm but destroys Bastar. As you go through this book you will feel the warmth of the third kind of fire.” ” Inside the Guerrilla Camp, Jangalnama
Braving safety concerns, author Satnam decided to spend two months with Maoist guerrillas and adivasis, in Bastar in eastern India. The result was Jangalnama, which takes a compellingly humane look at those who are demonised by the fourth estate and outlawed by the state and in the process manages to convey their side of the story. Chandigarh-based journalist Vishav Bharti has translated this book into English.
Why and how did you decide to make this visit? How long were you in the jungles of Bastar?
It was sometime in October 2001, where the political climate was different. The World Trade Centre attacks had just happened and America hadn’t mounted their onslaught on Afghanistan. They were aware that I was a political writer and activist so they sent me a letter asking me to visit their camp. At that time I didn’t think I’d write a novel. I was keen to understand their existence. I didn’t have any friends or contacts there. Of course, I made friends later.
Has the situation changed considerably since then?
Yes. When I first reached, things were very peaceful. It was not a war-like situation as it is now. They seemed peaceful and happy. In fact, it wasn’t a very thick forest. A lot of trees were cut, illegally and the forest was thinning out. This may have stopped now; the forests are probably denser.
Would you agree that your book has a tone of contempt towards city dwellers and the educated middle and upper class? What made you arrive at this belief?
Actually no. I have no contempt for the city or city dwellers or even civilisation. It’s the people who call themselves civilised but don’t care for the uneducated and downtrodden who are the ones I’m against. Tribals aren’t aware about the Kyoto Protocol but live in harmony with nature. They don’t worship it. They don’t destroy it, but live with it, peacefully.
You are vocal in your opinions of the government and the treatment meted out to tribals. Aren’t you concerned that it might rub authorities the wrong way?
I think it needs to be said in public. Steel plants are set up nearby and yet none of the benefits of the so-called development reach the tribals. Travel into the interiors, just four kilometres from Bhilai to discover that there are no schools, no hospitals, not even a hand pump for water. They will unload mountains of iron from the area but are unwilling to pay them back a bit? Development needs to be people oriented. If it isn’t for the people, what’s the purpose of development? What happens if someone comes to your home and demands to extract iron ore from your land? Aap toh ujhad gaye na?
Have you consciously taken sides in the book? By doing so aren’t you oversimplifying a complicated issue?
(Pauses) Why don’t you see the place for yourself? Government iron ore bech ke khazana baniti hai, but these tribals, they have nothing. You are mining iron and bauxite and the entire cluster of villages don’t even have one blacksmith. Is this development? People don’t betray their countries. It’s the government that is anti people. Peasants are forced to commit suicide, people are displaced but the powers choose to ignore. The system needs to be changed and that can only happen through a revolution.
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/04/29/review-of-excellent-book-on-indias-maoist-movement/#more-2556
The reason, why Maoists are growing and will grow in future.

[Saorsa]

Free, free Kobad Ghandy (http://workersparty.org.nz/2010/04/29/free-free-kobad-ghandy/)


Demonstrators gathered at the Indian High Commission in Wellington to protest against Operation Green Hunt and the detention of Kobad Ghandy.

Kobad is a Maoist political leader, imprisoned since October 2009. His arrest is part of the Indian state’s attempt to crush all opposition.

Operation Green Hunt is a counter-insurgency strategy where tens of thousands of armed forces are trying to wipe out the Maoist movement that has support though a third of India.



The protesters rallied outside the Indian embassy then marched to parliament and into the city centre speaking about the lack of genuine democracy in India and the growing state repression.


http://workerspartynz.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/indian-embassy1.jpg

http://workerspartynz.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/kobad-demo.jpg

More photos to come, the demonstration was small but militant and full of energy.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Comrades might like to read this (brief) critical analysis of the Maoist insurgents in India:

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2010/04/arundhati-roy-and-maoists.html

[red cat]

Comrades might like to read this (brief) critical analysis of the Maoist insurgents in India:

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2010/04/arundhati-roy-and-maoists.html



However, it does not follow from this that the Maoists are behaving in a responsible, politically appropriate fashion. Their tendency to impose themselves (http://kafila.org/2010/03/02/appeal-for-talks-with-broader-section-of-peoples-struggles-in-the-forest-and-mineral-belt/) as the 'vanguard' of popular movements, by force if necessary, gives the state an opportunity to go on a war footing. In this way, popular resistance to the acts of enclosure by the state, by mining companies and so on, can be repressed. The Indian journal Liberation has a four part analysis of the Maoists, which critically engages with their politics here (http://www.cpiml.org/liberation/year_2009/dec_09/article.html), here (http://www.cpiml.org/liberation/year_2010/jan_10/article.html), here (http://www.cpiml.org/liberation/year_2010/feb_10/article.html) and here (http://www.cpiml.org/liberation/year_2010/march_10/article.html). The analysis concludes:
While resisting the Operation Green Hunt, progressive democratic forces must also question and reject the Maoists’ exclusive emphasis on armed actions. The neo-liberal policies and especially the corporate plunder of our precious natural and human resources have generated tremendous amount of mass resentment across the country. Whether it is the rural poor’s struggle for land, wages and survival or outburst of farmers’ anger against corporate acquisition of agricultural land or distress sale of agricultural produce, student unrest against commercialization and privatization of education or struggle of dalits, adivasis and women for dignity and equality, the demand for separate states or for withdrawal of draconian laws, the country is witnessing powerful mass struggles in almost all states. The Maoists have no policy of participating in or advancing these struggles except by armed means.

...

While not disregarding the ultimate role of force as the midwife of any fundamental or radical social change, the political nature and grammar of the struggle of contending classes in modern society must be recognized. To put an end to the political hegemony of the ruling classes, the working people must assert themselves as an alternative and independent political force – they must develop an alternative discourse of people’s power against the power and domination of capital. And this can be achieved only through wide-ranging initiatives and assertion of the people. There can be no shortcuts, no bypasses. Will the Indian Maoists ever realize this? Today Left politics in India is poised for a new turn. The CPI(M)-led politics of ‘Marxist’ elitism and bourgeois respectability which revolves around compromise and capitulation vis-à-vis the ruling classes has all but collapsed on the soil of Bengal. Naturally, its projection on the all-India plane is also in for a serious crisis. The Left ground today can only be reclaimed through powerful struggles and initiatives in the democratic arena. For a resurgence of the Left we need a new realignment, a new model of fighting unity based on mass struggles. It remains to be seen how and to what extent this new situation is grasped, in theory and practice, by different Left trends in the country. And the future alone will tell us whether the Maoists too will come out of their orbit of one-dimensional theory and practice to reposition themselves as a constituent or participant in this new realignment of the Left.
And Roy's approach to the issue has stimulated some debate among socialists (see here (http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?265034), here (http://kafila.org/2010/04/13/response-to-rohini-hensman-soumitra-ghosh), and here (http://www.countercurrents.org/sebastian130410.htm)). In general, the criticism is that she is naive about the politics of the Maoists and thus uncritically celebrates their resistance without recognising the limitations of their outlook and methods, and the damage they can do the popular movements that Roy supports. Nevertheless, whatever the weaknesses of Roy's approach, she has used her celebrity to champion the oppressed, to lay into the Hindutva reactionaries, attack the Gandhian pieties of the liberal bourgeoisie which relies on the right-wing and the state do its dirty work, and force these issues into the capitalist media.http://leninology.blogspot.com/2010/04/arundhati-roy-and-maoists.html

The main allegations against the Indian Maoists here are listed pointwise:

1) They have a tendency to impose themselves as the 'vanguard' of popular movements, by force if necessary.

2) This gives the state an opportunity to go on a war footing. In this way, popular resistance to the acts of enclosure by the state, by mining companies and so on, can be repressed.

3) Maoists emphasize exclusively on armed struggles. Progressive democratic forces must also question and reject this.

4) The neo-liberal policies and especially the corporate plunder of our precious natural and human resources have generated tremendous amount of mass resentment across the country. Whether it is the rural poor’s struggle for land, wages and survival or outburst of farmers’ anger against corporate acquisition of agricultural land or distress sale of agricultural produce, student unrest against commercialization and privatization of education or struggle of dalits, adivasis and women for dignity and equality, the demand for separate states or for withdrawal of draconian laws, the country is witnessing powerful mass struggles in almost all states. The Maoists have no policy of participating in or advancing these struggles except by armed means.

Let us investigate each point one by one.

1) Where the article makes this allegation, it links to another article which says:


In the light of the recent demands raised by sections of the intelligentsia urging the government to heed the CPI (Maoist) “offer of talks”, we insist that “civil society” should rather, put pressure on the government to initiate talks with representatives of all struggling popular and adivasi organizations. The CPI (Maoist) cannot be treated as the sole spokesperson of all the people in the forest and mineral belt, convenient though this may be for the state and for that party. Does the government believe that violent insurgents are the only deserving interlocutors?


There is a common pattern to the emergence of Maoist violence in many areas. First a non-violent mass organisation like the PCAPA in West Bengal or Chasi Muliya Adivasi Sangh (CMAS) in Orissa arises in response to marginalisation, displacement or violence against tribals by the police and paramilitaries. Then the Maoists step in, attempting to take over the movement and giving it a violent turn. The state responds with even more violence, which is directed not only against the Maoists but also against unaffiliated adivasis. At this point, some adivasis join the Maoists in self-defence, their leaders like Chhatradhar Mahato, Lalmohan Tudu, Singanna are either arrested or gunned down in fake encounters and large numbers of unaffiliated adivasis are branded Maoists or Maoist sympathisers and arrested, killed or terrorised by the state. Clearly, Maoist violence in these cases obtains legitimacy because of the unbridled use of force by security forces and violations of the fundamental rights of the local people. On the other hand, the unilateral and doctrinal use of the language of warfare by one armed group obscures the political agency of the ordinary people who have had no say in this declaration. It also tramples on the human rights of the often desperately poor people who are obliged to seek a livelihood in organizations of the state. Furthermore, it is not clear that the CPI (Maoist) actually shares the rejection of this kind of “development” by the people of the area, or whether it only wants to wrest control of this process from the Indian state.
First of all here we notice the same old bourgeois resentment against violent mass struggles.

Then this article notices a "common pattern" to the emergence of Maoist violence in many areas. It alleges that after some spontaneous mass struggle begins, the Maoists come and take over those struggles and this in turn allows the state to resort to violently dealing with the masses. So, indirectly, the Maoists seem to be responsible for the sad plight of the masses.

The above allegation omits some serious points:

a) How successful have the movements that have not been "taken over" by the Maoists been ? Perhaps the authors of the article don't know of the Indian governments repressive policies that it used to break the peoples' movement in Kashmir, and the CPI(M)'s genocidal measures in Singhur ? Can anyone list a significant mass movement NOT TAKEN OVER BY THE MAOISTS that happened within the last two decades in India and made some notable achievements ?

b) It is well known that initially the same "Maoist take-over" of the Nandigram movement was alleged. But after one of their senior leader was arrested, it was revealed that Maoists were in fact the ones who had organized the Nandigram movement. They did so while staying totally out of the spot light on purpose, because at that time government propaganda against Maoists had no opposition from the urban democratic forces.

It is also now known that in both the areas in Orissa and Lalgarh, Maoists have been organizing the masses for more than a decade. The Maoist strategy is not to associate openly with their mass organizations that are non-clandestine. That is why, one can never be 100% sure whether at all or how much an organization is affiliated to Maoists .

So the bourgeoisie has thought of this very clever technique; if some mass-organization is related to the Maoists, keep silent while the government gang-rapes and slaughters its members, if some are not associated with the Maoists, then portray the Maoists as anti-mass gun-wielding maniacs. How often do we hear about the fate of the mass organizations that actually declared themselves affiliated to the Maoists ? What is the reason behind this selective silence of our great communists scholars?

2)Most of this has already been answered above. It is wrong to even imagine that the ruling class will not respond with a barbaric counter offensive when revolutionary violence is initiated.

On the question of violence:

The article also alleges somewhere Maoists executing political opponents. To this I will add that these "political opponents" work for parliamentary parties that are among the root cause of the pitiable condition of the masses. These political opponents also act as police informers. They are warned several times in peoples' courts. They are punished only if they persist in working for the ruling class. This has been stated in Arundhati Roy's article.

On the question of beheading:

Runs a shiver down your spine, doesn't it ? What barbarians!

The report of beheading a police officer engaged in service in the special anti-Maoist forces has been made popular by the great Indian mass media.

What a shame ! To behead a person who would otherwise lead an expedition to gang-rape your mother, wife and sisters, flog to death your father and brothers, and chop off the fingers of your children ?

http://indianvanguard.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/chhattisgarh-baby.jpg?w=499&h=496

Maoists have promised to take measures to prevent such things as beheading etc, but I doubt whether they will be able to do so. After all, the revolution is the festival of the masses.

The Indian ruling class forces take immense pride in raping the mother before the child, the wife before the husband, ripping apart the infant by pulling its legs apart; killing it by twisting its soft neck by two and a half turns in front of its mother. What if the boy or girl who beheaded the police inspector actually remembered a face ?

3) and 4):

Firstly, let us take a look at the "progressive democratic forces of India". Consider the most prominent ones for example; the intellectuals of West Bengal. The CPI(M) had been continuing its tradition of fascist dictatorship for a long time, but they remained silent. They proclaimed themselves to be "communists" and remained proud members of the cultural and political organizations of the CPI(M). Even the Singhur massacres could not invoke much "progressive democratic roles" from them. But as soon as the masses actually struck back, as soon as the masses fought back determinedly, countering bullets with bullets, a majority of these intellectuals broke off from the CPI(M) and voiced their opposition to the government's actions. Thus, these progressive forces are themselves the creation of militant mass resistance. They cannot exist independently if the military movement stops; the state will immediately subdue the masses with violence and the root cause or motive force of the democratic
movement will disappear.

Secondly, by "mass movements", most armchair revolutionary communist scholars probably imagine an unarmed crowd which surrounds government head-quarters voicing loud protests and to which even after some initial opposition the government troops give way with teary eyes after realizing their class position. The troops then turn and march with the crowds who enter government offices, and shout the slogans into the ears of the bureaucrats. The bureaucrats, deafened by the collective cacophony, finally yield to the masses demands.

This is a nice dream to have after a square meal and comfortably tucked into bed, but it does not work that way; not in the third world at least. Here the very basis of the functioning of the state is feudal barbaric military rule.

In Singhur of West Bengal, the initial non-violent mass movements (where allegedly some local farmers were carrying sickles) faced this:

pxQr1OqGvoM

The masses expose the governments' actions:

4LVvzuckGjk

In third world countries, a successful mass movement is one where the masses have agreed to take arms against the ruling class. Otherwise they are not able to defend their gains. History has proved this through the failure of non-violent struggles in India and the development of the peoples' democratic governments in Bastar despite centrally organized government invasions. It is clear that what worries our scholar friends most is the taking up of arms by the masses. Let us all keep in mind that imperialism does not fall by itself only if it is exposed; it has to be brought down, pulled down by the masses militarily. Therefore it becomes necessary for pseudo leftists to oppose what is the biggest threat to imperialism; the peoples' wars. Since denouncing the Maoists only has now become a well known fascist stand, hence it is cleverer to denounce them along with the government. Once they have been equated with the ruling class, both revolutionary and reactionary violence can be condemned, and in this way if popular support can be deviated, then the government will easily be able to use even nuclear weapons against the Maoists. But once the attention of the democratic forces has been shifted, who cares ? Who ever cared to report the atrocities on the Indian masses before Maoists came into lime-light ? You cannot accuse anyone of silence, can you ? At least not anyone who was visible to you only through his blogs. A very innovative idea indeed !

P.S. I see that the article also links to some junk by the CPI(ML)(Liberation). That party was revolutionary 35 years ago. It has a glorious history of the forerunners of the present leadership leading police forces to their own party meetings to arrest revolutionary members. It is Dengist and supports the present Chinese government. In more recent past it has engaged in collaborating with the CPI(M) and feudal private armies in Bihar and Jharkhand, and has been rewarded accordingly by the PLGA. Is everyone here clever enough to negate their bullshit or will I have to waste another hour in doing so ?

[pranabjyoti]

Comrades might like to read this (brief) critical analysis of the Maoist insurgents in India:

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2010/04/arundhati-roy-and-maoists.html
ARMCHAIR LEFTIST "CRITICISM". Does those guys, the author(s) of this BS has/have any experience regarding organizing peoples movement in India. Actually, in reality they are doing nothing but vomiting the bloody imperialist BS and STRENGTHENING THE HANDS OF IMPERIALISM AND B****** INDIAN RULERS.

[pranabjyoti]

Interesting that he quotes "Stalinist" literature from the CPI(ML) approvingly. Apparently some "Stalinists" seem to be on their side.:laugh:
Yes, "Stalinists(!)" like the CPI(Marxist) and SUCI and some other so-called "Left" parties. In India, if you are anti-Stalin, at least no serious worker or peasant will consider you as "Left" at least.

[red cat]

Illegal radio stations operating in West Bengal

February 24th, 2010 - 12:03 UTC

by Andy Sennitt (http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/illegal-radio-stations-operating-in-west-bengal).


In what may pose a major security risk, eight illegal high frequency [sic] radio stations are functioning in the marshy Sunderbans in West Bengal, airing programmes in unidentified languages and suppressing Prasar Bharati signals.


Police and intelligence officials are now investigating these channels’ involvement in spreading coded messages to Maoist workers and sympathisers suspected to be operating from some sub-divisional towns in South 24 Parganas district of the state. Since the mediumwave signals suppress Prasar Bharati signals, many a time fishermen going to the sea daily are also unable to hear the weather bulletin and cyclone alerts. The transmission took place mostly on four specific frequencies allotted to Prasar Bharati by the Wireless Planning Commission (WPC).


With unusual names like Ma Nachinda betar kendra, Ma Manasa betar kendra, Ma tara, Jai Ma bhabani, these unauthorised stations broadcast songs, movie dialogues and local advertisements in Bengali and Oriya as the signals can be picked up in South 24 Paraganas as well as East and West Midnapur districts.


WPC located some illegal radio stations in Midnapur two years ago. In 2008, the police raided six unauthorised private radio stations in South 24 Paraganas. The offenders were booked under the Indian Telegraphic Act and other laws. Within a few months eight new stations cropped up.
And this time, the programme is being aired in an unidentified language from different locations besides the regular Bengali and Oriya transmissions. “It sounds like Santhali. But I don’t know Santhali that well and cannot vouch for it. We could also not figure out where the signals originate from,” said one of the two amateur radio operators who tipped off the police and monitors the programming.


Asked about the Maoist involvement, an official in Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s office said he could not comment as the matter was under investigation.


(Source: Deccan Herald)


http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/illegal-radio-stations-operating-in-west-bengal

[red cat]

Two CRPF jawans among four held for 'supplying' arms to Naxals


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/thumb.cms?msid=5876597&width=300&resizemode=4 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:void%28%29;)
UP: CRPF men arrested for selling arms

LUCKNOW/NEW DELHI: The Uttar Pradesh STF today arrested four people including two CRPF jawans in the state for allegedly stealing arms and ammunitions and supplying the same to the Naxals.

UP police said the arrests were made following an operation based on a tip off received in the aftermath of the Dantewada massacre, in which 76 security personnel were killed by the Naxals.

Official sources said the STF carried out searches in Moradabad, Rampur and Jhansi and arrested Vinod Paswan and Dinesh Singh of the CRPF.

They said one retired sub-inspector of Provincial Armed Constabulary, identified as Yashodhanad Singh, was seen moving in different armory centres of the CRPF and PAC and collecting empty shells of bullets fired during the training.

These shells were later replaced at the main Rampur armoury with live bullets and finally supplied to Naxals, sources said.

Over 5,000 live cartridges, 16 magazines of INSAS rifles, .25 bore guns, SLR and AK 47s were recovered besides 245 kg of empty shells.

The CRPF, meanwhile, has suspended both its personnel arrested by the STF and ordered an immediate Court of Enquiry.

"We have suspended both the personnel and have also ordered an immediate Court of Enquiry. We are in constant touch with the UP police and are extending all help to them," CRPF Director General Vikram Srivastava said.

Later, addressing the media, Additional Director General of UP police Brij Lal said, "We have also recovered large number of arms components, mobile phones and Rs 1.76 lakh in cash."

He said the network of the racket was large and has been running for more than six months and the police is questioning the four to look at the possibility of involvement of more persons.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/i...ow/5876634.cms (http://www.anonym.to/?http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Two-CRPF-jawans-among-four-held-for-supplying-arms-to-Naxals/articleshow/5876634.cms)

Also posted as a new thread:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/india-government-forces-t134443/index.html?t=134443

http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/misc/progress.gif

[Saorsa]

Another photo from my party's Indian embassy demo, more to come

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs552.snc3/30232_395819543678_588613678_3933549_5519364_n.jpg

[pranabjyoti]

India: Doctors Who Treat Maoists Come Under Attack

By Ka Frank http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-binayak-sen-in-jail-e1272590733629.jpg?w=400&h=280 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/india-binayak-sen-in-jail.jpg)Dr. Binayak Sen was jailed for more than a year for his alleged links to the Maoists.

Times of India

‘Sick do not come with Naxal labels’
NAGPUR: Caught in the crossfire in conflict areas where Naxals operate are a bunch of medical practitioners who are torn between their ethos and security issues. Be it Dr Binayak Sen’s incarceration or the recent early morning raid at the resident of a former superintendent of Eastern coalfield limited’s main hospital at Asansol, doctors too have started coming under the scanner for their alleged Maoist links. Recently, a doctor attached to a public health centre at Kasansur in Gadchiroli too was questioned for ferrying an alleged Maoist to the city hospital from remote areas.

The doctor was grilled extensively by the cops. The Gadchiroli police had recently brought several health department workers under scanner after a sizeable consignment of government hospital medicines were seized during an encounter with the Maoists at Tadgaon in Bhamragarh. The security agencies believe that some of the medical practitioners and their machineries may be treating the outlaws. They now view these medical workers with suspicion. The police in West Bengal recently carried out a crackdown on quacks too on the grounds that they are clandestinely supporting the Maoists.
But the doctors TOI spoke to believe that ethics come first in their profession. International award winning social activist Dr Prakash Amte, whose Lok Biradari project at Bhamragarh is at the heart of Naxal stronghold, said that patients do not come with labels stuck on their forehead. “The government feels that the doctors are treating members of who approaches us. Our approach is to treat every human being equally. There is an element of fear but the Naxals do not trouble the doctors. I never heard of any public heath officer being harassed. In war, medical teams are always spared,” said Bang, adding that his hospital did not have facilities to treat bullet injuries.
Gadchiroli also has an MLA who was attached to the district hospital for long. MLA Dr Namdeo Usendi too said responsibility that comes with the profession cannot be ignored. “Can you show me any rule book where a doctor is debarred from treating any particular category of patients? Ignoring someone’s illness is tantamount to violation of human rights,” said Dr Usendi. The first-time MLA said in case of suspect patients, the incident should be treated as a medico-legal case. “Let the police then conduct an enquiry. When patients come with general ailments, we provide them medicines irrespective of the background that he or she may have come from,” said Usendi.
But how can a doctor discriminate against anyone seeking treatment on the basis of his background. We have to treat him,” said Amte who added that professionals in conflict areas always have to work under threat.
Social activist Dr Abhay Bang, who runs a 30-bed hospital as a part of his mission ‘Search’ in Gadchiroli, said that he has never felt the heat of the skirmishes between Maoist and security forces. “Ethically we have to extend medical assistance to anyone who approaches us. Our approach is to treat every human being equally. There is an element of fear but the Naxals do not trouble the doctors. I never heard of any public heath officer being harassed. In war, medical teams are always spared,” said Bang, adding that his hospital did not facilities to treat bullet injuries. Gadchiroli also has an MLA who was attached to the district hospital for long.
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/05/02/india-doctors-who-treat-maoists-come-under-attack/#more-2625
THE WORLD'S BIGGEST DEMOCRACY IS VIOLATING ITS OWN CONSTITUTION.

[t.shonku]

THE WORLD'S BIGGEST DEMOCRACY IS VIOLATING ITS OWN CONSTITUTION. The constitution of India is meant to protect the corporates and oppress the peasants,workers,Tribals,Dalits and Muslims.Now lets face the reality!!!!!!!!! The rules in India applies for those who are weak the sword of justice cuts heads of those who belongs to the poorer sections and the sword of justice protects those who can pay a fat money to the police,judge and the system.WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME SOME POOR FELLOW GOT JUSTICE IN INDIAN COURTS??? ANSWER-NEVER.....
Please face some facts the constitution of India is a gimmick, a joke.It is a pathetic excuse which the ruling class uses to grind the working class.A recent survey showed that out of all govt department home ministry is the most corrupted one.Another statistics showed that India's jail is full of muslims,dalits,tribals or extremely poor peoples(When was any rich man sen to jail?Ans-Never).Another statistics showed since independence most people who were sent to gallows were either muslims or dalits.
Frankly speaking after Maoists comes to power in India I would love to see those greedy judges being hanged from electric pole!!!!!!what a site wow!!

[pranabjyoti]

The constitution of India is meant to protect the corporates and oppress the peasants,workers,Tribals,Dalits and Muslims.Now lets face the reality!!!!!!!!! The rules in India applies for those who are weak the sword of justice cuts heads of those who belongs to the poorer sections and the sword of justice protects those who can pay a fat money to the police,judge and the system.WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME SOME POOR FELLOW GOT JUSTICE IN INDIAN COURTS??? ANSWER-NEVER.....
Please face some facts the constitution of India is a gimmick, a joke.It is a pathetic excuse which the ruling class uses to grind the working class.A recent survey showed that out of all govt department home ministry is the most corrupted one.Another statistics showed that India's jail is full of muslims,dalits,tribals or extremely poor peoples(When was any rich man sen to jail?Ans-Never).Another statistics showed since independence most people who were sent to gallows were either muslims or dalits.
Frankly speaking after Maoists comes to power in India I would love to see those greedy judges being hanged from electric pole!!!!!!what a site wow!!
It makes me sick when some LEFTIST(!) critics criticize Maoists for taking armed, violent, UNCONSTITUTIONAL way of struggle.

[t.shonku]

It makes me sick when some LEFTIST(!) critics criticize Maoists for taking armed, violent, UNCONSTITUTIONAL way of struggle. http://www.revleft.com/vb/../revleft/buttons/quote.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../newreply.php?do=newreply&p=1739072) I was criticizing the Indian Constitution,I am not criticizing the Maoists.Please read carefully the above post which I made ,and you will find out exactly what I am trying to say.
By the way I am not a Maoist critic,I am myself a Maoist sympathizer,and I support their armed struggle.Kindly read my post carefully then you will find out that what I am trying to say is that courts in India is an instrument of oppression.
By the way I don’t consider the armed actions by the Maoists as an act of violence but as an act of self-defence.
PLEASE DON'T MISUNDERSTAND ME.

[pranabjyoti]

I was criticizing the Indian Constitution,I am not criticizing the Maoists.Please read carefully the above post which I made ,and you will find out exactly what I am trying to say.
By the way I am not a Maoist critic,I am myself a Maoist sympathizer,and I support their armed struggle.Kindly read my post carefully then you will find out that what I am trying to say is that courts in India is an instrument of oppression.
By the way I don’t consider the armed actions by the Maoists as an act of violence but as an act of self-defence.
PLEASE DON'T MISUNDERSTAND ME.
I am not criticizing you. I am criticizing those Leftists(!), whom Rosa Lichtenstein (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=11128) has refereed in her post.

[pranabjyoti]

Indian Schools Become Military Barracks in Operation Green Hunt

By Ka Frank
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/india-lalgarh-students-demand-police-out-of-schools-e1272852835501.jpg?w=300&h=391 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/india-lalgarh-students-demand-police-out-of-schools.jpg)Lalgarh, West Bengal students demand police out of their schools.

Children at risk as schools become barracks in anti-Maoist war
Aman Sethi, The Hindu
School’s out! In Kerlapal, Dantewada, battle-weary soldiers of the B Company of the 2nd Battalion of the Central Reserve Police Force peer over barbed-wire fences as skinny schoolboys in sky-blue shirts play cricket. The force has occupied the senior school and with it the basketball court and part of the playing field; but the game must go on.
As paramilitary troops pour into Chhattisgarh to fight the Maoists, the absence of military barracks has forced soldiers and children to share the only concrete structures in the countryside — the village school.
A PIL filed in the Supreme Court has drawn attention to the militarization of Chhattisgarh’s schools, but the State government is in denial. On February 18, 2010, the counsel appearing for Chhattisgarh told the Supreme Court that all schools occupied by security forces had been vacated. To quote from the Supreme Court order of February 18: “It is also stated by learned counsel appearing for the State that the schools, hospitals, ashrams and anganwadis have already been vacated and they are no longer been used for camps or places for shelter of the police force.”
However, an investigation by The Hindu in the three districts of Dantewada, Narayanpur and Bijapur found numerous sites where the security forces continue to occupy school land or have simply appropriated school land for their barracks. These findings contradict the claims made by Chhattisgarh in the Supreme Court, suggesting that the counsel for the State was either dangerously misinformed, or guilty of making false statements in India’s highest court.
In Dantewada district, The Hindu found security forces operating out of a senior school in Kerlapal, a junior and middle school in Karli and a tribal girls’ hostel in Bhusaras.
In Narayanpur district, the G-company of the 39th Battalion of the CRPF moved into the middle school and gram panchayat building of Bhatpal village as recently as on February 10 — a week before Chhattisgarh’s counsel made his submission in court. Officers at the site said a portion of the school would be permanently handed over to the CRPF and that the construction of barracks was underway. In Munjmetta village, the 139th Battalion has taken over a primary and middle school and moved the children to adjacent structures.
In Bijapur, even the Collector’s office is in a college building. A list signed by the Superintendent of Police shows 16 schools as occupied by the security forces. When contacted by The Hindu over telephone, SP, Bijapur, Avinash Mohanty said “relocation is an ongoing process”, but CRPF sources confirmed that the force was yet to relinquish any occupied site.
“When forces occupy schools they blur the line between civilian and military targets and put the children at risk,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch and author of a study on the militarisation of schools in Jharkhand. “Children — particularly girls — begin to drop out as their parents do not want them near the force.”
Fears that basing the force in schools could provoke a backlash from the Maoists were realized on March 15, 2007 when they attacked a police outpost based in a residential girls’ school in Bijapur district’s Rani Bodli village. Even as young girls from Classes I to V cowered in their hostel, Maoist cadre killed 55 policemen in an adjoining wing of the building.
The only three police personnel who survived did so by hiding in the girls’ hostel.
Maoists have also targeted unoccupied school buildings, allegedly to deny security forces shelter. According to the Collector’s office, in the two-year period from 2006 to 2008 Maoists destroyed 70 school buildings in Narayanpur district alone. Not a single school has been rebuilt.
In Palachalam village, Dantewada, Maoists destroyed the sole school that catered to students from at least three neighbouring villages and built a giant red minar in its place. Now, children as young as ten years of age are forced to go to a residential school in Maraigudum, more than 20 Kilometres away from their homes and their parents.
“Troops need a concrete structure they can defend from attacks, which, in most cases, is the village school,” said Ravideep Singh Sahi, Deputy Inspector-General for Bastar of the CRPF. “We are trying to construct regular barracks, but contractors and labourers are unwilling to work in sensitive areas.”
Mr. Sahi hoped that the force and villagers could work together. In Bhatpal for instance, the CRPF donated a computer to the senior school in an attempt to foster goodwill with the villagers.
Privately, many CRPF officers expressed frustration with existing accommodation. “A camp needs proper barracks, security and a clear line of fire,” said a senior CRPF officer, “The current facilities are ad hoc at best.”
The prolonged occupation is also taking its toll on students. In Kerlapal, the CRPF’s occupation of the senior school building has forced students of Classes XI and XII to study in a sheltered veranda. “There are no chairs and the students are constantly distracted,” said a teacher. “The blackboard is makeshift, making it difficult for both teachers and students.” Class IX students have been accommodated in the middle school building by moving Class VI into a poorly-ventilated equipment shed. This was supposed to be a temporary arrangement; it has been five years.
In Bhusaras, Dantewada, a hostel warden told The Hindu how she struggled to fit fifty girls in two rooms and a veranda after the 195th Battalion of the CRPF moved into the girls’ hostel. “I stacked the beds one above the other with the younger girls on top and the elder girls at the bottom,” she said. The girls have since been moved to a permanent location. Now there are three rooms for fifty girls, an outdoor toilet without doors and no water.
At a bus stand in Narayanpur, troops returning from leave wait for a bus to take them to their camps located in schools on the Orcha road. “I used to have an open mind,” read a t-shirt sported by a soldier, “But my brains kept falling out.”
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/india-schools-become-military-barracks-in-operation-green-hunt/#more-2750
SECURITY (FOR CAPITALISTS) FIRST, THEN EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN. THE NEXT SUPERPOWER IN BEING.:blink:

[pranabjyoti]

Telegraph India: Rebel friends warned
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT New Delhi, May 6: The Centre today issued a public warning to social workers, artists and authors with whom it suspects Maoists are in touch and threatened them with arrest if they helped the banned rebels in their propaganda.
Human rights activists immediately saw in the warning a precursor to a large-scale countrywide crackdown on civil liberties outfits, writers, lawyers, academics and journalists.
The move is exceptional in that such a public warning through a media note has probably never been made even against fundamentalist outfits.
The press note, issued by the Union home ministry, described the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and its frontal organisations as terrorists "whose sole aim is armed overthrow of the Indian state and that they have no place in India's parliamentary democracy". The note warns the public against assuming that the Maoists are a political outfit and asks them to be treated like terrorists. The public warning uses the same language that home minister P. Chidambaram used in his speech at Jawaharlal Nehru University on Wednesday night.
The warning was issued because, the note said, "it has come to the notice of the government that some Maoist leaders have been directly contacting certain NGOs/intellectuals to propagate their ideology and persuade them to take steps as would provide support to the CPI (Maoist) ideology".
Lawyer Prashant Bhushan saw in the warning "a highly unusual step that clearly shows the intention of the government to try and browbeat and terrorise human rights activists and other intellectuals who have been questioning the motives and actions of the government in dealing with tribals and dissidents in the guise of an ant-Maoist drive".
In the past two months, the Maoist point of view has found currency in mainstream media. Writer Arundhati Roy penned a long reportage/essay after travelling with Maoist guerrillas in which she said they nurtured a dream of a better country. A petitition was moved in Raipur asking for Roy's arrest under Chhattisgarh's public safety act, the law under which doctor Binayak Sen was incarcerated for about two years.
CPI (Maoist) spokesperson Azad gave a long interview to a newspaper and another Maoist leader spoke of how the rebels ambushed the CRPF in Dantewada on April 6, killing 76 troopers.
The media note said that the CPI(Maoist) and its frontal outfits are banned under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967. The intellectuals and the general public were being asked "to be extremelyvigilant of the propaganda of CPI(Maoist) and not unwittingly become a victim of such propaganda".
A suspect could be jailed for up to 10 years under the law, it said.
Activist Gautam Navlakha of the Peoples Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) said the warning from the government harks back to the years ofthe emergency. "In two months, it is going to be 35 years of the Emergency (imposed by Indira Gandhi from 1975-1977) and UPA-II is defacto recreating the conditions of that period," he said.
"Instead of exploring more sensible and imaginative policies to deal with the Maoists and the tribals who live in the same zones where huge mining deals have been signed, the government is taking recourse to authoritarian and dictatorial measures," he said.
The home ministry said "CPI (Maoist) continues to kill innocent civilians, including tribals, in cold blood and destroy crucial infrastructure like roads, culverts, school buildings, gram panchayatbuildings, etc so as to prevent development from reaching theseunder-developed areas".
http://www.icawpi.org/en/india-news/440-telegraph-india-rebel-friends-warned

Supporting Maoists will invite 10 year jail


http://www.icawpi.org/templates/ja_teline_iii/images/emailButton.png (http://www.icawpi.org/en/component/mailto/?tmpl=component&link=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5pY2F3cGkub3JnL2VuL2luZGlhLW5ld 3MvNDM5LXN1cHBvcnRpbmctbWFvaXN0cy13aWxsLWludml0ZS0 xMC15ZWFyLWphaWw%3D) http://www.icawpi.org/templates/ja_teline_iii/images/printButton.png (http://www.icawpi.org/en/india-news/439-supporting-maoists-will-invite-10-year-jail?tmpl=component&print=1&layout=default&page=) http://www.icawpi.org/templates/ja_teline_iii/images/pdf_button.png (http://www.icawpi.org/en/india-news/439-supporting-maoists-will-invite-10-year-jail?format=pdf)

TIMES of India
May 6, 2010
NEW DELHI: Those who speak in favour of Maoist guerrillas will face legal action and 10 years imprisonment, the government announced Thursday in a warning to civil society groups who raise voices in favour of Leftwing extremism.

"Any person who commits the offence of supporting such a terrorist organisation (like Communist Party of India (CPI)-Maoist) with inter alia intention to further the activities of such terrorist organisations would be liable to be punished with imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years or with fine or with both," a home ministry statement said.

It said such action would be taken under Section 39 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.
The home ministry said the government has noticed that some Maoist leaders were directly contacting certain NGOs and intellectuals to propagate their ideology and "persuade them to take steps (and) support the CPI-Maoist ideology".

"General public are informed to be extremely vigilant of the propaganda of CPI-Maoist and not unwittingly become a victim of such propaganda," the statement warned.

The Leftwing extremist group and all its front organizations have been designated as terrorist organisations by the government.

According to the ministry, the "sole aim" of the CPI-Maoist is to overthrow the Indian state.

It "continues to kill innocent civilians including tribals in cold blood and destroy crucial infrastructure like roads, culverts, school buildings, gram panchayat buildings so as to prevent development from reaching these under-developed areas", the statement added.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Supporting-Maoists-will-invite-10-year-jail-/articleshow/5899660.cms

http://www.icawpi.org/en/india-news/439-supporting-maoists-will-invite-10-year-jail
THE WORLD'S BIGGEST DEMOCRACY IS NOW TURNING FASCIST.

[t.shonku]

Protest in JNU against PC’s visit to campus for Naxalism lecture

Thursday, 6 May 2010
New Delhi, May 06: A black cloth thrown towards Union home minister P. Chidambaram’s car as it sped away from the JNU campus marked the end of a 90- minute high drama on Wednesday night.
The minister had gone to the JNU to deliver a lecture on Naxalism at a function organised by the NSUI. As he spoke to the NSUI cadre at the auditorium of the university’s School of Social Sciences, 100- odd students from the lSFI, the AISA and the JNU Forum against War on People shouted slogans against him.
Activists belonging to almost all student unions, especially the Left- oriented ones, were out on the campus protesting against Chidambaram’s visit. Rants of “ Chidambaram go back” were on full flow outside the auditorium, which was out of bounds for the media or any non- NSUI person.
The protests were so vociferous and aggressive that the Delhi Police had to deploy somewhere between 200 and 250 personnel, including commandos, near the auditorium to escort the home minister around 9.30 pm and take him to his car 90 minutes later. The minister, however, looked unperturbed.
The topic of Chidambaram’s discourse was ‘ Naxalism — a threat to Indian democracy and Internal security’. Many students, who were not members of the NSUI, were angry because they were not allowed in.
“ He is not the Congress’s personal home minister but the home minister of India. Why are we not being allowed in?” asked Papri Chakravarty of JNU’s SIS. Similar sentiments were echoed by other students outside the auditorium.
They said they wanted to question Chidambaram on several issues, including his policies on Naxalism.
Ramanuj, a member of SIS, said: “ We may have political differences but as a student of JNU, it is my right to enter the auditorium.”
---Agencies


For checking the original article click link below
http://www.siasat.com/english/news/protest-jnu-against-pc%E2%80%99s-visit-campus-naxalism-lecture

[t.shonku]

PC Chidambaram makes me remember of Heinrich Himmler

[pranabjyoti]

PC Chidambaram makes me remember of Heinrich Himmler
History repeats itself, first as an event then a comedy. At present, I very much like to see effigies of PC being burnt in other part of the world.

[pranabjyoti]

India: Civil society groups respond to government threats

By reed Practice what you preach, PC told
Civil society groups take umbrage at MHA’s warning to Maoist sympathizers
GN Bureau | new delhi | May 07 2010
Civil society groups and individuals have reacted sharply to the Home Ministry’s statement warning severe punishment to anyone found supporting the Maoists by propagating their ideology or collaborating with them.
Delhi University professor G.N. Saibaba described it as a clear violation of democratic rights of individuals and civil society groups, many of whom, he said, held political views similar to those of the Maoists though they had no link with the ultras. “There is a possibility of misuse of power as views of people who are against the government’s policies may be interpreted as propaganda for the CPI(Maoist)”, he remarked.
Saibaba, who is often seen with civil society groups opposing the government’s anti-Maoist security operation, said the MHA directive directly violated the right to freedom of expression guaranteed by the constitution.
Mahipal Singh, national secretary of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), a leading organization fighting against infringement of civil and democratic rights, said holding a political view and political ideology was no crime, even if it was the Maoist ideology. “If someone holds a gun and shoots people like the Maoists do that is a crime and the state can take action.”
He also criticized the MHA’s reference to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in taking punitive action against those collaborating with the Maoists. He said it was precisely for this reason that the PUCL was opposed to the draconian law. “Collaboration is a matter of interpretation. Collaboration as in helping the activities that are illegal, like supplying arms and ammunition and giving shelter to armed people, can be punishable but not sharing a meal or sheltering someone without being aware of that person’s illegal activities.”
Harsh Dobhal, editor of periodical Combat Law, shot back: “How do you define sympathy (for Maoists)? The government in its own report says deprivation is the main cause of Naxalism. The civil society groups sympathize with the poor’s concerns, they care for such people (as do the ultras). Basically, it is a witch hunt by the government. In the name of fighting terror, the government can catch people and put them in jail and say that they are Maoists sympathizers.”
Suhas Chakma, director of the Asian Centre for Human Rights was even more scathing in his comments. He said it seemed the central government was not very clear in its stand. “It is the same (home) minister who takes support of the DMK and allies some of whom are known to support the LTTE (a banned organization in India)!
NO OPEN FIELD FOR FASCISTS.
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/05/07/india-civil-society-groups-respond-to-government-threats/#more-2956

[pranabjyoti]

India: Chhattisgarh Peace Marchers Mobbed, Abused By Ka Frank By Nachiketa Desai
06 May, 2010, Countercurrents.org
http://www.countercurrents.org/peace_march060510.jpg
Please note that even people calling on both the State and the Maoists to stop violence are coming under attack by the goons of the State.
Jagdalpur: Peace march by eminent citizens advocating a just and long lasting solution to the problems of the adivasis of Bastar, abjuring violence by both the Maoists and state forces, met with ugly protest demonstration by a mob of lumpen elements representing upper caste traders of this district town of Bastar who shouted filthy abuses at the country’s top space scientist Prof Yashpal describing him as a sympathiser of the Naxalites. The hooliganism lasted for more than three hours, during which the peace marchers remained locked inside the conference hall of the Jagdalpur Press Club.
The demonstrators, numbering over 200 arrived on motorcycles outside the press club carrying sugar cane sticks, soon after the participants of the peace march began addressing a press conference. The hooligans, whom the police identified as local traders. “We will beat these so-called intellectuals with these sticks. They have come to stop the ‘Green Hunt’ and in support of the naxalites,” their leaders were heard shouting.
When this correspondent started shooting their photographs, a group of about 4-5 from amongst the hooligans, menacingly advanced towards the journalist and pushed him away saying,”You cannot take our photographs.”
Apprehending violence, the correspondent sent an SMS to Chhattisgarh director general of police Vishwa Ranjan apprising of the situation. Within five minutes a posse of policemen led by the superintendent of police arrived and controlled the mob. In the meantime, the hooligans deflated the tyres of the vehicles by which the peace marchers had come to Jagdalpur from Raipur and forced the driver of their bus to take it far away.
However, when the peace marchers emerged from the press conference hall, the hooligans started raising slogans like “Naxalvadi vaapas jao, vaapas jao,” “Green Hunt Ho kar rahega”. Some of the hooligans were also shouting unprintable epithets interspersed with the slogan of “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”.
“You intellectuals only wake up and come here advocating peace only at a time when the government is launching its ‘Green Hunt’ to eliminate the Naxalites,” their leaders were heard shouting amid the bedlam.
This was exactly what Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh had said yesterday at Raipur.
Peace marchers were compelled to return to the conference hall of the Press Club. Peace Marchers invited representatives of the demonstrators to come inside the conference hall for a meaningful discussion. About two dozen demonstrators were allowed by the police to the discussion table. After about an hour-long discussion, the demonstrators allowed the peace marchers to leave. However, as soon as the peace marchers emerged from the hall, the crowd outside again started shouting, “Naxalite sympathisers, go back.”
Nachiketa Desai is a journalist who is travelling with the peace march.
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/05/08/india-chhattisgarh-peace-marchers-mobbed-abused/#more-2917Some leftists(!) often criticize Maoists that they are too much dependent on armed struggle and put little emphasis on organizing people. This kind of event clearly shows that HOW HARD IT IS TO ORGANIZE PEOPLE IN INDIA WITHOUT ARMS.
I am sure that there are good number of people inside the mob, who belongs to the so-called "poor people" category. If some of them were trialed in peoples court by the Maoists, then there would be a huge hue and cry that "Maoists are killing poor people", as if by being a part of the "poor people", they just got the right to do anything but can not have a blow back.
India is a semi-feudal country and it's often reflects in the behavior of the common people. It's a common practice here that if you are in favor of power, you don't need to care about law and order and actually you have right to do anything you want. If you want to change the system, you HAVE TO TAKE SOME KIND OF ARMAMENT TO PROTECT YOUR FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND ACTION. All the ruling and "opposition" parliamentary parties never tried to stop that kind of trends, instead they encourage it when they are in power.
This kind of incidents are actually a reflection of grassroots level reality of India. Our leftist(!) critic comrades kindly try to understand this fact.

[pranabjyoti]

My Book Is Red: Education in India’s Maoist-run Areas

By reed http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/maoist_illus.jpg?w=400&h=509 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/maoist_illus.jpg)
The word is Revolution. Maoists give a leg up to tribal languages.
Debarshi Dasgupta (http://www.outlookindia.com/peoplefnl.aspx?pid=3882&author=Debarshi+Dasgupta)
It’s not just guns that keep the engine of the Maoist rebellion revving. Away from the battlefield, in the quiet of the camp schools, textbooks developed by the “people’s government” are becoming crucial tools in the next war, the one for young minds. The books may be focusing more on the Maoist worldview, but to children in the tribal regions of Chhattisgarh they are often the only means of education. Outlook met with a few outsiders who had a chance to look through the texts, and asked them about the greater role it plays in the Maoist heartland.
Gautam Navlakha, consultant editor of the Economic and Political Weekly, spent about a fortnight deep in the Dandakaranya jungles in January this year and got a close-up look at the way the Maoists function. He says the “people’s government” in the Dandakaranya division already uses four textbooks for mathematics, social science, politics and Hindi for classes I to V. The books are written in Gondi, which is the language of instruction (also referred to as the “lingua franca” of the Naxal movement). There are about 2.7 million speakers of Gondi, according to the 2001 census, and it is a “non-scheduled” language. Published by the Janathana Sarkar from an undisclosed location in Dandakaranya, the books are mostly in black-and-white with sparse use of colour illustrations.
Besides textbooks, the Maoists also use DVDs to screen films on science and history and draw inspiration from the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme, a now-folded, highly popular science-teaching approach that stresses on learning by doing. Another four textbooks are in the works which will cover the history of Dandakaranya, culture, biology and general science. Of course, the Maoists are likely to tint the forthcoming history textbook with “their version” of it. “It’ll obviously comprise their understanding of who they are as a people and what they have experienced at the hands of the Indian state. I would be surprised if it’s treated any other way,” says Navlakha.
Shubhranshu Choudhary, a journalist who recently helped set up a news service available on cellphones in Chhattisgarh, has also seen some of the textbooks. “There is obviously a lot of emphasis on the history of the tribal people with pictures of leaders like Gundadhur and Birsa Munda. There is also the predictable familiarisation with icons like Mao and Marx and Indian leaders like Charu Mazumdar and Kanai Chatterjee,” he says, talking of images from the books. But it’s not just ideology—the social science textbooks are replete with practical tips, for example, on basic hygiene. “There are pictures that ask children to wash their hands before eating, boil water before drinking it and to sleep under a mosquito net,” he adds. Details of the text are difficult to ascertain as most outsiders who have visited the areas, including Choudhary, did not read or understand Gondi.One thing they all agree on, though, is the fact that these textbooks fill a gaping linguistic and literacy gap. State-run schools are hard to come by in these regions and government teachers anyway rarely speak the tribal languages. Also, given the utter official neglect of tribal languages, the Maoists have become, some say, the guardians of Gondi.
An indication of this, according to Navlakha, is how the Naxals are now veering towards creating a new script for Gondi. “But I really don’t know when they’ll have one ready,” he says. Some claim that Gondi had a script, but those claims are still unsubstantiated. The language earlier used the Telugu script and presently employs Devanagri. While there are linguistic reasons for a switch as some Gondi sounds cannot be transliterated into the Devanagri, one of the main reasons for developing a new script is to reassert an independent tribal identity.
Drubbed convincingly in this game of linguistic one-upmanship, the state and the Centre have finally realised it must give up its indolent approach to tribal languages and cultures if the people have to be weaned away from the Naxals. On cue, the government of Chhattisgarh—where most Gondi speakers live and which has had no textbook either for or in Gondi—has brought out for the first time a textbook to teach Gondi, Chhattisgarhi, Korku, Halbi and Surgujia in classes III, IV and V. “This will send out a positive message to the tribals that the government wants to reach out to them. It may be late but better late than never,” says Subhash Mishra, GM at the Chhattisgarh Textbook Corporation.
Meanwhile, the HRD ministry has also got into the act, with a roundtable in March this year to help preserve tribal languages and knowledge systems. “The thinking is that in the many-pronged approach to deal with Maoism, protecting the tribal languages and culture is an essential one,” says Ganesh Devy, an authority on tribal affairs and member of the roundtable.
In sync, the Mysore-based Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) is organising a major conference in June to kickstart training and development of manuals in various tribal languages. Census data shows that two tribals out of three do not speak their native tongue. “Language loss is not an act of volition. If we have to stop the tribals from feeling dispossessed, we have to reinvest in their culture, language,” says CIIL deputy director Rajesh Sachdeva.
http://www.outlookindia.com/printarticle.aspx?265325
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/05/08/my-book-is-red/#more-3001
Not only guns.

[pranabjyoti]

Human Rights Watch Decries India’s Warning to “Maoist sympathizers”

By Ka Frank http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/india-singh-and-pc.jpg?w=370&h=250 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/india-singh-and-pc.jpg)Prime Minister Singh and Home Minister Chidambaram, architects of Operation Green Hunt

By Harmeet Shah Singh, CNN
New Delhi, India — A human rights group has slammed India for its warning to citizens supporting Maoist rebels, who are considered the greatest internal security threat by the nation.
India’s home ministry said Thursday that nonprofit groups and intellectuals found helping the banned insurgents spread their ideology would be prosecuted under the country’s laws.
But the U.S.-based rights group decried the warning as an attempt to silence political speech. ”The Indian government should think twice before trying to silence political discussion and demanding endorsement of its views on Maoist groups,” said Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch.
“The recent views expressed by the Indian government against so-called sympathizers could be understood as carte blanche by local authorities to harass and arrest critics of Indian government policy.”
The rights group warned that the government should not equate what it called peaceful political speech with criminal acts while conducting its operations against armed Maoists.
Residents of Maoist areas are often caught up in the war between rebels and security forces, according to Human Rights Watch. India has outlawed Maoist rebels and considers them terrorists. The rebels aim to overthrow the government and “have no place in India’s parliamentary democracy,” the federal home ministry said.
Indian officials insist that the left-wing insurgents are hampering development in areas under their control, killing innocent civilians and destroying infrastructure.
However, authorities admit that the Maoists, who claim to be fighting for the dispossessed and the downtrodden since the 1960s, enjoy support from not just the poor, but India’s elite as well.
“Despite its sanguinary nature, the (Maoist) movement manages to retain the support of a section of the tribal communities and the poorest of the poor in many affected areas,” prime minister Manmohan Singh said last year.”It has influence among certain sections of the civil society, the intelligentsia and the youth.
Singh said that the nation’s fight with the rebels had fallen short of its objectives.
Thursday’s government warning came a month after suspected Maoist militants carried out one of their most daring assaults on security forces, killing more than 70 officers in the eastern state of Chhattisgarh. About 200 armed federal police were conducting a road inspection when they were ambushed by Maoists in Dantewada district, authorities said.
In February, home minister P. Chidambaram said more than 900 people, including almost 600 civilians, were killed in Maoist-related incidents in 2009.
In addition to targeting authorities, alleged police informers and people they call “class enemies,” the rebels are also said to attack infrastructure such as roads, bridges, railways, and power and telecommunication networks.
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/05/09/human-rights-watch-decries-indias-warning-to-maoist-sympathizers/#more-3007
The WORLD'S BIGGEST DEMOCRACY is falling below even by the liberal-bourgeoisie standard.

[t.shonku]

Maoists target CRPF vehicle in Chhattisgarh, 8 jawans killed

PTI, May 8, 2010, 11.12pm IST
RAIPUR: Eight CRPF jawans were today killed when Naxals blew up a bullet-proof vehicle in Bijapur district of Chhhattisgarh in the first major attack since the Dantewada ambush left 76 security men dead a month ago.

The naxalites triggered the IED blast near Pedakodepal village on National Highway 16 in Bijapur, 284 km from here, and fired at the security personnel, Director General of Police Vishwaranjan said.

Eight CRPF personnel of 168 Battalion, including a driver, who were travelling in a TATA 407 bulletproof vehicle from their company headquarters in Murkinal to nearby battalion headquarters, were killed, he said.

One jawan was injured and another went missing in the attack, the DGP said.

"It appears that the security personnel ignored the instruction not to travel in any kind of vehicle in the naxal-hit areas," State Home Minister Nankiram Kanwar said.

The injured were admitted to a hospital in Jagdalpur. According to CRPF sources, an eight-feet crater was formed on the 'pucca' road as a result of the blast.

The dead have been identified as S-I Santosh Chaurasia, Head Constable (driver) Hazarilal, HC H K Ghosh, HC M Subramuium, Constable Tekram Verma, Rakesh Meena, Santosh Chauhan and Ilaab Singh.

Naxalites had on April 6 carried out their deadliest attack killing 76 security personnel in Mukrana forests of Dantewada district of Chhattisga




To verify the authenticity of the above article just click the link given below

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Maoists-blast-CRPF-vehicle-in-Chhattisgarh-6-killed/articleshow/5907398.cms

[pranabjyoti]

India: 84 Year Old Activist Challenges Chidambaram to Put Her in Prison for 10 Years for Being a “Maoist Sympathizer”

By Ka Frank Yes, Minister, My Sympathies
By Javed Iqbal, 11 May, 2010, on Moonchasing.wordpress.com
http://www.countercurrents.org/channu_mandavi_parents.jpg
The parents of 19 year-old Channu Mandavi
waiting for the police to release the body
of their son. Channu Mandavi was shot dead
in an encounter as an alleged Maoist in 2009.
Sympathy • noun (pl. sympathies) 1 feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune. 2 understanding between people; common feeling.3 support for or approval of something. 4 (in sympathy) relating harmoniously to something else; in keeping. 5 the state or fact of responding in a way corresponding to an action elsewhere.
— ORIGIN Greek sumpatheia, from sun- ‘with’ + pathos ‘feeling’.
Mahasweta Devi challenged Chidambaram to put her in jail for 10 years, in response to the centre’s newly found enthusiasm for using the UAPA to arrest so-called Maoists sympathizers. As of now, I truly sympathize with the home minister for being humiliated by a gutsy 84 year-old woman.
Yet sympathy is a thought-crime thanks to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, and accordingly, ‘any person who commits the offence of supporting such a terrorist organization with inter alia intention to further the activities of such terrorist organizations would be liable to be punished with imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years or with fine or with both.’
I like to place some emphasis on ‘intention to further the activities’ of the Maoists. Since we have brought public debate on Operation Green Hunt down to the ludicrous and the farcical, I’d like to ask one question: who has really furthered the activities of the Maoist any more than the exploitive economic policies of the state and their counter-insurgency tactics? I mean, what’s more useful to the Maoists, a Writ Petition filed by activists for the adivasis, or the state’s security apparatus that terrorizes the population on mere suspicion and suppresses dissent and civil society?
Maoist sympathizers, or supporters, according to the state, are simply anyone who stands up for the rights of the adivasi. Not long ago in the Supreme Court, an accusation was hurled at just-another-activist who was fighting for the rights of the adivasi, for being a Maoist supporter. The response by the judges was fitting. ‘Suppose somebody fights their (victims) case, so what does that imply? First you say they are Naxals, then you say they are sympathisers, then you say they are sympathisers of sympathisers… Why all these innuendos?’
‘Sympathy is fighting for their cause (victims). Nobody is advocating their cause. They are not saying their action should be condoned.’
And who is really advocating the Maoist cause? Anyone with even half a brain would know that even if the Maoists do capture state power, we’d merely be dealing with a whole bunch of clowns, who’d merely shoot the students at JNU, if there was even a single squeak of dissent.
And unfortunately I need to have yet another fashionable pot-shot at Mr. Chidambaram whose policies are single-handedly the greatest support for the Maoists to help ‘further their activities’. First, let’s start with the Salwa Judum, that was given unbridled freedom to do as it pleases – burn, rape, loot and murder in every place that was known to have a strong Maoist presence, and the Maoists had the last laugh – as recruitment was an all-time high. How much did the Salwa Judum help to ‘further the activities’ of the Maoists? Does the centre now know that the Salwa Judum had even burnt down villages that had no Maoist links? And killed people who had no grudge against the state?
That the same misguided counterinsurgency rationale is being used again with Operation Green Hunt, is indicative enough that the centre learnt nothing from the terrible experiment that was the Salwa Judum. COBRA battalions that are directly under the Union government have been singlehandedly responsible for a majority of adivasi deaths since September of last year.
Counterinsurgency isn’t really an exact science – it’s a methodology of killing, of keeping kill-ratios, of area domination. It’s really measured by ‘who is more effective to terrorize the local population’ – the insurgents or the state? And both the state and the Maoists are trapped in their own contradictions, they exist violently for the other is – the brutal killing of alleged informants by the Maoists as a deterrence, follows the same logic of the state that brutally cracks down on the local adivasi population that it considers ‘supporters’.
‘Agar woh Maovadi the ya nahi, woh unke supporter toh the.’ (whether they were Maoists or not, they were definitely their supporters)’, Said a forest official to me about the Singaram massacre of 2009, when 19 tribals were killed.
We know the home minister believes that the state has a philosophical right to violence, yet so does the right to fight back that is very easily propagated to the Adivasis of Dandakaranya. And the Maoist version of the truth, is truth to the adivasi who has no other option.
It’s almost impossible not to sympathize (emotionally) with everyone in such terrifying consequences.
‘Naxali hai bimari, hum hai dhulayi.’ Said an inspector to me at Kirandul, during a ‘casual chat’ outside the police station. We were all waiting for the police to release the body of a 19 year-old adivasi boy to his parents.
Adivasi women don’t weep – they cry in song, a rhythm of grief, and Channu’s mother ‘sung’ continuously for over two hours outside the police station. Fifteen feet beyond barbwire, an autopsy was being conducted on her son, in the open, shielded from the eyes of the passing world, by blue tarpaulin sheets. She sung across barbwire until two SPOs with masked faces yelled at her to get lost. That if she wants to cry for her son, she shouldn’t do it in front of the police station.
Meanwhile, the inspector would tell me his own version of ‘1084 ki Ma’. There was yet another encounter in Bastar and an old frail woman had come to the police station all the way from Andhra Pradesh to claim the body of her son.
After putting her son onto the bullock-cart, she stoically, turned towards the inspector and told him that this was her second son who was a Maoist, who was killed in an encounter.
The callous inspector had sympathized.
DON'T CARE ABOUT THE BLOODY STATE.:lol::lol:
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/india-84-year-old-activist-challenges-chidambaram-to-put-her-in-prison-for-10-years-for-being-a-maoist-sympathizer/#more-3126

[pranabjyoti]

Incredible India: Operation Green Hunt (http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/2010/05/13/incredible-india-operation-green-hunt/) Posted by Mike E (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/) on May 13, 2010
http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/picture-154.jpg?w=300&h=225 (http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/picture-154.jpg)For those in New York and interested in what’s going on in Chattisgarh, the following event takes place next week at Hunter College. If this is of interest to Kasama/SAR people (as I hope it is), I’d request it be reposted as a new post on SAR or Kasama. Anyway, one of the speaker’s (Javed Iqbal)’s blog can be found at: http://moonchasing.wordpress.com/
(http://moonchasing.wordpress.com/)
The other (Himanshu Kumar) has a piece from EPW from last year that can be found on Sanhati at: http://sanhati.com/articles/1937/
Incredible India: Operation Green Hunt

Date:
Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Time:
6:00pm – 8:00pm
Location:
West Building 215, Hunter College, NYC
Description
South Asia Solidarity Initiative and AID, New York/New Jersey present
INCREDIBLE INDIA: OPERATION GREEN HUNT, SALWA JUDUM AND DEVELOPMENT FOR THE INDIGENOUS (ADIVASIS) PEOPLE
Conversation with Himanshu Kumar, Gandhian human rights activist from Chhatisgarh, India
Moderator: Murli Natrajan (SASI and AID)
And a Photo Exhibit by Javed Iqbal
Himanshu Kumar has been working with the Adivasis (indigenous people) in Dantewada, Chattisgarh, India for the past 17 years, in the midst of a war-like situation involving the State, the Maoists, and the state backed militia Salwa Judum. Himanshu, his wife, along with their committed team associated with the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram (VCA) have played a key role in setting up or functioning of women’s self-help groups, Mitanin health-worker program, and ensuring access to basic government schemes. More recently, caught between state terror and Operation Greenhunt and the violence being waged in the name of the people, Dantewada and other parts have been marred by murders, rapes, arson, torching of villages, abductions, detentions and other brutalities. Himanshu Kumar, VCA and a few others have been instrumental in bringing to light the brutalities unfolding in Chattisgarh by filing FIRs against the perpetrators of violence, fighting cases on behalf of rape victims, rehabilitating displaced tribal villages as directed by the Supreme Court of India and NHRC, filing RTIs to force the government to disclose information about detained people, organizing peaceful padyatras (marches), supplying food to starving villages, facilitating numerous fact-finding missions.
Javed Iqbal is a journalist with the Indian Express doing reportage solely on tribal dispossession and conflict in tribal areas across Orissa, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, MP and Andhra. Over the past two years his work has been key in exposing the myriad ways in which violence by all parties has wrought devastation in indigenous areas and violated law, due process, rights, livelihoods, community and entire ways of living. His reportage and photographs have become a key part of understanding the extent of these violations in the central heartlands of the country.
For details contact: Rupal Oza, [email protected]
Murli Natrajan, [email protected]
NEW YORKERS, JOIN US.
http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/2010/05/13/incredible-india-operation-green-hunt/#more-8947

[pranabjyoti]

Statement by the Communist Party of the Philippines on Operation Green Hunt and the Revolution in India

By Ka Frank “The armed movement in India inspires the people throughout the world to stand up and fight. The CPP is ready to extend any help and support to the Indian revolutionaries in order to further advance their struggle. This is a part of the proletarian internationalist duty of Filipino communists.”
Ang Bayan, April 21, 2010
Operation Green Hunt and the revolution in India; Genocidal war against the people’s revolutionary movement
The Communist Party of the Philippines, the Filipino people and the revolutionary movement worldwide condemn “Operation Green Hunt”, a counterrevolutionary war launched by the reactionary government of India against the armed revolutionary movement and the national minorities within the country. This conflict is part of the terrorist war led by the US in various parts of the world, mostly in areas where the people are waging courageous resistance.
Operation Green Hunt’s principal target are mineral-rich areas like West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra. These places are also known as the “Red Corridor”, because it is here that the broad and advancing revolutionary war led by the Communist Party of India (CPI)-Maoist can be found.
In the past couple of years, numerous projects and operations in mining and other industries were delayed, if not outrightly cancelled due to the staunch people’s resistance in the area supported by the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army and CPI-Maoist.
In these locations, iron, coal, gold, diamond, bauxite and uranium deposits can be found. These areas have also been cited as ideal sites for setting up special economic zones. Several mining agreements with local and foreign capitalists have been approved by the reactionary Indian regime for these sites. Many more areas already have companies operating there such as Vedanta, Rio Tinto and Posco, companies that have long been plundering the country’s natural resources.
In the past five years alone, the governments of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal have secretly made deals with local and foreign companies for billions of dollars worth of contracts to construct steel, iron and aluminum factories, power plants, dams and mines. In order to clear the way for these projects, the people who are largely national minorities, are being driven out and their organizations destroyed.
Operation Green Hunt
To counter the guerrillas’ strength, India’s central reactionary government has begun the massive deployment of military forces to extensive areas in the states of West Bengal and Orissa where it has been conducting widespread aerial bombings and using high-tech military equipment from the US and Israel. The collusion between the reactionary regime in India and US imperialism in Operation Green Hunt is crystal clear.
Under Operation Green Hunt, there have been worsening attacks on the livelihoods and rights of the people in the affected areas. Already as many as 20 million peas- ants have been driven from their farms as a result of hamletting and zoning. Abuses such as torture and rape are rampant. Many communities have been razed to the ground in order to banish residents accused of being CPI-Maoist members or supporters. A large number of the residents have been forced to live in guarded communities cal- led “security camps” where their mobility is restricted. They are also prohibited from going to their farms and fields. Those who violate these rules are automatically shot.
The victims are denied access to all legal means including the courts. The media are also banned from entering and reporting what is transpiring in the area.
Organizations, media people, intellectuals, writers, cultural workers and other progressive forces opposed to Operation Green Hunt and supportive of the people’s resistance are persecuted and threatened.
In response, the CPI-Maoist is helping the people to organize and strengthen themselves. They launch literacy and education campaigns by establishing schools. They provide much-needed medical services. They set up self-defense units and core forces to fight and overcome the attacks and brutality of the state’s military and paramilitary forces being deployed to the- ir communities.
Inspiration to the CPP and whole world
Revolutionaries and the CPP closely follow and laud the guerrilla war and revolutionary movement in India. They hail their victories. Each of their successes is a contribution to the struggle of the international proletariat, and the CPP recognizes their complementary role in the development of armed struggle in the Philippines and other communist and revolutionary movements worldwide.
The armed movement in India inspires the people throughout the world to stand up and fight. The CPP is ready to extend any help and support to the Indian revolutionaries in order to further advance their struggle. This is a part of the proletarian internationalist duty of Filipino communists.
From the CPP’s standpoint, the revolutionaries and communists in India will likely be a major force in the advancement of the international proletarian struggle due to the country’s size and the intensity that their people’s war has already achieved. Chiefly, it is significant because it is under the correct proletarian revolutionary guidance of a genuine communist party.
It has the potential to bring the international communist movement to a new and higher level, as Russia did after World War I until the 1950s and China after World War II until 1970.
The CPP considers the CPI-Maoist a fraternal party. There is a high level of ideological unity between the two parties. These past few years, they have had many opportunities to share ideas and practical experiences. Also, they have attended many conferences where they both carried out important tasks for the promotion of Marxism, Leninism and Maoism.
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/05/13/statement-by-the-communist-party-of-the-philippines-on-op-green-hunt-and-the-revolution-in-india/#more-3161
RED SALUTE TO OUR PHILIPPINO COMRADES.

[Saorsa]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zenu1wb5knA&NR=1

Video from last year of tribal women in lalgarh mobilising against the police and being met with violence.

[NaxalbariZindabad]

I found this:


International call:
Support people’s war in India !

In India an impetuous people’s war against the Indian bourgeoisie and the imperialism is developing and spreading more and more in nearly one third of the districts of the country.

It is not simply a guerilla waged by few thousands of fighters, coming from the castes and tribal areas of the country. It is a real people’s war, led by the Party of the proletariat of India, the Communist Party of India (Maoist), in which are involved – or is supported by – millions of poor peasants, women, “untouchables”, fighting to free themselves and it has already took big areas throughout a dozen of states of the Indian Federation.

The people’s war began where the root of the riot, the poverty, the tribal and capitalistic exploitation, the caste oppression, the plundering of the natural resources were deeper and therefore the contradictions brought by the Indian capitalism ruled by the imperialism were sharper. Today this people’s war is winning masses of young people, students, democratic and revolutionary intellectuals also in the cities and gains attention and support over the world.

Against the people’s war, the Indian State, supported by the imperialists, launched a giant repressive offensive called “Green Hunt”, a real manhunt that hits the poor masses in India as animals to exterminate. The Indian State launched an internal military offensive against the people, waged by hi-tech-armed troops, police units and paramilitary militias, in order to spread terror and genocide in the villages, with raids, crop destroying, massive rapes and killings, selective murders, mass detentions and disappearing – like the recent genocide offensive occurred in Sri Lanka against the Tamil people and liberation movement.

All this with the illusion to drown in blood the struggle of the people for their liberation.

With the silent/consent of the imperialist governments of US, Europe, Russia, and their mass-media, the crimes of the Indian State found the internal opposition of a wide front of intellectuals – including the prominent representative of the world anti-globalization movement, the writer Arundhati Roy. And in all countries of the world political activists denounced those crimes and mobilized to stop “Green Hunt”.

A world campaign of information and solidarity has been launched by ICAWI.

But we need more than the condemnation of the crimes of the counter-revolution in India.

The masses led by the Communist Party of India (Maoist) are writing a historical chapter of the class clash in the world between, on one side, the imperialism and the reactionary bourgeoisies and, on the other side, the proletariat and the people of the world.

The development of the people’s war in India is a new proof that the revolution is the main tendency in the world today.

It shows again that the Maoism, the Marxism-Leninism of our era, is the command and guide of the world revolution against the imperialism in crisis.

The vanguard proletarians must understand that the advance of the people’s war in India seriously questions the strength balance, not only in the South-Asian region but on a world scale.

That is why we, Maoist and revolutionary parties and organizations, launch a big campaign of support and call to form an International Committee of Support to organize conferences, meetings, demonstrations in various countries, particularly in the heart of the imperialist beast.

With people’s war in India towards the victory !

Maoist Communist Party of France
Maoist Communist Party Italy
Maoist Communist Party Turkey / North Kurdistan
Revolutionary Communist Party Canada
Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Naxalbarisource: http://peacecomrade.org/2010/05/02/international-call-support-peoples-war-in-india

This part gripped my attention: "we, Maoist and revolutionary parties and organizations, launch a big campaign of support and call to form an International Committee of Support".

I sure hope this is not just talk and that those who signed this will put their money where their mouth is!!! It would be great to see such "International Committee of Support" in action soon.

[pranabjyoti]

Thanks to the comrades of the Maoist parties of other countries. I like much more statements like this a regular interaction between the revolutionaries of the world.

[pranabjyoti]

Karnataka : Operation Media Gagging (http://www.icawpi.org/en/analysis/opinion/445-karnataka--operation-media-gagging)
Gauri Lankesh
THE Central home minister P Chidambaram has often issued veiled threats to intellectuals who offer covert or overt support to the Maoists, whom the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has identified as the ‘biggest internal security threat to the country’ today. While Singh and Chidambaram have limited themselves to issuing threats, the top brass in the Karnataka Government has opted for direct action. The police of Shimoga district has issued a ‘threatening’ notice to a young Kannada journalist.
Sometime last year, Rahul Belagali, a reporter with Prajavani, a leading Kannada daily, met with one of the state leaders of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) at an ‘undisclosed’ location. The interview that was published in his newspaper was full of expected rhetoric from the Maoists. Statements like — ‘The Maoists will continue their struggle’, and the ‘Indian democracy is flawed’ are now cliché. Not too many people paid attention to the interview — it offered no new political insight, neither provided new information. Until now.

Perhaps in the light of recent events, the Shimoga police issued two notices to Belagali, the first one as recently as on April 8, citing the interview and asking Belagali to appear before them and reveal his sources. The police wanted to ascertain information about a case registered in 2009 against a state Maoist leader. If Belagali did not accede, the police threatened action against him under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967.

The police sent a second notice to Belagali and this time to his Associate Editor, Padmaraj Dandavate. For Belagali, the second notice sounded alarm bells. It threatened to book him in four other cases — the Indian Arms Act, the Destruction of Government Property Act, the Explosives Act and the dreaded UAPA. Normally, the publisher of a newspaper accords protection to its reporters and holds up the fundamental rights of the media to protect its source. Unfortunately for Belagali, his publication did not stand up for him with all its strength. More interestingly, it did not appear to be interested in protecting the rights of the media. Instead it showed signs of wanting to ‘somehow get the matter settled’ and willingly become the fifth column of the government. That such a mighty media group was willing to let its reporter be threatened by the police is shocking, to say the least.

However, some human right activists and concerned journalists filed a complaint to the Editors Guild regarding the threats issued by the Karnataka Police to the two journalists. Rajdeep Sardesai, president of the guild, and Coomi Kapoor, the secretary general, have condemned the police action and said, “Professional ethics demand that mediapersons should protect their sources and not reveal their identities, when they request privacy. The confidentiality of a source is a well-established journalistic principle. Without such privilege, sources would not be willing to speak freely to the media, whose duty it is to report the facts fairly and objectively from all points of view to present a true picture to the public.’’

It is important to see the notices issued to Belagali in the context of the complaint filed against Arundhati Roy recently. A social worker from Chhattisgarh, Vishwajit Mitra, argued that Roy’s essay ‘Walking with the Comrades’ glorified the outlawed Maoists and sought to justify their activities. In his opinion, the essay and the photographs were liable to be viewed as an offence under the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005.

That Operation Green Hunt, the State’s war against the Maoists, has claimed the freedom of the press should sound as a wake up call to all journalists and people in the media.http://www.icawpi.org/en/analysis/opinion/445-karnataka--operation-media-gagging
FASCIST ACTION BY PSEUDO DEMOCRATS.

[pranabjyoti]

http://bangla.ganashakti.co.in/patrika/2010/5/15/cache/240111.jpgGanashakti (Peoples Power), the newspaper of CPI(Marxist) is now turning against other revolutionary parties of the world. The article above is about the book by reactionary Peruvian writer Mario Varges Loza and his book "death in the Andez". In the above article, the author claimed and repeated the US imperialist lies like relation of drug mafias with the revolutionary forces. Even in India, the police has claimed that the CPI(Maoist) are running drug farming for funding, as per today's newspaper reports.
But, what is surprising how a "communist" :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol: party repeated CIA and other imperialist backed reports.
T.Shonku, kindly help me to translate the meaning of the article to our comrades, who don't know Bengali language.

[pranabjyoti]

Orissa: Police Attack 1,500 Villagers at Site of Planned POSCO Steel Plant

By Ka Frank http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/india-cop-with-lathi-at-ready1.jpeg?w=319&h=240 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/india-cop-with-lathi-at-ready1.jpeg)
By Nachiketa Desai
15 May, 2010, Countercurrents.org
In a massive armed assault using crude bombs, bullets and batons, the Orissa police cracked down on over 1,500 villagers staging a peaceful sit-in dharna since January last against their imminent displacement to make way for South Korean mega corp Posco’s 12 million ton Greenfield steel plant in the coastal district of Jagatsinghpur, Orissa state, India.
More than 100 people including women and children were injured, five of them seriously, in police action which began since the crack of the dawn on Saturday (May 15) with the arrest of CPI MP from Jagatsinghpur Bibhu Prasad Tarai while he was on his way to the core area of the proposed steel plant site to express solidarity with the agitating people of six villages whose 4004 acres of land has been acquired by the government for the Korean steel major.
Tension in the area has been mounting since yesterday with the arrival of 25 platoons of armed police to Balitutha, the entrance point to these villages where over 1500 villagers had set up a blockade and were on a sit-in dharna. That the police had arrived to launch an offensive was anticipated by all because only two days ago it had opened fire in Kalinganagar, killing one person and injuring many, to evacuate agitating villagers for Tata’s proposed steel plant there.
For a vivid picture of these police atrocities, see this 2 minute TV video:http://www.countercurrents.org/

In both Kalinganagar and Jagatsinghpur, the villagers have been carrying out peaceful agitation against their displacement for the last five years. In order to create a division among the agitating people, the government and the companies had bought over a section of the local population to their side and shifted them to rehabilitation colonies.
It was with the help of these pro-project villagers that the police had carried out a raid in Kalinganagar on March 30 last, pillaging houses and burning stocks of foodgrain. Using a similar tactic, the police made the pro-Posco villagers to lob crude bombs made of kerosene and petrol to create panic and use it as a ruse to launch a massive offensive against the protesters sitting on dharna.
People of six villages, who have organized under the banner of Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti, had blocked the road at Balitutha, the key entrance point to these villages since January. On Saturday morning the district magistrate of Jagatsinghpur started issuing warning from a hand-held loudspeaker that the police would use force if the villagers did not lift the blockade and disperse.
According to the leaders of the Posco Pratiodh Sangram Samiti, police first fired teargas shells and set on fire the tent under which the protestors were sitting on dharna and then chased the people away from the dharna site at Balitutha. “More than 100 villagers were injured by the police who used batons fired rubber bullets. We shall continue our democratic mass resistance, come what may,” said Prasahant Paikray, spokesperson of PPSS.
The district administration has imposed prohibitory orders under Section 144 of CrPC to facilitate the government undertake survey of the land in these villages with a view to finally handing over these to the Posco. Police has also arrested Congress leaders Umesh Swain and Jayanta Biswal along with the CPI MP Bibhu Prasad Tarai. CPI has planned a protest rally to be addressed by senior party leader A B Bardhan on May 19.
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/orissa-police-attack-1500-villagers-at-site-of-planned-posco-steel-plant/#more-3276
A VERY DANGEROUS TREND IN THE TACTICS USED BY STATE. They provoked a part of the people (who are greedy, fickle minded) against another part of their same class or community and posing this incident as "unrest" and feigns as if the state is intervening to stop the unrest. In Chattisgar district of India, where the revolutionary struggle is most intense, the had chosen the greedy, opportunist part of the Adivasi locals to organize against Maoists and when the Maoists counter attacked on them, the media start crying "Maoists are attacking common people".
I know that there are some kind of LEFTISTS(!), who often repeat imperialist BS and blatant lies like the above to show that Maoists aren't REAL REVOLUTIONARIES. I just want to describe the real fact behind such kind of incidents here.

[Red Commissar]

What are the villagers being displaced for? Are there plans to sell the land for corporate development?

[scarletghoul]

They blew up a bus today. Seems it had a mixture of civilians and police on it, for some reason (human shield maybe, or civilian bus 'camoflage' ?) This article says 20 died, but an indian I talked to said 25 police died and 30 civilians.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8687317.stm
India Maoist rebels kill many in bus attack


http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/47866000/jpg/_47866871_009314615-1.jpg The blast blew the bus to pieces

Maoist rebels have attacked a bus in central India and killed at least 20 people, including civilians and police officers, according to officials.
The rebels apparently detonated a mine under the bus in Chhattisgarh state's Dantewada district. Some reports put the death toll at much higher than 20.
Dantewada was the scene of the rebels' deadliest attack last month, when 76 people were killed.
Thousands of people have died in their decades-long fight against the state.
Civilian recruits
In the latest attack, the rebels are said to have destroyed the front of the bus with a landmine.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gif
"About 40 people were travelling on the bus and at least 20 police personnel and a couple of civilians have been killed in a landmine blast," local official SR Kalluri told the AFP news agency.
He said the officers were special police officers, who are recruited from the civilian population to act as pro-government militias, helping security forces in anti-Maoist operations
Local TV stations reported that as many as 50 people may have died in the attack.
The BBC's Chris Morris in Delhi says questions will be asked about why members of the security forces were travelling on a civilian bus in such a dangerous area.
He says officials will also want to know how the rebels managed to find out about it so quickly and mount an attack.
Earlier on Monday, the bodies of six villagers were found with their throats slit in the forests of Chhattisgarh.
Maoist rebels had kidnapped the six on the weekend, accusing them of spying for the government.

[Red Commissar]

Security forces on a civilian bus? Isn't the state always complaining about the "terrorists" using civilians as shields?

[Starport]

As if the corrupt and frightened Indian ruling classes and their state forces give a care about the 'civilians' 'soldiers' 'police' or anyone else in all this. Human life has never been of any consequence to plundering rapacious capitalists. Let them call off, and separate their mad dog troops from the civilians if they genuinely want to avoid all casualties. But it won't happen.

[pranabjyoti]

They blew up a bus today. Seems it had a mixture of civilians and police on it, for some reason (human shield maybe, or civilian bus 'camoflage' ?) This article says 20 died, but an indian I talked to said 25 police died and 30 civilians.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8687317.stm
What is suspected is that, these "civilians(!)" are Special Police Officer. Who are state recruited armed Adivasi personnel to fight the Maoists. They are even salaried, I think for these purposes. Kill Maoists and for being killed too to give the state and media a chance of foul crying with "Maoists killing civilians". Possibly there are some commoners in the bus, but most probably they have been used as human shield.

[pranabjyoti]

Operation Green Hunt, the People’s Struggle in India, and the International Campaign (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/operation-green-hunt-the-peoples-struggle-in-india-and-the-international-campaign/)

May 19, 2010 by reed


http://icawpi.org/templates/ja_teline_iii/images/printButton.png (http://icawpi.org/analysis/factsheets/458-operation-green-hunt-the-peoples-struggle-in-india-and-the-international-campaign#)

by the International Campaign Against War on the People in India
All over the world, people are asking questions about the nature of India’s society and government, and about the war on the adivasis-the tribal peoples-that has recently been launched by that government with strategic assistance from the US and Israel.
Most commentators admit that the Indian people suffered greatly under British rule. Today, it is claimed, India is on a path of rapid technical progress and development; India has its own Silicon Valley, complete with high-tech R&D and hundreds of call centers for everything from Amazon to Victoria’s Secret. New wealth is being created at a rapid rate, a large middle class is developing that is enjoying shopping malls, multiplex cinemas and imported cars, and much of this wealth is working its way down to the villages and urban slums seen in Slumdog Millionaire.
Largest Democracy in the World?
The most common claim is that India is “the world’s largest democracy.” It is said that India’s elected government has ended the oppressive caste system, which assigned everyone to a specific caste and types of work for life. While the government says it is solving the problem by reserving a certain percentage of jobs and places in schools for dalits (untouchables) and other lower castes, today caste oppression continues to define social reality for Indians, especially in the rural areas.
The vast majority of the 1.2 billion people who live in India have no control over their lives. Living and working conditions have not changed for the better from colonial times to the present. According to a 2008 study by the US Agency for International Development, three-quarters of the people live on less than $2 per day.
Illiteracy is widespread in the countryside, where more than half of the women cannot read or write and many children leave school to support their families. Nothwithstanding its “socialist” pretensions, successive governments since independence in 1947 have postponed and put off free and compulsory education for children.
The threat of starvation constantly hangs over the heads of millions. Over the past 10 years, nearly 200,000 farmers have committed suicide by drinking pesticide because they could not keep up with demands to repay loans. In Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, which were at the forefront of ‘modernisation’ of agriculture, farmers had been led to believe they would benefit if they adopted a more market oriented approach. Capital intensive farming, requiring taking out loans for fertilizers, pesticides, and re-orienting to more water intensive crops, promised high prices and large returns – but the WTO regime of open markets meant depression in agricultural prices and they could not recover their costs
Dalits: India is a vast, diverse, and extremely oppressive society. Around 30% of the people are dalits, who are confined to jobs such as garbage collectors in the cities and excrement haulers in the villages. India’s reservation system has created a new dalit elite (similar in some ways to affirmative action in the US), but for the vast majority of the dalits–life is still hell on earth.
The dalits are the most oppressed among the farmers and peasants, who make up the majority of India’s population. Farmers eke out a living on plots that average ½ to 5 hectares depending on the state, hardly enough to support a family but enough to feed a layer of usurious bankers and moneylenders. One-third of the workers in the countryside, or about 80 million people, are landless laborers.
Peasants/farmers: Some of the sharpest struggles in recent years–including the successful people’s movements at Singur and Nandigram in West Bengal that stopped construction of a Tata auto plant and a huge foreign-owned petrochemical complex–have developed among farmers and adivasis who are threatened with displacement by mining companies or by corporations operating out of more than 500 newly created Special Economic Zones.
These are more accurately known as Special Exploitation Zones, which ban strikes and labor unions, and are run by development corporations that are not bound by Indian law. Tens of thousands of villagers in Orissa are fighting against the capitalist “development” plans of POSCO, a US/South Korean steel corporation, and Vedanta, a British company, which will have devastating economic and ecological consequences for the indigenous Gondh people.
Adivasis: Nearly 100 million adivasis live in the forested areas of central and eastern India. They were never conquered by the British, or by the Aryans and Muslims before them. The adivasis are not part of the caste system and have collective customs that include equal participation of women in the workforce and political life. India has the second largest number of indigenous people after Mexico, and they are covered by UN conventions on the rights of indigenous people.
The adivasis live in areas containing the richest natural resources in India. Most of India’s iron ore, bauxite and coal come from Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh. To paraphrase Arundhati Roy, Indian and multinational capitalists think that the adivasis are sitting on top of their minerals and depriving them of deserved riches. These profit-addicted companies have already signed hundreds of MoUs (Memoranda of Understanding) with state governments to start mining and build steel, aluminum and other industries.
The adivasis–and the progressive and democratic organisations that have been working among them for decades in some areas–stand in the way of their elaborate plans to exploit these riches. One of these groups is the CPI(Maoist) which has set up parallel governments in many adivasi areas that organize collective farming and agricultural research and development, undertake irrigation projects, and build schools, health centers and roads with local materials. The Indian government has set out to destroy these progressive political and social developments in the adivasi-inhabited regions in order to get at the minerals that are worth hundreds of billions of dollars/euros and trillions of Indian rupees.
Salwa Judum: The immediate precursor to the major military operation code named Operation Green Hunt was the formation of Salwa Judum (“Purification Hunt”) in 2005. The SJ, a government-armed private militia, emptied 644 Chhattisgarh villages of their inhabitants (allegedly all Maoist supporters) and left adivasi villages in smoking ruins. This brutal military campaign killed thousands of villagers and scattered 300,000 of them throughout the region. The SJ forced nearly 50,000 adivasis into squalid concentration camps similar to the strategic hamlets that the US set up in Vietnam in an unsuccessful attempt to separate the Vietnamese people from the National Liberation Front.
After five years of political mobilization throughout India–which included heavy fighting in Chhattisgarh between Special Police Forces/paramilitaries and the Maoists–.the SJ forces are in retreat. According to Gandhian Himanshu Kumar, who advocates for the adivasis in south Chhattisgarh displaced by SJ, this campaign generated widespread anger and resentment among the adivasis.
Lagarh Movement: In many ways, OGH has been a reaction by the Indian government– and the Indian capitalists and imperialists that it fronts for–to the defeat of Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh and similar government-backed tribal militias in Bihar and other states. It is also a response to the following, startling events in the Lalgarh region of West Bengal.
Starting in November 2008, tens of thousands of adivasis organized in the People’s Committee against Police Atrocities rose up in November 2008 against the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the misnamed capitalist party which is now the dominant force in the “Left Front” government that has been in power in West Bengal for decades. This party, known as “CPM”, first rose to power due to its killing of 18,000 CPI(ML) activists in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
After years of systemic police brutality, and siphoning off development funds meant for adivasis, CPM leaders and cadre have been driven out of the Lalgarh region. In response, the Indian state has blanketed the Lalgarh region with paramilitaries and police who have taken heavy casualties but apparently have had little luck in finding the Maoists who seem to have widespread political support among the local people.
Political Repression: Complementing the military suppression in the Lalgarh region and other states through OGH, the Centre, West Bengal’s “communist” government, and other states have made it a crime (a political crime, that is) punishable by long prison sentences to be a member of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). The Centre and many states have also passed laws such as the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 2008, which anyone accused of contact with the Maoists can be kept in jail for 180 days without trial and without bail. When held, trials are held before a secret court with the identities of witnesses also kept secret. Such fascist laws have been a common feature of “Indian democracy” throughout the post-independence period.
The UAPA is being applied widely in West Bengal today, especially targeting Kolkata intellectuals and rights activists–some who politically support the Maoists, and other progressives who are falsely charged with being Maoist supporters.
Due to decades of application of “anti-terrorism” laws such as TADA and POTA, India’s prisons are filled with more than 100,000 political prisoners, including large numbers of Kashmiris, Muslims, Northeast peoples (see below) and Maoists, living under squalid conditions that lead to early death. Such conditions, including the denial of necessary medical care, recently led to the first casualty of the UAPA in Kolkata, Swapan Dasgupta, the editor of the Bengali edition of People’s March magazine.
Muslims and Christians: India has the third largest population of Muslims in the world, or 160 million people. Muslims are significantly poorer than Hindus. Indian Muslims live in urban ghettos and separate villages where they are periodically victimized by Hindu mobs animated by the chauvinist ideology of Hindutva. The small Christian minority in India (most of whom are lower-caste Hindus who have converted to escape the caste system) also faces severe religious persecution with the rise of fundamentalist Hindu organisations such as the RSS.
Women in India are still married off by their families irrespective of their wishes, and marriages often require large dowries. Though dowries were legally prohibited in 1961, this payment in cash or in kind by the bride’s family to the bridegroom’s family is still practiced among well-do Indian families. Dowry abuse is a rising practice in India, particularly bride burning-the burning of women whose dowries are not considered sufficient by their husbands or in-laws.
Domestic battery and rape are endemic and rarely punished by the notoriously venal, male-dominated police and courts. Women are kept out of many high-paying professions and jobs.
Kashmir and the Northeast states: Lastly, India is a prison house of nations. Nearly 2 million soldiers of the Indian Army occupy the northern, Muslim state of Kashmir where they battle commandos from Pakistan, which also claims Kashmir, and deny the right of self-determination to the Kashmiri people. In the small states in the Northeast (Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura), the Indian military has been carrying out counter-insurgency operations aimed at suppressing national liberation movements. Over 1/3 of the country is under military law and constitutional protections do not apply there.
As one critic put it, unlike the United States and other big power which have used their militaries in foreign imperialist ventures, “the Indian military has been used primarily against the Indian people: against Kashmiris, Nagas, Assamese, North-eastern peoples, Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis, or … Maoists.”
Political Actors–not Victims
Another set of well propagated myths portray the people of India as victims who are not capable of standing up and fighting for their interests. India is presented in Western media as 5-star Delhi hotels and tourist sites, or as call center operators with names such as John and Susan-or as victims, images on fundraising posters for charity-dependency projects.
The Indian people have a long standing and proud history of struggle, including revolutionary struggle. In recent years, peasants, workers, dalits and adivasis have forged united communities, organizations and the necessary political ideas to stand up to the powerful Indian state, whose military is third in size only to China and the U.S.
These people’s communities and organizations need our political understanding and support, not our charity–or even worse, pity. For the unprecedented internal military offensive known as Operation Green Hunt, the Indian government has mobilized more than 100,000 soldiers, with helicopters, surveillance drones and combat-hardened units from Kashmir and Nagaland, to attack the areas in eastern and central India where the adivasis are best organized and the resistance forces have their greatest strength.
Since November, when the Operation Green Hunt was launched, it is clear that the life and livelihood of the adivasis are under severe threat because of the the military assault by the state. However, people in those regions are also resisting the onslaught in large numbers.
This is where the International Campaign against the War on People in India comes in. The campaign was launched in January 2010 by activists from India, Europe and the US to support the struggle of the people in the adivasi regions to resist and stop Operation Green Hunt. We are undertaking work in several areas:
(1) Education: We are putting out a variety of educational materials about conditions in India, Operation Green Hunt and the people’s struggles in India. The ICAWPI website (www.icawpi.org) now has over 200 articles categorized by News, Resistance, Analysis/Opinion and the Campaign, is an invaluable resource for activists, educators and students. ICAWPI organizers in many countries will be getting the word out about speaking tours, educational forums, film showings, and solidarity actions.
(2) Political Mobilization: Activists in Delhi have organized marches, press conferences and forums against Operation Green Hunt. Activists spearheaded by Turkish and Kurdish immigrants in Europe organized half a dozen demonstrations condemning OGH at Indian embassies and consulates on February 5, 2010. More actions are being planned in key Indian cities this spring.
In late February, when the Indian government was making claims that the war (OGH) was only because the Maoists insisted on fighting, Kishenji, a visible (and elusive) leader of the CPI(Maoist), made a bold challenge to the Indian government: Declare a 72 day cease-fire, cancel the MoUs between the states and the MNCs, stop the mass killings of adivasis, and start up negotiations over issues such as ending “encounter killings” (assassinations of Maoists and suspected supporters), freeing tens of thousands of political prisoners being held in terrible conditions, and withdrawing military and paramilitary forces from the seven states of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, Maharastra and Andhra Pradesh where Operation Green Hunt is underway or being deployed.
Many intellectuals and rights activists and organizations have come out publicly in support of this offer and are attempting to break through the wall of silence in the bourgeois media about the actual terms of the Maoist offer. (See www.icawpi.org for news of these efforts.)
Union Minister PC Chidambaram, the main architect of OGH (and a former lawyer for Enron), has taken the only position he can given the reality that he is a political representative of the Indian ruling class and the US/EU imperialists behind them. Chidambaram is saying that there can be no peace talks unless the Maoists “give up violence”-that is disarm while the government is free to attack them and the adivasis and other sections of the people. And he does not say anything about the suspension of constitutional freedoms in 1/3 of the country and the widespread use of “encounter killings” (political assassinations) and torture in areas of conflict.
This is not acceptable to our campaign and to many political forces in India, who are instead willing to take up the Maoists on their offer. The campaign will be doing all that it can, particularly in India but in other countries as well, to force the Indian government to agree to a 2 ½ month cease-fire period, within which peace talks about the issues that have given rise to Operation Green Hunt can be discussed by both sides and by the public.
(3) Work in the Media: We need to break through the media white-out about Operation Green Hunt and the people’s struggles in India against it, and to combat the lies about the Maoist and other resistance movements. This work may include letters to the editor, op-ed pieces, demonstrations to protest particularly misleading newspaper articles, and broad distribution of campaign materials in the progressive media, particularly on the net.
(4) Anti-Military Campaign: We hope to organize a campaign to cut off arms sales, joint military exercises, and training in counter-insurgency by US, Israeli and other imperialist militaries as long as the weapons of the Indian state are pointed at the poorest of India’s people.
Please join in the work of the campaign and spread the word about it to friends, family and co-workers–and around the world.
A short glossary of India. Left-communist comrades, kindly read it.

[pranabjyoti]

India: Satnam Speaks on Trip to Liberated Zones

By Ka Frank Maoists Want to Destroy the State

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/17nlook6.jpg?w=370&h=278 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/17nlook6.jpg)Punjabi writer Satnam

With the debate on Maoism reaching a fever pitch and grabbing the nation’s attention, more and more stories are emerging from the so-called liberated zones. Punjabi writer Satnam spent two months with the Maoists in the 1990s and wrote a book about that time in 16 days flat.
A decade after it was published in Punjabi, a much-needed English translation has just come out. Satnam, who writes about “international issues for revolutionary papers” and is involved in children’s education, speaks about the tribals and their relations with the Maoists on the one hand and the State on the other hand in an interview with rediff.com (http://rediff.com/)‘s Krishnakumar Padmanabhan.
Though there have been inequalities and injustices like any other part of India, Punjab has never been known for its Left politics. How were you drawn to it?
Left politics might not have been always very visible in Punjab, but it has always been strong. It was there even before the pre-Independence era. Then, the Sikh movement was there. Guru Gobind Singh led the struggle against British rule.
Also, where there is Bhagat Singh, can the revolutionary spirit be far behind? So, there has been a long legacy of revolutionary movement in Punjab. Though it is not necessarily a question of a Left movement.
Your book, published 10 years ago, has been translated only now. How did it come about?
I don’t know how it happened. Somebody from Penguin read the book and got hold of it. Then they made arrangements to translate it. Before that it was translated into three languages: Hindi, Bangla and Marathi.
Why did you want to go and spend time in Bastar?
I was always interested in tribal people for a long time. Usually, what I had heard was about the people in the Northeast. That they still live in jungles and are removed from civilisation. But I came to know about the Bastar region only in the mid-1990s. I was very interested in knowing more about these people in the heart of India.
Around the same time, the Maoists called me. I have been writing in the revolutionary papers. I am a political commentator on international issues. After seeing that they sent a message asking ‘Would you like to go there?’ I was the happiest person.
Was your objective spending time with the Maoists or the tribals?
I wanted to know about the movement and the people too. It was a real eye-opener for me. To see that people lived like that. I thought what was written about in the Ramayan as the Dandak forest was in front of me. It is perhaps the same area.
And it was like the area was still in the same period. The people did not wear clothes, I was reminded of the Red Indians and the aborigines. It is such an old civilisation. I felt what happned with the aborigines and the Red Indians is going to happen to these people also. But thanks to the Maoist movement, they have taken up arms and are resisting the State’s onslaught.
What is this onslaught?
Now it is almost clear to everyone that the Indian government wants to take control of that area and give the control over all of central India to multinationals and corporations. Because that area’s natural resources are equal to that of the Middle East. There is no doubt about this.
MoUs worth lakhs of crores of rupees have been signed with various industrial houses. They say it is for the development of the people. But when you see the people there… Go to Kaladela. You just have to go three kilometres out of the town, you will find people living half naked with no facilities. And this is supposed to be their biggest project.
There is no development of the people at all. You won’t even find a hand pump in most of the villages. Take the Bhilai steel plant, the so-called temple of modern India, like Nehru said. You go four kilometres from there in any direction, and you will find a similar situation.
It is just rubbish… Talk of developing these areas. In 1947 people had so many dreams that they will be the master of their own destiny and all. But what is the situation now: Peasants are committing suicide, the young don’t see a future.
What is the government doing? Even things like education and health have been privatised. They can’t even provide water for people. If you want clean water, people have to pay 15 rupees for that.
The State has done nothing in the last six decades, it won’t do it in the coming decades too.
In your interactions, were you able to find out what the tribal people want for their children? Their future? You quote a person saying that no one lives past 50. Have they figured such things out? Do they know what they need to address these issues?
They have been using their own traditional medicines. In the rest of Madhya Pradesh and Kerala the tribal people use their natural herbs well. But not here. The backwardness is too much and the State hasn’t come in. When they did come in, it was for exploitation.
They want that they should not be destroyed, expelled from their land. They want to be the owners of their own land, and now they want the resources. They did not know earlier about the riches they have. Now they know, thanks to the Maoists. That if they dig three or four metres into the earth, you will find enormous mineral resources. They say we won’t let anybody do it.
If the State wants to access those resources, what should be done?
The State is not pro-people. They only care about the profit of the capitalists, they have to tell the world that they are growing at 10 per cent.
If the State becomes pro-people, is there a way?
This State can’t. If there is a State that is pro-people, which is created by the people, that State can do wonders. What you can’t do there? These tribals would be glad to work with such a State. And more than anything, people are the most precious assets of a country. Our State doesn’t bother.
How are tribals attracted to the Maoists?
Exploitation of the timber contractors, the police. They are very simple people, the police and the contractors lorded over them. The Maoists organised the people and took up resistance.
Were you able to observe any shortcoming of the Maoists?
Every movement has drawbacks. Nobody can escape from that. The point is they have an approach. When you tell them that something will alienate you from the people, they mend their ways.
What particular problems did you spot?
That I have talked to them. I don’t think I should go public about it. The biggest thing is that when somebody is trapped in a pincer, they have very little resources to develop the area. It is not possible for them. It is a long drawn struggle. It has taken two decades. It might take more. They want to revolutionise India.
But surely there must be shortcomings among the Maoists.
What I found was that somewhere they are not very much integrated with the people at some places. I visited a vast number of areas. I told them the initiatives among the people was lacking.
But thanks to Salwa Judum, it has done wonders, the little mass support Maoists had there has multiplied by many times. It has come out in an unbridled form. When I was there the second time in 2005, I could see the change.
There have been accounts that the tribals don’t like the Maoists any more than the State, but accept them because they have no choice. Was this evident?
No. When you go there — I wanted to go there alone in fact — If you are caught by the people, they will hand you over to the Maoists. If they don’t find the Maoists in a day or two, they will kill you. If the police spot you, they will kill you right away and claim you were a Maoist.
The point is, if the police come, the people flee to the jungles. But when the Maoists go there, they embrace them.
Most Maoist leaders are Telugu speaking. Most of the people under them are local tribals. Is there any resentment?
As an ideological question, this is a no-brainer. Tell me, are the CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force), administration and others… do they come from the tribal land?
The local administration is…
No. The commissioner is from outside. The force is from outside and mostly non-tribal. But on the other hand, the Maoists claim they are internationalists.
But what do the tribals think of this Telugu-speaking upper echelon?
The southern tip of Bastar is mixed. It is the adjoining belt with Andhra, North Telangana. The language is mixed. It is Telugu-ised Gondi. In north Bastar, the Gondi is different. In the south, it is very much similar to Telugu. They share a common heritage and there is no resentment.
You speak about human sacrifice and a couple of other things that the Maoists have changed among the tribals. On the other hand, the State also wants to change them in a particular way. Don’t you think there is a problem here with both sides doing what they think is right for the tribals?
They have integrated themselves with the people and convinced them not to do it. Where does the State do this? The State destroys and uproots them from their homes of many centuries. They don’t have any concern for the tribal people. The Maoists are concerned and are changing them by convincing them. Revolution is the target.
They will organise the people and ask them to revolt against the State. They want to destroy the State. They want to build a new State, a people’s State.
But aren’t they then using the tribal people as a means to their end?
It is not a question of using anybody against anybody. In fact, it is the State that is using the people. They ask people to join their forces. Again they use this force against the people.
What the State does with the forces and people is clear everywhere — the Northeast, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Bastar, Andhra…
Finally, is it okay to say the Maoists are using people like you as PR machinery? Taking you in, showing only what they want you to see?
No. We wanted to go. And their side needs to be told. If something happens in Delhi or your Bombay, it comes on the front page. When things happen there, nobody writes about them. Till (novelist-social activist) Arundhati (Roy) went in, did nothing come out about the recent operations?
So this is not a question of a PR exercise. They need propaganda about their work. They want to tell the world what work they have done in these areas, and what the State paints them as.
TESTIMONY OF AN EYEWITNESS.
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/india-satnam-speaks-on-trip-to-liberated-zones/#more-3335

[pranabjyoti]

Mining Companies’ Paradise and Lopsided Development in Orissa

By Ka Frank 16 May, 2010, Countercurrents.org
http://www.countercurrents.org/kalinganagar-gate.jpg
By Nachiketa Desai
Orissa is experiencing the pangs of an unfolding industrial revolution that seeks to transform this poorest of the states of India into a power house of electricity, steel and aluminum
The slogan – ‘Mining Happiness’ – on the giant-sized bill board greets the alighting passengers at the Biju Patnaik Airport of Bhubaneswar. The same slogan, below the smiling faces of tribal children, runs on the signages posted on the electric poles that stand at regular intervals along the divider of the main four-lane road from the airport to the state secretariat and beyond to the swanky info city.
‘Mining Happiness’ is the catch-line of the recent multi-million-rupee multi-media advertisement campaign of the Vedanta Aluminum Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange listed mining giant Vedanta Resources PLC. Vedanta’s advertisement campaign claims the company’s one million ton alumina refinery to be scaled up to five million tons at Lanjigarh in the state’s Kalahandi district, ill-famed for recurring droughts and starvation deaths, will wipe off poverty and bring about all-round development of the region.
Vedanta’s chief operating officer Mukesh Kumar says the refinery at Lanjigarh and the aluminum smelter at Jharsugda together would provide employment to over 20,000 people. Vedanta also plans to set up a university on 6,000 acres of land along the Konarka-Puri sea shore at an investment of Rs.15,000 crore. “We have committed to invest over Rs.60,000 crore in Orissa of which we have so far spent Rs.30,000 crore,” he adds.
The other eye-catching advertisement bill boards in the state capital are those of Tata Steel. These too are on similar lines, carrying the photographs of some tribal boys and girls who, the company says, are the future engineers, doctors and IT professionals, a dream that would be fulfilled once the company’s proposed 6 million ton integrated steel plant comes up in Kalinganagar of Jajpur district, 120 kms North-East of the state capital.
“Global as well as domestic companies started making a beeline to Orissa after 2003, evincing keen interest in setting up heavy industries in the field of steel, aluminum and thermal power all of which need minerals which are found in abundance in the state,” says Priyabrata Patnaik, chairman and managing director of Industrial Investment Development Corporation of Orissa (IDCO).
After the Naveen Patnaik government passed the Orissa Industries Facilitation Act of 2004 which envisaged a single window system for investors wishing to set up industries in the state, there was a rush of companies, both multi-national as well as domestic, for signing memorandum of understanding (MoUs) with the state government.
“Till 2003, there were only small-scale units for making pig iron, sponge iron and steel to the tune of 250,000 tons besides the 50-year-old public sector Rourkela Steel Plant. The new industrial policy brought about a drastic change. Today, as many as 49 companies have expressed their intent of setting up plants in Orissa, envisaging an investment of Rs. 198,149.40 crore to produce 75.66 million tons of steel per year,” says the IDCO CMD.
Korean steel giant POSCO, with a proposed investment of USD 12 billion (Rs 52,000 crore), was among the first major players with plans to construct a world-class, fully integrated steel plant in Orissa with annual production capacity of 12 million tons. Among the domestic players, Tata Steel signed an MoU with the state government in 2004 to set up a 6 MTPA plant.
“By 2015, Orissa would become an industrial power house, producing over 35-40 million tons of steel, 3 million tons of alumina and 1 million tons of aluminum annually while also generating over 30,000 MW of electricity through coal-based thermal power plants,” says Ashok Dalvai, state’s steel and mines secretary. “Of the 49 steel projects for which MoUs have been signed, five are operating fully while 24 have become partially operational,” he adds.
Besides sectors like steel, power, cement and aluminum, investment has also been proposed on ports, universities, hospitals and several SEZs. While Rs.20,000 crore of investment is planned for creating SEZs in 1,077 hectares, Rs. 15,000 is proposed to be invested in setting up the Vedanta university along the Konarka-Puri coast.
Several private ports are proposed to be set up along the state’s 480-km-long coast. The state government has identified as many as 14 sites where ports can be developed. Already, several companies have expressed interest in developing some of these ports. These include Gujarat’s Adani group near the Paradip port, Aditya Birla group’s S.L. Mining at the Chudamani port in Bhadrak district, Navajuga engineering of Hyderabad at Astaranga port in Puri district, Puri Ports Limited at Baliharchandi port also in Puri district and Good earth maritime of Madras at Bahuda muhana in Ganjam district. Already work on three private ports has started. These include the Gopalpur port by the Orissa Stevedores, Dhamra port jointly by TISCO and L&T and Jatadhari port by POSCO.
“The government, through IDCO has already acquired 121,000 acres of land and is in process of acquiring almost equal acreage more for the setting up of these industrial projects,” says the IDCO CMD. IDCO is the nodal agency for identifying and acquiring land both from the government and private parties at strategic locations. The acquired land is then allotted for setting up industries. IDCO extends help in identification of project site and collection of plan and schedule of land from the revenue authorities.
People’s Resistance
Despite a single-window system in place for getting clearance from revenue, forest, environment, water and electricity supply departments, and IDCO having been empowered for land acquisition, some of the major industrial projects including the proposed steel plants of the POSCO, the 12 – million-ton greenfield steel plant of Arcelor Mittal and Tata Steel and Vedanta’s existing alumina and aluminum plants and proposed world-class university are facing stiff resistance from the local residents, environmentalists and social activists.
As a result, Posco and Tata Steel have not been able to start work on their integrated steel plants, which together would have produced 18 MTPA. Both these steel giants had signed MoUs in 2004 and planned to start production by 2010. The civil construction of the Rs 5000-crore 1.5 million ton alumina refinery project of Utkal Alumina International Limited (UAIL), a subsidiary of the Aditya Birla Group (ABG), near Kasipur in Rayagada district too is facing opposition from the displaced and affected people of the project.
Though the Orissa government had committed to 8,000 acres in Keonjhar district for the proposed Arcelor Mittal steel plant at the time of signing the MoU in 2006, it has not yet been able to provide any land. The process has been delayed due to agitation by displaced families under the banner of Mittal Pratirodh Manch as most of the land is fertile agricultural land.
Though private companies have the option to negotiate land price directly with the farmers and buy it, the process is not always feasible because in most cases where the industries want to set up their units the land owners belong to the scheduled tribe or scheduled caste from whom land cannot be bought. So, the prospective investor has to be dependent on the state government which acquires land and then gives it out on lease to the industry.
This is in sharp contrast to the process of land acquisition in Gujarat where the prospective investors by land from the farmers directly while the state government’s role is that of only a facilitator. Private industries are also allotted land in the industrial estates already created by the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation, the equivalent of Orissa’s IDCO.
It is the inability of IDCO to get the acquired land vacated by the occupant farmers which is proving to be the main stumbling block in the way of starting work on the proposed industrial projects. “We have been awaiting possession of the 4004 acres of land for more than five years now without any progress. The government has been telling us that an amicable solution to the impasse created because of people’s refusal to vacate the land would be found out soon. However, till date there is no sign of any solution,” says Simanta Mohanty, general manager, external relations, Posco.
This reason may hold true for the farmers, fisher folk, weavers and other artisans engaged in various kinds of handicraft who perceive heavy industries as being the main cause of deprivation of their means of livelihood. The only industrial activity of the state so far has been related to mining of minerals. The employment in the mining sector, however, has been declining over the years due to mechanization. While there were 52,937 workers employed in the mining sector in 2000-01, their number declined to 49,176 by 2008, points out the State’s Economic Surveys presented to the Orissa Legislative Assembly.
Widening rich-poor divide
However, for the educated urban middle class the process of industrialization in the state has ushered in a new era of prosperity and ever increasing opportunities. The mushrooming of engineering colleges, numbering 53 in the state capital Bhubaneswar, and 50 in other main towns of the state, enrolling 52,000 students every year, is a pointer to the growing aspiration of the educated youth to make it to a comfortable career path. Private business schools and medical colleges, as well as institutions imparting other professional education too have come up in large number.
The schism between the urban rich and the rural poor has widened sharply in Orissa. According the Planning Commission, 46.60% of Orissa’s people lived below the poverty line in 2004-05, much higher than Bihar (32.50%), Madhya Pradesh (32.40%) and Uttar Pradesh (25.50%).
Millions of marginal farmers, landless labourers and craftsmen from the poverty-stricken districts of Ganjam, Bolangir, Koraput and Kalahandi of Western Orissa, bordering Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh migrate as far as to Mumbai, Surat, Ahmedabad, Delhi and Punjab every year in search of employment. Reports of starvation deaths, suicides of weavers and farmers and selling of children as bonded labourers appear at regular intervals in regional and national newspapers.
Farmers of Jharsuguda, Bolangir, Angul, Dhenkanal and Kendrapada districts have been carrying on prolonged agitations against the state government’s decision to prioritize allocation of water to industries from major irrigation dams on the rivers Mahanadi and Brahmani.
“The Hirakud dam over river Mahanadi, one of independent India’s early multipurpose river valley projects, used to prevent floods in the coastal areas, provide electricity to factories and homes and supplied ample water in the canals to grow a second crop every year. Not anymore,” says Professor Rajkishor Meher of Nabakrushna Choudhury Centre for Development Studies in Bhubaneswar. “The dam has almost lost its principal objective of irrigation promotion and agricultural development in the region,” Meher says.
Quoting government records, he points out that as many as 3,509 farmers committed suicide in Orissa in the last 11 years. The opposition Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party have alleged that at least 53 farmers committed suicide in the state in the past one year. “The multipurpose dam now hardly generates 30 per cent of its installed hydro power capacity because of lack of adequate storage of water in the reservoir, obsolete technology and worn out machinery,” he adds.
Due to silting of the reservoir and canals the tail end areas do not get adequate irrigation water for the second crop. The area deprived of a second crop is almost one-third of the created irrigated potential in the command area. Availability of water for agriculture shall be reduced in future, as the area surrounding the reservoir is now witnessing fast industrial growth and mining of coal. Meher points out that before 1997 the total allocation of water to the industries of the region from the reservoir was 3,191,200 gallons per year. This has increased by 27 times in the past nine years and this is obviously at the cost of water for irrigation.
While farmers of villages in the command area of the Hirakud dam are facing acute shortage of water, in Bhubaneswar and elsewhere in the state, consumption of liquor and ganja (hemp) has increased manifold. State’s excise department figures reveal a three-fold jump in revenue from the sale Indian Made Foreign Liquor and country liquor between 2001-02 (Rs. 197.35 crore) and 2007-08 (Rs.524.83 crore). There were 1021 IMFL shops, 13 clubs and 37 beer bars and 152 shops selling country liquor in 2008.
In a situation reminiscent of the popular anti-liquor movement of the 1990s in Andhra Pradesh, women in several villages of Orissa have launched agitation against the opening of liquor shops in their area. The left-extremist Maoists too have made liquor shops their target in the pre-dominantly tribal districts of Kandhamal, Gajapati and Koraput, Balangir, and Kalahandi.
Drug and illegal mining
Along with increase in the consumption of liquor, the state has also witnessed an alarming rise in the cultivation of illegal ganja (hemp). In raids conducted by the excise department in 13 districts of Orissa during 2007-08, 3.12 million hemp plants worth over Rs. 312 crore were detected and destroyed.
A commission of inquiring headed by Justice P K Mohanty found the involvement of Maoists in the multi-crore-rupee ganja cultivation in Orissa specially in the hilly and inaccessible areas of the state. In March this year, Dambaru Bagha, the district president of the youth wing of the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) of Maoist-bastion Malkangiri, was arrested from Lucknow with 3,000 kg of ganja in a truck. This was just the tip of the illegal drugs ice-berg.
Equally nefarious racket, which came to light recently, is that of illegal mining of iron, chromite and manganese ores running into over Rs.14,000 crore. The racket came to light following sinking of an iron-ore laden ship from Mongolia named ‘Black Rose’ off the Paradip port. It was laden with 23,847 tons of iron ore. The ship had forged documents of another ship named ‘Toros Pearl’. The owner of the ship operated two ships under the name of ‘Black Rose’ for shipping out iron ore from Orissa illegally.
Investigations by the state vigilance department and documents brought under the RTI Act showed that over last 6-7 years more than half a dozen leading mining and steel companies dug out iron, chromite and manganese ores than the amount they were allowed thanks to lax supervision of officials of the Orissa Pollution Control Board, Indian Bureau of Mines, state mines department, forest department, district collector and Ministry of Environment and Forests.
Documents obtained from the Orissa Pollution Control Board show that the biggest violator could be one of the country’s leading industrial group. The company mined 206 lakh tons of iron ore in excess of its permitted limit of 25.86 lakh ton from two mines (Kasia and Jiling-Longalata) of Keonjhar district between 2001-02 and 2005-06. By conservative estimates, the total market value of the excess iron ore mined was Rs 4269 crores. The permissible limit for mining of minerals in a year varies from mine to mine, based on the reserves it has, and is fixed by the Indian Bureau of Mines.
“Illegal mining is rampant in Orissa. Of the 595 mining lease issued by the state government, only 245 are valid, the rest 351 are continuing to carry out mining even after their lease period has expired. They are doing so in collusion with the concerned officials,” alleges Rabi Das, president of Orissa Jana Sammilani (Orissa People’s Conference), who has filed a public interest petition in the Supreme Court demanding a CBI probe into the illegal mining scam. “The delay in renewing the mining leases by the state officials is the standard tactic adopted by them to extract grease money from the lessee companies,” alleges Das.
City of neo rich
The staggering amount of slush money in the hands of government officials, politicians and touts collected from private miners is getting reflected in their ostentatious spending on such luxury goods as jewelry, real estate and automobiles. Jewelry shops are doing roaring business in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. Imported luxury cars on the roads are a common sight in the state capital.
The state capital, which did not even have a three-star hotel a decade ago, today boasts of five five-star hotels and over a dozen four-star hotels. The city also has a 9-hole golf course spread across 33 acres of land leased out to the club by IDCO. “The golf club has over 500 members of which about 80 participate in the game regularly”, says Srimoy Kar, an active golfer.
“The land prices in Bhubaneswar have sky rocketed in the last ten years, competing with the prices of prime property in metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore. I had sold an apartment in Bhubaneswar at Rs. 1.50 lakh when I started my business here 20 years ago. Recently, I concluded a deal of a luxury apartment at Rs. 1.15 crore at Rs4,000 a square feet,” says Subhash Bhura, the Orissa chapter president of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (CREDAI), who is the managing director of Utkal Builders.
Most land in Bhubaneswar belong to the government as the city was planned and developed as the capital city of Orissa only after the formation of the state in 1948. “The government’s near total monopoly over the land and absence of any town planning has resulted in scarcity of land for the middle class and the poor. Nearly one-fourth of the city’s population lives in 108 slums,” points out Bhura.
With new building bylaws enacted a few months ago, the skyline of the city is expected to change within a few years as several multi-storeyed buildings have been proposed. Real estate developers from outside Orissa such as DLF, Cosmopolis and Vipul have proposed mega housing projects in the state capital.
Recent times have seen large scale retail chains such as Reliance, Vishal Mega Mart, Big Bazaar, Pantaloon, Spencer’s opening their outlets in Bhubaneswar. Large corporations like DLF Universal and Reliance Industries have entered the real estate market in the city. DLF Limited is developing an Infopark spread over an area of 54 acres in the city. Expanding its business portfolio, the Kolkata-based Saraf Group, promoters of Forum Mart shopping malls is constructing another Shopping mall named Forum Lifestyle mall on a 550,000-sq ft plot of land in Bhubaneswar with 1,200 car parks.
IT and education hub
Bhubaneswar is home to several educational and research institutions of state and national importance including the Utkal University , Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, the Institute of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Institute of Mathematics and Applications (IMA), as well as over 30 other private colleges geared towards engineering, biotechnology, information technology and management.
Mining major Vedanta too has proposed to set up a ‘world-class’ University on a staggering 6,000 acres of land along the Konarka-Puri sea shore. The university got mired in controversy after the Lok Ayukta ordered an inquiry into the legality of allotment of a part of the land belonging to the Jagannath temple trust. People of neighbouring villages too have been protesting against the proposed university.
Bhubaneswar is emerging as a national education hub that is also being promoted as an Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) by the government. A total of 40 square kilometer of land has been allocated for the purpose, out of which about 60% will be devoted to research and development. Two institutions of national importance, the IIT and NISER, Bhubaneswar will be located within this investment region.
The Info City was conceived as a five star park, under the Export Promotion Industrial Parks (EPIP) Scheme to create high quality infrastructure facilities for setting up Information Technology related industries. Infosys and Satyam Computer Services Ltd. have been present in Bhubaneswar since 1996-97. Its current head count stands at around 6000.
Infosys is a planning a second IT park near Khandagiri which will accommodate another 5000 IT professionals. Wipro’s software development centre started operation in the city during February 2008. The Finland telecommunication company, Nethawk, has its India R&D center at Bhubaneswar. The Canadian giant, Gennum Corporation too has its India development centre at Bhubaneswar.
The new STP, christened as JSS software Technology park is located at Infocity to provide incubation and infrastructure facilities to new and young entrepreneurs in the MSME sector. The intelligent building of the JSS STP is spread across three acres and houses state-of-art technology to fulfill the growing demands of IT professionals. Infocity is considered as the biggest IT park in eastern India spread over an area of 350 acres.
Critique’s views
Leading academics, economists, environmentalists, wildlife experts, social activists and leaders of political parties – the opposition as well as a few dissidents of the ruling Biju Janata Dal – have expressed grave concern at what they describe as ‘lopsided’ and ‘skewed’ development of the poverty-stricken Orissa.
“Orissa’s mineral reserves may exhaust too soon due to fast exploitation. Orissa is exploiting bauxite at a much faster rate than it should be doing. The focus of policy makers has been on maximizing the revenues in the short run than maximizing the present value of all expected future revenues,” avers Banikant Mishra, professor of finance at the Xavier’s Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar.
“The widening gap between the urban rich and the rural poor, lack of development activities in poverty-stricken regions of Western and Northern Orissa leading to large-scale migration of marginal farmers and farm labourers to other states, starvation deaths, displacement of tribals from their homestead and land on account of land acquisition for heavy industries and depriving them of their means of livelihood, state violence against people protesting peacefully against their displacement are all contributing to the rising influence of left-extremist Maoists in the state,” Mishra warns.
“Inspite of abundant stock of natural and human resources, the state portrays a hopeless image of stark poverty – child sale and starvation deaths hitting the national headlines regularly. This is mainly because of the state’s lopsided policies. Though there has been a growth in the number of factories operating in the state, employment had registered a steady decline,” points out Biswajit Mohanty, a chartered accountant who heads the Wildlife Society of Orissa.
“Orissa has missed the opportunity of taking advantage of its rich mineral resources. Instead of giving out mining leases indiscriminately, the state should have first come out with a mining policy. The government should have constituted an expert committee comprising geologists, metallurgists, industry experts and elected representatives of people of the mineral rich areas which would have recommended a judicious strategy for the exploitation of minerals,” says former Union Steel and Mines minister Brajkishore Tripathy.
“I won’t be surprised if the industrial houses which have signed MoUs over the last 10 years to set up industries in the state start legal proceedings against the state government for not having been able to fulfill its promise of land, water and power to them,” he said, pointing out that the total requirement of power and water for these industries far exceeds the supply.
“The Naveen Patnaik government has traded with the industries, ignoring the law of the land and ignoring the problems of the people. Even in a single-window system, the government should have ensured that the proposed projects get all the required statutory clearances from the revenue, forest, environment, water supply and electricity departments,” says Bhakta Charan Das, the Congress Member of Parliament from the Kalahandi Lok Sabha constituency.
“The government should have also made mandatory for the investor companies to give guarantee for the inclusive growth of the region in which they set up their industries. Since the government has allowed heavy industries to draw water and electricity at the cost of the needs of the local population, people are up in arms against industrialization,” he says.
Labour pains
“These are just the normal pangs of industrialization which is yet to take off fully. The fruits of industrialization are yet to bear. Let the heavy industries in the areas of steel, aluminum and electricity be established first, downstream industries would follow automatically. Only then will the people of Orissa start benefitting from an industrially sound economy,” says Ashok Dalvai, the steel and mine secretary.
True, Orissa is witnessing the pangs of industrialization. For the first time after Independence, the poorest of the country’s state is experiencing the trials and tribulations of an agrarian economy moving on the fast track of industrial growth.
THE REAL STORY OF "DEVELOPMENT".
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/05/22/india-miners-paradise-and-lopsided-development-in-orissa/#more-3355

[pranabjyoti]

Orissa/AP - Adivasis allege torture in anti-Naxal operations


http://www.icawpi.org/templates/ja_teline_iii/images/emailButton.png (http://www.icawpi.org/en/component/mailto/?tmpl=component&link=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5pY2F3cGkub3JnL2VuL2luZGlhLW5ld 3MvNDU3LW9yaXNzYWFwLWFkaXZhc2lzLWFsbGVnZS10b3J0dXJ lLWluLWFudGktbmF4YWwtb3BlcmF0aW9ucw%3D%3D) http://www.icawpi.org/templates/ja_teline_iii/images/printButton.png (http://www.icawpi.org/en/india-news/457-orissaap-adivasis-allege-torture-in-anti-naxal-operations?tmpl=component&print=1&layout=default&page=) http://www.icawpi.org/templates/ja_teline_iii/images/pdf_button.png (http://www.icawpi.org/en/india-news/457-orissaap-adivasis-allege-torture-in-anti-naxal-operations?format=pdf)

Aman Sethi and D. Chandrabhaskar Rao
Koraput/Khammam: Seventeen Adivasi villagers of Samna in Orissa's Narayanpatna block claim that they were brutally assaulted in custody last week, an allegation the police have denied.
According to the villagers, they were picked up on May 9, as part of a joint operation conducted by the Orissa and Andhra Pradesh police along the inter-State border, airlifted to a police station in Andhra Pradesh and held in custody for three days before being released on May 14.
"Uniformed policemen surrounded our village on Sunday morning [May 9], when we were leaving for the market," said Nachika Jaddo, one of those who were picked up. "Seventeen men, including two dokras [old men] were rounded up, beaten up and then dragged to a spot 2 km away."
The villagers were then bundled into a waiting helicopter, blindfolded and flown to the Salur police station in Vizianagaram district of Andhra Pradesh.

"They tied our hands behind our back and repeatedly struck us with lathis," said another victim, who had bruises all over the back and shoulders. "They kept asking us about Maoists, but we couldn't understand what they were saying."
Most of the Adivasis along the Orissa-Andhra Pradesh border speak Kondi - an Adivasi dialect - and are often unable to communicate with those outside their tribe. "They spoke to us in Hindi, Oriya and Telugu, and when we couldn't answer, they hit us all over, including on the soles of our feet," said a third victim.
In all, The Hindu interviewed four of the 17 victims, including 60-year-old Nachika Chuchai, with the help of a translator.
Koraput Superintendent of Police Anup Kumar Sahoo confirmed that 17 villagers had been detained for questioning, but denied that they were beaten up or airlifted. "These 17 men were found in the forest on May 9 near the site of an encounter between security forces and the Maoists." They were then taken to Andhra Pradesh on foot, which took almost three days." The villagers were immediately produced before a district magistrate in Salur and released on May 14. None was formally arrested, the SP said.
Informed sources in the Andhra police suggest that the villagers might have been picked up as part of a much larger exercise. According to the sources, the police operation was planned when the Andhra Pradesh police received information that members of the Kalimela Dalam, involved in the killing of 38 security force members at Chitrakonda in 2008, were moving through the Narayanpatna jungles.
On May 9, 2010, there was an exchange of fire between Maoists and the security forces. The local press reported police sources as claiming that up to 10 Maoists were killed. However, not a single body has been recovered as yet. The 17 villagers were picked up, soon after the skirmishes. According to the sources, the villagers were immediately airlifted to Salur, where they were interrogated for information on the movement of Maoist companies in Narayanpatna and subsequently released.
Intelligence sources told The Hindu that Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra share a set of Mi-17 helicopters which can carry up to 32 passengers. The sources, however, declined to provide the exact number of helicopters for reasons of operational security.
Those detained were Nachika Jaddo, Nachika Musri, Nachika Lachna, Nachika Sudru, Nachika Sehra, Nachika Nando, Nachika Roopa, Nachika Sonna, Nachika Porda/Podda, Nachika Kuslu, Nachika Abhi, Nachika Lassu, Nachika Dora and Nachika Chuchai (both above 60), Nachika Subana, Nachika Johra and Nachika Kumlu.
SUCCESS STORY OF THE FORCES OF WORLD'S BIGGEST DEMOCRACY.
http://www.icawpi.org/en/india-news/457-orissaap-adivasis-allege-torture-in-anti-naxal-operations

[pranabjyoti]

Orissa: 17 Adivasis Tortured in Anti-Maoist Operations

By Ka Frank http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/india-police-beatdown2-2-e1274662784497.jpg?w=420&h=288 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/india-police-beatdown2-2.jpg)
The Hindu
Koraput/Khammam: Seventeen Adivasi villagers of Samna in Orissa’s Narayanpatna block claim that they were brutally assaulted in custody last week, an allegation the police have denied.
According to the villagers, they were picked up on May 9, as part of a joint operation conducted by the Orissa and Andhra Pradesh police along the inter-State border, airlifted to a police station in Andhra Pradesh and held in custody for three days before being released on May 14.
“Uniformed policemen surrounded our village on Sunday morning [May 9], when we were leaving for the market,” said Nachika Jaddo, one of those who were picked up. “Seventeen men, including two dokras [old men] were rounded up, beaten up and then dragged to a spot 2 km away.”
The villagers were then bundled into a waiting helicopter, blindfolded and flown to the Salur police station in Vizianagaram district of Andhra Pradesh.
“They tied our hands behind our back and repeatedly struck us with lathis,” said another victim, who had bruises all over the back and shoulders. “They kept asking us about Maoists, but we couldn’t understand what they were saying.”
Most of the Adivasis along the Orissa-Andhra Pradesh border speak Kondi – an Adivasi dialect – and are often unable to communicate with those outside their tribe. “They spoke to us in Hindi, Oriya and Telugu, and when we couldn’t answer, they hit us all over, including on the soles of our feet,” said a third victim.
In all, The Hindu interviewed four of the 17 victims, including 60-year-old Nachika Chuchai, with the help of a translator.
Koraput Superintendent of Police Anup Kumar Sahoo confirmed that 17 villagers had been detained for questioning, but denied that they were beaten up or airlifted. “These 17 men were found in the forest on May 9 near the site of an encounter between security forces and the Maoists.” They were then taken to Andhra Pradesh on foot, which took almost three days.” The villagers were immediately produced before a district magistrate in Salur and released on May 14. None was formally arrested, the SP said.
Informed sources in the Andhra police suggest that the villagers might have been picked up as part of a much larger exercise. According to the sources, the police operation was planned when the Andhra Pradesh police received information that members of the Kalimela Dalam, involved in the killing of 38 security force members at Chitrakonda in 2008, were moving through the Narayanpatna jungles.
On May 9, 2010, there was an exchange of fire between Maoists and the security forces. The local press reported police sources as claiming that up to 10 Maoists were killed. However, not a single body has been recovered as yet. The 17 villagers were picked up, soon after the skirmishes. According to the sources, the villagers were immediately airlifted to Salur, where they were interrogated for information on the movement of Maoist companies in Narayanpatna and subsequently released.
Intelligence sources told The Hindu that Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra share a set of Mi-17 helicopters which can carry up to 32 passengers. The sources, however, declined to provide the exact number of helicopters for reasons of operational security.
Those detained were Nachika Jaddo, Nachika Musri, Nachika Lachna, Nachika Sudru, Nachika Sehra, Nachika Nando, Nachika Roopa, Nachika Sonna, Nachika Porda/Podda, Nachika Kuslu, Nachika Abhi, Nachika Lassu, Nachika Dora and Nachika Chuchai (both above 60), Nachika Subana, Nachika Johra and Nachika Kumlu.
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/orissa-17-adivasis-tortured-in-anti-maoist-operations/#more-3545

West Bengal: Paramilitary Troops Assault Journalists (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/west-bengal-paramilitary-troops-assault-journalists/)

May 24, 2010 by Ka Frank http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/india-crpf-e1274569348765.jpg?w=400&h=214 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/india-crpf.jpg)Central Reserve Police Force, the world's largest paramilitary force

Press Trust of India
Kolkata, May 20 : The West Bengal government today said it has received a preliminary report on the alleged assault by CRPF personnel of journalists at the landmine blast site at Ramgarh in which five CRPF personnel were killed.
“A preliminary report was submitted, but I have not gone through it and cannot say what happened,” Chief Secretary Ardhendu Sen told reporters when asked about the incident.
The Press Club Kolkata condemned the assault on the journalists that allegedly took place yesterday. ”Journalists should be allowed to to do their professional duties,” the Press Club said in a statement.
One of the journalists who was allegedly assaulted said, the Jhargram area police refused to register an FIR in the incident and made a general diary entry. Another scribe claimed he had to be hospitalised because of injuries received in the assault.
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/west-bengal-paramilitary-troops-assault-journalists/
REAL CHARACTER OF THE "SECURITY FORCES" OF THE WORLD'S BIGGEST DEMOCRACY.

[pranabjyoti]

2nd Letter from Peoples’ Committee Against Police Atrocities to Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) and Lalgarh Mancha (http://www.icawpi.org/en/peoples-resistance/news/466-2nd-letter-from-peoples-committee-against-police-atrocities-to-association-for-protection-of-democratic-rights-apdr-and-lalgarh-mancha-)


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2nd Letter from Peoples' Committee Against Police Atrocities to Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) and Lalgarh Mancha
Friends, Hul Johar,
Hope you did receive the letter that we sent to you around the end of this March. We don't have any of your addresses. Moreover, posting the letter is a great problem. Interior villages do not have post offices. Where there is a posting facility, Harmads or the joint forces or both have camped near it. If the bearer of the letter is caught before it is being posted, it is certain that he/she will not return home. This is the scenario of the democratic establishment of Buddha-Chidambaram in today's Jangal Mahal. We believe that there might be a few days' delay, but you will definitely receive this letter.
The continuous false propaganda in the papers and on wireless or on TV about people's movement in the Jangal Mahal is creating a misconception about us amongst you living in urban and suburban areas. Only 10 to 45% of our statements that are coming out almost every day are covered. That too is appended with the adverse comments of a variety of people, from local newsmen to top brass of the administration.
BLEED WE MIGHT, BUT OUR MOVEMENT WILL CONTINUE
On 17th April, Asit Mahato, spokesperson of PCAPA informed the journalists that in protest against the brutal murder of 55-year old Mansaram Sardar by the Gana-Pratirodh Committee on Baisakh 1 (15th April) a bandh has been called in the district of Purulia on April 19. On that very day police officials called for a red alert in all police stations, outposts and camps in three districts of Purulia, Bankura and West Midnapur. Joint forces carried out brutal assaults in different parts of Jangal Mahal in collusion with Gana Pratirodh Committee and Harmads. Mansaram Sardar was killed in the district of Purulia in broad daylight. Therefore, in protest of these murders conducted by Gana Pratirodh Committee and the administration we called a bandh. Was it wrong on our part to call a bandh against these murder, or is this form of movement undemocratic? Right from the start of the movement in the Jangal Mahal the Chief Minister and Home Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharyya, the Union Home minister and the bureaucrats never responded to our demands and never addressed the questions that we were raising. Instead, they carried on with the adverse propaganda against the people's movement of Jangal Mahal for realizing their legitimate demands, and tried to silence the people by stationing more and more armed forces in Jangal Mahal.
A call was given to observe 19th and 20th April as Black Days in the sub-divisions of Jhargram and Midnapore in order to protest the arrest of Dr Nisith Mahato of the Paluiboni people's health centre at Pirhrakuli by the joint forces on 14th April morning. The doctor is yet to be produced in Court. Apart from this, Lachhoo Mahato, an activist of the People's committee, Gunadhar Mahato and four others, including leaders and workers from Pirhrakuli, were arrested from that village by joint forces and were never produced in any court. The joint forces and the Harmads attacked from all the directions on 14th (Chaitra sankranti) and 15th April (Poila Baisakh). People were beaten up and indiscriminately arrested. 45 persons were arrested in the early hours of 16th April, from Brindabanpur village bordering Jhargram. PCAPA gave a call to observe Black Days on 19th and 20th April opposing these attacks by the joint forces and the Harmads and the erratic arrests, and demanded unconditional release of the arrested people.
For last 5 months the state has subjected us with terrible oppression, the People's Committee against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) has stood fast among the people, sharing their joys and sorrows. Both the Congress and the CPI (M) had thought that they would be able to isolate PCAPA by unleashing this terrible terror. But their dreams remain unfulfilled. As long as state terrorizes its people, and does not take effective steps towards the solution of the problems faced by the people, PCAPA will keep on protesting on different counts, along with the people.
MURDER, ARREST, MISSING--CONTINUES
On 2nd and 3rd April Black Days were observed in West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia. Why this Black Day? Five members of the PCAPA of the Belpahari Block of the Bhuladeda area went to work at a brick kiln at Fulkusma on 21st March. This year, it is very difficult to find food because farming has suffered. No money in the bank; no paddy in the house, one ought to go out for work in order to arrange for a square meal. Five went to work, but only four returned. Santosh Murmu, poor of the poorest, was killed by the CPI (M), in particular, by the brutal forces of the Gana Pratirodh Committee.
Two of our members were killed on 26th March in Lalgarh. Gouaranga Mahato, who had gone to the jungle of Dakshinshole village to graze cattle, was beaten to death by the CRPF. No case has been registered in this matter. The dead body of Gouranga Mahato lay on the ground before all eyes. The tears in the eyes of his wife and children were wiped away by none but the village folk and PCAPA. Such is the democracy, brand Chidambaram*Buddha. This is the everyday reality in the Jangal Mahal. The heroic joint forces of Manmohan-Chidambaram-Buddha feel no shame in beating to death an old man of 55 years who had gone to graze cattle. Why was this innocent man beaten to death, who will be charged with his murder, and who will answer these questions? At that time some of our statements were published in newspapers. We thought you would come out with your reaction. Previously, you did spoke for the people. When the shedding of people's blood has become an everyday affair, is it possible to build up a resistance against this horrific state terror without your support?
On the west, in the Koira forest in Bandowan block of Purulia district, 50 years old Tarani Kumbhakar was killed on the highway by Gana Pratirodh Committee and the Harmads. Tarani Kumbhakar had left his village in fear of the joint forces and wandered here and there somehow to eke out a living. There was no case against him, nor was his name recorded in any police register. Still he fell a victim to Harmad terror. In this case also, the police did not file any FIR. Apart from these three murders, many others have disappeared without any trace.
On 25th March, Bablu Murmu was arrested by the joint forces from the Mognapur road in Dharampur. On 27th March, we started spreading this news. But there was no admission of his arrest. Finally, he was produced in court on April 3, after keeping him in police custody for almost 10 days without judicial sanction.
Jagadish Mahato, a vegetable vendor, was arrested in Manikpara bazaar on 20th March. He is yet to be produced in Court.
Sanatan Pal of Belpahari and Sagen Baske of Ramgarh were produced in court on March 23, long after their arrest. Numerous incidents like this are and taking place.
Those who had been ' vanished' by the Harmad forces are still missing. There is no official information about Jageswar Mahato (actually killed in the Kashijora Harmad camp) Mangal Mahato and Manmath Mahato and the others. The SDO is being reminded of the missing persons, but still there is no clue of their whereabouts. We neither have the money nor the opportunity to go to Honb'le Courts in this matter. Therefore, in protest, we are carrying out programs of fasting, dharna, barricades building, and bandhs. For us, no other
mode of protest is appropriate in our attempt to obtain information regarding missing persons. We expect your help and co-operation in this matter. The responsibility of rallying the urban populace beside the innocent, struggling people is also with you, please come. After sending the list of martyrs last time, ten more people have been martyred. This is a sample of Operation Green Hunt. The operation is being carried out in Jangal Mahal together with the Harmads, the Gana Pratirodh Committee and other mercenary outfits to kill and maim the poorest of the poor in the interest of the profits of national and international big companies like Tata, Jindal, and Mittal.

WHY AN INDEFINITE BANDH
It is being said that the indefinite bandhs called by PCAPA are responsible for the price rise. But, look, our demands fall upon deaf ears. CPI (M), Congress, TMC and the other parties are clamoring that the bandhs are causing great inconvenience to the ordinary people. But, there is silence in the matter of our problem. The reason for their silence is also crystal clear. It is their government that has sent the joint forces to the Jangal Mahal. The state Congress party cannot, therefore, deny its responsibility for the invasion by the joint forces. So, all the people know that these political parties will not support any movement by the people against the oppression of the Harmads and the joint forces; rather, they will only make adverse propaganda against the people. On 4th April, Home minister P Chidamdaram during his visit to the Jangal Mahal had stated clearly that the invasion will continue and more forces will be deployed.
PCAPA called three districts bandh to oppose Chidambaram' s visit on 4th April and was a complete success. Sitting at Lalgarh, Chidambaram presented opportunities for much merriment. He tried to divert the problems of the people. Chidambaram used this tour also for election propaganda. He threatened to arrest PCAPA spokes person Asit Mahato. He remembered Asit' s name, but not a word passed his lips regarding arrest of the CPI (M) murderers, the stalwarts of the various outfits for large number of murders that they did. The people of West Bengal could easily make out from all his talks and drama that on which side he stands and for whose protection he is spending the huge amount of money on joint forces in Jangal Mahal. It is now clear as daylight that the joint forces aim to re-establish Harmad regime. This was reported in a number of newspapers. Side by side, the object is to dislocate the Adivasi original habitants and hand over all the valuable mineral and forest resources to domestic and foreign capitalists like Tata, Jindal and Mittal. But what Chidambaram has said in favor of establishing the rule of the CPI (M) and Harmads in order to hand over all the resources to domestic and foreign capitalists will never be accepted by the people of Jangal Mahal.
Many were arrested from different areas on 4th April. There had been many arrests prior to this date, too. Joint forces entered villages of the Jhargram, Binpur, Bandowan, Ranibandh, Salboni, Raipur, Sarenga, Simlapal, Taldangra, Goaltore in the morning. Prisoners in police custody were dressed in police uniforms and pressurized to identify activists and supporters of the PCAPA. A barricade movement against all these atrocities started from 5th April. Roads were dug up in all places. People from hundreds of villages participated in putting up the barricades.
Administration, in every way, tried to break the people's barricade program. Wherever the police got hold of any person, he/she was beaten up and arrested. During the barricade program the police took away all the medicines belonging to the health centre at Rameswar of Salboni and arrested Jahar Mahato, in-charge of medicine supply. Apart from this, police also tried to bribe a few people with a variety of incentives to sabotage our work. Incidents of attacks from the Chandra, Dherua, Chengshol, Pirakata, Bhimpur, Lalgarh, Sijua in Malbandi (Kotwali) camps by the joint forces together with the Harmads increased manifold. In the Kandandi activists of our committee and members of the Sido-Kanhu militia
were arrested. The joint forces and the Harmad gangs tried to arrest our active worker, Sanjoy Mahato, both before and after the joint forces entered the Malbandi region. He was arrested on 2nd April. Sanjoy and Sanatan were not produced before the judiciary till 19th April. In these 17 days they were taken to various places in Salboni, Jhargram, Midnapore, Kharagpur, and Kolkata.
Since the beginning of 2009, people have confronted the Harmads near Madhupur frequently. The people's resistance was led by Kanchan Deb Sing, who was also the leader of the PCAPA in that area. After the joint forces arrived, there were many attempts to arrest him. In the last 15 months, the people, in numbers from 1000 to 10,000 strong, confronted Harmad 50 to 60 times. During the 11 months of the arrival of joint forces there were some 40-50 head-on confrontations. Hemanta Deb Sing and Jaladhar Mahato were martyred on 2.9.09. Martyr Hemanta Deb Singha was Kanchan' s brother. The joint forces duped Kanchan into captivity on April 8, 2010.
Police conducted a search operation in Radhamohanpur (Dhanaidi), the village of Kanai, Binpur area mass leader of the PCAPA. All the men left the village. After house to house searches 30 people including women and children were arrested on 8th April. Apart from this, the joint forces arrested another 200 from other places. All these incidents occurred during the pendency of indefinite barricading program. So, from 9th April, the indefinite barricading was converted into indefinite Bandh. From the evening of 13th April, the Bandh was relaxed on account of the local festivals of Chaitra sankranti and Naba Barsha (Bengali new year). We always implement a resolution keeping in mind the needs and requirements of the locals. Our movement is for defending the people's rights and interests. On the other hand, please notice that even on the days marked for festivals like Chaitra sankranti and Poila Baisakh there was bloodshed in the Jangal Mahal by the Harmads and the joint forces. Wherever there are police atrocities, PCAPA is standing beside those who are hurt, and that is why a strong mass movement against police atrocities could be built.

STAND BY THE RAVAGED VILLAGES LIKE DEULKUNDA
As the movement of the Adibasi and original inhabitants led by PCAPA, spread from Pirhakata, the armed Harmad camp retreated. The joint forces built a new camp and two new police stations are being set up in Garhgarhipal. People are no longer tolerating Harmad terror. Therefore, village after village joined the movement from Satpati to Salboni via Tyakshal. In the last four months a strong mass movement was built in this sprawling forest. Congress, especially Chidambaram, Buddha and his assistants, Dipak Sarkar, sushanta Ghosh, Tapan, Sukur are conspiring to shed blood here and establish their domination over occupied territory. This is leading to bloodshed and the numbers of the hurt are ever increasing. The number of persons displaced from villages is swelling. Retreating back from Satpati, the Harmad forces set up camp at Parulia. Then, they established a camp at Deulkunda. In January the camp at Deulkunda was transferred to two base camps at Kashikora and Ashnashuli. To protect these camps, the Satpati camp of the joint forces was shifted to Changshol. The Moupal camp was transferred to Patharkumkumi. This means that joint forces are always within 1 1/2 km of the Harmad camp.
The village of Deulkunda, with about 115 houses, is 11/2 km away from the Midnapur - Pirhakata metal road. Salboni is almost 14 km from here. In Kasijora, Ashnashuli bombs are hurled very day, firing is a norm. Harmad attack neighboring villages whenever they feel like. There is no count of the poultry and goats looted by them. They will beat up anyone they encounter, and some will be made " missing" .If anybody is made " missing" in between Deulkunda and Kashijora, or in between Jharnadanga, Kotwali, and Kashidanga, they are being kept at Kashijora. This fact is in the knowledge of police as well as administration, and the people. Still SP Manoj Verma will not take any action to free the people kept prisoner by the Harmad, nor has he ever spoken a word about them. The SP is an obedient servant of
CPI(M) bosses and remains busy in satisfying them at any cost, even tarnishing his good name and self-esteem. The SP talks and does exactly as is being told. At their orders, he is ever busy in protecting Harmad camps. To save themselves from the barbaric attacks of the Harmads, the rich and big farmers of Deulkunda have left village and taken shelter in villages on the road from Satpati to Bhadutola. Sometimes they go to relief camps organized by the TMC or by PCAPA, sometimes stay in the houses of relatives. Those who cannot go anywhere remain in the village. The moment the news comes that the Harmads are setting out, the villages are emptied and all hide in the forest. And if somebody could not understand the signal for the Harmad setting out, his/her name will figure on the list of the " missing".
Towards the end of January there was wide coverage in the media, and the police also repeatedly stated - three dead bodies were lying on the fields of Deulkunda and Bhuyasa villages. The pictures of bodies were published in newspapers and on the TV. The Maoists stated that on their side there wasn't a single casuality. Fact is that on 22.1.2010, the Harmads killed a 40-year old poor Adibasi peasant of Deulkunda, named Nibaran Soren as reprisal for the death of three Harmad. Lame from childhood, Nibaran Soren could not stand or walk properly. Manoj Verma knows this. He is afraid that if he speaks the truth, he will lose his chair.
Juktasani is a poor man, no land to speak off. His is 30 years old. Earlier he supported CPI(M). Later he joined TMC. After that, he joined the PCAPA. This is his greatest crime. On 16th March, the Harmad abducted him, no news of him till this date. According to some he has been imprisoned in the Harmad camp at Kashijorha, others say the Harmads have killed him.
On 11th April, nine in the morning, the Harmads from Kashijorha Harmad camp suddenly entered Deulkunda. Many people fled the village. There is no Sido-Kanhu people's militia in that village. So, the Harmad forces were able to abducted 28-year old poor Adivasi peasant Surai Murmu. Some said they killed him on the way. Enquiry was made, but we could not obtain any news. Again, it is heard that he was made a prisoner at Kashijorha camp.
Strangely, two central ministers Sisir Adhikary and Mukul Roy, of TMC made a statement claiming these three as their supporters. Even this we did not contest. But the question remains - what initiatives are Sisir and Mukul have taken for protecting the lives of poor tribal? The force are sent by their government which, taking the Harmads with them, is bent on a spree of destruction, killing people every day, making them " missing", looting houses and property. But they haven't visited the place even once. They haven't uttered a single word in Parliament in this matter. Not a single petition is filed in the High Court. Long live this democracy! Long lives this Constitution and judicial system! We are requesting all of you to come to Deulkunda, come with court order or advise us what can we do to save the lives of innocent, oppressed people in many villages of the Jangal Mahal and places like Howrah, Hooghly, North and South 24 Parganas, Burdwan. .

THE HARMAD CAMPS HAVE LEGAL SANCTION!
Before November 2008 uprising in Jangal Mahal, armed goons of CPI(M) and its party activists unleashed ruthless terror on the people. All activities in the village, social, economic, political and cultural, proceeded as per their dictate. All of us had to endure silently whatever was dictated by CPI(M). The Panchayats under CPI(M) control were paradises for corruption. All activities of the Panchayats were linked to the interests of the local leaders of CPI(M) and their close associates. Beating up, murder, confinement, fines, attachment of land and property, pulling down homes, looting was common occurrence. The money earmarked for all government projects was pocketed by CPI(M) leaders. It was through these funds that leaders like Anuj Pandey constructed big, palatial buildings. None
in the village was allowed to work and express opinions according to his/her own political beliefs. If CPI(M) diktat was not followed, that person had to remain imprisoned year after year in false cases. Poor tribal had to make huge expenses in meeting the legal matters. We don't know what is written in the Indian constitution. We also do not know all legal stratagems. We were never given our constitutional rights. Opposing the undemocratic practice of the CPI(M) was the biggest crime. Today the UPA government led by the Congress, and the TMC dress all these undemocratic activities in democratic clothes. They have a single-point agenda to wage war on the oppressed people of the Jangal Mahal. They have deployed the forces in Jangal mahal. Since November, 2008 till today, over an area spreading over Lalgarh, Salboni, Goaltore, Midnapore, Jhargram, Belpahari many Harmad leaders of the CPI(M) and their armed forces retreated due to the resistance of the people under the leadership of our committee. For this reason, from the beginning both Congress and CPI(M) have together conspired to equip the Harmad forces with ultra-modern weapons in order to break the resistance of the people. They have always opposed any type of democratic movement and will do so in future. They are wedded to the capitalists, both domestic and foreign. That is why they have opposed people's movement all over the country, including Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh.
Before Chidambaram' s visit on 4th April there was loud propaganda that he would go to Mangalkot, Nanoor and different places in Burdwan. Some papers reported that on Mamata' s request he would go to see CPI(M) terror in Mangalkot, Nanoor. But their beloved Home minister did not go near those areas. He came to Lalgarh after meetings Chief Minister and his Home Secretary. We knew that he wouldn't go to Mangalkot, Nanoor. We were clear in our minds that Chidambaram will not go to the areas outside the Jangal Mahal where the CPI(M) Harmads are carrying out attacks, burning homes, and every day bloodshed occurs and people murdered in turf wars between the CPI(M) and the TMC. His political compulsions are such that he has to be friends both with Buddha and Mamata. He came to Lalgarh, but visiting the relief camps of the people displaced due to attacks by the Harmads and the joint forces, or the villages affected by their atrocities was not in his agenda. On the occasion of Chidambaram' s visit the whole of Jangal Mahal was converted into a khaki forest. One could see only police force all around. A ' most wanted' list featuring all our leading activists was displayed. But people know who the real criminals are. To the people of the Jangal Mahal, today Buddha-Chidambaram-Biman-Manmohan-Mamata*Bhupinder-Chief and Home Secretaries to the Dipak and Sushanta are the real criminals. The people will judge their crimes.
According to our sources on 22nd March, there were 27 Harmad camps in Jhargram sub*division. The number has increased. The Harmads in these camps have ultra-modern weapons. All these weapons have been given to them by the joint forces and the police. With the joint forces, Harmads wearing police uniform, enter villages, ransacking and looting our belongings. Their only task is to get hold of leading activists. Everyday they attack villages in the Goaltore, Salboni, Kotwali areas. Standing against all these attacks is our greatest sin in the eyes of Chidambaram-Manmohan- Mamata-Buddha. therefore, attacks on us are increasing. And, hence we have strengthened our resistance. If we don't resist, leave alone peoples' lives, even chicken and goats won't survive. As a result we are dreaded criminals, and are the " most wanted." And those whose acts and those whose orders are making the life of the people miserable and unbearable in the Jangal Mahal, starting from murder and loot to rape, are not criminals under the law. If today we put up a " most wanted" list for Buddha-Chidambaram-Manmohan who are responsible for all these well-planned, organized crimes, immediately the administration and media, and a section of the intellectuals elite will raise a hue and cry. Different papers published from Kolkata have carried reports on the Harmad camps. The governor M K Narayanan, who expresses anxiety off and on about the situation in the Jangal Mahal, and speaks in favor of the joint forces, knows in detail about the Harmad camps set up before and after he came to West Bengal as governor. He was National Security Advisor during the Nandigram movement. At that time he knew very well the fire-power of the CPI(M) in. He knows well how the IPS officers and the Police Association are linked to the CPI(M). Not only he, but all Congress leaders at the national and state level know it. Still they didn't utter a single word about the Harmads in Nandigram and Lalgarh. We don't expect them to do so. On 12th April Sambad Pratidin published a part of the written report sent by the central intelligence department to the central Home Ministry regarding Harmad forces. We have also reported on Harmad camps earlier. Apart from this we, too, are appending a list. All this is for your perusal. Please see how his matter can be taken to the public. Our lives have no security till these camps are vacated.
Now, the Left government is appointing a section of the Harmads as Special Police Officers. In this way in Bengal implementing the Salwa Judum offensive is taking a legal form. In the name of appointing sons of the soil in the police force, Left Front government has decided to appoint thousands of armed Harmad cadre as police personnel. The Sambad Pratidin news paper brought out a report about this on 10th March. (A copy of the report is being appended.) Please find a way to stop these appointments. We firmly declare that we will fight the Harmads in this big Jangal Mahal and further intensify the movement. We believe that, together with the people of West Bengal, every one will stand beside this democratic people's movement.
The fact is that the Left and Congress governments want to create unrest and pain in our lives by snatching away all land and forests and displace us. Therefore, Harmads will become SPOs. Their camps will officially become police camps. Instead of muskets will come Insas and ultramodern weapons like the AKs. So far, Harmads attacked unofficially, though wearing police uniform, Insas and AKs in hand. From now on, they will do this officially, lawfully, obeying the Constitution. Great! Transforming the illegal into the legal! Today is not the day to sit silent. United we must all participate in further intensifying the fight against these fascist armies.

FREE TREATMENT AND MEDICINE ARE AVAILABLE AT THE PEOPLE"S HEALTH
CENTRES, NOT GUNS AND CARTRIDGES
Few months after November 2008 uprising, the first two health centers were set up in Kantapahari and Chakadoba by health department of PCAPA. Hundreds of patients visited these two health centers every day for treatment. Free treatment and medicines were available at these health centers. Later, many more health centers came up in different villages. Now, 26 health centers are functioning. In two/three places, the health centers had to be shut down due to oppression by the joint forces, but were reactivated later. Only Kantapahari health centre could not be opened. Every day a minimum of 50 to100 patients come to each health centre for treatment. Every day, a total of 2500 to 3000 patients are supplied treatment and medicine in all of these health camps. One can understand how many are being provided free medical services from 26 health centers. The health service can have only one aim, serve the sick. More than 150 rural doctors are dedicated in serving the people. They are examining the health of the people of Jangal Mahal with all sincerity. The joint forces are carrying on attacks every day to close these health centers and are spreading rumors. The media is also peddling the lies of the government with bold headlines. Our resolution to reach the people of Jangal Mahal with health services cannot be broken by any force. In spite of so much oppression and lies, we will keep the health centers functioning.
Police is repeatedly attacking these health centers. Jahar Mahato, Nisith Mahato of Pirhrakuli are still in police custody. Apart from this on 14th April 14, Chaitra Sankranti day, the doctor of Paluboni was beaten up and his bike was snatched while he was visiting the fair at Kalashol in Keshpur Police Station.
It is the responsibility of the government to provide health services to its people. But, what do we see in Jangal Mahal? The government is always indifferent. For last many years, we put many requests for setting up a health centre to the government. And today when, instead of waiting for the mercy of sleeping Kumbhakarna, we are building health centers in village after village on our own initiative, and the rural doctors here are working heart and soul at the health centers, then the government is concentrating attack on our health centers and doctors.
If the centre and the state want to run health centers in the villages, we have no objection and never had any. We will co-operate in every way. A health centre for every five villages is an urgent need. Medicine and treatment must be free. Transforming government hospitals into business centers has made looting the public its chief concern instead of providing service.
Our demands: We must be allowed to run the health centers. Attacks must stop. Looting of medicines must stop. Doctors mustn't be harassed. Let the government
understand well, that the medicines of our health centers are not cartridges. If the government provides us with the medicines, we will not hesitate in accepting them.
We request you to a organize, all over West Bengal, a movement to inform people against the attacks of the joint forces and evil propaganda, help us and co-operate with us in every way to run the health centers.

THREAT TO CHHATRADHAR MAHATO IN JAIL
The central and state government have kept our spokesperson, Chhatradhar Mahato in jail, implicating him in numerous false cases. Till date, he has not been given the status of a political prisoner in jail. A few days back the jailer of Midnapore jail threatened Chhatradhar, Raja Sarkhel and Prasun. In protest, they went on fast in jail itself. On 11th April, there were meetings and rallies all over in Jangal Mahal in support of their fast. Instead of moving over the metal roads, the processions traversed the interior regions of hundreds of villages, because the joint forces are stationed in large numbers on the metal roads. The processions had only one slogan --- If something happens to Chhatradhar, Raja and Prasun, we won't spare the jailer.
Today it is clear, as the day, that the judicial system has surrendered to the CPI(M) and the police. Those who are now arrested are kept in police custody. They are being produced in court 10 to 15 days after arrest. After this the judge is again remanding them in police custody. The judicial system of this country sees everything, knows everything, hears everything, and yet remains deaf and blind. Inhuman torture is being inflicted, while in police custody. People in police custody are being forced to wear police uniform and brought to village after village to identify PCAPA leaders and supporters. This procedure puts to shame stories of torture in custody during the colonial rule of the British. In this way Chidambaram and the Congress government are implementing the policy of suppressing the tribal revolt and letting the Harmads occupy villages. Whatever may the state Congress leaders say about the Harmad terror by word of mouth, they are sitting with heads bent. For whose protection has the CRPF been stationed and the Black laws enacted? You know that better than us!
In reaction to the above, the administration, different political parties and a section of civil society will immediately cry - anti-state, unconstitutional, illegal statements! We don't know or understand so much about the constitution and legality. But, friends will you please tell us which legal or constitutional right we are enjoying? We see that one can be arrested and produced in court 10-15 days afterwards; we see our friends go ' missing' after arrest; after raping our mothers and sisters the rapist joint forces and the Harmads strut about arrogantly; we see after killing out beloved leader Lalmohan Tudu his dead body is not handed over to his relatives. Punishment of those who are responsible for these acts is a far cry, not even a case is filed!
Friends, we the Adibasi and original habitants of Jangal Mahal declare that our rightful war, our ' dharmayuddh' against this judicial system which is awarding legality to all these acts of exploitation, injustice and oppression, rape of mothers and sisters, illegal arrests, making people ' missing', will continue, we won't bow down.

LEFT IN STATE, UPA AT CENTRE: DISTRESSED SOCIO-ECONOMIC LIFE IN THE
JANGAL MAHAL
Due to the invasion of the joint forces, the people of Jangal Mahal, for the last one year, are not able to organize various social functions and activities like funerals, marriages, fairs. One cannot even work nor do his job with satisfaction. Not only this, due to the tactics of the joint forces there is no protection for the lives of our children. We are indicating a few incidents -Doctor Arun Mahato of the Paluiboni health centre went to the Shiv Mela at Keshpur as he did every year. What happened there has been narrated above. Arun' s socio-economic condition is very similar to that of most common people, But, still he was beaten. He was not allowed to offer Puja or worship. For the last one year the people of Jangal Mahal have not been able to participate in funerals, marriages, local fairs and other festivals. The joint forces and the Harmads have throughout the year obstructed the various social activities of the people.
1. Hearing that the joint forces would set up a camp to protect the property of Khagen Mahato, MLA at Srinathpur on 26th March, more than 2000 people went in procession to Srinathpur High School. The MLA and Manik Mahato, Secretary of the School committee, fled from the village in mid-February. The people requested the teachers not to give space for a camp in the school. Suddenly, the particular teacher wanted to leave, he told later that the President of Zonal Committee intends to make him informer. He did not want to betray his people, therefore he did not go to school for further work. That is how he lost his job!
2. On 1st April a person from a village near Ashunashuli (Harmad base camp) in Salboni block, under pressure from the Harmads, agreed to give them information about us. When this was noticed by the villagers they argued with him not to do this. On April 2, he was called to a people's court. Almost 1000 people gathered there. In front of them he declared that he would not be involved in anti-people activities. On hearing of this the CPI(M) threatened to take his life. He left the village. Now with the help of people he is live elsewhere for a new livelihood.
3. On 3rd April the Maoists detonated a mine explosion on the Lalgarh road. The villagers were used to locate the site of the burst. In the Jangal Mahal there are bomb squads, high ranking police officers, thousands of policemen; still the villagers must search out the explosion site, which code of war allows this? This happens time and again. Whoever they find on the road, old men, women, children, they will detain him for searching operation. We have raised this issue many times before the human rights organizations. But the police are continuing with the same. If now we take measures to protect our lives and rights, will you object? Has the constitution given us the right to save our lives? We cannot accept till sacrifice of our lives.
4. On 15th April the villagers of Chandabila village in the Kotwali thana area netted out the fish in all ponds of the village. In the late afternoon, CRPF came from the Bargacchia joint camp, beat up everybody and detained some people. If we go deeply into this matter you will understand how deeply assaulted and badly off we are. At one time the land and ponds of the village were our property. But why don't we have any right over this property now? Five or six Thakur families came from Uttar Pradesh. Our land, the fish in the ponds, trees and the forest, and honour, all our rights was looted. The chieftain of this loot was Nadu Singh. One son of Nadu Singh died in mass fury. Another is a Salwa Judum chief. Azad Singh is a leader in Enayatpur. Nadu Singh lives in Chandra village. When the struggle intensified other four families left the village. Still Nadu Singh by one means or another used his power to give the police news about different villages in the Dherua region. These Thakur families and especially the jotedar Nadu Singh target locals in different ways. Reoccupation of the village is their main aim. We maintain that the people of the village have rights over all that fish, ponds and land. And the struggle to defend these rights will continue.
5. 10th April, the joint forces surrounded a marriage location in search of Maoists. Relatives had come to attend the marriage. The groom was abducted on the plea that there were Maoists in the marriage place. Then how will marriage take place? The bride is time-barred from marriage for life. In Adibasi society removing the groom from under the wedding canopy is a great crime.

There are numerous incidents as above. These occurrences provide a partial picture of the atrocities. We demand that this suppression mission which has shattered the socio*economic life of the people of the Jangal Mahal should be withdrawn immediately. People are not going to tolerate this. The newspapers do not publish detailed reports regarding the occurrences. Looking only at government reports, if you think the teacher left the job voluntarily, children-old men-villagers are looking for land - mines together with the joint forces voluntarily, then you are making a mistake. We call you to raise your voice for protection of human rights of the people of Jangal Mahal, for protection of their life and livelihood. Raise your voice for their rights, and against snatching away even the minimum rights of participating in various social functions, from funeral to the marriage.

OUR DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME AND DEMANDS
Since the joint forces has started to move in, many of our leading supporters were killed, arrested, and were made ' missing'. Only very few have retreated. The terror created by the joint forces and the Harmads has been increasing day by day. Even in the middle of all this we have continued with various programs for the development and uplift
of the life of the people of Jangal Mahal.
In Jangal Mahal the problem of drinking water and irrigation are long-standing ones. In summer the problem becomes acute. The people of Jangal Mahal have repeatedly requested the administration for a solution to the problem of drinking water and irrigation, but have not been addressed. After the mass uprising of October 2008, we ourselves started developmental programs without waiting for the administration. Side by side with building health centers, we took some new initiatives for solving the problem of drinking water and irrigation. Quite a few irrigation projects were taken up, and for drinking water, some new wells and tube-wells were sunk, old ones were repaired. After the joint forces entered they started to obstruct our developmental work. Fighting the terror of the joint forces and the Harmads, we tried our best to move ahead with the developmental work. From November 2009, we sunk new wells and tube-wells in different villages, repaired the old ones. In the mean-time, 25 borings were repaired in the Simulpal region. These had been lying wasted for a long period, almost for three to seven years, due to lack of repair.
Arrangements for drinking water were made in villages like Simulpal, Dakai, Labani, Shankhavanga, Pakuriashol, Jamaimari, Patharchakri, Thakranpahari, Machhkandna, Chalkivanga, Kankribarna, Burishol, Balichua, Birmadal, Ghaghra etc. Apart from this, in that area the wages for digging bauxite were increased. Health centers were open in the Jhargram, Simulpal, Belpahari regions. The activities of the forest department, wood smugglers, and mafias were stopped. A movement for increasing the wages for Kendu leaves resulted in an increase from Rs 44 to Rs 60 per unit. Also, the charge for carrying leaves to Chichira from the deep forests of Orissa was enhanced from Rs 150to Rs 300.
For irrigation, six shallows pumps have been sunk in February-March, and work on few more is in progress. We submitted definite demands for strengthening the systems for irrigation and drinking water to all gram panchayats of the area. In the mean-time we have discussed people centric development with the locals.
WHY FORCED TO CALL A BANDH AGAIN
Today, 21st April, a 24 hours Bandh is being observed in the Jangal Mahal. Why this bandh? The police have spread lies about two Maoists killed in an intense exchange of fire with the Maoists in the forest of Valukbasa on 18th April. In fact, there was no exchange of fire and no one died. On that day, the police surrounded different villages from the morning. One person was made ' missing' in Ringta village, two others were taken away from Chichiria village. One was beaten to death and the other admitted to hospital with serious injuries. Police is calling the person they beat to death, a Maoist. Apart from this, on that day the villagers of Valukbasa village were made to sit at one place since morning to evening. On that day the joint forces raped three women. On the Jhargram side, a groom was taken away from the marriage pandal. We called bandh on the 21st against all these incidents. The DG Bhupinder Singh lied to the press that 10 Maoists had been arrested. None of them are Maoists. The Maoists in their statement have said that four of their leaders have been arrested from different locations and that they were not produced in court. Chandrasekhar, a member of their Bangla-Jharkhand-Orissa Regional committee, was arrested from Nayagram on 14th April. The same day, in another incident, one Rajen was arrested from Pirhrakuli of Salboni thana area, and two persons called Rajesh and Krishna were arrested from Shirji of Jhargram. None of them has been produced in court. So, they called Bangla-Jharkhand*Orissa border region Bandh on 26th and 27th April.
Our organization, the People's Committee against Police Atrocities has called for a continuous program of barricading from 22nd April. Non-production in court after arrest is a norm of Operation Green Hunt. Following the directives of the United States of America, and in the interest of domestic and foreign capitalists like Mittals, Jindals etc., the government is pursuing Operation Green Hunt to facilitate different SEZ projects like the Jindal' s SEZ project in Salboni. We think that it is extremely urgent and necessary to carry on a vigorous and continuing movement against this policy. We send you such reports as we collect from the field of struggle. We hope your greater attention over this matter of state aggression. Our struggle for the human rights of the people of Jangal Mahal, the right to express one's opinion, the right over water-forest-land, development and uplift of people, and life of honor and respect will continue. In conclusion, we call you: Come to the Jangal Mahal, see with your own eyes the true picture of the people under attack. This is the demand of democracy. Resisting state terror is an important characteristic of the work of civil liberty organizations.
21.4.10

Thanking you
Hul Johar

Board of Spokespersons
Main Spokesperson Asit Mahato, Phone No. 8016161545 Spokesperson Manoj Mahato, Phone No. 9002466621 Spokesperson Ajit Mahato, Phone No. 9679970517 Spokesperson Lochan Singh Sardar, Phone No. 973460104
People's Committee against Police Atrocities
http://www.icawpi.org/en/peoples-resistance/news/466-2nd-letter-from-peoples-committee-against-police-atrocities-to-association-for-protection-of-democratic-rights-apdr-and-lalgarh-mancha-
OPEN LETTER FROM PCPA (PEOPLES COMMITTEE AGAINST POLICE ATROCITIES). THERE ARE SOME MOBILE NUMBERS AT THE BOTTOM. ANYONE INTERESTED CAN CONTACT AND TALK WITH THEM.

[pranabjyoti]

Fix root causes: Dantewada report author to Govt


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New Delhi : The man the Home Ministry chose to inquire into the killing of 76 CRPF personnel by Naxalites in Dantewada last month has a very different opinion of the Naxal problem than that of the Ministry or Home Minister P Chidambaram. Former BSF Director General E N Rammohan, who submitted his inquiry report to Chidambaram, today said the government must address the "root causes" of the Naxal problem without which counter-insurgency operations would not be successful.
Delivering the annual K F Rustamji lecture at the BSF investiture ceremony here, Rammohan said the main causes of Naxalism were related to land and forest rights of tribals, and states which had implemented land reforms and enforced land ceiling legislations had not been touched by the Naxal insurgency. He gave the example of Kerala in this regard.
"The government must take strong action to ensure justice for the lowest strata of people in these areas. Fighting is not the answer to the Naxal problem," he said.
Though the Home Ministry always insists that its anti-Naxal strategy is two-pronged - police operation being supplemented with efforts to ensure development of the region - it never fails to point out that Naxalites are indulging in criminal activities and killing innocent people without justification.
Rammohan said Naxalites were being forced to commit criminal acts and the main reason why Naxalites were targeting security forces was to take control of their weapons, which they had no other means of procuring.
He said the discovery of minerals in these areas had added a new dimension to the problem. "A very simple question now arises. Who does these mineral deposits belong to? Does it not belong to the people who have been living there for hundreds of years?" he asked.
Having submitted his report, Rammohan is no longer associated with the government and was speaking in his personal capacity. But his comments were contested by some serving officers present in the audience, who were of the opinion that the government had little option but to establish its superiority in the conflict with Naxalites.
Rammohan also saw some merit in the role of non-governmental organisations espousing the cause of Naxalites and said the government can utilise their services in reaching out to Naxal groups.
"After all why would a professor in Delhi University want to go to Chhattisgarh and support Naxalites? I think these people are concerned about the injustice prevailing in the system. Such NGOs should not be discouraged. In fact, their services can be utilised by the government in solving the problem," he said.
Chidambaram, who has repeatedly criticized these NGOs for taking a one-sided view of the problem, was present at the investiture ceremony but had left before Rammohan delivered the lecture.
THEY CAUSE IS CLEAR EVEN TO THE OFFICERS OF SECURITY FORCES.
http://www.icawpi.org/en/india-news/464-fix-root-causes-dantewada-report-author-to-govt

[pranabjyoti]

India: Maoist ‘land reforms’ for tribals & landless (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/05/26/india-maoist-%e2%80%98land-reforms%e2%80%99-for-tribals-landless/)
The Telegraph – Calcutta Wednesday , May 26 , 2010
PRONAB MONDAL
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/dramapur.jpg?w=350&h=240 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/dramapur.jpg)Dharampur (West Midnapore), May 25: Maoists in Lalgarh have said they would distribute among the poor and landless the land and property belonging to CPM leaders and workers who have fled the area. A local Maoist leader said on Sunday that the rebels would resist if the administration tried to “hamper” their “land-reform initiative”.
“CPM leaders like Anuj Pandey (the zonal committee secretary of Binpur), whom we consider anti-people, have become rich by exploiting the poor. We have taken the decision (to distribute land and property) for the benefit of the tribals. We will fight back if the government tries to hamper our mission,” Ratan, a member of the Dharampur local committee of the CPI(Maoist), told The Telegraph.
The Naxalites are distributing leaflets, informing the residents of Lalgarh and Dharampur — where they plan to start the “mission” — about the move.
“These reactionaries (CPM leaders and workers in Lalgarh) are anti-people. They have fled their villages because of the people’s movement. We will have to take possession of their land and property and distribute them among landless farmers and day labourers. If there is not much land, then farming should be done by forming co-operatives,” the leaflet said.According to CPM sources, more than 50 party leaders, workers and supporters have fled their homes in Lalgarh and Dharampur in the past two years. In June last year, Maoists drove out Pandey from Dharampur and demolished his two-storey house.
Explaining the “new initiative” of the Maoists, Ratan said that while distributing land and other assets among the poor and the landless, they would “take into account their financial condition and daily earnings”.
“We will turn the ponds belonging to the escaped CPM leaders into fisheries, which will be run by co-operatives. We are creating a database of the land and other assets available,” Ratan added.
Pandey, who has taken refuge in Midnapore town, said he was helpless. “I have left everything behind. What can I do if they (the Maoists) take away my land and property?” he said.
West Midnapore superintendent of police Manoj Verma said the police would take action if the victims lodged complaints. “If we receive any complaint, we will register a case of trespassing against the offenders and initiate legal action. We can also start a suo motu case if we have enough evidence that land has been forcibly occupied,” he said.
Intelligence sources said they had informed the state government that Maoists from Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhand had assembled at the Bhalukbasha forest, 30km from Lalgarh town, on Tuesday.
“A group of 42 armed Maoists has arrived at the Bhalukbasha forest. They are carrying explosives like gelatine sticks. We believe that they have come to either carry out a major operation or resist any attempts by the government to stop the Maoists’ initiative,” an intelligence official said.
Not only guns. The making of future is under progress.

[pranabjyoti]

thousands protest “staged” killings in kashmir (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/05/29/thousands-protest-staged-killings-in-kashmir/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/kashmir-protest.jpg?w=250&h=171 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/kashmir-protest.jpg)sat, may 29 2010
srinagar (reuters) – at least 28 people were hurt in indian kashmir on saturday when police fired teargas shells at thousands of demonstrators protesting the killing of three villagers in an alleged fake gun battle by security forces, witnesses said.
The fresh “staged” killings could trigger widespread protests across the muslim-majority region where rebel violence is waning but anti-indian sentiment still runs deep.
Late last month, army said its soldiers killed three muslim militants while trying to cross over to indian kashmir from pakistani side on line of control, a military control line that divides the disputed region between two nuclear armed rivals.
But three families in north kashmir’s baramulla area said the slain men were innocent relatives who had gone missing days before the border clash.
Authorities in kashmir on friday ordered a probe and into the killings and also exhumed the three bodies, which were found to be those of the missing men, an official said.
“army has already ordered a high level internal enquiry into the incident to bare the facts transparently and to bring to book anybody if found guilty,” chief minister of jammu and kashmir, omar abdullah, said in a statement.
“allah-hu-akbar (god is great), down with indian forces,” the protesters shouted, as they marched with the bodies of slain men in baramulla, 50 km (31 miles) north of srinagar, kashmir’s summer capital.
Government forces in the revolt-torn himalayan state in the past have been accused of murdering innocent civilians in staged gun battles and passing them off as separatist militants to earn rewards and promotions.
Officials say more than 47,000 people have been killed after a revolt against indian rule broke out in 1989. Human rights groups put the toll at about 60,000.
(reporting by sheikh mushtaq)
http://in.reuters.com/article/idinindia-48905320100529
the real character of the "security(?) force" of world's biggest democracy. Give them some clap.

[Crux]

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/orissa-police-attack-1500-villagers-at-site-of-planned-posco-steel-plant/#more-3276
A VERY DANGEROUS TREND IN THE TACTICS USED BY STATE. They provoked a part of the people (who are greedy, fickle minded) against another part of their same class or community and posing this incident as "unrest" and feigns as if the state is intervening to stop the unrest. In Chattisgar district of India, where the revolutionary struggle is most intense, the had chosen the greedy, opportunist part of the Adivasi locals to organize against Maoists and when the Maoists counter attacked on them, the media start crying "Maoists are attacking common people".
I know that there are some kind of LEFTISTS(!), who often repeat imperialist BS and blatant lies like the above to show that Maoists aren't REAL REVOLUTIONARIES. I just want to describe the real fact behind such kind of incidents here.
Statement from the CWI: Police assault in Orissa condemned (http://www.revleft.org/vb/showthread.php?t=135831)

[pranabjyoti]

dear sir,
i am writing in the context of the brutal attack of the orissa police on the peaceful protesters of the posco pratirodh sangram samiti in jagatsinghpur district, orissa. More than 100 people, including many women, have been injured; those seriously injured are receiving no medical care; the police have burned houses and shops as well as the protesters' tents; and the police are blocking the entry or exit of any person from the area. This kind of atrocity can never be justified. But what makes it doubly criminal is that the orissa government claims to be doing so as they have rights over the land.
i am afraid that this is a blatant falsehood. there are some aspects of the proposed posco project which i wish to bring to your attention:


3000 of the 4000 acres to be given for posco's steel plant are classified as forest land.
under the scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dwellers (recognition of forest rights) act, many of the people of the area are eligible for rights over this land, especially the lands they are cultivating, as they have been living in the area for more than 75 years.
the orissa government has done nothing to implement this law. The dhinkia gram sabha passed a resolution on march 23, 2008 , initiating the process as required under section 6 of the act and also exercising their power under section 5 of the act to protect the surrounding forest lands. Till date the government has taken no action and has acted as if the law does not exist.
on december 29, 2009 , in direct violation of their own circular of august 3rd, 2009 and of the forest rights act, the environment ministry issued final clearance for posco to utilise the land.
after opposition from political leaders, including myself, on january 8 th the environment ministry was forced to "clarify" that the clearance is subject to the forest rights act and to the august 2009 circular of the ministry. Hence, said the letter, the "project cannot go ahead" until the rights of the people are recognised and their consent obtained through gram sabha resolutions.
in the first week of february 2010, all three gram sabhas of the area passed resolutions rejecting the project. as such under the law the forest clearance is now invalid and must be withdrawn; the project cannot proceed in that area. Yet the environment ministry has done nothing about this.
despite this, the orissa government has been publicly claiming that the clearance has been granted, and it is on that basis that it has dispatched police to attack the peaceful protesters of the area.

this is quite apart from the fact that the project itself is nothing less than an attempt to strip this country's mineral resources for a foreign multinational, with no benefit to either the people of the area or the economy of this country.
on november 4, 2009 , you described the forest rights act as a "landmark legislation." is this the manner that the government is going to treat this "landmark legislation"? I urge upon you to immediately intervene, instruct the environment ministry to withdraw the illegal clearance, review the posco project in light of the fact that it is a notorious blacklisted multinational, and halt the police atrocities against the struggling people of the area.
sincerely,
(d. Raja)
member of parliament (rajya sabha)
national secretary, communist party of india
can you understand why the indian people are taking arms against the world's biggest democracy? I hope now you can.

[pranabjyoti]

Army may step in, chief to meet Chidambaram NEW DELHI: With Army chief General V K Singh meeting home minister P Chidambaram after the latest incident involving Maoists on Friday, the armed forces are finalizing action plans to meet any contingency if their role in the ongoing anti-Naxalite operations is extended beyond the present training, surveillance and logistical.

"If the government orders us, we will have to step in and take the lead. Drawing up of concrete contingency plans have gained momentum after the Army commanders' conference earlier this month discussed the likely developments and resources required for the anti-Naxalite operations," said a senior officer. The 1.13-million strong Army is already expanding its presence in Naxalism-hit states like Orissa and Chhattisgarh, with two "sub-area headquarters" coming up at Ambarda and Jagdalpur.

"Then, the Para-Special Forces training establishment at Nahan in Himachal Pradesh is likely to be shifted to Chakrabhatta near Raipur, where 2,700 acres of land with an airfield are being allocated," said an officer.

"Though the sub-area headquarters headed by brigadiers are static organisations, they will help if more Army units are deployed in the region. Along with the police and paramilitary forces, the aim is to dominate the 'Red Corridor'," he added.

The armed forces, however, still remain strongly opposed to being directly employed in the anti-Naxal
operations, given their commitments in counter-insurgency duties in Jammu and Kashmir and the North-East as well as along the borders. Defence minister A K Antony, on his part, has also held the armed forces will not be deployed in a direct role in the operations.

The Army, which has already trained around 47,000 police and paramilitary personnel, has instead proposed the setting up of a separate and dedicated counter-Naxalism training establishment to train "homogeneous companies" of paramilitary and police personnel.

While the Army currently provides training and advise to police forces, IAF has deployed Mi-17 helicopters for reconnaissance, logistical and casualty evacuation duties in the anti-Naxal operations, apart from occasionally providing AN-32 transport aircraft.

On Friday, the IAF also deployed a Chetak, a Dhruv and two medium-lift Mi-17 helicopters from the Kalaikunda air base to assist in relief work at the site of the train derailment in Jhargram in West Bengal, even as an AN-32 aircraft carried a medical and surgical team from Jorhat.
http://www.icawpi.org/en/india-news/469-army-may-step-in-chief-to-meet-chidambaram
COMRADES, SHARPEN YOUR PROTEST. MORE DEMONSTRATION BEFORE INDIAN EMBASSIES AROUND THE WORLD.

[pranabjyoti]

Mumbai: Arundhati Roy has hit out at the Congress saying the party is double-faced on the Maoist issue even as reports gather steam about the possible use of Army against the rebels.
“Army being called against Maoists? This is the militarisation of democracy. We should all be aware that within the Congress there is a division of labour. Rahul and Sonia Gandhi are the good guys, and Manmohan Singh and P Chidambaram are bad guys. But there is consensus beneath all this. The government’s strategy is if you can’t wipe them out then buy them out,” Arundhati said at a press gathering organised by Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR) in Mumbai on Wednesday.
Defence Minister AK Antony had a 90 minute meeting with the three defence chiefs about the use of armed forces against Maoists on Tuesday. But the final decision will be taken by the Union Cabinet. Currently, the Army is training the CRPF personnel on how to tackle the Maoists, while Air Force is helping in logistical operations.
Antony had hinted of a possible use of armed forces at the NDA passing out parade in Khadakvaskla on Monday.
Arundhati had also blamed the government for exposing the tribals to the threat by rebels following the May 17 attack by Maoists on a civilian bus in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh in which at least 41 people including civilians were killed.
She has been leading the movement against the Government’s offensive against Naxals saying that their demands are genuine and the authorities should focus on the grievances of the tribals to solve the problem.
The Booker Prize winner also wants the Government to start peace talks with the rebels, stop Operation Green Hunt and resettle people rendered homeless in the Naxal-infested areas of the country.
THE REAL CHARACTER OF STATE IN THE RULERS.
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/06/02/arundhati-says-indian-congress-is-two-faced-on-maoists/#more-3990

[pranabjyoti]

Overview: In October, 2009, about 25 organisations from across India met in Bhopal to address the increasingly rampant use of sexual violence as a method of State repression. While women’s organisations in states under the AFSPA have long protested the gory list of rapes, murders and disappearances of women in their regions, the State, rather than heed the call of justice and contain its security forces and police, is continuing its violence on women’s bodies as a method of intimidating communities across even more regions of India. Even as the women of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Jammu & Kashmir continue to reel under the ongoing brutalities committed by both the armed forces and the insurgents, the deployment of the paramilitary, the army regiments and the state police commando units in substantial parts of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa and West Bengal makes a mockery of the State’s Constitutional commitment to protect its own citizens.
Under the broad banner of “Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression” we have come together to strongly and unitedly say “NO ….NOWHERE….NEVER…and NOT ON ANY PRETEXT” to sexual violence against women.
We demand that the State take immediate and active steps to stop the sexual violence against women across the country- through conflict resolution and through containing its armed forces. In this Centenary year of 8th March – International Women’s Day we would like this cry to rage from struggling women all over the country.
As a part of our campaign’s strategy of women physically gathering and publicly protesting in areas that are under active armed deployment by the State, we, together with women’s organisations in Chhattisgarh, held a Convention in Raipur on 12-13 December, 2009.
Now, in deeper solidarity and with more voice, intent and power, this national Campaign is concretely moving forward to show our opposition to the ongoing violence against our sisters in the Northeast of India. If justice is to be served, we need a strong and powerful coalescence of women across India to prevent more rapes and sexual torture of women by the armed forces and police, to punish those guilty and to ensure that the State does not turn a blind eye to its own agencies’ gross violation of women’s right to a life without violence.
INVITATION!!!! TO OUR NEXT MEETING
You are invited to participate in our next meeting on 6-8 May, 2010 in Imphal, Manipur. This meeting is jointly hosted by various women’s rights organisations of the North-East. Starting with the landmark Nupilal (Women’s War, the first organized women’s protest) in 1904, these organisations have been very alert, brave and vocal in protesting against the unabated and unresolved violence dominant in the seven North-eastern Indian states for nearly 40 years. Civilian freedom has been oppressively curtailed in these states and security forces have been given special powers and significant immunity in all their violations.
Despite the 2005 report of the Ministry of Home Affairs explicitly and unequivocally calling for both the repeal of the AFSPA (1958) and significant amendments to the UAPA (1967, amended 2004), innumerable women continue to be subject to sexual violence, rape, abduction and killing; many youth and children don’t know a life away from violence.
It is time society across India wakes up to the injustices meted to these societies through sheer civilian indifference, State callousness, Union ineffectiveness and army brutality. Your physical presence here is a statement of solidarity with our sisters in the North- east in asking for judicial justice, executive fair play and legislative accountability in the dealings of the State and to ensure peace and order in all areas of the Indian Union.
Contributions: You can also support us by sending a money order or cheque to this Campaign; receipts will be provided. This is a non-funded grassroots effort by women from across India to stem the violence being perpetrated upon our bodies and on our societies both by the State’s forces and by the inability of our government to resolve conflict in a meaningful, sustainable and effective manner.
Please contact ([email protected]), ([email protected]), Sree ([email protected]) or your local representative to join us, endorse this call and/or to contribute monies.
Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression
As represented by: AIPWA, AISA (Delhi), APDR (West Bengal), Action India, All Tripura Indigenous and Minority Association, Alternate Law Forum, Baiga Mahapanchayat (Chhattisgarh), Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan, Committee against Violence on Women (Tamil Nadu), CPDR (Maharashtra), Campaign for Justice and Peace (Karnataka), Chhattisgarh Mahila Adhikar Manch, Chhattisgarh Mahila Mukti Morcha, Dalit Adivasi Manch (Chhattisgarh), Dalit Stree Shakti (Andhra Pradesh), HumAnE (Orissa), HRLN (Madhya Pradesh), Hengasara Hakkina Sangha (Karnataka), Human Rights Alert (Manipur), IRMA (Manipur), IWID, Jagori (Delhi), Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan (Madhya Pradesh), Jan Jagruti Manch (Chhattisgarh), Lalgarh Morcha, Lokayata (Maharashtra), MARA, Madhya Pradesh Mahila Manch, NBA (Madhya Pradesh), Namma Manasa (Karnataka), Nari Mukti Sanstha (Delhi), Navsarjan Sanstha (Gujarat), Naya Chhattisgarh Mahila Sangh, Nirantar (Delhi), PSSK (Chhattisgarh), Patel Pat Chaunki (Chhattisgarh), Pratidhwani (Delhi), PUCL (Karnataka), Rachna Manch, Rohidas Mahila Kalyan Samiti (Chhattisgarh), Saheli (Delhi), Sahmet (Madhya Pradesh), Samajwadi Jan Parishad (Madhya Pradesh), Samata Vedike (Karnataka), Samanatha Mahila Vedike (Karnataka), Sangini (Madhya Pradesh), Vanangana (Uttar Pradesh), Vidyarthi Yuvjan Sabha, Women’s Right Resource Center (Madhya Pradesh), Yuva Samvaad (Madhya Pradesh), Stree Adhikar Sanghatan (Uttar Pradesh), Stree Jagruti Samiti, Trade Union Solidarity Committee (Maharashtra), Women Against Militarization and State Violence (The Other Media), Women’s Right Resource Center, Women’s Education Forum (Chhattisgarh), and many individuals.
IF YOU ARE A WOMAN, THEN THE WORLD'S BIGGEST DEMOCRACY ISN'T A GOOD PLACE FOR YOU.
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/women-in-india-unite-against-sexual-violence-and-state-repression/#more-3795

[pranabjyoti]

To All Who Are Concerned About the People of India (http://www.icawpi.org/en/intl-campaign/solidarity-statements/474-to-all-who-are-concerned-about-the-people-of-india)[/URL]




Add Your Voices to Stop the War on Indian People


Once it was Operation Blue Star, now it is Operation Green Hunt.
Do you know?


The Indian government has declared war against its own people? It is called Operation Green Hunt. According to the government they have deployed 150,000 troops in India's central and eastern states. Independent witnesses say the numbers are closer to 250,000. This is more than the number of US troops in Afghanistan. This is war on the Indian people.
Recent statistics show 37% of the country's people suffer from chronic malnutrition and 50% are undernourished. The government's response?
To sign MoUs with large foreign and Indian companies to grab land from people, to displace them, so that corporations can prosper. The government introduced the Special Economic Zones Act in 2005 which allows large companies to acquire land, exempts them from tax, foreign exchange laws, labour and environmental laws, agricultural laws and special protections for indigenous peoples.
That nearly a third of India is under army occupation with no democratic freedoms? That all over India arrests, detentions, disappearances have increased to alarming levels since the people began resisting the corporate take over of India?


The People's Response?
The people of India, in particular the Adivasis (tribal people), peasants in rural areas are resisting the displacement, evictions and the military occupations. Since 2005 a series of struggles have broken out throughout in India. The landmarks include Kalinganagar (January 2006), Singur (May 2006), Nandigram (March 2007) Lalgarh (November 2008) Jagatsingpura (Feburuary 2009) (Narayanpatna (November 2009). Within India, government's military offensive, Operation Green Hunt, has aroused widespread opposition from democratic and progressive sections of the people committed to justice for the oppressed.
At this crucial juncture, it is vital that all progressive and democratic minded people outside India rally behind the people of India in their opposition to the war and the destructive economic policies pursued by the government.
The numbers of people affected by this full scale war are several times larger than the whole population of Iraq and Afghanistan put together. The people of Britain have a long and enduring relationship with the people of India. British people committed to democracy and a just society stood by the Indian people in their struggle for independence, in their struggle against the Emergency in 1975. Indian people are once again fighting against tyranny and injustice. We call on all people in Britain to join together and raise their voice against the Indian government's war against the Indian people. We call upon British people to support the just struggle of the most dispossessed and poorest people on earth that have dared to challenge the might of the international monopolies and corporations.
For more information on the Indian government's war on the Indian people visit International Campaign Against War on People of India: www. icawpi.org


Let us lend voice to the international demands:


Immediate cessation of all armed operations against the people.
Immediate suspension of land acquisitions and displacement
Stop extra judicial killing
Release all political prisoners



Get Involved. Contact: Indian Workers Association (GB)
[email protected]
Appeal from the Indian workers association in Great Britain.
[url]http://www.icawpi.org/en/intl-campaign/solidarity-statements/474-to-all-who-are-concerned-about-the-people-of-india (http://www.icawpi.org/en/intl-campaign/solidarity-statements/474-to-all-who-are-concerned-about-the-people-of-india?format=pdf)

[pranabjyoti]

Assam and Rashtriya Rifles Tipped for Duty in Operation Green Hunt (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/06/08/assam-and-rashtriya-rifles-tipped-for-duty-in-operation-green%c2%a0hunt/)
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/india-manipuri-protest-fake-encounters.jpg?w=300&h=199 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/india-manipuri-protest-fake-encounters.jpg)Women in Northeast India protest army brutality

New Delhi, June 7: The Centre has decided to re-deploy the army-led Assam Rifles from border duties in the Northeast to Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh in a blueprint that is being drawn up for a renewed stage in the counter-Maoist offensive.
The re-deployment is contingent on three factors: the situation on the ground wherever the forces are currently deployed, the availability of civil police to replace the units that will be re-deployed and the weather (the onset of the monsoon could make a large-scale redeployment tardy).
A large-scale attack by the Maoists after a series of killings in the past two months could well mark the tipping-point that would convince the Centre that police action was less-than-sufficient and it would switch gears in the drive against the rebels.
The director-general of military operations (DGMO), Lt General Anand Mohan Verma, currently on a force-projection exercise if the army were to be deployed in Left Wing Extremism-affected areas, was in the eastern command headquarters in Fort William, Calcutta, on June 4 and subsequently on a tour of Manipur, where the blockade by NSCN(IM) is snowballing, and to army formations in the Northeast to assess the availability of manpower and resources for duties in the hinterland.
Sources in the defence and home ministries have confirmed to The Telegraph that a re-deployment of forces was on the agenda of the cabinetcommittee on security, scheduled for June 10.
A senior home ministry official said the ministry wanted to put the BSF in charge of the Indo-Myanmar border and re-deploy the Assam Rifles, headed by a major general, for “counter-insurgency”.
The Assam Rifles is deployed not along the border but 20km inside, leaving scope for infiltration. Moreover, with insurgency on the decline in the Northeast, the other duties obviously lie in east and central India.
On Friday, the DGMO was given a briefing by the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C), Eastern Command, Lt General Bikram Singh, on the situation in the Northeast and especially on the situation in Lalgarh and the Bengal-Jharkhand and Bengal-Orissa border zones.
The army’s central command monitors Maoist activity but the Bengal area falls under the eastern command. The DGMO was himself the general officer of the Bengal Area as a major general.
The re-deployment of the Assam Rifles, and also, possibly, battalions of the Rashtriya Rifles from Jammu and Kashmir, need the concurrence of both the defence and home ministries and the army. The Assam Rifles is officered by the army. The Rashtriya Rifles, also officered and mostly staffed by the army, was raised specifically for counter-insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir and its mandate would have to be amended. It is likely that the RR’s U (Uniform) force could be pulled out of currently responsibilities in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Assam Rifles has nearly 50,000 men in 46 battalions and the Rashtriya Rifles about 40,000 soldiers in five “forces” — Delta, Kilo, Romeo, Victor and Uniform. The Assam Rifles is raising an additional 20 battalions in this, its 150th year.
While the possible deployment of the Assam Rifles and the Rashtriya Rifles “in support of” the counter-Maoist offensives still means that the army’s role will be short of a full-scale commitment, the army, through the defence ministry, will seek legal provisions in support of its actions.
This essentially means it will insist on the extension of the Disturbed Areas Act and include the Armed Forces Special Power Act in specified zones in eight states where the army’s central command has assessed the Maoists are active.
Section 3 of the AFSPA allows the government to decide whether a state or areas within it are “in such a disturbed or dangerous condition that the use of armed forces in aid of the civil powers in necessary”. Though law-and-order is a subject in the state list under the Constitution, the power to declare an area “disturbed” also vests with the Centre.
A preliminary assessment projects the need for 10 battalions (each of between 900 and 1,100 troops) spread over three sector headquarters commanding troops in Chhattisgarh, Orissa and in the Bengal-Jharkhand-Orissa zone. This deployment will be in addition to the state and central forces already in operation.
In addition to the establishment of the sector headquarters — one in Chhattisgarh (Raipur) and another in Orissa (Koraput) are already being developed — the army has agreed to set up more schools for specialised training to state and central forces in jungle warfare. Till now, the army has trained some 47,000 policemen.
While the army’s involvement in the counter-Maoist offensive could run just short of a full-deployment (unlike Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast), the Indian Air Force has issued strict directives to its crew in support of the counter-Naxalite offensive to keep their signatures low and stay out of the line of the fire as far as possible.
In the standard operating procedures that have been drawn up for the IAF in these areas, helicopters are flying with the IAF’s own armed Garud special forces soldiers while transporting the police or while evacuating casualties.
This has caused some consternation because the IAF’s insistence on foolproofing landing sides has often meant a delay in sorties. One officer pointed out, for example, that in the April 6 incident in Mukram, many of the CRPF troopers bled to death even as they were being flown to a hospital in Jagdalpur.
The IAF has insisted that the central and state police guarantee “perimeter security” around helipads, ensuring that they are out of the range of small arms fire. The Garud is tasked specifically with securing the IAF’s own assets.
Helicopter pilots have been asked to go only for “steep approaches” while landing and “steep take-offs” while taking flight. This means that they must fly as high as possible to keep out of firing range of insurgents.
The IAF currently has six helicopters doing duty in these areas and the BSF has two. The home ministry has asked for up to 35 additional helicopters from the army and the IAF. A proposal is afoot to lease more choppers from Pawanhans for logistics and evacuation.
The home ministry is yet to receive views from other ministries prior to the CCS on the proposal for deployment of army in Maoist-affected areas.
A bloodbath is on the way. Comrades, sharpen your protests.

[pranabjyoti]

adivasi girls accuse police of rape in chhattisgarh village (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/06/11/adivasi-girls-accuse-police-of-rape-in-chhattisgarh-village/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/mukram-village-dantewada-chhatisgarh.jpg?w=300&h=200 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/mukram-village-dantewada-chhatisgarh.jpg)mukram village, dantewada, chhatisgarh

two sisters live in a clearing in the forest about 10 km beyond the abandoned houses and empty yards of mukram village in chhattisgarh’s dantewada district. A third young girl cowers in the courtyard of her aunt’s house in neighbouring tokanpalli. Between 14 and 18 years of age, kose, rame and hidme (names changed) say they fled their homes in mukram after they were sexually assaulted by special police officers of the chhattisgarh police on may 22 this year.
“we can’t return to mukram,” said rame, “if they [the spos] find us again, they said they would cut my body into pieces and bury it in cement and no one would ever find it.”
situated in the heart of territory dominated by the communist party of india (maoist), mukram lies along the only road that links the isolated police camps of jagargunda, chintalnar, chintagupha and polampalli to national highway 221. While the road is open to civilian traffic, supplies for the police camps are sent every few months in heavily guarded convoys.
Seventy six members of the security forces were killed at a spot about 4 km from here on april 6 when they were ambushed by maoists.
On may 29, the hindu reported that five men from mukram, including the sarpanch, aimla nanda, had been picked up by soldiers participating in a road-opening operation and that three women had been dragged to the crpf camp and assaulted.
Though superintendent of police dantewada, amresh mishra, denied the villagers’ claims last month, the women, whom the hindu recently interviewed at length in private, provided graphic and disturbing accounts of the sexual assault they were subjected to by the spos.
“i was attacked at about 4 p.m. On the same day that the force took away aimla nanda. Two spos grabbed me from my house and took me to the crpf camp in chintalnar,” said hidme, “we were surrounded by spos and walked through the jungle.”
at some point en route, the girls allege, the spos threw them to the ground and beat them brutally till they soiled themselves. “i was kicked and hit in my genitals until i bled profusely,” said rame, “the bleeding continued for several days after the attack.”
“after beating us in the jungle, the spos stripped us naked, threw us in a small pond and told us to wash ourselves,” said hidme, “they then took us to the chintalnar camp where they called us maoists and beat us again.”
“we were saved only when a senior policeman saw us in the camp and ordered the spos to let us go,” said hidme, “he kept saying ‘why have you brought them here? What are you doing to them?’”
“in such a conflict, reports of rape are often used to discredit security forces,” said o.p. Pal, acting superintendent of police dantewada, “we have not received any information regarding this incident.” but mr. Pal said he would inquire into the matter, adding that the chhattisgarh police was a “disciplined force”.
real character of the armed forces of india. Nothing unusual about it.

[pranabjyoti]

indian pm singh: “bhopals will happen, but the country has to progress” (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/06/13/indian-pm-singh-%e2%80%9cbhopals-will-happen-but-the-country-has-to%c2%a0progress%e2%80%9d/)


http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/indian_pm_manmohan_8c69.jpg?w=400&h=294 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/indian_pm_manmohan_8c69.jpg)manmoham singh and barack obama

by devinder sharma
13 june, 2010. ground reality (http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.com/2010/06/bhopal-will-happen-but-country-has-to.html)
there can be nothing more disgusting and deplorable. Only an indian prime minister can make such a statement and get away. Imagine if the us president obama had ever said this, even in the context of the recent oil spill in the gulf of mexico, the people of the us would have castigated him by now.
And this reminds me of what mr p chidambaram (in his earlier avtar) had said long ago during one his travels to the united states. Talking to some business heads and tycoons, mr chidambaram had reportedly said something like this: “the last time you came, you came for 200 years. This time, please plan to come for a longer duration.” this statement of his was quoted widely, and yet parliament refused to be provoked enough to demand his resignation, and shun him for ever from public life.
P chidambaram’s remarks assume importance in the light of the mandate he is being entrusted as the head of the group of ministers (gom), which includes remediation measures at the site of the 1984 disaster. According to the hindu (june 11, 2010): “mr chidambaram and mr kamal nath, who were the ministers of finance and commerce, respectively in 2006, endorsed the proposal that would get dow — which now owns union carbide — off the hook with regard to remediation, or clean up of the contaminated site. Ironically, both ministers are part of the gom, leading some ngos to allege that their inclusion represents a ‘conflict of interest’.”
if this is true, and i have no reason to disbelieve this, how can we hope to get justice for the bhopal victims. Why shouldn’t we therefore demand that the government set up an independent group comprising respected public figures to look into this, rather than depend upon the ministers to suggest a way out. If these ministers were capable of doing it, the clean-up would have been done long ago. We all know this is merely an exercise to divert nation’s attention from an equally more important decision that was taken by the then congress government.
Let us not succumb to the political blackmailing being done by the spokespersons of the ruling upa-ii to see that the name of the person who ordered that mysterious phone call to the then chief minister of madhya pradesh be drowned in the din. Every day i see them on several tv channels, making not only a fool of themselves but also the nation.
The truth must come out.
It didn’t come out all these years because we as a nation refused to do our bit. We did not express our anger and anguish. We refused to ask our politicians to explain why they kept quiet. We refused to flood the media (inlcuding newspapers) with letters demonstrating our anger. Even now i find, after the disgraceful bhopal gas verdict, while there is outrage all around, people are simply refusing to stand up and be counted. They even feel shy to point finger where it should be pointed at. Most of the people who matter are afraid not to upset the powers that be. They know if they stand up they might be deprived from being a member of a task force or the other.
Merely saying that we as a nation are ashamed means nothing. If you are truly ashamed, you need to come out and do your bit. You could start by demanding former chief minister arjun singh to be forced to spell out the name of the person who called him on that day to release warren anderson. You could start by asking the law minister to make necessary provisions in the law that can make the judges accountable to the nation. Why should the law of the land not apply to supreme court judges?
It is in this context that i would like to thank the outlook editor vinod mehta for publishing a report “signals from above” by young journalist debarshi dasgupta (june 21, 2010), which starts with the quote: “bhopals will happen, but the country has to progress.” hard to believe, and enraging too. According to sathyu saramgi, a member of the bhopal group of information and action, a voluntary body, this is what prime minister manmohan singh told him and six of his colleagues when they met him on april 17, 2006 to press for action against union carbide corporation (ucc), a wholly owned subsidiary of the american firm dow chemical company since 2001. “yes, i remember that clearly. This is what the prime minister said,” sarangi tells outlook.
The article is quite revealing. It provides you just a peep into the sordid nexus between politicians and the industry. The bigger battle is being fought in the jungles of the tribal belt of india.
the real character of indian rulers.

[pranabjyoti]

India’s Government-Media Operations against Arundhati Roy (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/06/16/indias-government-media-operations-against-arundhati-roy/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/india-a-roy-at-lectern.jpg?w=265&h=300 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/india-a-roy-at-lectern.jpg)Operation Green Hunt’s Urban Avatar
By Arundhati Roy
14 June, 2010, The Dawn
While the Indian Government considers deploying the army and air force to quell the rebellion in the countryside, strange things are happening in the cities.
On the 2nd of June the Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR) held a public meeting in Mumbai. The main speakers were Gautam Navlakha, editorial consultant of the Economic and Political Weekly and myself. The press was there in strength. The meeting lasted for more than three hours. It was widely covered by the print media and TV. On June 3rd, several newspapers, TV channels and online news portals like Rediff.com, covered the event quite accurately. The Times of India (Mumbai edition), had an article headlined “We need an idea that is neither Left nor Right”, and the Hindu’s article was headlined “Can we leave the bauxite in the mountain?” The recording of the meeting is up on YouTube.
The day after the meeting, the Press Trust of India (PTI) put out a brazenly concocted account of what I had said.
The PTI report was first posted by the Indian Express online on June 3rd 2010 at 13.35 pm. The headline said: “Arundhati backs Maoists, dares authorities to arrest her.” Here are some excerpts:
“Author Arundhati Roy has justified the armed resistance by Maoists and dared the authorities to arrest her for supporting their cause.”
“The Naxal movement could be nothing but an armed struggle. I am not supporting violence. But I am also completely against contemptuous atrocities-based political analysis.” (?)
“It ought to be an armed movement. Gandhian way of opposition needs an audience, which is absent here. People have debated long before choosing this form of struggle,” Roy, who had saluted the “people of Dantewada” after 76 CRPF and police personnel were mowed down by Maoists in the deadliest attack targeting security forces. “’I am on this side of line. I do not care…pick me up put me in jail,’ she asserted.”
Let me begin with the end of the report. The suggestion that I saluted “the people of Dantewada” after the Maoists killed 76 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) is a piece of criminal defamation. I have made it quite clear in an interview on CNN-IBN that I viewed the death of the CRPF men as tragic, and that I thought they were pawns in a war of the rich against the poor. What I said at the meeting in Mumbai was that I was contemptuous of the hollow condemnation industry the media has created and that as the war went on and the violence spiraled, it was becoming impossible to extract any kind of morality from the atrocities committed by both sides, so an atrocity-based analysis was a meaningless exercise. I said that I was not there to defend the killing of ordinary people by anybody, neither the Maoists nor the government, and that it was important to ask what the CRPF was doing with 27 AK-47s, 38 INSAS, 7 SLRs, 6 light machine guns, one stengun and a two-inch mortar in tribal villages. If they were there to wage war, then being railroaded into condemning the killing of the CRPF men by the Maoists meant being railroaded into coming down on the side of the Government in a war that many of us disagreed with.
The rest of the PTI report was a malicious, moronic mish-mash of what transpired at the meeting. My views on the Maoists are clear. I have written at length about them. At the meeting I said that the people’s resistance against the corporate land grab consisted of a bandwidth of movements with different ideologies, of which the Maoists were the most militant end. I said the government was labeling every resistance movement, every activist, ‘Maoist’ in order to justify dealing with them in repressive, military fashion. I said the government had expanded the meaning of the word ‘Maoist’ to include everybody who disagreed with it, anybody who dared to talk about justice. I drew attention to the people of Kalinganagar and Jagatsinghpur who were waging peaceful protests but were living under siege, surrounded by hundreds of armed police, were being lathi-charged and fired at. I said that local people thought long and hard before deciding what strategy of resistance to adopt. I spoke of how people who lived deep inside forest villages could not resort to Gandhian forms of protest because peaceful satyagraha was a form of political theatre that in order to be effective, needed a sympathetic audience, which they did not have. I asked how people who were already starving could go on hunger strikes. I certainly never said anything like “it ought to be an armed movement.” (I’m not sure what on earth that means.)
I went on to say that all the various resistance movements today, regardless of their differences, understood that they were fighting a common enemy, so they were all on one side of the line, and that I stood with them. But from this side of the line, instead of only asking the government questions, we should ask ourselves some questions. Here are my exact words:
“I think it is much more interesting to interrogate the resistance to which we belong, I am on this side of the line. I am very clear about that. I don’t care, pick me up, put me in jail. I am on this side of the line. But on this side of the line, we must turn around and ask our comrades questions.”
I then said that while Gandhian methods of resistance were not proving to be effective, Gandhian movements like the Narmada Bachao Andolan had a radical and revolutionary vision of “development” and while the Maoists methods of resistance were effective, I wondered whether they had thought through the kind of “development” they wanted. Apart from the fact that they were against the Government selling out to private corporations, was their mining policy very different from state policy? Would they leave the bauxite in the mountain – which is what the people who make up their cadre want, or would they mine it when they came to power?
I read out Pablo Neruda’s “Standard Oil Company” that tells us what an old battle this one is.
The PTI reporter who had made it a point to take permission from the organizers to record cannot claim his or her version to be a matter of ‘interpretation’. It is blatant falsification. Surprisingly the one-day-old report was published by several newspapers in several languages and broadcast by TV channels on June 4th, many of whose own reporters had covered the event accurately the previous day and obviously knew the report to be false. The Economic Times said: “Publicity seeking Arundhati Roy wants to be Aung San Su Kyi”. I’m curious – why would newspapers and TV channels want to publish the same news twice, once truthfully and then falsely?
That same evening (June 4th), at about seven O’clock, two men on a motorcycle drove up to my home in Delhi and began hurling stones at the window. One stone nearly hit a small child playing on the street. Angry people gathered and the men fled. Within minutes, a Tata Indica arrived with a man who claimed to be a reporter from Zee TV, asking if this was “Arundhati Roy’s house” and whether there had been trouble. Clearly this was a set up, a staged display of ‘popular anger’ to be fed to our barracuda-like TV channels. Fortunately for me, that evening their script went wrong. But there was more to come. On June 5th the Dainik Bhaskar in Raipur carried a news item “Himmat ho to AC kamra chhod kar jungle aaye Arundhati” (If she has the guts Arundhati should leave her airconditioned room and come to the jungle) in which Vishwaranjan, the Director General of Police of Chhattisgarh challenged me to face the police by joining the Maoists in the forest. Imagine that- the police DGP and me, Man to Man. Not to be outdone, a Bharatiya Janata Party leader from Chhattisgarh, Ms Poonam Chaturvedi announced to the press that I should be shot down at a public crossroad, and that other traitors like me should be given the death sentence. (Perhaps someone should tell her that this sort of direct incitement to violence is an offense under the Indian Penal Code.) Mahendra Karma, Chief of the murderous ‘peoples’ militia the Salwa Judum which is guilty of innumerable acts of rape and murder, asked for legal action to be taken against me. On Tuesday June 8th the Hindi daily Nayi Duniya reported that complaints have been filed against me in two separate police stations in Chhattisgarh, Bhata Pada and Teli Bandha, by private individuals objecting to my “open support for the Maoists.
Is this what Military Intelligence calls psyops (psychological operations)? Or is it the urban avatar of Operation Green Hunt? In which a government news agency helps the home-ministry to build up a file on those it wants to put away, inventing evidence when it can’t find any? Or is PTI trying to deliver the more well-known among us to the lynch mob so that the government does not have to risk its international reputation by arresting or eliminating us? Or is it just a way of forcing a crude polarization, a ridiculous dumbing down of the debate-if you’re not with “us” you are a Maoist? Not just a Maoist, but a stupid, arrogant, loudmouthed Maoist. Whatever it is, it’s dangerous, and shameless, but it isn’t new. Ask any Kashmiri, or any young Muslim being held as a “terrorist” without any evidence except baseless media reports. Ask Mohammed Afzal, sentenced to death to “satisfy the collective conscience of society.”
Now that Operation Green Hunt has begun to knock on the doors of people like myself, imagine what’s happening to activists and political workers who are not well known. To the hundreds that are being jailed, tortured and eliminated. June 26th is the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Emergency. Perhaps the Indian people should declare (because the government certainly won’t) that this country is in a state of Emergency. (On second thoughts, did it ever go away?) This time censorship is not the only problem. The manufacture of news is an even more serious one.
THE REAL CHARACTER OF FREE PRESS REVEALED AGAIN. Still, there are "leftists(?)" who are advocating FREE PRESS :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:.

[t.shonku]

Hey guys some intelleuctuals just got arrested check this news out

http://breakingnewsonline.net/newswatch/2397-intellectuals-arrested-in-lalgarh-for-links-with-maoists.html

[pranabjyoti]

West Bengal: Suspected Maoists Treated like Animals to be Hunted (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/06/19/west-bengal-suspected-maoists-treated-like-animals-to-be-hunted/) Death And The Maiden
17 June, 2010, Countercurrents.org
A photograph featured in The Hindu, dated 17-06-2010 shows (http://www.hindu.com/2010/06/17/stories/2010061764270100.htm)security personnel in West Bengal , carrying the body of a woman killed in a purported raid on a Maoist hideout.
http://www.countercurrents.org/template_clip_image001_0000.jpg
The woman’s body had been trussed up like the carcass of a dead animal. The photo speaks volumes of how the Indian state views those it considers a threat to the internal security of the nation – as people beneath its contempt and consideration.
The photo featured alongside that of the dead woman shows a ‘captured’ young adivasi man, barely past his adolescence – a face that could stand in for a large number of disenfranchised, poor and desperate tribals, who are being treated as enemies of the state for merely wanting to lead a life of autonomy and dignity.
Merely labeling the dead woman and this young man ‘Maoist’ does not explain the reasons for their disenchantment with the Indian state’s policies, both at the regional and national levels – policies which are calculated to deprive them of their right to life and livelihood. Nor does such a labeling take away from the cynical and outrageous disregard and disrespect that these photos represent.
There is a civic decorum that democratic life demands we share, and the media is as much a party to this compact. But when the media presents such photos without comment, and agrees to treat a section of the Indian citizenry as little more than animals to be hunted, one wonders what the democratic contract is all about – perhaps it is a lovely fiction that we all like to invoke when struggles for equality and justice turn violent; and which we allow ourselves to forget when we feel triumphant over our political opponents or when we wish to endorse those who are clearly enemies of the people, as in the Bhopal case.
S. V. Rajadurai is a writer, translator and civil rights activist. He has written widely in Tamil and English on a range of subjects including socialism, anti-caste radicalism, literature and society, art and revolution. A long time member of the People’s Union of Civil Liberties, he has been active in the campaign against the death penalty. Formerly a professor with the Centre for Periyar Studies, Bharathidasan University, Trichy, he continues to write and participate in civil rights work.
V. Geetha is a writer and editor, currently with Tara Books, Chennai. She has been active in the women’s movement for over two decades, and has written in Tamil and English on gender, caste, anti-caste radicalism and socialism.
Rajadurai and Geetha have jointly authored Towards a Non-Brahmin Millennium: from Iyothee Thass to Periyar, Samya, Kolkatha, (1998); 2006
See how they treat terrorists. How are they themselves should be treated?

[pranabjyoti]

Maoist Development Projects in West Bengal (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/06/19/maoist-development-projects-in-west-bengal/)


http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/india-lalgarh-mass-meeting-2.jpg?w=300&h=225 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/india-lalgarh-mass-meeting-2.jpg)Mass meeting in Lalgarh area

Maoland in Midnapore
Chhotomoni Mahato (65), who earns her keep by plucking saal leaves in Patri village of West Midnapore, contributed Rs 10 to a Maoist-backed organisation to dig a pond in the area.
Those employed in various jobs in the locality are asked to stump up 20-25 per cent of their income for similar so-called development projects.
This is the Lalgarh area, 160 km west of Kolkata, deep inside West Midnapore district. Maybe extortion, but the Maoists have taken over the civic services, the law and order machinery, and even the judicial services in the area.
It is a “secret state” that seems to have survived the onslaught of 5,000 personnel of the Centre-state combined forces for the past one year.
In June last year, Hindustan Times went to discover this state within a state, carefully shielded from the public eye, emerging in different parts of West Midnapore.
The picture hasn’t changed.
In Kalsibhanga village, members of the Maoist-backed People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) have created an irrigation canal that is 1,200 feet long, 5 feet wide, and also 5 feet deep.
The canal is connected with a pond that is 10 bigha (10 bighas = 144,000 square feet) in area. “This monsoon, we expect the surrounding farmland to get the needed irrigation through this canal. It will definitely increase rice production,” Manoj Mahato, PCAPA central committee member, told HT.
Inspector General (Western Range) of Police Zulfikar Hasan said: “We are aware that the PCAPA is running health centres. We have closed some of them.”
While there are allegations of extortion from local contractors, traders and service holders, the rebels say the contribution of funds and labour from people is voluntary.
The rebels have built and repaired roads of 50 km in some villages of the Jhargram sub-division.
The PCAPA claims to have dug about 200 wells, besides renovating around 1,000 existing ones, in their areas of domination, which spreads over 27 police stations in the three districts of West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia.
“The CPI(M)-led government in West Bengal never carried out development in this area,” said Lalmohan Mahato.
He had been a CPI(M) member before quitting the party in early 2009, in protest against corruption.
In Rameshwarpur village under the Bhimpur panchayat, the rebels run a health centre that offers service for 12 hours in the day. There are two doctors here though there are nine untrained persons who offer medical consultancy.
“This centre treats about 100 patients every day,” said Mahato.
The centre was in a government building that housed an anganwadi unit (mother- and child-care centre) before the rebels took it over more than a year ago.
There are 35 such health centres in the entire district. Rameshwarpur functions as headquarters for health services and medicines are dispatched from here.
In April 2010 the combined forces raided this centre and seized medicines, which was a temporary setback for the Maoist dispensation. “The forces took away medicines worth Rs 40,000 and smashed the almirahs,” said Haripada Mahato, in charge of the Rameswarpur health centre.
However, West Bengal CPI(M) State Secretariat member Robin Deb said the government had no objection to health centres, which are good for people. But if arms and ammunition is stored in them, the security forces must intervene.
The rebels are building a six-bed hospital next to the Rameswarpur health centre. “The basement has been built. It will be functional in two months,” Haripada Mahato said.
“Are they really building a hospital there?” asked an incredulous Aneesh Sarkar, deputy superintendent of police (operations), West Midnapore.
He is in the dark about it.
They don't need the rulers for development. They can do that by themselves. That's what peoples initiative can do.

[pranabjyoti]

Sanhati Statement against Arrest of Activists in Lalgarh (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/06/20/sanhati-statement-against-arrest-of-activists-in-lalgarh/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/india-lalgarh-mass-arrests.jpg?w=320&h=207 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/india-lalgarh-mass-arrests.jpg)
Sanhati, June 17, 2010
We strongly condemn the detention and subsequent arrest of Nisha Biswas, Manik Mandal and Kanishka Choudhury, activists from Kolkata who were visiting Lalgarh to investigate the rampant human rights violation by the police and paramilitary forces in those areas.
The three activists, along with three print and electronic media journalists, had been visiting the Salboni-Lalgarh area since 14th June, documenting the atrocities and destruction wreaked by the joint state and central forces and the armed CPI(M) harmads who are backed by these same police forces.
On 15th June, all the six persons were detained by the joint forces from Lakshmanpur village in Salboni. Along with them around fifty villagers were also rounded up. Although the journalists were subsequently released, the three activists were charged, together with seven villagers who are activists of the Peoples’ Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA), with violation of Sec. 144 of the Criminal penal code, which has been in force in Lalgarh for the past one year.
We learn with great concern that when they were produced in Midnapore court on 16th June, they were charged with multiple false cases under various sections including waging war against the state, criminal conspiracy and unlawful assembly, as a result of which they were denied bail and remanded to 14 days jail custody, although the original charge of violating Sec. 144 is a bailable one. We unequivocally condemn this blatantly illegal act of human rights violation by the police and demand the immediate release of the three persons.
This act by the police is also a marker of the situation in Lalgarh one year after the entry of the joint forces into the area. For the past one year, Sec. 144 has been in force in Lalgarh, which is unprecedented in the history of independent India. Members of civil society have not been allowed to enter Lalgarh during this time and repeated attempts have resulted in detentions and arrest by the police.
Lalgarh has become out of bounds for citizens of India, in complete violation of the fundamental right to the freedom of movement throughout the territory of India enshrined in the Constitution. In this situation, the area has seen unprecedented human rights violation by the state forces in the form of killings, rapes, beatings, looting of household goods, indiscriminate arrests and charging with false cases. dd
Together with this has been the rampage by the CPI(M) harmads, who have reenterd the area in the wake of the security forces. In this backdrop the normal economic and social life has completely broken down in the entire region. We note with profound concern that the behaviour of the CRPF and other state forces have been like that of a foreign occupying force, possibly worse, and provides a taste of what Operation Green Hunt is doing to the adivasis over the entire central Indian region.
We think that the latest arrests of the activists is the continuation of the intimidatory tactics by the government to break the resolve of civil society to stand beside the struggle of the adivasis of Lalgarh for dignity and justice, and demand their immediate release and the withdrawal of the joint forces from the region.
Statement from Sanhati.

[pranabjyoti]

India: How the Forest Rights Act Tramples Tribal Rights (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/06/20/india-how-the-forest-rights-act-tramples-tribal-rights/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/india-cmas-march-thru-village1.jpg?w=300&h=225 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/india-cmas-march-thru-village1.jpg)Tribals protest in Orissa

Samay Live, June 8, 2010
Trampling Tribal Rights
By Rajesh Sinha
Naxalism is only one – and an extreme – reaction to what is happening, and being done, to the people in these areas. Despite talk of development and the arguments about Naxalism being a hurdle to it, the actual situation on the ground gives the lie to government’s claims. 

Take the example of Forest Rights Act, as “The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006″ is commonly called.
Touted as a shining example of government’s ‘aam aadmi’ oriented approach, the Forest Rights Act (FRA) aims to restore the rights of forest-dwelling communities to land and other resources which were denied to them under the continuing colonial forest laws which do not take into account the ways of life of tribal communities. It provides for recognition of individual family rights over land it traditionally used which was treated as “encroachment,” as well as community rights over land and forest, such as for grazing and forest produce.
Over two years after the FRA came into force, a visit to Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh – two of the Naxal-affected states – showed that instead of getting the promised benefits, tribals and forest dwellers are, on the contrary, engaged in a desperate fight to save their home, hearth and source of livelihood. A large number of them face displacement as the land they have lived on for generations is in danger of being handed over to various industrial and mining companies.
The FRA, in effect, has remained on paper. It has conferred much too little to far too few: a maximum of about half an acre to less than one per cent of the families covered by the Act. As for village community rights over pastures and forest produce, these are yet to be taken into account.
So far, a total of two persons have “benefited” in Latehar district of Palamau division from the Forest Rights Act. These two adivasis from Durup village were allotted between 0.2-0.4 acres of land – barely enough for sustenance. The actual, average size of land villagers have is between 1.5- 4 acres. 

Villagers all over Palamau division, waiting for completion of the process of recognition of their rights over lands they occupy, had similar tales to narrate: “Forest officials tell us we will be given “20 decimal – 50 decimal” (0.20 acres – 0.50 acres) at the most. Those who have five acres will get a maximum of 0.5 acres.”
When Palamau deputy commissioner (DC) Amitabh Shukla announced the settlement of claims of around 170 villagers on April 14, many of them were those processed by ‘thekedars’ (contractors), according to Awadh Singh. The sizes of plots allotted, “averaging one acre” according to the DC, was between 0.4-1 acre, said Singh. The actual sizes were three to four times this size but the villagers, in awe of ‘sahib log’, government servants, were browbeaten into agreeing to this. 

Forest officials are seen as the most serious hindrances to full implementation of the law. According to activists, forest officials not only do not extend any help to those wanting to exercise their rights over forest land as stipulated in the law, they resort to various devices to deny them those rights.
The forest official, who is a mandatory member of the joint verification team often does not turn up for meetings to settle claims. A forest department functionary in chief conservator’s office said the claims were not being processed fast enough as no claims were being received. “We can clear the applications only when we get them,” he said. 

Corruption, too, has muddled the process. According to Awadh Singh, involved in helping villagers in the implementation of the Forest Rights Act, the ‘amin’ who measures the piece of land claimed by a family, often demands Rs 1500-Rs 2500 from every villager for doing his job. Hence, so far, according to latest data, Jharkhand has settled claims of slightly over 9,000 tribal families.
Compare – or contrast – this with the eagerness with which the government has rushed through MoUs (Memorandum of Understanding) with corporate entities, awarding them nearly two lakh acres of land, much of it forest, with utter disregard to environmental and social concerns. In Keradari Block in Hazaribagh district, 1,300 acres of the total about 1,400 acres that have been given to a corporate house is forest land, says leading activist Dayamani Barla. Not a single villager in the area has yet been given any ‘patta’ or piece of land under the Forest Rights Act.
It is the government and the corporate houses that are aware of the land and resources available; the people who have been given the right over their land are not. Many, even within 30 km radius of the state capital Ranchi, have not heard of the Act. A few who have are waiting for the administration’s response, some for over a year, after filing their application forms. They are routinely and regularly called for meetings 30 km away, meetings that do not happen because one or the other government functionary is unable to attend.
The FRA and the people it is meant for figure low in the government’s priority. In practice, the net effect of government’s approach would, rather than secure the tribals and forest dwellers in their habitations, uproot and displace a large section of these people without any meaningful resettlement or rehabilitation because that policy is still not in place.
The government has been on a MoU signing spree ever since the mineral-rich Jharkhand (2000) comprising a third of India’s entire mineral wealth came into existence. Indian Social Action Forum estimates that over 1,98,362 acres of land is on offer in 44 projects of various companies with whom MoUs have been signed.There are over a 100 MoUs that have been signed. According to human rights activist Gladson Dungdung, various governments in the state till now have signed 102 MoUs for establishing steel factories, power plants and mining industries, which require approximately 2,00,000 acres of land, which directly means the displacement of approximately 1 million people.
A government that drags its feet in taking action to carry out its obligations under the Forest Rights Act to give tribals and forest dwellers their right to land and forests, has gone into an overdrive to cleanse the forests of real and imagined Maoists through ‘Operation Green-Hunt’ to make them safe for the corporate houses to move in. The operation happens to be on particularly in areas where the government has promised land to industrialists. There were hardly any signs of the “green hunt” in Palamau-Latehar region, a Maoist stronghold, which has seen trains being hijacked by the Maoists.
The government approach has created widespread disaffection and several protests in the state. The kind of development government intends has created a feeling that it only means evicting tribals to make way for multi-nationals and big companies to exploit their land. Widespread impression is, the compensation offered in return for displacement is grossly paltry, transient and only to a few actual sufferers. The past experience of rehabilitation and resettlement does not inspire any confidence in them: particularly since, Gladson says, the government that lost no time in declaring its industrial policy, has not yet formulated a policy for resettlement and rehabilitation of persons displaced due to mining or other projects.
The real attitude of Govt. of India towards the original residents of India.

[pranabjyoti]

India: What’s in a name? The demand for political prisoner status (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/india-what%e2%80%99s-in-a-name-the-demand-for-political-prisoner-status/) http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/hrt-jails.jpg?w=271&h=266 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/hrt-jails.jpg)Wednesday, 09 June 2010
Radha D’Souza

On 11 April 2010, 469 inmates in Alipore Central Jail in Kolkotta (Calcutta) in West Bengal went on hunger strike, demanding recognition as political prisoners. The previous April, two prisoners in the district of Cooch Behar went on a fast to demand political status. On 14 September 2009 an unspecified number of inmates in Nagpur, the second capital of the state of Maharashtra in western India, went on a one-day hunger strike to demand political prisoner status.
What’s in a name? One might ask. It is one thing to ask for fair trial, injunctions against torture and such, but why this insistence on labels – ‘P’ for political, ‘C’ for criminal? Political status does not automatically lead to any special privileges or concessions other than the things civil liberties groups demand for all prisoners: fair and expeditious trial, humane treatment, prohibition of physical and sexual torture, and an end to graft. Yet the very resilience of this demand for categorisation indicates its importance for the civil liberties and democratic rights movements in India today.
In the first place, categorisation helps to count how many people are in jails for political reasons. A simple head count of ‘P’ category prisoners will deconstruct Indian democracy in ways that academic or legal analysis of security laws, or dissertations on Indian democracy cannot do. The trade unionists, the indigenous people opposed to forced sale of lands to corporations, the villagers opposed to chemical or nuclear plants in their village, the women protesting against rape by soldiers or army occupation, Muslims, Kashmiris, Nagas, Mizos, Assamese and other religious and ethnic minorities demanding cultural and social freedoms, slum dwellers protesting against demolitions or forced evacuations, the list could go on, but all of these would count as ‘P’ class. That would reveal the authoritarian and repressive character of the Indian state and the true face of Indian democracy. The CRPP estimates that in the Indian-occupied state of Kashmir alone 75,000 people were detained for political reasons. It is virtually impossible for civil liberty groups to count political prisoners where access is strictly controlled. After the Kolkotta hunger strike this April, the Inspector General of Prisoners announced he would stop interviews of all prisoners (Indian Express 11 April 2010).
Without such categorisation, the state tars all opposition with the same ‘criminal’ brush. Two consequences follow. First, politics is criminalised, circumscribing democracy to an elite group, the beneficiaries of the system. Criminalisation of politics makes it possible for the Indian state to sanitise democracy for the national and global elite. Second, it delegitimises those struggling for justice in the eyes of the wider society. The concerns they raise about society: the conditions of workers, slum dwellers, indigenous peoples, democratic rights, effects of WTO policies, political corruption and so on become marginalised. Moreover, it creates a rift between those adversely affected by state policies and those who might, potentially, sympathise with the demands for justice.
There is in India today an internal schism. What kind of society should India be and what does democracy mean in a divided society where half the population is undernourished, and vast numbers of the other half are integrated into the global elite of academics, intellectuals, professionals and business people? According to Planning Commission figures published last year 37.7% of the population suffer from chronic malnutrition and 49.9% from undernourishment.
This schism is sustained by the very architecture of India’s laws and institutions constructed assiduously since colonial times. One set of repressive laws for those opposed to the state and another set of democratic laws for those supporting it span the post-independence era. India adopted its republican constitution in January 1950 and enacted the Preventive Detention Act 1950; Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958, Maintenance of Internal Security (MISA) 1971; National Security Act (NSA) 1980; Terrorist and Disruptive Practices Act (TADA) 1985; Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act (POTA) 2002, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) 2009 and other state statutes interspersed with numerous special ordinances in between. These laws are used routinely to arrest striking workers, political opponents, the poor, and other sections of the population for demanding justice. On the other hand a multiparty democracy and judiciary allows freedoms for those supportive of the state’s approach to the economy and society. The ‘P’ label will lay bare the schism. It will make apparent the scale and scope of exceptional national security and anti-terrorism laws, and the exclusive and limited reach of regular democratic procedures.
What’s in a name? A great deal indeed!

http://www.revolutionarycommunist.org/index.php/international/1839-india-whats-in-a-name-frfi-215-junjul-2010.html
A REAL PICTURE OF INDIA. DO YOU CALL IT A "STALINIST" STATE?;):confused:

[pranabjyoti]

Leave Maoism, learn football (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/leave-maoism-learn-football/)

(Apparently, a West Bengal-government forced-displacement of adivasis to Germany, disguised as a “clever” new countersurgency strategy, soccer.–ed)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/play-soccer.jpg?w=101&h=121 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/play-soccer.jpg)
Soumen Datta (http://www.hindustantimes.com/Search/Soumen-Datta.aspx), Hindustan Times
Kolkata, June 22, 2010
GERMAN FOOTBALL
The West Bengal government is planning to send promising young footballers in three Maoist-infested districts to Germany to be trained by soccer club Bayern Munich. This is a bid to wean them away from the rebels, who have a strategy to rope young people in by casting a spell on them.
DGP Bhupinder Singh said: “We have decided to organise football matches in Maoist-dominated areas of West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia to separate the common people from ultra influence.” “The best players will be sent at government expense to Germany to train with Bayern Munich,” Singh said.
Bayern Munich was the European club champion four times — thrice from 1974 to 1976 and again in 2001. Former German goalkeeper and national captain Oliver Kahn, who played for Bayern Munich, had visited Kolkata in May 2008. Bayern Munich wanted to set up a football complex in Burdwan.
Singh said: “After the matches the participants will be served a meal. After all, food is one of the reasons that took the youth towards the Maoists.”
Over the past decade, the Kolkata Police have been organising such tournaments in different localities of the city to foster good relations with people.
However, police officials in West Midnapore district are sceptical of the plan. “It is possible that the matches will held and sumptuous meals organised, but those who take part will be bashed up by the rebels,” said an official posted near Jhargram.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/561265.aspx (http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/561265.aspx)
:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol: :lol::lol::lol:. Join me.

[pranabjyoti]

maoists declare war on multinationals in india (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/maoists-declare-war-on-multinationals-in-india/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/manjushree_clients.jpg?w=300&h=216 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/manjushree_clients.jpg)sify finance, june 24, 2010
naxalites have decided to train their guns against multinational companies (mncs) operating in india.
In a statement sent to select media houses today, the cpi-maoists have declared that they would “rise up as a collective fist to drive out mncs” from the country. The statement also reiterates that their mission is to wipe away the “treacherous rotten regimes” at the centre and the states.
The naxalites have said because mining activities by corporates have not benefitted the tribals it is justified to launch an armed struggle. However, government reports claim local leaders of the insurgent groups regularly extort hefty sums from miners to allow them to do business.
The tirade against the mncs has come in the backdrop of the bhopal gas tragedy verdict. Launching a scathing attack against the government and corporate india, naxalite spokesperson azad said, “we appeal to all democratic forces to unite, oppose and militantly resist the continuous sell-out of the country’s interests to imperialistsharks. Time is running out. Unless we act collectively against the disastrous policies of the traitorous upa government and various state governments we cannot prevent the whole of india from becoming a bhopal.”
the radical insurgents have also demanded that the assets of dow chemicals be confiscated and the “criminal” be forced to clean up toxic material from the bhopal site. The banned outfit also took up another popular demand that the dow be made to pay compensation to the 500,000 victims.
The outfit, blamed for the recent jnaneshwari express accident that took more than 180 lives, has expressed its “deepest anguish” at the plight faced by lakhs of people in bhopal.
It claimed that the common man can never get justice from the “so-called courts of law or from the ruling-class parties whether it is the congress, the bjp or the so-called left.”
blaming the congress as well as the bjp for the crimes committed by “mnc sharks like the union carbide”, azad targeted the government for rolling out the “red carpet, signing up mous, granting extraordinary concessions like free land, water, power, tax holidays and ban legitimate trade union activities.”
the real war has began.

[pranabjyoti]

India Attempts to Influence Nepal Press by Withholding Newsprint (http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/india-attempts-to-influence-nepal-press-by-withholding-newsprint/)

Posted by Rosa Harris (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/) on June 25, 2010
http://southasiarev.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/newspaper_censor.jpg?w=210&h=155 (http://southasiarev.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/newspaper_censor.jpg)India holding back newsprint: Nepal dailies

The Hindu (http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article482858.ece)
Two of Nepal’s most respected newspapers, Kantipur and Kathmandu Post, may have to suspend publication soon if customs authorities in Kolkata refuse to release newsprint, which has been held back for “investigation.”
According to a report in Kathmandu Post, its consignments have been detained at the Kolkata port since May 27. One thousand tonnes of newsprint, imported from Canada and South Korea in 39 containers, have been held back, with the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence saying they need to be “investigated.”

“No investigation, however, has been carried out despite repeated requests. Nor has Kantipur Publications been given a clear explanation for the continued delay, which has meant heavy demurrage and the possibility of the newsprint getting damaged,” the newspaper said.
In Kathmandu, the unprecedented stoppage of newsprint is being seen as an attempt to pressure the two newspapers to adopt a more favourable attitude to the Madhav Kumar Nepal government, which India is backing against the Maoists. Along with the delay in clearing newsprint supplies, the fact that major Indian companies have stopped advertising in both newspapers is also being seen as evidence of pressure tactics.
South Block officials deny any knowledge of the delay in customs clearance. “We are not aware of this… We don’t indulge in such cheap tactics,” a senior official told The Hindu.
On Wednesday, the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu issued a statement: “Customs examination of transit consignments is a routine administrative measure and the imputation of motives in such a matter by two newspapers, which seek to lay claim to responsible journalism, is highly regrettable.”
But Kathmandu Post insists that this is the first time newsprint meant for Nepal’s publications has been held in an Indian port for “investigation.” “According to the Nepal-Indian transit treaty,” it adds, “no consignment in transit can be withheld without explanation.”
In its editorials, Kantipur has been asking Mr. Nepal to step down and has called for a national unity government, a stand the Indian embassy in Kathmandu believes is furthering the agenda of the Maoists. The newspaper also prominently covered the killings of Nepalis in recent ethnic clashes in Meghalaya. Indian officials felt that the reportage was distorted and exaggerated.
A South Block official acknowledged his being unhappy with the stance of the two newspapers. “Kathmandu Post and Kantipur have always written against us.” But he denied any knowledge of the delay in clearance of their newsprint.
THEY CALL THEMSELVES THE WORLD'S BIGGEST DEMOCRACY.:mad::mad::mad::mad::lol::lol::lol::lol:

[pranabjyoti]

india: Maoist develop irrigation systems and health care for the people (http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/india-maoist-develop-irrigation-systems-and-health-care-for-the-people/)

posted by rosa harris (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/) on june 25, 2010
http://southasiarev.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/drinking_water.jpg?w=207&h=210 (http://southasiarev.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/drinking_water.jpg)special thanks to indian vanguard (http://indianvanguard.wordpress.com/) for this article.
maoist development projects in west bengal

chhotomoni mahato (65), who earns her keep by plucking saal leaves in patri village of west midnapore, contributed rs 10 to a maoist-backed organisation to dig a pond in the area.
Those employed in various jobs in the locality are asked to stump up 20-25 per cent of their income for similar so-called development projects.

This is the lalgarh area, 160 km west of kolkata, deep inside west midnapore district. Maybe extortion, but the maoists have taken over the civic services, the law and order machinery, and even the judicial services in the area.
It is a “secret state” that seems to have survived the onslaught of 5,000 personnel of the centre-state combined forces for the past one year.
In june last year, hindustan times went to discover this state within a state, carefully shielded from the public eye, emerging in different parts of west midnapore.
The picture hasn’t changed.
In kalsibhanga village, members of the maoist-backed people’s committee against police atrocities (pcapa) have created an irrigation canal that is 1,200 feet long, 5 feet wide, and also 5 feet deep.
The canal is connected with a pond that is 10 bigha (10 bighas = 144,000 square feet) in area. “this monsoon, we expect the surrounding farmland to get the needed irrigation through this canal. It will definitely increase rice production,” manoj mahato, pcapa central committee member, told ht.
Inspector general (western range) of police zulfikar hasan said: “we are aware that the pcapa is running health centres. We have closed some of them.”
while there are allegations of extortion from local contractors, traders and service holders, the rebels say the contribution of funds and labour from people is voluntary.
The rebels have built and repaired roads of 50 km in some villages of the jhargram sub-division.
The pcapa claims to have dug about 200 wells, besides renovating around 1,000 existing ones, in their areas of domination, which spreads over 27 police stations in the three districts of west midnapore, bankura and purulia.
“the cpi(m)-led government in west bengal never carried out development in this area,” said lalmohan mahato.
He had been a cpi(m) member before quitting the party in early 2009, in protest against corruption.
In rameshwarpur village under the bhimpur panchayat, the rebels run a health centre that offers service for 12 hours in the day. There are two doctors here though there are nine untrained persons who offer medical consultancy.
“this centre treats about 100 patients every day,” said mahato.
The centre was in a government building that housed an anganwadi unit (mother- and child-care centre) before the rebels took it over more than a year ago.
There are 35 such health centres in the entire district. Rameshwarpur functions as headquarters for health services and medicines are dispatched from here.
In april 2010 the combined forces raided this centre and seized medicines, which was a temporary setback for the maoist dispensation. “the forces took away medicines worth rs 40,000 and smashed the almirahs,” said haripada mahato, in charge of the rameswarpur health centre.
However, west bengal cpi(m) state secretariat member robin deb said the government had no objection to health centres, which are good for people. But if arms and ammunition is stored in them, the security forces must intervene.
The rebels are building a six-bed hospital next to the rameswarpur health centre. “the basement has been built. It will be functional in two months,” haripada mahato said.
“are they really building a hospital there?” asked an incredulous aneesh sarkar, deputy superintendent of police (operations), west midnapore.
He is in the dark about it.
that's called the real development.

[pranabjyoti]

INDIA: Maoist sympathisers targeted (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/india-maoist-sympathisers-targeted/)
Alya Mishra
27 June 2010
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/uofdelhi1.jpg?w=112&h=110 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/uofdelhi1.jpg)Professors who oppose government repression are threatened

Sunil Mandiwal, an assistant professor of Hindi at Delhi’s Dayal Singh College, was arrested by the police for questioning and asked if he was a Maoist sympathiser. Mandiwal was released after an interrogation lasting more than three hours but his arrest has shaken the Indian academic community.
“[The police] took some Maoist literature that I had at home with them and kept asking me if I had any Maoist links. It was after hours of denial that they finally let me go,” said Mandiwal, a professor at the university for the past five years.
Professor Saroj Giri, also from Delhi University, said the police had made it clear they could arrest anyone any time.
“Surveillance and monitoring of our activities has increased. Government wants to control our lives,” Giri said.
The increased surveillance follows a government circular issued in May warning Maoist sympathisers. Giri said the circular had curtailed the free speech of the academic community, writers and social activists indirectly.
The circular said the government had become aware Maoist leaders had directly contacted certain intellectuals and non-governmental organisations “to propagate their ideology and persuade them to take steps as would provide support” to the Maoists.
It warned: “Any person who commits the offence of supporting such a terrorist organisation with, inter alia, intention to further the activities of such terrorist organisations would be liable to be punished with imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years or with fine or with both.”
It called for the public to be extremely vigilant and not unwittingly become a victim of such propaganda”.
The circular was meant for a section of the academic community that has raised its voice against the government’s policy against Naxalites – a Maoist communist group in India, also known as the Communist Party of India (Maoist) or CPI (M) fighting to overthrow the government.
The 40-year-old Maoist insurgency first emerged as a peasant uprising in Naxalbari in West Bengal in the 1960s and was more commonly known as the Naxalite movement. It has spread to 125 districts across 12 states in India, mostly in poorest eastern parts of the country, tribal-dominated regions, jungle areas and mining towns.
In some cases the movement grew up organically in different areas, embracing a common left-wing ideology. But in recent years the scattered groups have become more coordinated, armed, and emboldened as a jungle guerilla force but also willing to take on government paramilitary forces in open battle.
The Maoists say they are fighting on behalf of the poorest and most oppressed, including the Dalits or ‘untouchables’ and tribals whose land has been expropriated by big corporations such as international companies.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Maoist movement, which is being debated openly in the country, academics have taken the government’s warning as an encroachment on their right to free speech.
“The warning is indirectly targeting those organisations and individuals who are raising their voice against government’s war on terror,” said Delhi University Professor G N Saibaba, a vocal opponent of state policy against Naxalites.
Saibaba, whose name features as a Maoist sympathiser in a charge sheet filed against top Maoist leader Kobad Gandhi, rejected the claims.
“I am an academician. I am an independent observer and not aligned to any group. Maoists don’t commit violence. They retaliate against government action. If one says the truth and is identified as a sympathiser, then so be it,” he said.
While the warning has put many supporters of free speech on the back foot, it has angered others. A group of teachers supporting the Maoist campaign have run blogs and seminars in support of the Maoist cause and have exposed the government to international scrutiny and criticism.
“The Naxalites are fighting a war for empowerment of the Dalits and tribal people who have been forgotten by the government. Even today, Dalits face wide-ranging economic, social disadvantages, and humiliation,” said Professor Amit Bhattacharya of Jadavpur University in Kolkata.
Bhattacharya referred to a government report, Development challenges in extremist affected areas, submitted by an expert group in 2008.
“The report clearly says that the causes of the tribal movements include absence of any forest policy, political marginalisation, land alienation, forced evictions from land and displacement. Instead of resolving these issues the government is using force to suppress the uprising,” said Bhattacharya.
Over the last year, the Indian capital has become a hotbed of activism. Sections of academia at Delhi University and Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University have become more involved in the ‘war against the people’. Seminars have been organised, leaflets distributed and posters pasted across the campuses.
Groups have also grown up on university campuses to oppose the Maoist groups, causing concern the universities are becoming heavily politicised. A statement by Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad – the student wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party – appealed to students and teachers to “isolate the supporters of Naxalites on the campus”.
The student group has also joined with its arch rival, the National Students’ Union of India, to float a new group against Maoist sympathisers on campus.
Called Students Against Naxalism, the group is meant for students who feel strongly against the violence unleashed by Maoists and want to voice their concern over anti-national campaigns on campus. That has increased pressure on many teachers named as Maoist sympathisers who also admit to being watched.
“We know they are keeping an eye on us. The Delhi Police has named many of us as Maoist sympathisers. They are keeping a track of our public meetings, our speeches and the people we meet but we are not doing anything illegal,” said a PhD scholar from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, considered a hotbed for Marxist and Maoist political ideology.
“This is not the first time that a threat is coming from the government. Whenever the state tries to trample the democratic right we will protest with meetings and processions,” the scholar said.

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20100625183627800&mode=print
Revealing some more of the REAL colors of the rulers of India. We, Indian people are well acquainted with that. Comrades from other part of the world, kindly spread these news and other such stories, to reveal the TRUE character of Indian rulers.

[pranabjyoti]

Kashmir Burns Again after 2 More Boys are Shot by the Indian Military (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/kashmir-burns-again-after-2-more-boys-are-shot-by-the-indian-military/)


http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/india-army-in-kashmir1-e1260242832418-11-e1277696665206.jpg?w=430&h=252 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/india-army-in-kashmir1-e1260242832418-11.jpg)Indian army in Kashmir

27 June, 2010, Kashmir Times (http://kashmirtimes.com/)
Daem phuit chi gamitsh myaen nazar
yoot matsar kyah
mei rov labith lol shahar
yoot matsar kyah
~ Zarif A Zarif, Kashmiri poet
(My gaze is silenced
What frenzy is this?
I lost my city of love,
What frenzy is this? )
We are in the middle of this cruel completeness. The motif is flickering at such a fast pace that it is near impossible to realise what has befallen us. Still coming to terms with the death of three kids in police firing in Srinagar in the last few weeks, bullets flew thick and fast in Sopore, North Kashmir. In less than ten minutes, two boys were sent to their graves on Friday. Prematurely. Suddenly. Coldly. Kashmir has stopped keeping a count of its injured. That is a mere footnote in our pursuit of justice.
As I write, Sopore has been completely curfewed over. There are cops/CRPF — with their unmistakenly brown outfits — out on the roads in full strength, lording over street dogs. Humans get little attention these days. The kids killed in the protest march yesterday have been laid to rest. They had bullets to their chests doctors here say. In Kashmir you can’t show your fists. Expression is dangerous. Resentment is prohibited. Aspirations have been curfewed over.
A stilled furor exists in this quaint little town. People harbour a deep mistrust against the state, no one I spoke to believes the CRPF – which came out with several versions of the Sopore story; anger at the Omar led government’s insensitivity is high, especially the way things are mishandled. The whole time Mr CM hops over his fief, like a czar pontificating the futility of stone throwing, while his subjects continue to die, under his watch.
I don’t know how to put it straight but people feel held under. To break up an instant protest, the Khaki wallas don’t hesitate to use excessive violence, which is not only disproportionate but plain inhuman. Armed with blanket powers under the prevailing draconian laws, the security forces enjoy immunity for their actions. The dreaded instrument of repression is evident in the kind of blatant human rights abuses they get away with. Omar, apart from calling meetings and probes, can’t seem to do much. Meantime the body count grows.
There are restrictions on movement here. There are bayonets held up to scare kids. There are tear-gas canisters. There are furious bullets piercing 14 year olds. There are attempts to silence protest. There are beatings. When has the stick suppressed the giggle of children? It appears as some kind of a mad trapeze. Authorities attempt to disperse people, chasing unruly crowds but fail to disperse the aspiration that hangs still in the smoked air.
Are you a journalist, an old woman whispered to me in Sopore. Write this: They can curfew our lanes but not our valour.
(Sameer Bhat is a Kashmiri blogger and a journalist, and covers Energy markets for a major British broadsheet.)
They have INDEFINITE license to kill.

[scarletghoul]

Another successful big offensive

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/10453627.stm

Maoists rebels kill 26 policemen in central India


At least 26 policemen have been killed in a Maoist attack in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, police have told the BBC.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/48208000/jpg/_48208488_cf548631-e5ed-4f03-b82e-6e802872761f.jpg
Those killed in the latest attack were members of the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).
Two CRPF personnel were injured and police are searching for casualties.
In late May, more than 145 people were killed when a train crashed in West Bengal after Maoist rebels allegedly sabotaged the rails.
The Maoists, also known as Naxalites, say they are fighting for the rights of rural poor who have been neglected by the government for decades.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described their insurgency as India's biggest internal security challenge.
Heavily armed In the most recent attack, the CRPF members were attacked as they were returning from a road-opening ceremony, officials say.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/48208000/gif/_48208485_ind_dhodai_29.06.10.gif Chhattisgarh anti-Maoist operation head Ram Niwas told the AFP news agency that they were ambushed by a large number of heavily armed militants in Dhodai, 300km (190 miles) south of the state capital, Raipur.
Police said the ensuing gun battle lasted three hours. They say that the injured have been evacuated by helicopter and reinforcements have been sent to the area.
In May a Maoist landmine attack in Chhattisgarh destroyed a bus and killed more than 30 people, most of them civilians.
Maoist supporters saw that armed police were on board the bus and an attack was organised extremely quickly.
Correspondents said that the bus attack showed how powerful the rebels have become in remote regions such as the forests of southern Chhattisgarh. The government said it also demonstrated their barbarity.
Following the attack, the home minister said he would request wider powers to deal with the rebels.
A government offensive against the rebels - widely referred to as Operation Green Hunt - began last October.
It involves 50,000 troops and is taking place across five states - West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa and Chhattisgarh.
Ministers in Delhi have always accepted that there is a need to tackle the root causes of the rebellion, such as poverty and the absence of effective local government.

[pranabjyoti]

Terrorizing the Democratic Space in Ranchi, capital city of Jharkhand, India (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/terrorizing-the-democratic-space-in-ranchi-capital-city-of-jharkhand-india/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/jharkand3.jpg?w=300&h=225 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/jharkand3.jpg)
June 29, 2010
By Gladson Dungdung
29 June, 2010
Jharkhandmirror.org
A Rally against OGH in Ranchi
In the midst of hide and seek between the Sun and the Cloud, the environment of Jaipal Singh Stadium in Ranchi, the capital city of Jharkhand was very tense on June 25, 2010. The reason was, the “Operation Green Hunt Virodhi Nagrik Manch” (Citizens Forum against Operation Green Hunt) had called for a rally and mass meeting against the cold blood murder, rape and torture of innocent villagers by the security forces in the ongoing so-called anti-Naxal operation codified as “Operation Green Hunt”. The forum has been intervening on the issues of the police atrocity since inception of the OGH. As a result, the police have declared it as a Maoist organization, which is of course, the outcome of Chidambaram’s theory of democracy, which describes as ‘this side or that side’. Therefore, whoever questions the Operation Green Hunt is considered as a Maoist, a Maoist supporter or at least a sympathizer of the Maoists.
When the Senior Superintendent of Police (Ranchi) Pravin Kumar came to know about the Forum’s rally and mass meeting, he started a special operation against the forum. On June 18, the Police caught Jitendra Singh Munda of Nuridih village of Tamar block, while he was returning from Ranchi to his village by bus carrying pamphlets of the Forum for distribution. The bus was also seized and the driver, assistant driver and conductor were taken into the police custody. In the evening, the SSP held a press conference in the city with smiling face, telling the media about how the police succeeded in arresting some Maoists. Jitendra Munda was asked to hold the pamphlets of the forum for the Media show. The SSP declared the forum as a Maoist Organization, its pamphlet as a Maoist literature and also challenged that he would not let the rally and mass meeting take place on June 25 in Ranchi since it is an event of the Maoists.
The Forum’s members were quite upset on the SSP’s baseless propaganda and action against the forum. The senior members of the forum rejected the SSP’s claim through the media. They also decided to meet the Adviser of the Governor R.R. Prasad and discuss on the matter. On 22 evening, when the weather was cool, a delegation comprising of 7 members entered into the holy chamber of the Governor’s Adviser. He welcomed with smiling face and asked what should he do for the delegation. The convener of the Forum Stan Swami told him, “Your police have made us Maoists therefore we are here”. “Please don’t tell this”, R R Prasad humbly requested. He immediately called the Director General of Police (DGP) Neyaz Ahmed to his chamber. When the holy ritual of introduction was over, he questioned, “Is there really any problem in the operation green hunt?” Indeed, the question reveals the fact that how each and every person who is with the system has worn the sunglasses made of P. Chidambaram & co. Therefore, no one wants to see the pain, suffering and agony of the innocent villagers who are being humiliated, beaten, raped, tortured and murdered by the security forces.
However, when the delegation submitted him some black and white papers related to facts & figures including the case of cold blood murder of Jasinta by the security forces, he patiently heard the delegation. The delegation members also told him that how the Police have been attempting to terrorize the democratic spaces. The security forces do not allow people’s protest against the operation green hunt, they advocate for the corporate interest and also torture the villagers who oppose the force land acquisition for the corporate sharks. The police are portraying the Forum as Maoist organization, its reading materials as the Maoist literature and also threatening the bus owners who lend their buses for the Rally. After hearing the plea, R.R. Prasad order for a high level inquiry on the case of Jasinta and also shown the green signal for the rally and mass meeting. However, he refused to give a written permission and kicked the ball into the DGP’s court by saying that the DGP will look after the matter. He strongly said, “We are not waging war against our own people therefore we have different views from the central government as far as the anti-Naxal operations are concerned”. Ironically, the scenario is completely different at the grassroots.
According to the holy words of the DGP Neyaz Ahmed, his police have been carrying out normal operations against the Maoists and he hates to call it the “operation green hunt”. “We can not hunt the people only animals are hunted”, he said. After hearing, so many complaints about his gunmen, he was upset but assured the delegation for having the rally and mass meeting but he put a condition that there should not be any violence. However, he said that he would confirm it only on the next day. In the evening SSP Pravin Kumar called Stan Swami over phone and asked him for a written permission. Finally, all the rituals, which of course called legal procedures, were accomplished after running from pillar to post and final green signal for was given to the forum for rally and mass meeting.
In the morning of June 25, nearly 100 Security Forces comprising of RAF, JAP and Local Police were present in Jaipal Singh Stadium much before the arrival of the villagers. As soon as the time was passing, the police vehicles started rushing to the venue one after another apart from the Security Forces were present in the venue. It was 12 O’clock in the after noon, a young man entered into the stadium with a camera in hand. He introduced himself as a crime reporter of a national news channel. We just laughed but he didn’t understand. We questioned him, “Do our rally and mass meting come under the purview of your “crime reporting”? He smiled and responded, “Only my boss knows because he has assigned me this job”. We were shocked to see specially the electronic media’s interest. They never come to cover our programmes without invitation. Of course, we had informed the print media about the event but not electronic ones. Perhaps, their bosses sent them to cover the event as it comes under the preview of “crime” in their holy definition. Obviously, the media also consider us as the Maoist supporters.
After a few minutes, another police vehicle stopped in front of us. A police officer started question us one by one. The questions were – who are you? What do you do? Where do you come from? He questions and writes something in his diary. Indeed, it was very clear that the police know nothing about us though the media had published several reports regarding our work, which reveals the fact of how intelligent are our intelligence agencies. Though we were told that the security forces were there for our protection but of course, it was not. All of them had come with the prejudices in their minds and heart that the Maoists have called for the rally and mass meeting. They had taken for guaranteed that we all are the Maoists or at least their supporters.
Amidst, we got phone calls from two senior members of the forum – Xavier Soy and Ramesh Dey who are based at Kuchai and Kharsawan in Saraikela-Kharsawan district respectively. Both of them described how the police terrorized the democratic rights of the people of Saraikela-Kharsawan district. The Superintendent of Police of Saraikela-Kharsawan, Abhishek threatened both of them several times for raising questions against the ‘operation green hunt’. On 24 of June, SP Abhishek called Xavier Soy over the phone and told him to abstain from the rally and mass meeting. He also threatened him for lifetime imprisonment if he doesn’t obey his order. On the next day, when Xavier Soy was almost ready to depart for Ranchi, a police vehicle carrying 20 police personals reached to his home at Shiyadih village in Kuchai block at 7:30 in the morning. He was stunned to see them.
The officer in charge of Kuchai police station, A. K. Thakur told him not to take any villager to Ranchi. When Xavier Soy started speaking against the violation of democratic rights of the villagers, the officer in charge threatened him by saying, “If you don’t hear me, you will be stopped at Arki, Tamar or Bundu police stations and sent to Jail”. 1 bus that was standing at Xavier’s courtyard was taken to police station. The police stopped 9 buses (3 buses at Khilari, 6 buses at Siadih) which were bringing about 600 villagers for the rally and mass meeting from Saraikela-Kharswan district. The police also captured 2 buses bringing people for the meeting from West Singhbhum district. They were detained by the police in Tebo Ghat for five hours. As a result, they could not participate in the rally and mass meeting in Ranchi, which is a clear violation of the Constitutional rights of the people. The paramilitary forces and local police were deployed across the state to prevent people from participating in rally and mass meeting. The Jharkhand police wanted to show that they have mass support for the operation green hunt and only few people are opposing it.
Finally, about 400 villagers turned out for the rally, which was very small in number as 5000 people were expected for the event. However, the number was very small but not discouraging. At least, 200 people turned out to challenge the unjust rules of the mighty guns. It was 1 O’clock in the afternoon, the villagers started walking in the city. “Stop killing the innocent villagers in the name of cleansing the Maoists”, “Withdraw the Operation Green Hunt” and “Protect our human rights” were the overwhelming slogans raised by them.
By the time it was drizzling, I saw an old Adivasi woman walking with the support of a stick and raising slogan with enthusiasm like a young woman. She smiled and said, “I’m sure, I was born in 1933 and I’m walking for justice”. Her name is Hiramani Lakra. She is 77 years old, lives with her family in a village called Sidrol, which falls under Khijri block in Ranchi district. She walked nearly 5 Kilometers in the city shouting slogans and raising hand against injustice. She also heard the speakers patiently in the mass meeting. At the end, when Stan Swami asked a question, “Shall we go ahead with the fight or end here”? She was the first who raise her hand in support of the fight for justice, which of course, will continue till the humiliation, rape and torture stopped by the security forces.
We live in the largest democratic country in the universe and also clap for it. But unfortunately, the Indian State has been terrorizing the democratic spaces of the villagers especially the Adivasis, Dalits, poor, women and children. Our honourble parliamentarians do not only table the policies, programmes and budget but they also table money in the Indian parliament and nobody is punished for defaming our largest democracy. Now the Raj Sabha (Upper House) has become heaven for the corporate houses. We have more than 100 billionaires in the upper house including Malya, Ambani and Kedi. In these circumstance, if we have to protect our democracy we must rationalize that why 77 years old Adivasi woman Hiramani walked in the city for justice, who had born before existence of the Indian State but not satisfied for last 63 years under Indian rule.
The most relevant questions are, does the Indian democracy have space for the decent voice? The word “No” is meaningless in the Indian democracy? Or the “No” of the marginalized people is meaningless in the Indian democracy? Of course, without “No” the democracy is meaningless but do the people of ruling classes understand it and respect the decent voices? We must understand that we all are equal as the citizens of India irrespective of our race, caste, sex, religion and so on. Therefore, the Indian State should hear the decent voices instead of terrorizing the democratic space with the power of Guns.
Gladson Dungdung is a Human Rights Activist and Writer from Jharkhand. He can be reached at [email protected] ([email protected])
http://jharkhandmirror.org/2010/06/29/terrorizing-the-democratic-space/
Perhaps tired of this cliche but still, THIS IS THE WORLD'S BIGGEST DEMOCRACY(!).

[pranabjyoti]

Pictures that Turn a Generation, Armies that Lie (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/pictures-that-turn-a-generation-armies-that-lie/) http://www.countercurrents.org/Nguyen.jpg
By Trevor Selvam
28 June, 2010
Countercurrents.org
A picture could very well be a tide turner. The one image that makes a nation sit up, shake itself off its torpor and ask itself, how much more of this repetitive official nonsense can we accept and justify in our quest to become a developed nation and overlook the rampant denial of due process and decency. A picture can be a conscience raiser, the final straw, the one blow that cuts up the fine line between what a civil society will accept and outright barbarism. Not too many people remember the name of Nguyễn Ngọc Loan. But a lot of people remember this picture.
The man who took this picture, Eddie Adams, won a Pulitzer prize. It helped turn the tide of one war-The Vietnam War.
http://www.countercurrents.org/woman1.jpg
Nguyen Ngoc Loan c Loan was the former Vietnamese Army Brigadier and later Chief of the National Police of South Vietnam. Here he is seen executing Nguyn Văn Lém, handcuffed Viet Cong Captain.
This was one of many pictures that turned the tide in many ways and showed American people, how bestial were the forces that they were propping up. America lost that war decisively. Lock stock and barrel. Thousands and thousands of anti-war activists and radical groups took to the streets. Nixon was caught red-handed with the Watergate break-in. The entire fibre of American society was on the block. They used all the might they had, all the firepower, WMD and chemical defoliants (remember Agent orange and its creators Dow Chemicals, who are the proud owners of Union Carbide today? ) available at that time to unleash a ruthless, at times covert war, against the Vietnamese people. Wave upon wave of Viet Cong swarmed the Americans and eventually, the world’s most powerful military in the world, scurried away with their stooges in tow and so did this Vietnamese Brigadier at the time of the fall of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City).
He took refuge in America. He opened a pizza restaurant in Washington DC and managed to hide his identity for a long time. Eventually, he was exposed and history caught up with him. Signs started appearing in the bathroom of his pizza parlour. “We know who you are, fucker.” The man died a lonesome death very soon after.
Below is a picture of the bestiality of the Indian para-military forces in operation in Lalgarh, two weeks ago. A dead woman Maoist activist, trussed up as when British colonials went on tiger and deer hunts with Indian princes and rajahs. India is at War. Against its own people. And pictures like this should turn the tide of public conscience. Will India generate thousands and thousands of radicals and peace activists who are nauseated by this savagery and also take to the streets to register their opposition to this War?
Indian news media has not been able to capture much footage of what goes on really during actual combat, either in Lalgarh, Dantewada or Bastar from the Maoist side. Because the shrieky anchor persons of NDTV/TimesNow/CNNIBN and their dull and boring field reporters, are all safely “embedded” with the Joint Forces only. When the forces move in, they move in behind them. Official cant and Goebbelspeak has become natural to the Indian media. This one slipped out, because the Police’s own depraved sense of its success (finally they had rebel bodies to display) got the better of them. Planted stories do the rounds as in-depth reporting; imported buzzwords and Indian hyperbole fill the air waves. This particular photograph has not been displayed as repeatedly in the Indian mainstream media as the repeated showing of ambushed corpses of CRPF personnel. And why is that?
Not one Indian mainstream reporter has ever dared to move with the Maoist forces and see what really happens in combat. What really happens when the Joint Forces come into a village and burn hut after hut, herd villagers out, randomly shoot and arrest tribals, carry out gang rapes of Adivasi women and declare them as Maoists and then the Maoist counterattack and ambush, sometimes with serious collateral damage as well. Almost 250 people have been killed by the para-military since Operation Green Hunt commenced. Is there any judicial or legal process available in Manmohan Singhs’s G20 India, to identify the names of and real identity of the people who have been killed off as Maoists? These are Indian citizens, is it not?
Does the Amnesty International, International Human Rights Watch, or Ban Ki Moon have any desire to find out how a village woman can be trussed up like this in any civilized society? Does the Indian High Courts and Supreme Court Judges have any backbone, as they sit presiding over the Indian constitution,(their salaries paid by the Indian tax payer) , as the Indian constitution gets slowly chewed out ? The world is watching India.
After-ambush photographs of “Maoist carnage” are of course more widely available. Only rarely have pictures emerged of the rapes and village burnings carried out by the Indian para-military and the hired goons known as special police officers. Only rarely have we seen pictures of the fingers of two years olds with their fingers chopped off by the Selwa Judum. The head honcho of the West Bengal Police, Bhupinder Singh, IG of Bengal Police, has unabashedly declared that it was quite practical and normal to carry out dead corpses in this manner. I will hope some day that Bhupinder Singh will also be forced to open a Tandoori hut in Washington DC. And I hope one day, there will signs up in the bathroom of his restaurant. “We know you, you bastard!” And we all hope that these two tired looking “jawans” who are carrying their trophy, a dead Adivasi woman, who dared to revolt, and yes with a rifle on her shoulder, will also have the guts to stand up in front of their wives and children, state their names and thump their chests and declare what brave sons they are of this bloodied soil.
One by one, slowly but surely, the real fangs and gory cultural attributes of the Indian state and its machinery are coming to the surface. Us Indians, being of a pre-industrial and essentially non-capitalist cultural temperament, we could not care less— feudal relationships and caste and religion based political vectors generally overlook concepts like fair play, decency, respect for the dead or prisoner’s rights, never mind conveniently “western” and moribund concepts like “democracy,” “ fair trial, ” “human dignity”, “prisoner’s rights.” Being a Maoist woman activist is good enough for the para-military forces and their apologists from Chidambaram to Buddhadev to shrug their shoulders at such a sight. They must have an abominable sense of history and personal dignity. They must have no sons, daughters, sisters and brothers. Even the British, did not hang up an Indian “terrorist” in this manner. And the Indian Army and Air Force say that it is waiting in the wings to be called in. After all they claim that they have a more modern sense of due process.
In reality, the Indian Army and Air Force have already waded into the carnage.
I have been observing now for a year, how the Indian Army and Air Force were being all coy about not entering the fray into anti-Naxalite operations. The coyness and shyness was combined with even some outspoken candid reflections about not fighting its own citizens. The Air Force Chief suggested that they were not really equipped for on the ground targeted assaults, as they were used to more extensive operations (read carpet attacks with possibilities of “collateral damage”). They were not keen about the damage they could cause if they carried out air assaults. Pangs of genuine conscience, I suppose. The Army Chief declared that it was not the job of the Army to attack its own citizens. They were not used to internal enemies. And I have watched every week, as that high and mighty position crumbled slowly (but strategically) as the well orchestrated backers of Mr. Chidambaram from the BJP’s crafty and hoarse Arun Jaitley combined forces with the CPI(Marxist)’s boorish Sitaram Yechury to build up a ra-ra chorus for Army intervention. First, giving their unqualified support to Chidambaram (to not resign) and then Yechury declared gleefully with insider knowledge that it was a matter of “internal security” where and when the Army would get involved.
Since, as a nation, we are well into a phase of butchery passing off as exercising “command and control” in guerrilla terrain, I ran into some cogent instructions on meat tenderizing on the web. It is significantly educational; in terms of the slow and deliberate process the government of India has embarked upon this process of bar-be-queuing its own citizens.
Step 1 Trim the Fat
Trim the meat so that it’s ready for cooking. You shouldn’t have to cut or trim the meat after it’s been marinated. This is a fair warning to ensure that when you slice into the Naxalites, you must make sure you have removed the “fat” first. The distractions, the unnecessary segments that make the meat somewhat unsavoury before it is laid out for devouring. Removing the fat means threaten their sympathizers first. Make sure, that every parliamentary party calls them terrorists. This has been well achieved, by now, thanks to the kick-stepping chorus line media. Except for a couple of historically astute social democratic or leftist parties, pretty much every one has declared that the Naxalites are terrorists, with the CPI(Marxist) leading the shrill hysteria. Then you attack all independent progressive intellectuals in any which way you can by arresting a few and threatening the rest. You will notice that the West Bengal Government has started arresting Scientists and Professors who are asking questions about the this incident at Lalgarh. Once the pot is on the boil and you have not marinated the meat, it will end up being tough and chewy. If you wish to chew up the Naxalites, you have to first tenderize them. Gone are the days, in the not too distant past, when some sections of the establishment made the grievous error of declaring “they are not terrorists, they are citizens of our country, we cannot declare war on them.” So, now nobody would say this. (Strangely though, there is still some philosophical self-searching somewhere and a retired BSF Director General, Mr. Rammohan, who was asked to look into the Dantewada ambush by the Maoists, came back saying that, “I really do not think the Maoists are exploiters.” This of course really did not hit the headlines. Needless to say this soul searching will only fall on deaf ears, because the G20 Indian Prime Minister has declared in his inimically drone-like manner, that no matter what, the Maoists are India’s gravest internal threat. )
Step 2 Mix together the marinade according to its recipe.
The marinade is something that adds a sophisticated flavour to the meat. Some alkalinity with acidity, wine and vinegar, salt, pepper and lemon. Each of these ingredients reduce the time it takes to cook the meat. A kind of diffused signalling, a non focussed direction that adds flavour to the task ahead. Now the Indian Army has started switching signals. It has started saying that they will join the fray when they are called upon to do so. Mixed signals? Or is it possible that Chidambaram has won a minor scuffle with AK Anthony, the Defence Minister? After all, the PM’s previous call to have no one except the Home Minster’s office issue edicts on the Maoists, went completely unheeded. After all this is a civilian controlled Army, like all great democracies. Never mind the heinous role played by the Army, even last week when they shot and killed 3 boys in Kashmir. So a complex flavour is purposely engineered. On the one hand the Army makes some bold statements about their high and mighty value systems. And then they capitulate and announce that they will do as commanded. Wine and vinegar.
Step 3 Combine the meat and marinade in a nonreactive, sealed container.
Make especially sure not to use aluminum or cast iron, and try to avoid metal altogether, if possible. Use a plastic bag if you can. Ah! Make sure the marinade is out of bounds to the media and the public. Alternative freelance reporters, who have travelled into the interior on motor bikes and other means of transport and are writing in their blogs, say that it is now virtually impossible to find out what is happening in either Lalgarh or Dantewada. If you go there you are told there is section 144 of the Indian Penal Code promulgated. But section 144 is for an assembly of 5 or more people, is it not? Ah! in that case slap on charges of sedition. So, some scientists and professors and college teachers who went to Lalgarh to independently assess the situation, were arrested. When some famous civil society stalwarts, including Supreme Court lawyers attempted to reach Dantewada, they were set upon by goons from the Selva Judum posing as local citizenry! The container is sealed tight. No access.
Step 4 Refrigerate the marinade.
This is the cooling off period, where the marinade penetrates the meat and makes it succulent. This is the ridiculous “abjure violence and we shall talk” – call by Chidambaram. A pretentious nonsensical call that is intended to actually buy time for the State, and not for the Naxalites, so that civic society and civil rights organizations get distracted and move away from the larger issues of civil liberties, political rights and discussion on the megalomaniac roles of the Tatas and the Poscos. The marinade gets cooled for the final assault and the Army can prepare its attack plans. The army has now gone into detailed evaluation of the topography and terrain, including satellite imagery. They will not get involved on foot, until they have taken a minute aerial view of the guerrilla terrain. They are not fools like the CRP, even though they did train them.
Step 5 Discard the marinade after use, and cook the meat slow in low heat.
But, of course! Now that the meat has been tenderized, all the semblances of due process, the marinading liquids can be dispensed. The Army has now stepped in, albeit reluctantly. The real Green Hunt will now begin. Slowly and quietly. Without fanfare and without savage displays.
But here is the big lie! The Indian Army has been involved from day 1 of Operation Green Hunt. It is the Indian Army that has set up schools for the training of para-military forces. The Army is now debating whether to station colonels or brigadiers near the operation centres in Chattisgarh. The wrist-twisting and nerve wracking debate is if brigadiers are too high in the ranks and if colonels are closer to the battle ground in terms of warfare tactics.
According to the Irish Times, “ The (Indian) army is also drawing up plans to keep three to five divisions – 30,000 to 50,000 soldiers – ready to help civilian authorities deal with the fast proliferating Maoist threat to 220 of some 620 administrative districts across 20 of India’s 28 provinces.The training programme to counter the Maoists could potentially be the force’s largest internal security mobilisation, other than in insurgency-ridden Kashmir state and in the northeastern provinces bordering Burma (Myanmar) and Bangladesh.”
The report continues “The army had also stepped up its intelligence gathering in rebel areas by employing personnel who speak the languages of various tribes comprising Maoist activists. The federal government also plans to hire ex-servicemen, particularly former Sappers, on contract for tasks such as de-mining. Maoists use improvised explosive devices frequently. Meanwhile, the Indian air force is seeking the return of its 15 Russian MI 17 helicopters that serve UN peacekeeping missions in Africa in anticipation of them being deployed for logistical support in anti-Maoist operations.”
The Army has already been deployed against the Maoists and yet the silly bluster continues –to do or not to do. The Army and Air Force Chiefs have had their little period of flirtation with free speech, of speaking their minds. Now it is over. They have been ordered to shoot the citizens of this country and they must comply.
Let this picture then tell the lie about India shining. Let this picture be the turning point of the struggle for genuine democracy. Let this picture be carried around in every demonstration to show the world how G20 Manmohan’s India follows the Geneva conventions.
Comrades, read this article and THINK.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I've been talking with some Indian's lately and they have mostly negative things to say like the Maoists are just corrupt warlords who kill those who don't disagree with them and only destroy things. How much of this is true and how much is just bs propaganda? As someone not living in India and not hearing about the death of every civilian by Maoists it's hard to comment back on that. Have the Maoists killed many civilians or are they pretty good at avoiding civilian deaths?

[t.shonku]

Originally posted by A Revolutionary Tool
I've been talking with some Indian's lately and they have mostly negative things to say like the Maoists are just corrupt warlords who kill those who don't disagree with them and only destroy things. How much of this is true and how much is just bs propaganda? As someone not living in India and not hearing about the death of every civilian by Maoists it's hard to comment back on that. Have the Maoists killed many civilians or are they pretty good at avoiding civilian deaths?
Since you live in California the Indians whom you talked to must be Non Residential Indians in other words Indians who stay in US.Let me tell you two or three things about this type of Indians,these peoples are biggest hypocritical capitalistic butt,these peoples are well to do peoples and are shameless supporter of capitalism,they enjoy a good relation with current Indian government,the Indian government actually provides them with all sorts of help(ranging from helping them to obtain real estate in India to getting them easy permits to establish business),that is why these type of Indians never want a communist revolution, because if such a revolution occurs they will be in a loss.
These type of Indians are such a worm that they launched a vicious internet campaign to undermine the peasant revolt of Nandigram,Singur.
These type of Indians are such pompus individual that they think that the poor people of India as inferior beings.

DON'T PAY ATTENTION TO THESE PEOPLES.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Since you live in California the Indians whom you talked to must be Non Residential Indians in other words Indians who stay in US.Let me tell you two or three things about this type of Indians,these peoples are biggest hypocritical capitalistic butt,these peoples are well to do peoples and are shameless supporter of capitalism,they enjoy a good relation with current Indian government,the Indian government actually provides them with all sorts of help(ranging from helping them to obtain real estate in India to getting them easy permits to establish business),that is why these type of Indians never want a communist revolution, because if such a revolution occurs they will be in a loss.
These type of Indians are such a worm that they launched a vicious internet campaign to undermine the peasant revolt of Nandigram,Singur.
These type of Indians are such pompus individual that they think that the poor people of India as inferior beings.

DON'T PAY ATTENTION TO THESE PEOPLES.
No I've been talking to them over the internet, they still live in India and one of them claims to be a socialist revolutionary but he says the Naxals wave the banner of communism to try and gain peoples support but are just corrupt gangsters really who kill innocent people. Then I have another person who's not so revolutionary, more like a social democrat, who says stuff along the same lines plus some other bizarre stuff like their Manifesto says they want to kill all liberals(Obviously not true). Which leads me to the questions I asked above, like how good are the Maoists at not killing innocent civilians, stuff like that.

[Saorsa]

No I've been talking to them over the internet

If they can afford to access the internet, they can afford not to support the Maoists. The Maoist support base don't tend to own computers and a modem!

Don't believe what those people have to say. They speak out of fear of losing their privilege in the coming revolution.


Which leads me to the questions I asked above, like how good are the Maoists at not killing innocent civilians, stuff like that.

In any armed struggle there are going to be some cases where innocent people get caught in the crossfire. This is particularly true in a situation like the People's War in India, where the state is mobilising paramilitary forces and vigilante deathsquads to try and wipe out the Maoists, and there are no conventional battle lines. However, despite this, the Maoists have been very good at avoiding civilian casualties. They meticulously plan their armed operations in such a way as to avoid the death of innocents.

The only recent case I can think of where civilians have been killed is when the Naxalites blew up a police bus with a remote controlled mine, and a number of civilians were killed. The police had deliberately made these civilians travel with them in the bus as human shields, and the Maoists presumably did not know about their presence. The bus had machineguns on top of it and was conspicuously full of armed, uniformed men. The Maoists immediately issued a press release apologising for the civilian deaths, pledging to avoid similar incidents in the future and condemning the Indian state for its use of human shields.

The govt accused the Maoists of derailing a train in West Bengal recently, but this was a lie. The state has no proof and the Maoists fiercely deny it.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I know that Comrade Alastair, I don't believe what they said, some of what they're telling me is pretty ridiculous. But it did get me thinking about Maoist's killing people, all I ever hear about the Maoists in India is that they build, that they kill police, etc, but do they kill civilians often, how good are they at not hitting civilians in the crossfire, etc?

[pranabjyoti]

Background on the People’s Struggle in India and Operation Green Hunt (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/07/02/background-on-the-peoples-struggle-in-india-and-operation-green-hunt/)




http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/india-lalgarh-mass-meeting-2.jpg?w=300&h=225 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/india-lalgarh-mass-meeting-2.jpg)Mass meeting of adivasis in Lalgarh, West Bengal

by the International Campaign against War on the People of India
All over the world, people are asking questions about the nature of India’s society and government, and about the war on the adivasis-the tribal peoples-that has recently been launched by that government with strategic assistance from the US and Israel.
Most commentators admit that the Indian people suffered greatly under British rule. Today, it is claimed, India is on a path of rapid technical progress and development; India has its own Silicon Valley, complete with high-tech R&D and hundreds of call centers for everything from Amazon to Victoria’s Secret. New wealth is being created at a rapid rate, a large middle class is developing that is enjoying shopping malls, multiplex cinemas and imported cars, and much of this wealth is working its way down to the villages and urban slums seen in Slumdog Millionaire.
Largest Democracy in the World?
The most common claim is that India is “the world’s largest democracy.” However, it is a reality that the vast majority of the 1.2 billion people who live in India have no control over their lives. Living and working conditions have not changed for the better from colonial times to the present. According to a 2008 study by the US Agency for International Development, three-quarters of the people live on less than $2 per day.
Illiteracy is widespread in the countryside, where more than half of the women cannot read or write and many children leave school to support their families. Nothwithstanding its “socialist” pretensions, successive governments since independence in 1947 have postponed and put off free and compulsory education for children.
The threat of starvation constantly hangs over the heads of millions. Over the past 10 years, nearly 200,000 farmers have committed suicide by drinking pesticide because they could not keep up with demands to repay loans. In Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, which were at the forefront of ‘modernisation’ of agriculture, farmers had been led to believe they would benefit if they adopted a more market oriented approach. Capital intensive farming, requiring taking out loans for fertilizers, pesticides, and re-orienting to more water intensive crops, promised high prices and large returns – but the WTO regime of open markets meant depression in agricultural prices and they could not recover their costs
Dalits: India is a vast, diverse, and extremely oppressive society. It is often said that India’s elected government has ended the oppressive caste system, which assigned everyone to a specific caste and types of work for life. While the government says it is solving the problem by reserving a certain percentage of jobs and places in schools for dalits (untouchables) and other lower castes, today caste oppression continues to define social reality for Indians, especially in the rural areas.
Around 30% of the people are dalits, who are confined to jobs such as garbage collectors in the cities and excrement haulers in the villages. India’s reservation system has created a new dalit elite (similar in some ways to affirmative action in the US), but for the vast majority of the dalits–life is still hell on earth.
The dalits are the most oppressed among the farmers and peasants, who make up the majority of India’s population. Farmers eke out a living on plots that average ½ to 5 hectares depending on the state, hardly enough to support a family but enough to feed a layer of usurious bankers and moneylenders. One-third of the workers in the countryside, or about 80 million people, are landless laborers.
Peasants/farmers: Some of the sharpest struggles in recent years–including the successful people’s movements at Singur and Nandigram in West Bengal that stopped construction of a Tata auto plant and a huge foreign-owned petrochemical complex–have developed among farmers and adivasis who are threatened with displacement by mining companies or by corporations operating out of more than 500 newly created Special Economic Zones.
These are more accurately known as Special Exploitation Zones, which ban strikes and labor unions, and are run by development corporations that are not bound by Indian law. Tens of thousands of villagers in Orissa are fighting against the capitalist “development” plans of POSCO, a US/South Korean steel corporation, and Vedanta, a British company, which will have devastating economic and ecological consequences for the indigenous Gondh people.
Adivasis: Nearly 100 million adivasis live in the forested areas of central and eastern India. They were never conquered by the British, or by the Aryans and Muslims before them. The adivasis are not part of the caste system and have collective customs that include equal participation of women in the workforce and political life. India has the second largest number of indigenous people after Mexico, and they are covered by UN conventions on the rights of indigenous people.
The adivasis live in areas containing the richest natural resources in India. Most of India’s iron ore, bauxite and coal come from Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh. To paraphrase Arundhati Roy, Indian and multinational capitalists think that the adivasis are sitting on top of their minerals and depriving them of deserved riches. These profit-addicted companies have already signed hundreds of MoUs (Memoranda of Understanding) with state governments to start mining and build steel, aluminum and other industries.
The adivasis–and the progressive and democratic organisations that have been working among them for decades in some areas–stand in the way of their elaborate plans to exploit these riches. One of these groups is the CPI(Maoist) which has set up parallel governments in many adivasi areas that organize collective farming and agricultural research and development, undertake irrigation projects, and build schools, health centers and roads with local materials. The Indian government has set out to destroy these progressive political and social developments in the adivasi-inhabited regions in order to get at the minerals that are worth hundreds of billions of dollars/euros and trillions of Indian rupees.
Salwa Judum: The immediate precursor to the major military operation code named Operation Green Hunt was the formation of Salwa Judum (“Purification Hunt”) in 2005. The SJ, a government-armed private militia, emptied 644 Chhattisgarh villages of their inhabitants (allegedly all Maoist supporters) and left adivasi villages in smoking ruins. This brutal military campaign killed thousands of villagers and scattered 300,000 of them throughout the region. The SJ forced nearly 50,000 adivasis into squalid concentration camps similar to the strategic hamlets that the US set up in Vietnam in an unsuccessful attempt to separate the Vietnamese people from the National Liberation Front.
After five years of political mobilization throughout India–which included heavy fighting in Chhattisgarh between Special Police Forces/paramilitaries and the Maoists–.the SJ forces are in retreat. According to Gandhian Himanshu Kumar, who advocates for the adivasis in south Chhattisgarh displaced by SJ, this campaign generated widespread anger and resentment among the adivasis.
Lagarh Movement: In many ways, OGH has been a reaction by the Indian government– and the Indian capitalists and imperialists that it fronts for–to the defeat of Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh and similar government-backed tribal militias in Bihar and other states. It is also a response to the following, startling events in the Lalgarh region of West Bengal.
Starting in November 2008, tens of thousands of adivasis organized in the People’s Committee against Police Atrocities rose up in November 2008 against the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the misnamed capitalist party which is now the dominant force in the “Left Front” government that has been in power in West Bengal for decades. This party, known as “CPM”, first came to power about three decades back. Their reign started after a period of political volatility during the late 1960s and early 1970s when more than 18,000 CPI(ML) activists were killed.
After years of systemic police brutality, and siphoning off development funds meant for adivasis, CPM leaders and cadre have been driven out of the Lalgarh region. In response, the Indian state has blanketed the Lalgarh region with paramilitaries and police who have taken heavy casualties but apparently have had little luck in finding the Maoists who have widespread political support among the local people.
Political Repression: Complementing the military suppression in the Lalgarh region and other states through OGH, the Centre, West Bengal’s “communist” government, and other states have made it a crime (a political crime, that is) punishable by long prison sentences to be a member of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). The Centre and many states have also passed laws such as the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 2008, which anyone accused of contact with the Maoists can be kept in jail for 180 days without trial and without bail. When held, trials are held before a secret court with the identities of witnesses also kept secret. Such fascist laws have been a common feature of “Indian democracy” throughout the post-independence period.
The UAPA is being applied widely in West Bengal today, especially targeting Kolkata intellectuals and rights activists–some who politically support the Maoists, and other progressives who are falsely charged with being Maoist supporters.
Due to decades of application of “anti-terrorism” laws such as TADA and POTA, India’s prisons are filled with more than 100,000 political prisoners, including large numbers of Kashmiris, Muslims, Northeast peoples (see below) and Maoists, living under squalid conditions that lead to early death. Such conditions, including the denial of necessary medical care, recently led to the first casualty of the UAPA in Kolkata, Swapan Dasgupta, the editor of the Bengali edition of People’s March magazine.
Muslims and Christians: India has the third largest population of Muslims in the world, or 160 million people. Muslims are significantly poorer than Hindus. Indian Muslims live in urban ghettos and separate villages where they are periodically victimized by Hindu mobs animated by the chauvinist ideology of Hindutva. The small Christian minority in India (most of whom are lower-caste Hindus who have converted to escape the caste system) also faces severe religious persecution with the rise of fundamentalist Hindu organisations such as the RSS.
Women in India are still married off by their families irrespective of their wishes, and marriages often require large dowries. Though dowries were legally prohibited in 1961, this payment in cash or in kind by the bride’s family to the bridegroom’s family is still practiced among well-do Indian families. Dowry abuse is a rising practice in India, particularly bride burning-the burning of women whose dowries are not considered sufficient by their husbands or in-laws.
Domestic battery and rape are endemic and rarely punished by the notoriously venal, male-dominated police and courts. Women are kept out of many high-paying professions and jobs.
Kashmir and the Northeast states: Lastly, India is a prison house of nations. Nearly 2 million soldiers of the Indian Army occupy the northern, Muslim state of Kashmir where they battle commandos from Pakistan, which also claims Kashmir, and deny the right of self-determination to the Kashmiri people. In the small states in the Northeast (Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura), the Indian military has been carrying out counter-insurgency operations aimed at suppressing national liberation movements. Over 1/3 of the country is under military law and constitutional protections do not apply there.
As one critic put it, unlike the United States and other big power which have used their militaries in foreign imperialist ventures, “the Indian military has been used primarily against the Indian people: against Kashmiris, Nagas, Assamese, North-eastern peoples, Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis, or … Maoists.”
Political Actors–not Victims
Another set of well propagated myths portray the people of India as victims who are not capable of standing up and fighting for their interests. India is presented in Western media as 5-star Delhi hotels and tourist sites, or as call center operators with names such as John and Susan-or as victims, images on fundraising posters for charity-dependency projects.
The Indian people have a long standing and proud history of struggle, including revolutionary struggle. In recent years, peasants, workers, dalits and adivasis have forged united communities, organizations and the necessary political ideas to stand up to the powerful Indian state, whose military is third in size only to China and the U.S.
These people’s communities and organizations need our political understanding and support, not our charity–or even worse, pity. For the unprecedented internal military offensive known as Operation Green Hunt, the Indian government has mobilized 200,000 soldiers, with helicopters, surveillance drones and combat-hardened units from Kashmir and Nagaland, to attack the areas in eastern and central India where the adivasis are best organized and the resistance forces have their greatest strength.
Since November, when the Operation Green Hunt was launched, it is clear that the life and livelihood of the adivasis are under severe threat because of the the military assault by the state. However, people in those regions are also resisting the onslaught in large numbers.
This is where the International Campaign against the War on People in India comes in. The campaign was launched in January 2010 by activists from India, Europe and the US to support the struggle of the people in the adivasi regions to resist and stop Operation Green Hunt. We are undertaking work in several areas:
(1) Education: We are putting out a variety of educational materials about conditions in India, Operation Green Hunt and the people’s struggles in India. The ICAWPI website (www.icawpi.org), which now has over 200 articles categorized by News, Resistance, Analysis/Opinion and the Campaign, is an invaluable resource for activists, educators and students. ICAWPI organizers in many countries will be getting the word out about speaking tours, educational forums, film showings, and solidarity actions.
(2) Political Mobilization: Activists in Delhi have organized marches, press conferences and forums against Operation Green Hunt. Activists spearheaded by Turkish and Kurdish immigrants in Europe organized half a dozen demonstrations condemning OGH at Indian embassies and consulates on February 5, 2010. More actions are being planned in key Indian cities this spring.
In late February, when the Indian government was making claims that the war (OGH) was only because the Maoists insisted on fighting, Kishenji, a visible (and elusive) leader of the CPI(Maoist), made a bold challenge to the Indian government: Declare a 72 day cease-fire, cancel the MoUs between the states and the MNCs, stop the mass killings of adivasis, and start up negotiations over issues such as ending “encounter killings” (assassinations of Maoists and suspected supporters), freeing tens of thousands of political prisoners being held in terrible conditions, and withdrawing military and paramilitary forces from the seven states of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, Maharastra and Andhra Pradesh where Operation Green Hunt is underway or being deployed.
Many intellectuals and rights activists and organizations have come out publicly in support of this offer and are attempting to break through the wall of silence in the bourgeois media about the actual terms of the Maoist offer. (See www.icawpi.org for news of these efforts.)
Union Minister PC Chidambaram, the main architect of OGH (and a former lawyer for Enron), has taken the only position he can given the reality that he is a political representative of the Indian ruling class and the US/EU imperialists behind them. Chidambaram is saying that there can be no peace talks unless the Maoists “give up violence”-that is disarm while the government is free to attack them and the adivasis and other sections of the people. And he does not say anything about the suspension of constitutional freedoms in 1/3 of the country and the widespread use of “encounter killings” (political assassinations) and torture in areas of conflict.
This is not acceptable to our campaign and to many political forces in India, who are instead willing to take up the Maoists on their offer. The campaign will be doing all that it can, particularly in India but in other countries as well, to force the Indian government to agree to a 2 ½ month cease-fire period, within which peace talks about the issues that have given rise to Operation Green Hunt can be discussed by both sides and by the public.
(3) Work in the Media: We need to break through the media white-out about Operation Green Hunt and the people’s struggles in India against it, and to combat the lies about the Maoist and other resistance movements. This work may include letters to the editor, op-ed pieces, demonstrations to protest particularly misleading newspaper articles, and broad distribution of campaign materials in the progressive media, particularly on the net.
(4) Anti-Military Campaign: We hope to organize a campaign to cut off arms sales, joint military exercises, and training in counter-insurgency by US, Israeli and other imperialist militaries as long as the weapons of the Indian state are pointed at the poorest of India’s people.
Please join in the work of the campaign and spread the word about it to friends, family and co-workers–and around the world.
Comrades, please read.

[scarletghoul]

RIP comrade

Maoist No. 3 Azad killed in Andhra

HYDERABAD/ADILABAD: Maoists might be striking with impunity in Chhattisgarh and neighbouring states, but the group suffered a massive blow when its third-ranking leader and chief spokesman Cherukuri Rajkumar, better known as Azad, was gunned down early Friday in an `encounter' in Adilabad district of Andhra Pradesh.

Another Maoist, Sahdev, north Bastar district committe member, was also killed in the alleged exchange of fire in the Jogarpur forest area, 220km from Adilabad. The killing of Azad, 55, a politburo and central committee member of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), is the biggest success the security agencies have notched up since the Naxals ramped up their offensive more than a year ago.

Police officers who saw the bodies said Azad was dressed casually and there were no injury marks on his face. The Naxal leader, last seen alive in 1980, carried a reward of Rs 12 lakh on his head and had 16 cases pending against him. An AK-47, a 9mm pistol and two kit bags were found at the encounter site, police said.

Azad was touted as No. 3 after general secretary Ganapathi and second-in-command Kishenji in the Maoist party. He was a native of Pedasanagallu village in Movva mandal in Krishna district. His widow Seetakka is an underground cadre leader.

Police warned of relatiatory attacks, specially ahead of the July 27 by-elections for the 12 assembly seats in Telangana region. ``The candidates should be wary of the areas where they plan to campaign,'' a police officer said. A high alert has also been sounded in five states -- Chhattisgarh, Orissa, West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand -- as security forces fear large-scale counter-attacks by Maoists.

Although the official line was that Azad was killed in an encounter, highly-placed sources told TOI that a plan to nab him was executed by the Andhra State Intelligence Branch (SIB). Azad was reportedly picked up by SIB sleuths at Sitabardhi locality in Nagpur on Thursday around 11am when he came to meet a courier. ``Azad was supposed to go with the courier to Dandakaranya region where he was to take classes for the cadre from Friday,'' Katta Ramachandra Reddy alias Gudsa Usendi, Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee official spokesman said.

The district police version was simple. ``Acting on a tip-off that a group of 20-25 Maoists were heading to Adilabad from Maharashtra, we sent a police team for search operations in Wankhidi area. They came across the Reds around 10.30pm on Thursday,'' Adilabad SP P Pramod Kumar said.

The rebels fired at the police party, which retaliated. The exchange of fire continued till 2am. ``It was early in the morning we recovered two bodies. A surrendered Maoist Sakkubai identified one of the two killed as Azad,'' Kagaznagar DSP Sashidhar said.

Meanwhile, the AP High Court dismissed a writ plea filed by Maoist sympathizer and Virasam leader Varavara Rao who demanded Azad's body be brought to Hyderabad and a postmortem done at Osmania hospital. Alleging that Azad was killed in a fake encounter, Varavara Rao said: ``After tracking Azad in Nagpur, the police took him to the forests in Adilabad and killed him.''

Azad's mother Cherukuri Karuna, in her 80s, was allowed by the court to see the body before the autopsy, which would be conducted at Mancherial area hospital on Saturday morning.

Azad was allegedly involved in the killing of Congress MLA Narsi Reddy in Narayanpet in Mahbubnagar on Aug 15, 2005, which led to re-imposition of the ban on the Maoists in AP. Talks with the Maoists, which were initiated by late Y S Rajasekhara Reddy when he was the CM, had broken down a few months before. AP first imposed a ban on Naxals in 1992. It was relaxed by N T Rama Rao, but Chandrababu Naidu re-imposed it in 1996. It was relaxed again by YSR in 2004.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Maoist-No-3-Azad-killed-in-Andhra/articleshow/6122184.cms
Azad killing a big blow to Maoists

NEW DELHI: Inflicting a major blow on the Maoists at a time when the fight against Naxalism was proceeding very badly, the Andhra Pradesh police on Friday silenced the Maoists' voluble spokesman and senior politburo member Cherukuri Rajkumar, popularly known as Azad.

Azad was learnt to be on his way to a destination in Dandakaranya for a meeting of the CPI (Maoist) central committee. Well known in media circles, Azad was the interlocutor with Maoist leaders operating deep undercover and often struck an assertive and boastful note. Though his value in operational terms is debatable, he death is a blow to the Maoists.

Azad, along with another Maoist, were killed in an encounter with police in Adilabad district in Andhra Pradesh. Acting on specific intelligence, police raided the Maoist duo's hideout and killed them following a gunbattle, which continued for nearly two hours.

CPI (Maoist), however, expectedly claimed that Azad was picked up by police from somewhere near Nagpur in Maharashtra. Top ultras were supposed to attend the central committee meeting to discuss developments in context of home minister P Chidambaram's recent communication to Swami Agnivesh on talks though the Naxals have already rejected the offer. In fact, they did so in fairly dismissive terms.
Coming just two days after the killing of 27 CRPF jawans in Chhattisgarh, the encounter gives the Centre some breathing space. Expecting retaliation from the Maoists, major Naxal-affected states — Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and West Bengal — have been put on alert.

Although Azad was not directly involved in military operations of late, he had a key role in the attempts to kill two former Andhra chief ministers — N Chandrababu Naidu and N Janardhan Reddy.

A senior official said the state police had diligently gathered intelligence and had reached Azad who was operating through a number of dedicated cadres with one person being ignorant of the other in a need-to-know chain of command to reach the spokesman.

"The Naxalite who was killed along with Azad was one of the couriers being followed by police," said the official. With pressure mounting on Maoists since the government's crackdown last year, the ultras have floated a ceasefire offer from time to time, which has not gone anywhere. Meanwhile, in an attack in Dantewada, they even targeted a bus with civilians. Azad had last written to Swami Agnivesh on May 31, on the home ministry's proposals.

Azad has been described as one of the seniormost members of CPI (Maoist) by the party. "He was a brilliant student of Regional Engineering College, Warangal, where he studied MTech in the late 70s. He led the Andhra Pradesh Radical Students Union after the Emergency period. Later, he went underground and has been looking after political and organizational responsibilities of the party in various places for over 30 years," a party statement said.

In March, Azad had been untraceable for a while and Maoists issued a statement saying the party suspected he had been arrested by the Andhra police and was being held in "illegal custody".

In a bid to ensure that Azad was not killed, Maoists had warned of action if their senior leader was not produced before a court. "We warn the government that if Comrade Azad is not produced before court... bandhs and protest will continue. If damage is done to his life, the people and People's Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) will react seriously."



Looking like a summary execution ..

[pranabjyoti]

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Is the nation in a coma? (http://naxalrevolution.blogspot.com/2010/06/is-nation-in-coma.html)



39Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fnaxalrevolution.blogspot .com%2F&t=Naxalite%20Maoist%20India&src=sp) 3 (http://www.google.com/buzz/post)
A well written article from the Hindu Businessline on the World's largest undeclared Banana Republic.
Is the nation in a coma?

Europeans believe that Indian leaders are too blinded by new wealth and deceit to comprehend that the day will come when the have-nots will hit the streets.

Mohan Murti

A few days ago I was in a panel discussion on mergers and acquisitions in Frankfurt, Germany, organised by Euroforum and The Handelsblatt, one of the most prestigious newspapers in German-speaking Europe.

The other panellists were senior officials of two of the largest carmakers and two top insurance companies — all German multinationals operating in India.

The panel discussion was moderated by a professor from the esteemed European Business School. The hall had an audience that exceeded a hundred well-known European CEOs. I was the only Indian.

After the panel discussion, the floor was open for questions. That was when my “moment of truth” turned into an hour of shame, embarrassment — when the participants fired questions and made remarks on their experiences with the evil of corruption in India.

The awkwardness and humiliation I went through reminded of The Moment of Truth, the popular Anglo-American game. The more questions I answered truthfully, the more the questions get tougher. Tougher here means more embarrassing.

European disquiet

Questions ranged from “Is your nation in a coma?”, the corruption in judiciary, the possible impeachment of a judge, the 2G scam and to the money parked illegally in tax havens.

It is a fact that the problem of corruption in India has assumed enormous and embarrassing proportions in recent years, although it has been with us for decades. The questions and the debate that followed in the panel discussion was indicative of the European disquiet. At the end of the Q&A session, I surmised Europeans perceive India to be at one of those junctures where tripping over the precipice cannot be ruled out.

Let me substantiate this further with what the European media has to say in recent days.

In a popular prime-time television discussion in Germany, the panellist, a member of the German Parliament quoting a blog said: “If all the scams of the last five years are added up, they are likely to rival and exceed the British colonial loot of India of about a trillion dollars.”

Banana Republic

One German business daily which wrote an editorial on India said: “India is becoming a Banana Republic instead of being an economic superpower. To get the cut motion designated out, assurances are made to political allays. Special treatment is promised at the expense of the people. So, Ms Mayawati who is Chief Minister of the most densely inhabited state, is calmed when an intelligence agency probe is scrapped. The multi-million dollars fodder scam by another former chief minister wielding enormous power is put in cold storage. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chairs over this kind of unparalleled loot.”

An article in a French newspaper titled “Playing the Game, Indian Style” wrote: “Investigations into the shadowy financial deals of the Indian cricket league have revealed a web of transactions across tax havens like Switzerland, the Virgin Islands, Mauritius and Cyprus.” In the same article, the name of one Hassan Ali of Pune is mentioned as operating with his wife a one-billion-dollar illegal Swiss account with “sanction of the Indian regime”.

A third story narrated in the damaging article is that of the former chief minister of Jharkhand, Madhu Koda, who was reported to have funds in various tax havens that were partly used to buy mines in Liberia. “Unfortunately, the Indian public do not know the status of that enquiry,” the article concluded.

“In the nastiest business scam in Indian records (Satyam) the government adroitly covered up the political aspects of the swindle — predominantly involving real estate,” wrote an Austrian newspaper. “If the Indian Prime Minister knows nothing about these scandals, he is ignorant of ground realities and does not deserve to be Prime Minister. If he does, is he a collaborator in crime?”

The Telegraph of the UK reported the 2G scam saying: “Naturally, India's elephantine legal system will ensure culpability, is delayed.”

Blinded by wealth

This seems true. In the European mind, caricature of a typical Indian encompasses qualities of falsification, telling lies, being fraudulent, dishonest, corrupt, arrogant, boastful, speaking loudly and bothering others in public places or, while travelling, swindling when the slightest of opportunity arises and spreading rumours about others. The list is truly incessant.

My father, who is 81 years old, is utterly frustrated, shocked and disgruntled with whatever is happening and said in a recent discussion that our country's motto should truly be Asatyameva Jayete.

Europeans believe that Indian leaders in politics and business are so blissfully blinded by the new, sometimes ill-gotten, wealth and deceit that they are living in defiance, insolence and denial to comprehend that the day will come, sooner than later, when the have-nots would hit the streets.

In a way, it seems to have already started with the monstrous and grotesque acts of the Maoists. And, when that rot occurs, not one political turncoat will escape being lynched.

The drumbeats for these rebellions are going to get louder and louder as our leaders refuse to listen to the voices of the people. Eventually, it will lead to a revolution that will spill to streets across the whole of India, I fear.

Perhaps we are the architects of our own misfortune. It is our sab chalta hai (everything goes) attitude that has allowed people to mislead us with impunity. No wonder Aesop said. “We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to high office.”

(The author is former Europe Director, CII, and lives in Cologne, Germany. [email protected])

Via - Hindu businessline (http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2010/05/31/stories/2010053150300900.htm)
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This is a REAL picture of India. Those who want to know about present India and its rulers, kindly read it.

[pranabjyoti]

Thursday, May 03, 2007

‘I was always Leftist. Economic reforms made me completely Marxist’ (http://naxalrevolution.blogspot.com/2007/05/i-was-always-leftist-economic-reforms.html)


0diggsdigg Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fnaxalrevolution.blogspot .com%2F2007%2F05%2Fi-was-always-leftist-economic-reforms.html&t=Naxalite%20Maoist%20India%3A%20%E2%80%98I%20was% 20always%20Leftist.%20Economic%20reforms%20made%20 me%20completely%20Marxist%E2%80%99&src=sp) [/URL]
It is not everyday that we post articles by ministers of
the UPA government . But Mani Shankar Iyer(Minister for
Panchayati Raj) deserves to be read.. because here is one man
trying to expose what his government truly is - A big Sham.

We believe the UPA government is all set to go down in
history as the single largest man made disaster to hit
India in the early part of the twenty first century.

By the time you reach the end of the article one thing
becomes sure...
Mani Shankar Iyer won't be invited by the CII
to deliver a speech again in this lifetime.

‘I was always Leftist. Economic reforms made me completely Marxist’

In a speech at a CII meet, Mani Shankar Aiyar argued that policy is hijacked by a small elite. That the cabinet he belongs to is quite comfortable with this hijacking. That India’s system of governance is such that Rs 650 crore for village development is considered wasteful but Rs 7,000 crore for the Commonwealth Games is considered vital. The classes rule all the time, Aiyar says, the masses get a look-in every five years

A few weeks ago the newspapers reported that the number of Indian billionaires had exceeded the number of billionaires in Japan, and there was a considerable amount of self-congratulation on this. I understand from P. Sainath that we rank eighth in the world in the number of our millionaires. And we stand 126th on the Human Development Index. I am glad to report that last year we were 127th.

At this very fast rate of growth that we are now showing, we moved up from 127th to 126th position. This is the paradigm of our development process. In a democracy, every five years the masses determine who will rule this country. And they showed dramatically in the last elections that they knew how to keep their counsel and show who they wanted. We, my party and I, were the beneficiaries and we formed the government. Every five years, it is the masses who determine who will form the government. And in between those five years the classes determine what that government will do.
[URL="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GDu8u7coxl0/RjlxenN4GFI/AAAAAAAAATw/lDOTDUW9gXg/s1600-h/mani_shankar_aiyar_248.jpg"]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GDu8u7coxl0/RjlxenN4GFI/AAAAAAAAATw/lDOTDUW9gXg/s320/mani_shankar_aiyar_248.jpg (http://www.google.com/buzz/post)

In determining what that government will do, the CII has played an extremely important role. I am not surprised, as that is its job. It represents industry, and therefore it argues for the interests of the industry. Industry has been enormously benefited by the processes of economic reform that we have seen in this country over the last 15 years or so. But the benefits of these reforms have gone so disproportionately to those who are the most passionate advocates of reforms that every five years we are given a slap in the face for having done what the CII regards as self-evidently the right thing for this country.

It is a sustainable economic proposition, because our numbers are so vast, that there are perhaps 10 million Indians who are just as rich as the richest equivalent segment anywhere in the world or in any group of countries. There are about fifty million Indians who really are extraordinarily well off. That’s the population of the UK.

But if you look at the 700 million Indians who are either not in the market or barely in the market, then the impact of the economic reforms process, which is so lauded by the CII, makes virtually no difference to their lives. That is why there is a complete disjunct between what the democratic processes are trying for in the short run and what those who have made an enormous success of our achievements in the last fifteen years deem to be, at least in the short run, their own requirements.

So when you talk of a nine point two per cent growth rate, it becomes a statistical abstraction: 0.2 per cent of our people are growing at 9.92 per cent per annum. But there is a very large number, I don’t know how many, whose growth rate is perhaps down to 0.2 per cent. But certainly, the number of those who are at the lower end of the growth sector is very much larger than those who are at the higher end.

Yet what happens when you have the budget? As an absolute ritual every finance minister (my colleague Chidambaram is no exception) will devote the first four or five pages of his budget speech to the bulk of India and there will then be several pages, including whole of part B, which deals perhaps with one or two per cent of our population. Almost the entire discussion that takes place at CII or CII-like forums, will be about Part B rather than Part A.

There are comfort levels that you get from statistics — for instance, suddenly Arun Shourie, announcing in the NDA government that our poverty rates have fallen from 35 per cent to 22 per cent. He did it by changing the basis on which you estimate poverty. You cannot compare apples and oranges. The next national sample survey has shown that our poverty levels have actually increased. Are we going to be mesmerised by these statistics or understand that 700 million of our people are poor?

So we have an Indira Awaas Yojana which will ensure that there will be a ‘jhuggi’ for every Indian round about the year 2200. We have the PM Gram Sadak Yojana which was supposed to complete all the gram sadak in seven years — we are in the eighth year. And where we are told that the education of 1000 may be covered, who knows only the education of 500 will be covered. And if you happen to be a tribal in Arunachal, you are told that because of your social custom you are to live in one hut atop a hill, we can’t provide you a road.

I was always something of a leftist. But I became a complete Marxist only after the economic reforms. Because I see the extent to which the most important conception of Marx — that the relationship of any given class with the means of production determines the superstructure — holds.

This ugly choice is placed before the government. An unequal choice, because you have organised yourself to say what you want to say but the others are only able to organise themselves and that too without speaking to each other in the fifth year when the elections take place. That is why this expression anti-incumbency, although the Oxford Dictionary says that it is a word belonging to the English language, is a peculiarly Indian phenomenon. Because everything that goes in the name of good governance like the economic reforms either does not touch the life of people or affect them at all.

We have seen what happened at Nandigram, we have seen what was happening at Singur and we have these propositions that say that SEZs are going to come and lakhs of hectares are going to be utilised for the good of the country. For what’s the syndrome in all this, it’s still ‘do bigha zameen’. The chap says that I want my one bigha of zameen to be reinstated, but you offer double the compensation and “baad mein dekha jayega”. You go to Hirakud, which is where Jawaharlal Nehru actually used the expression modern temples of India, and you ask what happened to the tribals who were driven out of there. Absolutely nobody knows.

Coming to the cabinet, you see what happens. The minute suggestions are made as to what would perhaps benefit the people and what would benefit the classes, the tendency is to say that our great achievement is 9.2 per cent growth. Our great achievement is that Indian industrialists are buying Arcelor and Corus. That Time magazine thinks we are a great power.

In these circumstances, when a proposal came before the government to spend Rs 648 crore on the Gram Nyaya department, we were solemnly informed by one of the most influential ministers in the government to remember that we are a poor country. I was delighted when the next day he was with me in a group of ministers and I reminded him of his remark and said in that case can we stop spending the Rs 7000 crore on the Commonwealth Games and he said, “No, no, that is an international commitment and a matter of national pride.” This national pride will of course blow up if you spend Rs 7000 crore on the Commonwealth Games. We will be on the cover of Time and Newsweek.

I have always wondered why this rate of growth and economic reforms process is dated to Manmohan Singh. Because actually it should be dated to L.K. Jha’s book Economic Strategy for the 80s. It is the decade in which we quickly recovered from agricultural depression and registered a double digit growth. At the beginning of the decade our biggest import was crude oil and after that it was edible oil. By the end of the decade we were exporters of several kinds of edible oil.

Why is it that Nehru became successful with his Hindu rate of growth? The reason is that the Hindu rate of growth was five times what our pre-Hindu rate of growth was. From 1914 to 1947, the figures of which are available, the rate of growth of the Indian economy was 0.72 per cent. And we got the Hindu rate of growth which was five times that and it made a difference to the people. The minute you had solid land reforms, the people had their ‘zameen’. That is what Mother India was all about. People felt that they were involved in the process. All the political talk was: gareeb ke liye ham kya kar sakte hain. Indira Gandhi matched it beautifully when the entire political spectrum joined hands against her by saying, “Woh kehte hain Indira hatao, hum kehte hain Garibi hatao.”

There is nobody so marginal in a government as the minister of Panchayati Raj. I count for nothing. Nothing! When I was the minister of petroleum, I used to walk surrounded by this media. I kept on telling them that petrol prices can do only three things — go up, go down or remain where they are. And it was all over the place. But try and get them to write two words about the 700 million Indians — absolutely impossible. And now with terrestrial television it is even worse. You have to be quarreling with your mother-in-law or hitting your daughter-in-law to be able to hit the headlines. It is impossible to get particularly the pink papers to focus on issues that affect the bulk of the people. And it is so easy to get them to focus on issues that are of high relevance to only one or two per cent of the people.

I believe the CII, if it is serious about the issue, should not be restricting itself to 25 minutes discussion before lunch but hold discussions for ten days and maybe something will come out of it.

Edited extracts from a speech at the CII Northern Region annual meeting 2006-07, New Delhi, April 4

Indianexpress (http://www.indianexpress.com/story/29112._.html)
The opinion of one of the Singh's minister about the actions of their own government.

[pranabjyoti]

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com and http://southasiarev.wordpress.com are two very sources of information about the revolutionary struggle going on in Indian and worldwide. But, for a few days, those two websites above aren't opening properly. It seems that some kind of hacking and try to disturb the websites is going on either from the part of the Govt. of India or some reactionary, anti-revolutionary hackers appointed by ........ How much this can be true?

[pranabjyoti]

Stop the mass crimes in India! (http://www.icawpi.org/en/intl-campaign/solidarity-statements/495-stop-the-mass-crimes-in-india)


http://www.icawpi.org/images/stories/cpg_ml.jpg


The Communist Party of Greece (marxist-lennist) condemns the ongoing murderous crusade of the Indian repressive forces, both official and paramilitary, against millions of peasants and Adivasi (tribal people) in central India. The so-called “operation Green Hunt” that was jointly launched by the Central Government in Delhi governments of Indian states like Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh etc, have turned into a bloodbath with killings, mass arrests, tortures and displacements, moving populations and whole villages is nothing short of a genocide. It aims to eliminate the armed revolutionary movement and to serve the plans of the multinational conglomerates. Meanwhile with this escalation of the political violence and terrorism against the cadres and the members of the revolutionary movement of the country as well as the harassment and intimidation of every progressive person that attempts to denounce these mass crimes continue to extend the reign of fascist terror across the country. The last and characteristic incident was the extrajudicial cold-blooded murder, of two cadres of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), following their arrest and torture by the Intelligence Service of Andhra Pradesh.
The CPG(m-l) conveys its revolutionary greetings to the militant communists in India and expresses it’s rage to the Indian government for the murder of com. Azad. We call on all revolutionary and democratic forces in Greece to support the struggle of the popular masses in India and to take part in the mobilization organised for today to condemn these crimes and atrocities against the people of India, outside the Indian Embassy in Athens.
Communist Party of Greece(marxist-leninist)
Athens, 06/07/2010

PROTEST AGAINST THE SLAUGHTER OF PEASANTS IN INDIA (http://www.icawpi.org/en/intl-campaign/solidarity-statements/496-protest-against-the-slaughter-of-peasants-in-india)

SOLIDARITY RALLY FOR THE INDIAN PEOPLE!
JOINT STATEMENT OF LEFT ORGANIZATIONS IN GREECE

A repressive, murderous operation has been launched by the Indian state, with the deployment of hundreds of thousands of police and paramilitary forces, with the participation of criminal paramilitary organizations. It aims to break the resistance of poor peasants in vast areas of India. It is about a mass and militant resistance that involves vast areas dwelled by over 100 millions of poor Adivasi (tribal people) peasants.
The main reason for this military raid is to grab the land of the poor people and pass it to the corporations both multinationals and local for the looting exploitation of natural sources in these vast areas. It should be noted that the West Bengal state is under informal "emergency" situation. Despite the mass murderous raids of the reactionary Indian state the peasants' movement is growing and resists the murderous assaults.
In order to suppress the solidarity movement that has emerged for the struggle of the peasants, the Indian authorities have launched a fierce repressive and intimidating campaign against intellectuals who support the resistance like - for example - the well-known author Arundhati Roy.
Left and democratic organizations of Greece denounce the criminal raid of the Indian state and support the struggles and the movement of the poor peasants, expressing their unreserved solidarity and call to a protest rally outside the Indian Embassy in Athens.

Communist Organization of Greece
Communist Party of Greece(marxist-leninist)
Cultural Club "Bridge of the people of the East"
Leftist Reconstruction
Leftist Anticapitalist Convergence
New Left Current
Organization of Communists Internationalists of Greece - Spartacus
"Partizan" Magazine
Revolutionary Communist Movement of Greece
Sosialist Workers' Party


Tel.: (0030) (210) 3303639
www.kkeml.gr (http://www.kkeml.gr)
[email protected] e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Protest from Greece. Red Salute to our Greek comrades. Long live unity of worldwide workers.

[pranabjyoti]

Vedanta’s Controversial Mine Gets Backing of India’s Prime Minister (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/vedantas-controversial-mine-gets-backing-of-indias-pm/)




http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/we-are-the-dongria-kondh1.jpg?w=473&h=314 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/we-are-the-dongria-kondh1.jpg)June 30, 2010
In a highly unusual move, India’s Prime Minister has intervened directly in the approval process for one of the world’s most controversial mines.
The office of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has written to the Environment and Forests Ministry urging it to clear Vedanta’s proposed Niyamgiri mine in Odisha (http://www.indigenouspeoplesissues.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3937:dont-mine-us-out-of-existence-bauxite-mine-and-refinery-devastate-lives-in-india&catid=63&Itemid=85). The mine cannot go ahead without official clearance from the Ministry.
The mine is likely to have a devastating effect on the Dongria Kondh tribe (http://www.indigenouspeoplesissues.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1128:dongria-kondh-livelihoods-and-cultural-identity-threatened-by-vedanta-mine-in-niyamgiri-hills&catid=63&Itemid=85) who live in the area. A Dongria Kondh man told Survival International (http://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/dongria/sacredmountain#main), ‘Mining only makes profit for the rich. We will become beggars if the company destroys our mountain and our forest so that they can make money.’ The tribe has become known as the ‘real Avatar tribe’ because of the parallels between their plight and that of the Na’vi in James Cameron’s blockbuster.
A team of experts commissioned by the Environment Ministry to investigate Vedanta’s plan earlier this year warned that the Niyamgiri mine (http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/5650)could ‘lead to the destruction of the Dongria Kondh [as a people].’
FTSE 100 company Vedanta is majority-owned by billionaire Anil Agarwal.
The Ministry has appointed another expert team to conduct further investigations. Reports indicate that the Environment Ministry will then announce its decision, around the time of Vedanta’s AGM in London on the 28th July.
Last year the UK government condemned Vedanta, declaring that it ‘did not respect the rights of the Dongria Kondh’ and that a ‘change in the company’s behaviour [is] essential.’ The Church of England, the Norwegian government and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust are among the high-profile investors that have sold their Vedanta shares over serious human rights concerns.
Survival’s director Stephen Corry, said, ‘The Prime Minister ought to be protecting the rights of India’s most vulnerable citizens, not helping to railroad through a project that government experts have warned could destroy them.’
Again, a eyeopener on who the rulers of India represent.

[pranabjyoti]

Azad: A Last Note To A Neo-Colonialist (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/07/11/azad-a-last-note-to-a-neo-colonialist/)


(This is the final published essay by Cherukuri Rajkumar, known as Comrade Azar, spokesperson of the CPI (Maoists), who was assassinated by Indian Special Intelligence Bureau forces on July 2, 2010. It has been published in Outlook Magazine, Sunday, July 11, 2010).
by Cherukuri Rajkumar (Azad)
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/tribal_20100709.jpg?w=300&h=199 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/tribal_20100709.jpg)Corporate Trusteeship: But a cruel joke

Reading B.G. Verghese’s article Daylight at the Thousand-Star Hotel in Outlook (May 3), one is stunned by the abysmal poverty of thought and colonial mindset of this renowned intellectual. How is it that the illiterate, seemingly uncivilised, backward, half-naked adivasi thinks, analyses and acts a lot better than an established, well-read, highly qualified intellectual like Verghese?
The history of freedom in our country presents innumerable such contrasts: of the highly educated white man, with his vast, in-depth knowledge of the world and the natural and social sciences, glorifying the British raj as a regime with a civilising mission; and the half-naked, illiterate Indian who craved for freedom and independence. To justify the oppression of their subjects in the colonies, the “educated” colonial intellectuals invented phrases such as “white man’s burden”, “civilising mission” et al. The freedom fighter, however, was not impressed by the ‘development’ the British colonialists brought to India through their railways, roads, communication networks, plantations, mines etc.
Verghese is a typical example of the self-proclaimed civilisers of modern-day India, akin to the white ‘civilisers’ of yesteryear, who would have been the pride of a Rudyard Kipling. He reveals this colonial mindset by vehemently arguing in favour of the civilising mission of the corporate sharks and the Indian State to transform the poor, backward adivasis from savages into civilised people through a ‘development’ that destroys people’s economy, social life, culture and all human values. Ironically, ignoramuses like him imagine that adivasis are the casualties of non-development.
The corporate vultures and their police servants have said, through Verghese, what they think of a dialogue with the Maoists. Citing from my interview in The Hindu, Verghese gives his own interpretation to my proposal for talks. He derides my statement that “talks will give some respite to the people who are oppressed and suppressed under the jackboots of the Indian State…” and interprets this as “respite for the oppressed (cadres)”. Such is the wishful imagination, cynicism, trivialisation and vulgarisation of a life-and-death question confronting millions of hapless people!
Verghese also thinks that lifting the ban on our party, release of jailed leaders for the purpose of participating in talks, and respite for the oppressed are unreasonable preconditions. Would anyone, except Verghese and other war-hungry hawks, imagine that the Maoists had placed respite as a precondition? We had only explained why we think a ceasefire is necessary to give respite to the oppressed and suppressed people in the war-torn zones.
In any war, there can be several periods of peace depending on many factors such as natural calamities which affect a significant chunk of the population and need relative peace for reconstruction and assistance to the victims; war of aggression by another country which calls for the united resistance of one and all; war fatigue among the people and even the belligerents; chronic famine conditions for a sizeable proportion of the people arising basically out of prolonged periods of war; the needs of either side for a respite for various reasons, and so on. However, it is only when both sides in the war feel the need for peace that a mutual ceasefire and a situation for initiating a dialogue will arise.
Verghese does not speak like an impartial observer but betrays his conscious motive of tarnishing the Maoists with his ideologically bankrupt rhetoric. His inherent bias is clear from several of his remarks, such as his accusation that the Maoists pose like “Robin Hoods but rule by fear and authoritarian command over cowed camp-followers”. He further says: “Many comrades have broken rank in disgust over the Maoists’ brutality and hubris.” Can he cite any authentic source for his accusation, leaving out the disinformation campaign unleashed by the reactionary rulers and their police-intelligence wings? How many comrades have broken rank in disgust over our “brutality and hubris”? We challenge him to furnish a list.
For a common man who sees nothing but a culture of fear and authoritarianism everywhere, in virtually every party led by one or two authoritarian individuals whether it be Indira Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, L.K. Advani, M. Karunanidhi, Y.S.R. Reddy, Chandrababu Naidu, Jyoti Basu and so on, it is difficult to imagine genuine democracy and mutual trust that is the hallmark of a proletarian party like ours. Maoists have never considered themselves Robin Hoods and have even undertaken deep reviews of how the cult of the individual is part of the bourgeois culture, and how the people are the real heroes. Besides a strong ideological-political unity, the Maoists are marked by their conscious effort to promote collective functioning right from the central committee to the mass organisation committees, which is one reason why every attempt to split the party has failed right from the time of K.G. Sathya Murthy and Kondapalli Seetharamayya in erstwhile PW or Bharath and Badal in erstwhile MCCI.
One is also dumbstruck to hear Verghese chide Arundhati Roy saying: “Why scoff at a cancer hospital built near Raipur by Vedanta, the aluminium corporate, or the proposed Vedanta University in coastal Orissa? Are these by definition all wicked enterprises?” He then goes on to repeat Ms Roy’s observations on the pathetic health conditions and lack of any healthcare in Dandakaranya and asks: “So where do we begin? By burning down the Vedanta hospital?”
Should one think it is because of his innocence or because of his false consciousness derived from the non-stop propaganda by the corporate sharks that Verghese poses such a foolish question? Vedanta might appear as a benevolent enterprise to Verghese, but life has taught the adivasis what it stands for. Even as Verghese comes forth as an apologist for the worst perpetrators of crimes against humanity, we find organisations like the Church of England, and several shareholders in Vedanta exhibiting better rationale by withdrawing their shares from Vedanta. Even the colonialists seem more humane and rational than the slavish intellectuals in their former colonies! Moreover, even the Supreme Court of India and the environment ministry have raised objections to the proposed Vedanta University and mining venture. Only a Chidambaram, who served as a member of its board of directors until 2004, and Verghese, with his “compassionate” colonial mindset of “civilising” the backward people, can stand up in support of vultures like Vedanta, Tata, POSCO, Jindal….
Verghese’s colonial mindset is at its best when he says: “Yes, there will be land acquisition and displacement-that is the story of civilisation; but there will also be resettlement, compensation and training for new vocations.” The adivasis and poor peasants in our country can never imagine how people like Verghese can distort history so shamelessly. Ask the 60 million people who have been displaced by the land acquisition of the “civilisers”. How and why such barbarism is called the story of civilisation, only Verghese knows best. To convince the sceptics, he further says: “Admittedly, this (resettlement, compensation) has not always been done wisely or well. But times are changing. New legal frameworks, better norms, closer monitoring, improved R&R and livelihood packages have continuously been put in place.”
Verghese here comes out as an incarnation of the typical Indian bureaucrat, like a G.K. Pillai. All intellectual pretence is shed here and he reveals himself as a loyal servant of the Indian comprador sharks. So why is all this hullabaloo about land acquisition and displacement being raked up by people like Arundhati Roy and others?
Verghese states his imagined virtues of the corporates without a sense of shame: “There is much virtue in translating Gandhi’s concept of trusteeship in a new and evolving idiom of csr to which corporates, the state and courts have variously given expression. The new deals being worked out by the POSCOs, Vedantas, Tatas, Mittals and others are greatly in advance of what was on offer even five years ago.” What Verghese is trying to say is let the corporates enjoy the mineral wealth and loot the country at will as long as they throw some crumbs as charity or ‘social responsibility’ to the poor, helpless, wretched beings who are thrown out of their homes and lands. Why doesn’t Verghese visit Balitutha, Dhinkia and Nuagaon in Jagatsinghpur district of Orissa and convince the anti-POSCO agitators to understand the new paradise that is being built for them by his corporate bosses? Or visit Baligotha, Chandia and Baragadia in Kalinganagar to make the “backward” adivasis protesting against the Tata Steel project see reason? After centuries of rapacious plunder by capitalist gangs that has led to the monopoly control of the world’s resources by a handful of corporations, Verghese can actually call for a trusteeship by corporates!
Another interesting instance where Verghese distorts facts is in the growth in tribal populations. In order to disprove Arundhati Roy’s apprehension about the probable genocide of tribals due to the war waged by the Indian State, Verghese asserts that “the tribal population of India was 19.1 million in 1951, rose to 84.3 mn according to the 2001 census and is estimated to be just short of 100 mn (8.1 per cent of the population) today.” Had he exerted a little effort, he would have known that the seemingly huge growth in the population figures of scheduled tribes in India is not because of an increase in the population of the tribes but due to the inclusion of several hitherto non-tribals in the ST category.
Verghese’s attitude towards the occupation of schools by the security forces is also criminally casual. He says: “Yes, schools in Naxal-affected areas are often occupied by security forces, not to prevent education but because schooling and other developmental activities, such as they are, have come to a halt.” Even worse, he accuses the Maoists of opposing schools and of being interested only in “agitprop centres to indoctrinate the young”. This reveals the extent of indoctrination this intellectual mind has been subjected to by the omnipotent imperialist media and the servile education system he is a product of. He goes on to say, “Development and connectivity threaten them. Hence they destroy roads, culverts, bridges. Hence the wanton attacks on railway and highway projects that would, if completed, connect and open up remote, backward areas. If education, health services, roads, irrigation, markets and communications are provided and poverty rolled back, the Maoists would be out of business.”
Throughout his article, Verghese acts as an apologist for the reactionary deeds of the rulers; and at times his language is indistinguishable from that of Chidambaram. For instance, Chidambaram too said at JNU recently: “Maoists want to ensure the tribals were inaccessible and incommunicado (from mainstream) by blowing up buildings, railway tracks and targeting developmental projects. Are they trying to create an archaeological museum in the tribal areas by keeping the tribals away from development?”
While one can understand Chidambaram, as a loyal representative of the corporate sharks, uttering such trash, it’s really amusing to see intellectuals like Verghese imagining such things and drawing fantastic and subjective conclusions. On several occasions, we have clarified these questions. We have explained why we are targeting roads, bridges etc. Let alone opposing, our party has even led people’s struggles demanding the setting up of schools, appointment of teachers, health services, markets, irrigation and so on. In fact, seeing the utter apathy of the rulers, we ourselves have set up schools, dug wells and tanks to develop irrigation and increase productivity and yields of crops, organised cooperatives, trained local doctors, built roads and bridges deep inside the forest.
Why would Maoists be threatened by development and connectivity? If Verghese and his brand of intellectuals think that concrete roads are the barometer of development, they are living in a fool’s paradise. He falls prey to the ruling class scheme of development that displaces the adivasis and destroys their lives, lands and cultures. He says roads and railways open up remote backward areas. For whom? For the people or for a handful of mining and industrial companies, forest contractors and police tormentors who make adivasi lives a veritable hell?
Even more amusing is Verghese’s allegation that the Maoists are working only among the adivasis and that they will be “out of business” once the adivasi areas become developed. He does not even know the programme of the Maoists, which is to mobilise the vast majority of the suffering people throughout the country. Can the Maoists seize power and establish the “totalitarian state” Verghese is talking of without organising the non-adivasi majority living in the advanced regions of the country?
Verghese refers to the Salwa Judum as a savage blot but concludes that “strategic hamleting” was confined to one district and prevented from being extended to any other district, even in Chhattisgarh. But who prevented it and how, he prefers to be silent on. It has been the heroic resistance, armed and unarmed, by the adivasi masses led by the Maoists since the end of 2005 that has upset the devious plans of the reactionary rulers to uproot the entire adivasi population. He doesn’t say that Salwa Judum was defeated and prevented from creating havoc in newer areas because the Maoists and the adivasi masses had dealt a death blow to this state-sponsored terrorist gang by carrying out daring militant offensives such as in Ranibodili and Errabore; that the rulers had never given up their fond wish to drive the entire adivasi population into strategic hamlets; and that Salwa Judum Part II unleashed by the Sonia-Manmohan-Chidambaram gang is precisely to achieve that unfinished goal.
Lastly, Herr Verghese fondly hopes: “The Maoists will fade away, democratic India and the Constitution will prevail, despite the time it takes and the pain involved.” If the Maoists fade away by the superiority of your development model, then why are the advocates of your development keen on brutally suppressing the Maoists and the adivasis they are leading? In which part of India is the Constitution prevailing, Mr Verghese? In Dantewada, Bijapur, Kanker, Narayanpur, Rajnandgaon? In Jharkhand, Orissa? In Lalgarh, Jangalmahal? In the Kashmir Valley? Manipur? Where was your Constitution hiding for 25 long years after thousand of Sikhs where massacred? When thousands of Muslims were decimated? When lakhs of peasants are compelled to commit suicides? When thousands of people are murdered by state-sponsored Salwa Judum gangs? When adivasi women are gangraped? When people are simply abducted by uniformed goons? Your Constitution is a piece of paper that does not even have the value of a toilet paper for the vast majority of the Indian people.
Finally, this comment by Verghese-”People’s Tribunals keep mouthing yesterday’s tired slogans…. They do not see tomorrow; maybe they fear it”-applies more to people like him. He keeps mouthing yesterday’s outdated, monotonous slogans like “end of history”, “there-is-no-alternative”, “demise of Communism”, “totalitarian state”, and so on. He does not see tomorrow. He even fears it. The spectre of Communism sends shivers down his spine.
(Outlook, 13 July)
Last essay by Comrade Azad.

[pranabjyoti]

kashmir press on strike to lift restrictions (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/07/10/kashmir-press-on-strike-wants-freedom-restored/)





http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/srinagar.jpg?w=420&h=280 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/srinagar.jpg)journalists protesting censorship in srinagar, capital of kashmir

srinagar, july 10, kons: In a major development during a highly volatile situation in the valley, srinagar newspapers on saturday suspended publication indefinitely to protest against “draconian” government measures which, according them, have “made it impossible for journalists to cover news stories and bring out newspapers.”
media associations in kashmir, which met for the second day on saturday after announcing a one-day strike yesterday, extended their stir indefinitely saying that publications would not be resumed until concrete measures were taken to “restore the complete freedom of the media in kashmir.”
kashmir’s media professionals, both print and electronic, held an angry protest demonstration at the press enclave here, coming down heavily on the state government for its curbs and restrictions. Having gagged themselves with black bands, the journalists carried placards demanding lifting the “undeclared ban on newspapers” and the ‘curfew on news.”
the local media described itself as completely paralyzed, saying that the situation it found itself in presently was “unprecedented” in the past 20 years. Asking for a withdrawal of cases against media persons, it has demanded a public assurance from the government that there would be no restrictions on the media, and that the assurance would be implemented in letter and spirit.
The local media’s current tiff with the government began when curfew passes to pressmen were withdrawn as the valley was put under severe curbs and the army called out in srinagar following the killing of four civilians here within 24 hours on monday.
Even in the rare case where publication was managed during the curfew, it was impossible to distribute newspapers in the city and the outlying districts because of total curbs on the movement of the circulation network.
The government infuriated the local press corps further by allowing delhi based networks ready access and movement during curfew, and according to kashmir’s media associations, gave them full help, assistance and government hospitality to ensure coverage of events suitable to the authorities.
Even the rare delhi-based channel highlighting the disturbing side- effects of prolonged strict curfew and criticizing the state government has not been spared as was seen in the case of news x whose srinagar correspondent suhail bukhari was booked under draconian laws, forcing it to shut down its office here because of harassment and threat to the life of its staff.
Operations of local cable tv channels too have been severely restricted, while their counterparts in the other part of the state are free to air content of their choice.
Media associations in kashmir have condemned the restrictions on their functioning, saying that the approach of the government was “unashamed” as it had not shown any respect for the sector as an important institution.
THIS IS NOT A STALINIST STATE. IT'S THE WORLD'S BIGGEST DEMOCRACY.:lol::lol:. DON'T LAUGH YOU IDIOTS.

[pranabjyoti]

CEBRASPO (Brazil) Statement on the Indian State murder of Azasd (http://www.icawpi.org/en/peoples-resistance/statements/503-cebraspo-brazil-statement-on-the-indian-state-murder-of-azasd)

Azad: prominent revolutionary leader killed by the fascist Indian State Cherukuri Rajkumar, "Comrade Azad," political leader of the Indian people, a Central Committee's member and spokesperson of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) along with the young journalist Pamdey, were killed on July 2.
The action was carried out by Indian special police and secret service, who kidnapped and murdered them in Andhra Pradesh, which proves, once again, with what methods the old Indian State acts against the people's fighters. It clearly demonstrates the escalating fascism orchestrated by U.S. imperialism, and developed by Indian State.
That is the context of Operation Green Hunt, developed mainly against the resistance of the Adivasi people, who constantly fight for their lands taken by imperialism and the Indian State. That operation has made a string of killings of revolutionary leaders and fighters of the people in India.
Those killings are a response from the fascist State in India to the advancement of popular and revolutionary struggle in that country, that has the People's War led by CPI (Maoist) its most advanced front. Recently, actions directed by this party caused heavy casualties to the forces of reaction that has about of 250.000 staff (largely composed of military and special forces).
Azad was an outstanding leader and was part of a generation of revolutionaries who is waging a deep struggle against opportunism and revisionism, building and developing a process increasingly prominent in the liberation struggle of the Indian people. The Cebraspo of Brazil is expressing their outrage and condemning those killings.
The Cebraspo is expressing their unconditional support for the struggle of the Adivasi people, as well as the Indian people, led by CPI (Maoist). We demand an immediate end to Operation Green Hunt and all the military incursions of the fascist State in India to the lands of the people!
Cebraspo
BrazilProtest from Brazilian peasants.

[pranabjyoti]

India: Police Atrocities on the Women of Sonamukhi (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/india-police-atrocities-on-the-women-of-sonamukhi/)
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/jhargram-rape_1207_630.jpg?w=300&h=200 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/jhargram-rape_1207_630.jpg)A rape victim alleged: "I was tending cattle. They dragged me away (wails) and forced me onto a charpoy. They slapped me held me down and then raped me."

By Partho Sarathi Ray
13 July, 2010, Sanhati (http://sanhati.com/articles/2581/)
The operations of the joint central and state forces in Lalgarh and adjoining areas for the last one year have been marked by horrible atrocities including killings of activists and common people, rapes, indiscriminate beatings and detentions, looting and ransacking of houses and poisoning of sources of drinking water.
Women, who have been in the forefront of the adivasi movement in Lalgarh, have been especially targeted and the recent mass rape and torture of women in Sonamukhi village of Jhargram sub-division in West Midnapore is possibly the latest feather to be added to the cap of the West Bengal police and the CRPF. As usual, references in the mainstream press have been limited to a line or two hidden within reports of violence by Maoists or encounters between security forces and Maoists.
The incident happened on 30th June when the joint state police and central paramilitary forces had apparently gone to a village called Grihatakam under Jhargram subdivision to track a Maoist squad. This area had been the site of a recent encounter between the Maoists and paramilitary forces. En route they raided the adjoining Sonamukhi village supposedly in search of Maoists. As usual all the menfolk had fled the village because there were reports of the advancing police/CRPF party. Finding the womenfolk alone in the village, the policemen unleashed horrible atrocities on them. At least six women, Lalita Mahato, Umarani Mahato, Giribala Mahato, Jyotsna Mahato and Anima Mahato, were raped.
Many others, including Rinku Mahato, Soma Mahato, Kajal Mahato, Manika Mahato, Niyati Mahato and Chayarani Mahato were beaten black and blue,dragged around by their hair and kicked. Lalita Mahato, who went to depose before the sub-divisional officer of Jhargram on 6th July stated that she had entered her cowshed to tie up her cows (because the CRPF jawans are known to beat up domestic animals without any reason) when the raiding party entered the village. A policeman entered the cowshed and slapped her hard. When she fell down she was dragged into the house and stripped. She broke down after this and could not continue.
None of the women dared to lodge a complaint with the police. How could they dare to when the perpetrators were policemen themselves? Lalita had been admitted to a hospital and the doctor had said that he would file a report of rape if she lodged a complaint. But she did not dare to.
Only on 6th July, a week after the atrocities, did the women go to lodge a complaint with the SDO of Jhargram, accompanied by local TMC and Congress politicans. The SDO instructed the Super of Jhargram subdivisional hospital to admit six of the women and do a medical test. He has also assured them that he will file a report to the home secretary.
Santosh Rana of the CPI(ML) PCC has written a letter to the Chief Secretary demanding redressal. But it is unlikely that anything is going to happen, as the police has refused to admit that anything happened. The case of the women of Sonamukhi will probably become just another statistic in the ever growing list of victims of Operation Green Hunt, but the result might be that more and more CRPF raiding and road opening parties will come under fire when they approach adivasi villages.


In India, it's nothing unusual. For decades, this kind of incidents are a part of daily life of Kashmir and other so-called "terrorism" infested part of India. THIS IS THE WORLD'S BIGGEST DEMOCRACY.:crying:

[pranabjyoti]

Indian-occupied Kashmir: Bar Association head/human rights defender jailed (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/indian-occupied-kashmir-bar-association-headhuman-rights-defender-jailed/) http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/mian.jpg?w=90&h=120 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/mian.jpg)Kashmir Bar Association President Mian Qayoom at a press conference in Srinagar, Kashmir in December 2009

Srinagar, July 15, 2010
INTERNATIONAL PEOPLE’S TRIBUNAL ON
HUMAN RIGHTS AND JUSTICE IN INDIAN-ADMINISTERED KASHMIR (IPTK)
www.kashmirprocess.org
Permanent “State of Exception” in Indian-administered Kashmir
Advocate Mian Qayoom’s Arrest:
The People’s Tribunal expresses grave concern regarding the arrest of
Advocate Mian Qayoom, President of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court
Bar Association, Srinagar, and a human rights defender, under the
Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act of 1978 (PSA). Advocate Qayoom’s
home was raided around midnight on July 7, 2010, and he was taken to
Hiranagar Jail in Jammu.
IPTK is concerned for the physical and psychological safety and
security of Advocate Qayoom. We ask that Advocate Qayoom be released
and due process, as per international humanitarian law, be followed.
Advocate Qayoom’s arrest was made without evidencing due cause under
the PSA. The PSA continues to be used arbitrarily in
Indian-administered Kashmir to repress dissent without due cause or
process. The PSA is a preventive detention law that authorizes
incarceration for up to two years on grounds of uncorroborated
suspicion, if authorities feel that the detainee may impede peace and
order or threaten the security of the state.
Advocate Qayoom is being targeted because of his long-standing work in
defence of human rights, and, in particular, because of his legal
advocacy for the detained and disappeared in Kashmir, his offer of
legal counsel to dissenters against the Indian state, his arguments
against the indiscriminate use of the PSA, his investigations into the
actions of the Indian military and paramilitary when they have induced
harm, his articulation of Kashmir as a disputed territory, and his
support of self-determination. The State Administration has refused to
relocate Advocate Qayoom from Jammu to Srinagar, while noting that
Srinagar jail has a capacity of 300 persons even as 480 persons are
currently being held there. Authorities justified their refusal to
relocate Advocate Qayoom due to the presence of “some hardcore foreign
militants from Pakistan, Sudan, and Afghanistan as also some other
persons having same secessionist ideology” in Srinagar jail.
IPTK notes that “national security” and the threat of inciting conduct
are being invoked to legitimate detentions and arrests. Since June
2010, hundreds have been arrested for participating in protests,
including stone-pelters. Some pro-freedom political leaders have been
placed under house arrests and others booked under the PSA. People of
Muslim descent, including minors, activists, intellectuals, and
political workers, participating in the Quit Kashmir (people’s
resistance) Movement in Indian-administered Kashmir are being
indiscriminately booked under the PSA. The PSA, the Disturbed Areas
Act, and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) are security
related legislation that contravene international humanitarian law by
guaranteeing immunity to army and paramilitary forces.
IPTK is concerned that detentions and arrests are being undertaken to
intimidate, threaten, and silence those who dissent subjugation to the
state and its military and paramilitary forces in Kashmir today, and
those who act in support of Kashmir’s right to self-determination.
Permanent State of Exception:
On June 29, 2010, IPTK issued a statement characterizing India’s rule
in Indian-administered Kashmir as “militarized governance,” see
http://www.kashmirprocess.org/reports/militarygov/20100629_Statement.html. The
unmitigated use of force by the military and paramilitary has
escalated since. Police and paramilitary, armed with riot gear, open
fire on crowds. Along with civilians, Kashmiri journalists are being
targeted. Between June 1 and July 14, 2010, Indian forces have killed
15 Kashmiri civilians. There are no accurate counts of detentions and
arrests.
Dominant discourse has focused on the use of stone pelting by youth in
Kashmir as the reason for armed action on the part of the state. They
state that such action is orchestrated by political interest groups.
Kashmir youth state that stone pelting is a means of dissent, an
expression of rage, by a subjugated people whose political means of
expression and demands are systematically limited. Dominant media
institutions largely refuse to address the conditions that compel
youth to throw stones, in that — 1: Peaceable civilian protests by
women and men (which are widespread across Kashmir in ways that defy
orchestration by political or “external” forces) have been
systemically repressed by the Indian military and paramilitary. 2: The
conditions of everyday life are continuously in jeopardy. 3: Such
conditions elicit stone pelting as a medium of resistance, as an
expression of desperation, anger, and grief.
What are these youth protesting? They are protesting the relentless
conditions of twenty years induced by militarization that has shaped,
for numerous youth, their entire lifespan. Stone pelting is not the
cause of violence in Kashmir today; it is induced in response to
unchecked military and paramilitary brutality that endanger civilian
lives.
The charges and actions against Advocate Qayoom evidence that
Kashmiris are denied the rights of citizenship, including freedom of
speech, assembly, and movement. Such freedoms, when exercised by
Kashmiris, are perceived as potential threats to the Indian nation.
While India claims that the Kashmir “problem” is an “internal” matter,
the militarized governance of Kashmir denies rights to Kashmiris that
are understood to be guaranteed to citizens of India as a democratic
republic. India cannot simultaneously define Kashmir as an “internal”
issue while governing Kashmir as a permanent state of exception.
International Community:
Regularized violence, as perpetrated on Kashmiri civil society by
Indian state institutions, must stop immediately. The Indian state has
failed to admit to the violence that its institutions enforce. For
Kashmiris, the experience of such violence shapes everyday life.
We call on civil society, human rights organizations, and Bar
Associations in India, and internationally, to ask the Government of
India for accountability, and to halt detentions and arrests without
due cause. These and other human rights violations and crimes against
humanity must be understood as an imperative of India’s hostile
governance of Kashmir.
We call on civil society and human rights organizations to require
that a political process, inclusive of Kashmiris as primary
stakeholders, be sought toward resolution.
From:
Dr. Angana Chatterji, Convener IPTK and Professor, Anthropology,
California Institute of Integral Studies
Advocate Parvez Imroz, Convener IPTK and Founder, Jammu and Kashmir
Coalition of Civil Society
Gautam Navlakha, Convener IPTK and Editorial Consultant, Economic and
Political Weekly
Zahir-Ud-Din, Convener IPTK and Vice-President, Jammu and Kashmir
Coalition of Civil Society
Advocate Mihir Desai, Legal Counsel IPTK and Lawyer, Mumbai High Court
and Supreme Court of India
Khurram Parvez, Liaison IPTK and Programme Coordinator, Jammu and
Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society
Queries may be directed to:
Khurram ParvezE-mail: [email protected]

CAN YOU IMAGINE IT IN ANY CIVILIZED COUNTRY? STILL THEY CALL THEMSELVES THE BIGGEST DEMOCRACY IN THE WORLD:crying::lol::crying::lol:.
Comrades, I am requesting you to send e-mail to Khurram Parvez and show your solidarity with the struggling people of Kashmir. I am also requesting you to show demonstrations regarding the oppression on people of Kashmir by the Indian state, as you have shown your protests against operation Green hunt.

[scarletghoul]

Do you know what are the Naxalite's policies and actions in Kashmir ? What do they do, what are their links, etc. I have not seen much about it

[pranabjyoti]

Do you know what are the Naxalite's policies and actions in Kashmir ? What do they do, what are their links, etc. I have not seen much about it
I can not show you any link, but I can say that they support the support the struggle of people of Kashmir and other part of India for self-determination. They also supported the struggle of people of Nagaland, Manipur and other part of India.

[t.shonku]

Indian Government on one hand talks about peace talks and on other hand the govt is trying to wipe out the tribal race of India,on one hand the Indian govt criticizes the Maoists for their “violence” on the other hand the government of India executes unarmed political activists like Lalmohan Tudu,Comrade Azad in cold blood moreover Indian govt also sends out its troops to chop off fingers from an infants hand (don’t you people think this type of actions shows that Indian government is a coward?),on one hand Indian government talks about democracy and on the other hand its troops rapes tribal women,kashmiri women and women from North-East (remember Manorama),on one hand Indian govt says big big words like “democracy in India provides people the freedom of speech” on the other hand the government intentionally kills the sick editor of Peoples March magazine in cold blood by denying him medical treatment while he was in police custody,on one hand the government try to show the world that India is a free society and on the other hand they try to silence eminent writer like A.Roy and they arrest human rights defender like Mr Khurram Parvez in Kashmir.
So you people can now see that we can’t reason and talk with this violent and facist regime the only way to deal with them is by armed action.
By the way did you people knew that a lot of peoples uprising is happening in Kashmir,there are street fights like that happens in Ghaza.I WOULD LIKE TO REQUEST COMRADE PRANAB TO START A NEW THREAD ON HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION IN KASHMIR AND IN NORTH EASTERN INDIAN.

[pranabjyoti]

Istanbul, Turkey protest: “The murderer of Azad and Pandey is the Indian state!” (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/istanbul-turkey-protest-the-murderer-of-azad-and-pandey-is-the-indian-state/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/india2.jpg?w=300&h=199 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/india2.jpg)Demonstration at Indian Embassy in Istanbul

The killing of the Central Committee spokesperson of the CPI (Maoist) and the journalist Hem Pandey was condemned in front of the Indian embassy in Istanbul/Turkey.
On July 1st, 2010 the AP/SIB brutally assassinated Cherukuri Rajkumar (Azad) and the independent journalist Hem Pandey close to the region Maharashtra. The Indian state has added one more assassination to its bloody record, the assassination of comrade Azad, who was for more than 35 years in the service of this people and his party.
On July 14th, 2010 supporters of the progressive and revolutionary theoretical publication magazine Partizan and of DHP (Platform for Democratic Rights) made a protest rally in front of the Indian Embassy in Taksim/Istanbul. Banners in English and in Turkish were saying “The murderer of comrade Cherukuri Rajkumar (Azad) and Hem Pandey is the Indian state! Long Live International Solidarity!”
People were chanting slogans like “Down with the reactionary Indian state”! “Stop Green Hunt”! A statement was read and it was said that the Maoist’s in India struggle against the imperialist monopoles and the Indian Comprador ruling classes and that they are against the expansionist policies of the Indian state which at the same time also kills nature. What has been called “Operation Green Hunt” by the reactionaries of India aims to destroy the Maoists. The statement also declared that it defends the merit created by the revolutionary peoples’ masses. The rally ended with slogans like “Long Live International Solidarity”! “Stop Green Hunt”!”Azad and Pandey are Immortal”!
Istanbul Partizan News Agency
http://icawpi.org/en/peoples-resistance/38-solidarity/505-istanbul-turkey-protest-qthe-murderer-of-azad-and-pandey-is-the-indian-stateq
Protest from Turkey.

[pranabjyoti]

Indian Government on one hand talks about peace talks and on other hand the govt is trying to wipe out the tribal race of India,on one hand the Indian govt criticizes the Maoists for their “violence” on the other hand the government of India executes unarmed political activists like Lalmohan Tudu,Comrade Azad in cold blood moreover Indian govt also sends out its troops to chop off fingers from an infants hand (don’t you people think this type of actions shows that Indian government is a coward?),on one hand Indian government talks about democracy and on the other hand its troops rapes tribal women,kashmiri women and women from North-East (remember Manorama),on one hand Indian govt says big big words like “democracy in India provides people the freedom of speech” on the other hand the government intentionally kills the sick editor of Peoples March magazine in cold blood by denying him medical treatment while he was in police custody,on one hand the government try to show the world that India is a free society and on the other hand they try to silence eminent writer like A.Roy and they arrest human rights defender like Mr Khurram Parvez in Kashmir.
So you people can now see that we can’t reason and talk with this violent and facist regime the only way to deal with them is by armed action.
By the way did you people knew that a lot of peoples uprising is happening in Kashmir,there are street fights like that happens in Ghaza.I WOULD LIKE TO REQUEST COMRADE PRANAB TO START A NEW THREAD ON HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION IN KASHMIR AND IN NORTH EASTERN INDIAN.
I think someone from Kashmir is a better candidate than me in this respect. At present, there are a lot of angry protesters in Kashmir. But, we have to contact them somehow.

[pranabjyoti]

“PRO-MAOIST” ORGANISATION BUILDS A DAM IN EASTERN INDIA (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/07/17/pro-maoist-organisation-builds-a-dam-in-eastern-india/)

[This is a translated, partial transcript of a Bengali video recently released. The PCAPA, while under attack by the State military and para-military forces, is nonetheless continuing to serve the people and enable them to organize to meet their basic needs. The media which released this information referred to the PCAPA as "pro-Maoist" though they have never, to our knowledge, described themselves in those terms. Maoists have, it seems, worked with them, but the PCAPA represents a broad range of forces and views among adivasi people.-ed.]
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/pcapa_activist_women_201006pcapadoes-development-work-lalgarh1.jpg?w=394&h=261 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/pcapa_activist_women_201006pcapadoes-development-work-lalgarh1.jpg)PCAPA women doing development work in Lalgarh

A Pro-Maoist organisation Peoples Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) builds a dam to protect the village from being flooded
1. LOCAL VILLAGERS DIGGING
2. WOMEN CARRYING BASKETS OF MUD ON THEIR HEAD
3. LOCAL VILLAGERS AT THE SITE
4. MEN DIGGING THE GROUND
5. A BANNER WRITTEN IN BENGALI
6. A BANNER ON THE SITE WITH RAW MATERIALS IN SACKS
7. A MAN WATERING THE SOIL
8. MEN CARRYING RAW MATERIALS FOR CONSTRUCTION
9. (SOUNDBITE) (Bengali) MANGAL MAHATO, PCAPA MEMBER, SAYING: “By this dam, almost thousand of families and the land would be protected and therefore we have started and undertaken this work ourselves.”
Q. Is the government helping you or any other private body helping you?
“We haven’t got any help from the government. We have started this work on our own under the guidance of PCPA committee.
Q. What is the cost of the whole project?
“The whole work will cost up to rupees thirty lakh (rupees 3 million).”
10. LOCAL VILLAGERS CARRYING BASKETS OF MUD
11. MEN CARRYING BASKETS OF MUD ON THEIR HEAD
12. (SOUNDBITE) (Bengali) TAPASI MAHATO, PCAPA WORKER, SAYING: “Due to heavy flood and high levels of the river the small dam constructed over the river was broken. So all of us have come here to reconstruct the dam. And the work is being done under PCPA and we are working with them.”
Q. Are you getting money for the work?
“No we have not got any money for it yet.”
13. MEN DIGGING
14. SACKS OF RAW MATERIALS LYING ON THE GROUND
STORY: About 1,500 workers led by pro Maoist organisation, Peoples Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) have taken the initiative to build a new dam in Binpur in West Midnapore district in India’s eastern West Bengal state.
The dam is being built at a cost of about rupees three million, to protect the nearby villages from floods.
“By this dam, almost thousand families and the land would be protected and therefore we have started and undertaken this work ourselves.”
Q. Is the government helping you or any other private body helping you?
“We haven’t got any help from the government. We have started this work on our own under the guidance of PCPA committee.
Q. What is the cost of the whole project?
“The whole work will cost up to rupees thirty lakh (rupees 3 million),” said Mangal Mahato, PCAPA member.
The workers said that a new dam is being built as the old one had broken after the water level of the river increased during the floods last year.
“Due to heavy flood and high levels of the river the small dam constructed over the river was broken. So all of us have come here to reconstruct the dam. And the work is being done under PCPA and we are working with them.”
Q. Are you getting money for the work?
“No we have not got any money for it yet,” said Tapasi Mahato, PCAPA worker.
The local villagers said that it would protect the agricultural fields as well as protect their lives from being destroyed by the floods.
News on West Bengal
Copyright Asian News International/DailyIndia.com"Progress" is in progress, much more is waiting in the future.
N.B This kind of dams are small and cause nearly NO environmental impact but can help the local people regarding drinking water and agriculture a lot. In the so called "fertile" parts of West Bengal, the main source of irrigation is underground water and such unscientific use of groundwater can be helpful for other parts of West Bengal and India (perhaps even outside too).

[pranabjyoti]

India: 2 killed in Srikakulam as police fire on protest challenging power project (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/07/17/india-2-killed-in-srikakulam-as-police-fire-on-protest-challenging-power-project/) http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/sompetaneaa1.jpg?w=290&h=175 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/sompetaneaa1.jpg)Two protestors were killed and many injured when police attacked and opened fire

[The crowd had gathered to protest as Nagarjuna Construction Company (NCC) began work on the power plant. In breaking news, the "National Environment Appellate Authority (NEAA) in Delhi has (now) cancelled the environmental clearance to the coal-fired power plant that was to be built near Sompeta in northern Andhra Pradesh. The verdict follows close on the heels of a two-day bandh declared by people of Sompeta, Kanchili and Kaviti blocks in Srikakulam district to protest the police opening fire on a 10,000 strong crowd on July 14. Two persons were killed and several others, including policemen, were injured in the violence."-ed.]
15/07/2010
K. Srinivasa Rao
Sompeta on the boil; protestors launch agitation against proposed power project

SOMPETA (Srikakulam dt): Two persons were killed and dozens injured when police opened fire and resorted to lathicharge to quell angry agitators protesting the establishment of a 2,640 MW thermal power project here on Wednesday.
The two agitators killed in the police firing at Baruva near here were identified as G. Krishnamurthy of Lakkavaram village and Bandi Joga Rao of Palasapuram. Unconfirmed reports said two more, K. Venugopala Rao and E. Mohan Rao, also fell prey to police bullets.
Four other protesters who sustained bullet injuries — Bhanu Kumar, P. Lakshminarayana Rao, D. Gavarayya and P. Viswanatham — were admitted to Srikakulam Government Hospital.
About 45 policemen too were injured.
Trouble began when agitators from Baruva, Palasapuram, Lakkavaram, Jankili, Jankibhadra and Gollagonda villages gathered at the site of the power plant to obstruct the works being taken up by Nagarjuna Construction Company. With the company officials ruling out stoppage of works, there were heated arguments and then a tussle.
About 5,000 protestors targeted the company office from all corners, forcing the policemen to retreat. The constables tried to save themselves by getting into police van. The agitators chased and attacked them with sticks. Protestors started charging towards the site while policemen made repeated attempts to stop them.
Police chased away protestors to far-off places. But they returned with sticks and red chilli powder. They were angry with the NCC officials too as they had reportedly engaged ‘rowdies’ who stood guard with lathis at the plant site under the guise of workers.
Sompeta and Baruva located about 110 km from Srikakulam town in north coastal Andhra Pradesh and surrounding villages soon turned into a war zone as both sides fought a pitched battle, leaving several injured. The agitators then turned their ire at media persons alleging that the media had ignored their movement against the power plant and that it had colluded with NCC management.
Five media personnel, including The Hindu photographer Basheer, Eenadu photographer K. Simhachalam, TV-9 cameraman Anil Kumar and ABN cameraman Ramesh were injured. The condition of Mr. Anil Kumar who was admitted to Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences in Srikakulam, was stated to be serious. The mob burnt two police vehicles and five two-wheelers of press persons.
The NCC is setting up the power project on the 1,500-acre site. While the government allotted 900 acres, it had acquired another 600 acres by paying Rs.3 lakh per acre to the farmers.
Environmentalists and locals are opposing the project saying it would take away the livelihood of farmers and fishermen living in 24 villages in and around Sompeta and destroy the ecology.
© Copyright 2000 – 2009 The Hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/2010/07/15/stories/2010071556330100.htm
THOSE PEOPLE ARE NOT MAOISTS. This kind of scenario isn't very uncommon in India after independence at 1947.

[pranabjyoti]

CRPF Special Director-General Vijay Raman’s difficult fight against Naxalites (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/crpf-special-director-general-vijay-ramans-difficult-fight-against-naxalites/)

[Vijay Raman has been given a very difficult task, and indications are that it won't be getting easier. He describes some of the difficulties his counter-insurgency faces in attempting to suppress the popular struggles and Maoist forces a.k.a. "Naxalites." (Vijay Raman's CRPF, Central Reserve Police Force, is a major part of the para-military forces involved in Operation Green Hunt)-ed.]

“Chhattisgarh DGP not listening”

INTERVIEW/CRPF SPECIAL DIRECTOR-GENERAL VIJAY RAMAN
By Syed Nazakat, The Week (http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekContent.do?sectionName=Current+Events&contentId=7564004&programId=1073754900&pageTypeId=1073754893&contentType=EDITORIAL)
http://static.manoramaonline.com/ranked/portal/The_Week/TheWeek_Current_Events/3456813473_VijayRaman3_2.jpgCRPF Special Director-General Vijay Raman

CRPF Special Director-General Vijay Raman is in charge of the biggest anti-Naxal offensive underway in the Maoist-hit states. Raman, who commands over 60,000 personnel, is dealing with what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called “India’s biggest internal security challenge”.
During his posting in Kashmir, he was known for his aggressive tactics. The one thing Raman cherishes about his days in Kashmir is that he managed to develop and protect a group of informers. “That, unfortunately, is not happening in the Naxal-affected areas,” Raman told THE WEEK in an exclusive interview. Excerpts:
What are the challenges you face?
The challenge is to make state governments take the lead. We will provide them full support like it is happening in Maharashtra, where the police take action and we provide support.
You said local intelligence gathering is not working in Naxal-affected areas.
The key to defeat any armed insurgency is information. The police play a key role in information gathering. If we have information, even a big leader like Kishanji could be tracked.
He is the most wanted man.
He is the top man. The aim of the security agencies should be to identify such people and remove them.
Why have you failed to develop an intelligence mechanism?
We have not been able to reach out to the tribal people. Whatever impression these poor tribal people have about the government is the one propagated by the Naxals. We cannot win this battle just by force.
Are you looking at a time frame to deal with the Naxals?
There is no time frame. It is not practical to put a time frame. One thing we are certain of is that we have to sort out the problem by adopting a holistic approach.
What is your strategy?
Our strategy is very clear and focused. Force and development should go hand-in-hand.
‘Operation Green Hunt’ has sent wrong signals to the common people.
This operation is a creation of Chhattisgarh’s director-general of police. I don’t subscribe to it. As far as the government of India is concerned, it doesn’t exit.
Does it frustrate that there is lack of cooperation between states.
If there is lack of cooperation, we are not going to win this battle against the Naxals.
Which is the most challenging state?
Definitely Chhattisgarh.
Why?
I think it is a personality issue.
Is it the clash between you and DGP of Chhattisgarh?
The DGP is not listening…. The point is when you are given an assignment the first thing you need to do is become a part of the solution. The illegal killings, for example, contributed to the problem. So if you are party to it then you become a part of the problem.
A US strategic think tank has warned the Naxals could take to urban terrorism.
There is nothing surprising in this assessment. The overall objective of the Naxals is to capture power. They cannot do it by staying in the villages. They have to come to urban areas.
Many want the Army to intervene.
Any battalion that is inducted into the Naxal-affected area undergoes six weeks of training with the Army. But we don’t think it will be right to have them in the forefront.
Do you have enough manpower?
We have 60 battalions (around 60,000 men) deployed in the Naxal-affected areas. Unless we make maximum utilisation of the resources available to us, I’ve no moral right to ask for more weapons and manpower.
What is the strength of the Naxals?
Our assessment is that there are aro-und 10,000 to 15,000 armed Naxal-ites. They are ahead in terms of training and commitment to achieve their goal. Their greatest advantage is their expertise in explosives like IEDs.
CONFESSIONS OF A ARMED FORCES CHIEF. Perhaps from the depth of his understanding, where the truth is now quite clear.

[t.shonku]

CRPF jawan kills 6 colleagues

Posted: Sunday, Jul 18, 2010 at 2231 hrs IST
Updated: Sunday, Jul 18, 2010 at 2231 hrs IST

Jamshedpur: Six Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel, including an assistant commandant were killed by one of their colleagues late on Friday night in Seraikela District’s Kuchai village.
Harpinder Singh, the CRPF head constable who allegedly was in an inebriated state when he started firing indiscriminately at his colleagues over some issue during dinner on Friday night, was shot dead by a sentry at the camp, after attempts to overpower him physically failed.
Seraikela-Kharswan district deputy commissioner AK Mishra confirming the deaths said that among the seven CRPF personnel who were killed were one assistant commandant, one assistant sub-inspector (ASI), four head constables (including Harpinder) and one constable.
The district administration after performing autopsy at the government hospital at Seraikela on the seven dead bodies on Saturday dispatched them to Ranchi from where the CRPF would send each of the bodies to the respective families.
Mishra said a company comprising of around a 100 jawans and officers of the 196th Battalion of the CRPF has been camping at Kuchai for some time now, to counter the Naxals in the area. According to the deputy commissioner an altercation is said to have broken out at the camp mess on Friday night among jawans, some of whom were said to have been drunk, over some food preparation.
Irked over some comment by some of his colleagues, head constable Harpinder Singh is said to have opened fire at his colleagues from his service AK-47, killing six of them and injuring one.



Looks like the government's paramilitary forces are so frustrated that they are killing their own.

[pranabjyoti]

The Killing Fields Of Multi-National Corporations (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/the-killing-fields-of-multi-national-corporations/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/vandana-at-protest.jpg?w=400&h=300 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/vandana-at-protest.jpg)Vandana Shiva at one of many demonstrations by irate and desperate farmers

By Vandana Shiva
19 July, 2010
The Asian Age (http://www.asianage.com/opinion/killing-fields-mncsthe-killing-fields-mncs-035)
The Bhopal gas tragedy was the worst industrial disaster in human history. Twenty-five thousand people died, 500,000 were injured, and the injustice done to the victims of Bhopal over the past 25 years will go down as the worst case of jurisprudence ever.
The gas leak in Bhopal in December 1984 was from the Union Carbide pesticide plant which manufactured “carabaryl” (trade name “sevin”) – a pesticide used mostly in cotton plants. It was, in fact, because of the Bhopal gas tragedy and the tragedy of extremist violence in Punjab that I woke up to the fact that agriculture had become a war zone. Pesticides are war chemicals that kill – every year 220,000 people are killed by pesticides worldwide.
After research I realised that we do not need toxic pesticides that kill humans and other species which maintain the web of life. Pesticides do not control pests, they create pests by killing beneficial species. We have safer, non-violent alternatives such as neem. That is why at the time of the Bhopal disaster I started the campaign “No more Bhopals, plant a neem”. The neem campaign led to challenging the biopiracy of neem in 1994 when I found that a US multinational, W.R. Grace, had patented neem for use as pesticide and fungicide and was setting up a neem oil extraction plant in Tumkur, Karnataka. We fought the biopiracy case for 11 years and were eventually successful in striking down the biopiracy patent.
Meanwhile, the old pesticide industry was mutating into the biotechnology and genetic engineering industry. While genetic engineering was promoted as an alternative to pesticides, Bt cotton was introduced to end pesticide use. But Bt cotton has failed to control the bollworm and has instead created major new pests, leading to an increase in pesticide use.
The high costs of genetically-modified (GM) seeds and pesticides are pushing farmers into debt, and indebted farmers are committing suicide. If one adds the 200,000 farmer suicides in India to the 25,000 killed in Bhopal, we are witnessing a massive corporate genocide – the killing of people for super profits. To maintain these super profits, lies are told about how, without pesticides and genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), there will be no food. In fact, the conclusions of International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development, undertaken by the United Nations, shows that ecologically organic agriculture produces more food and better food at lower cost than either chemical agriculture or GMOs.
The agrochemical industry and its new avatar, the biotechnology industry, do not merely distort and manipulate knowledge, science and public policy. They also manipulate the law and the justice system. The reason justice has been denied to the victims of Bhopal is because corporations want to escape liability. Freedom from liability is, in fact, the real meaning of “free trade”. The tragedy of Bhopal is dual.
Interestingly, the Bhopal disaster happened precisely when corporations were seeking deregulation and freedom from liability through the instruments of “free trade”, “trade liberalisation” and “globalisation”, both through bilateral pressure and through the Uruguay Round of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which led to the creation of the World Trade Organisation.
Injustice for Bhopal has been used to tell corporations that they can get away with murder. This is what senior politicians communicated to Dow Chemical. This is what the US-India Commission for Environmental Cooperation forum stated on June 11, 2010, in the context of the call from across India for justice for Bhopal victims. As one newspaper commented, Bhopal is being seen as a “road block and impediment to trade… the recommendations include removing road blocks to commercial trade by (India), and adoption of a nuclear liability regime”.
Denial of justice to Bhopal has been the basis of all toxic investments since Bhopal, be it Bt cotton, DuPont’s nylon plant or the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill.
Just as Bhopal victims were paid a mere Rs 12,000 (approximately $250) each, the proposed Nuclear Liability Bill also seeks to put a ceiling on liability of a mere $100 million on private operations of a nuclear power plant in case of a nuclear accident. Once again, people can be killed but corporations should not have to pay.
There has also been an intense debate in India on GMOs. An attempt was made by Monsanto/Mahyco to introduce Bt brinjal in 2009. As a result of public hearings across the country, a moratorium has been put on its commercialisation. Immediately after the moratorium a bill was introduced for a Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India -the bill does not only leave the biotechnology industry free of liability, but it also has a clause which empowers the government to arrest and fine those of us who question the need and safety of GMOs.
From Bhopal to pesticides to GMOs to nuclear plants, there are two lessons we can draw. One is that corporations introduce hazardous technologies like pesticides and GMOs for profits, and profits alone. And second lesson, related to trade, is that corporations are seeking to expand markets and relocate hazardous and environmentally costly technologies to countries like India.
Corporates seek to globalise production but they do not want to globalise justice and rights. The difference in the treatment of Union Carbide and Dow Chemical in the context of Bhopal, and of BP in the context of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico shows how an apartheid is being created. The devaluation of the life of people of the Third World and ecosystems is built into the project of globalisation. Globalisation is leading to the outsourcing of pollution – hazardous substances and technologies – to the Third World. This is at the heart of globalisation – the economies of genocide.
Lawrence Summers, who was the World Bank’s chief economist and is now chief economic adviser to the Obama government, in a memo dated December 12, 1991, to senior World Bank staff, wrote, “Just between you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the less developed countries?”
Since wages are low in the Third World, economic costs of pollution arising from increased illness and death are least in the poorest countries. According to Mr Summers, the logic “of relocation of pollutants in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that”.
All this and Bhopal must teach us to reclaim our universal and common humanity and build an Earth Democracy in which all are equal, and corporations are not allowed to get away with crimes against people and the planet.
Vandana Shiva is an Indian feminist and environmental activist. She is the founder/director of Navdanya Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology.
© 2010 Asian Age
Spotlight on the REAL KILLERS OF INDIAN PEOPLE.

[pranabjyoti]

Constricting Democratic Space through Terror (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/constricting-democratic-space-through-terror/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/ranchi.jpg?w=300&h=225 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/ranchi.jpg)Gladson Dungdung
In the midst of the hide-and-seek between the sun and the cloud, the environment at the Jaipal Singh Stadium in Ranchi, the capital city of Jharkhand, was very tense on June 25, 2010. The reason was that the “Operation Green Hunt Virodhi Nagrik Manch” (Citizens Forum against Operation Green Hunt) had called a rally and mass meeting against the cold blooded murder, rape and torture of innocent villagers by the security forces in the ongoing so-called anti-Naxal operation codified as “Operation Green Hunt”. The Forum has been intervening on issues of police atrocity since the inception of the OGH. As a result, the police has declared it a Maoist organisation which is, of course, the outcome of Chidambaram’s theory of democracy that describes the struggle as one between ‘this side and that side’. Therefore, whoever questions Operation Green Hunt is considered a Maoist, a Maoist supporter or at least a sympathiser of the Maoists.
When the Senior Superintendent of Police (Ranchi), Pravin Kumar, came to know about the Forum’s rally and mass meeting, he started a special operation against the Forum. On June 18, the police caught Jitendra Singh Munda of Nuridih village of Tamar block, while he was returning from Ranchi to his village by bus carrying pamphlets of the Forum for distribution. The bus was also seized and the driver, assistant driver and conductor were taken into police custody. In the evening, the SSP held a press conference in the city with a smiling face, telling the media about how the police succeeded in arresting some Maoists. Jitendra Munda was asked to hold the pamphlets of the Forum for the media show. The SSP declared the Forum a Maoist organisation, its pamphlet as Maoist literature and also announced that he would not let the rally and mass meeting to take place on June 25 in Ranchi since it was an event of the Maoists.
•
THE Forum’s members were quite upset by the SSP’s baseless propaganda and action against the Forum. The senior members of the Forum rejected the SSP’s claim through the media. They also decided to meet the Adviser to the Governor, R.R. Prasad, and discuss the matter with him. On 22nd evening, when the weather was cool, a delegation comprising seven members entered the chamber of the Governor’s Adviser. He welcomed them with a smiling face and asked what he could do for the delegation. The convener of the Forum, Stan Swami, told him: “Your police has made us Maoists, therefore we are here.” “Please don’t tell this,” R.R. Prasad humbly replied. He immediately called the Director General of Police (DGP), Neyaz Ahmed, to his chamber. When the ritual of introduction was over, he questioned: “Is there really any problem with Operation Green Hunt?” Indeed, the question revealed how each and every person within the system is wearing the sunglasses made by P. Chidambaram & Co. Therefore, no one wants to see the pain, suffering and agony of the innocent villagers who are being humiliated, beaten, raped, tortured and murdered by the security forces.
However, when the delegation submitted to him some papers embodying facts and figures, including the case of cold blooded murder of Jasinta by the security forces, he patiently heard the delegation. The delegation members also told him how the police has been attempting to constrict the democratic space through terror. The security forces do not allow people’s protest against Operation Green Hunt, they support the corporate interests and also torture the villagers who oppose forcible land acquisition for the corporate sharks. The police is portraying the Forum as a Maoist organisation, its reading materials as Maoist literature and also threatening the bus owners who lent their buses for the rally. After hearing the plea, R.R. Prasad ordered a high level inquiry into the case of Jasinta and also gave the green signal for the rally and mass meeting. However, he refused to give a written permission and kicked the ball into the DGP’s court by saying that the DGP will look into the matter. He firmly said: “We are not waging war against our own people; therefore we have views different from the Central Government as far as the anti-Naxal operations are concerned.” Ironically, the scenario is completely different at the grassroots.
According to DGP Neyaz Ahmed, his police has been carrying out normal operations against the Maoists and he hates to call it “Operation Green Hunt”. “We cannot hunt the people, only animals are hunted,” he said. After hearing so many complaints about his gunmen, he was upset but assured the delegation that the rally and mass meeting would take place; but he put a condition: there should not be any violence. However, he said that he would confirm it only the next day. In the evening SSP Pravin Kumar called Stan Swami over the phone and asked him for a letter to get written permission. Finally, all the legal procedures were completed after running from pillar to post and the final green signal was given to the Forum for the rally and mass meeting.
In the morning of June 25, nearly 100 security personnel comprising the RAF, JAP and local police were present at the Jaipal Singh Stadium much before the arrival of the villagers. As the time for the rally approached, police vehicles started rushing to the venue where the security forces were already present. It was 12 o’clock noon, a young man entered the stadium with a camera in hand. He introduced himself as a crime reporter of a national news channel. We just laughed but he didn’t understand. We questioned him: “Do our rally and mass meeting come under the purview of your ‘crime reporting’?” He smiled and responded: “Only my boss knows because he has assigned me this job.” We were shocked to see the electronic media’s interest. They never come to cover our programmes without invitation. Of course, we had informed the print media about the event but not the electronic media. Perhaps, their bosses sent them to cover the event as it comes under the preview of ‘crime’ in their definition. Obviously, the media also considers us as Maoist supporters.
After a few minutes, another police vehicle stopped in front of us. A police officer started questioning us one by one. The questions were—who are you? What do you do? Where do you come from? He questioned and wrote something in his diary. Indeed, it was very clear that the police knew nothing about us though the media had published several reports regarding our work, which shows how intelligent our intelligence agencies are. Though we were told that the security forces were there for our protection, that was not the case. All of them had come with prejudice in their mind and heart that the Maoists have called the rally and mass meeting. They had taken for granted that we are all Maoists or at least their supporters.
•
AMIDST all this, we got phone calls from two senior members of the Forum—Xavier Soy and Ramesh Dey who are based at Kuchai and Kharsawan respectively in Saraikela-Kharsawan district. Both of them described how the police terrorised them in a bid to suppress the democratic rights of the people of Saraikela-Kharsawan district. The Superintendent of Police of Saraikela-Kharsawan, Abhishek, threatened both of them several times for raising questions against ‘Operation Green Hunt’. On June 24, SP Abhishek called Xavier Soy over the phone and told him to abstain from the rally and mass meeting. He also threatened him with life imprisonment if he didn’t obey his order. On the next day, when Xavier Soy was almost ready to depart for Ranchi, a police vehicle carrying 20 police personnel reached his home at Shiyadih village in Kuchai block at 7:30 in the morning. He was stunned to see them.
The officer in charge of the Kuchai Police Station, A.K. Thakur, told him not to take any villager to Ranchi. When Xavier Soy started speaking against the violation of democratic rights of the villagers, the officer in charge threatened him by saying: “If you don’t listen to me, you will be stopped at Arki, Tamar or Bundu Police Stations and sent to jail.” A bus that was standing at Xavier’s courtyard was taken to the police station. The police stopped nine buses (three at Khilari, six buses at Siadih) which were bringing about 600 villagers for the rally and mass meeting from Saraikela-Kharswan district. The police also captured two buses bringing people for the meeting from West Singhbhum district. They were detained by the police in Tebo Ghat for five hours. As a result, they could not participate in the rally and mass meeting in Ranchi, which is a clear violation of the constitutional rights of the people. The paramilitary forces and local police were deployed across the State to prevent people from participating in the rally and mass meeting. The Jharkhand Police wanted to show that they have mass support for Operation Green Hunt and only a few people are opposing it.
Finally, about 400 villagers turned out for the rally, which was small in number as 5000 people were expected for the event. However, the number, even if small, did not discourage the people. They turned up to challenge the unjust rule of the mighty guns. It was 1 o’clock in the afternoon, the villagers started walking to the city. “Stop killing innocent villagers in the name of cleansing the Maoists”, “Withdraw Operation Green Hunt” and “Protect our human rights” were the main slogans raised by them.
It had already started to drizzle. I saw an old Adivasi woman walking with the support of a stick and raising slogans with the enthusiasm of a young woman. She smiled and said: “I’m sure, I was born in 1933 and I’m walking for justice.” Her name is Hiramani Lakra. She is 77 years old, lives with her family in a village called Sidrol, which falls under Khijri block in Ranchi district. She walked nearly five kilometres in the city shouting slogans and raising her hand against injustice. She also heard the speakers patiently at the mass meeting. At the end, when Stan Swami asked a question: “Shall we go ahead with the fight or end here?” She was the first to raise her hand in support of the fight for justice which, of course, will continue till the humiliation, rape and torture by the security forces come to a halt.
We live in the largest democratic country in the universe and also applaud ourselves for it. But unfortunately, the Indian state has been constricting the democratic space of the villagers, especially the Adivasis, Dalits, poor, women and children. Our honourble parliamentarians do not only table the policies, programmes and budget but they also table money in the Indian Parliament and nobody is punished for defaming our largest democracy. Now the Rajya Sabha (Upper House) has become a haven for the corporate houses. We have more than 100 billionaires in the Upper House including Mallya, Ambani and Kedi. In these circumstances, if we have to protect our democracy, we must under-stand why the 77-year-old Adivasi woman, Hiramani, walked in the city for justice; she was born before the existence of the Indian state but is not satisfied by the last 63 years of Indian rule.
The most relevant questions are :does Indian democracy have space for the voices of dissent? Is the word “no” meaningless in Indian democracy? Or the “no” of the marginalised people meaningless in Indian democracy? Of course, without “no” democracy is meaningless but do the people of ruling classes understand it and respect the dissenting voices? We must understand that we all are equal as the citizens of India irrespective of our race, caste, sex, religion and so on. Therefore, the Indian state should hear the dissenting voices instead of terrorising democrats and constricting the democratic space with the power of guns.
(Courtesy: sanhati.com)
They call themselves DEMOCRATIC.

[pranabjyoti]

The Economist (UK): British business magazine surveys rebellion in India (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/the-economist-uk-british-business-magazine-surveys-rebellion-in-india/)

Maoist insurgents in India

More bloody and defiant
To overcome Naxalite rebels, India’s government needs to be more adept at both using force and spreading development

Jul 22nd 2010 | DELHI
AS INDIA’S Maoist rebellion deepens and grows, so too do divisions in the government over how it should be confronted. Nearly 800 people have been killed in the insurgency so far this year, close to the total for the whole of 2009–a record year for bloodshed in this conflict. The lack of a unified government response suggests this grim trajectory will continue.
http://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/images/images-magazine/2010/30/AS/201030ASM915.gif
On July 17th Digvijay Singh, general secretary of the ruling Congress Party, used a television interview to defend criticisms he had made earlier in print, accusing the home minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, of mishandling the rebellion. He had written that it is wrong to treat the insurgency “purely as a law and order problem”; instead the government must “take into consideration the people living in the affected area who ultimately matter”.
This disagreement, between two senior government leaders, echoes a wider debate about how to battle the Naxalites, as the Maoists are also known because of their roots in a 1967 peasant uprising in the West Bengali village of Naxalbari. One view holds that the rebels are a military threat and the priority is to quash them by force. The other argues that the Naxalites feed on the grievances of impoverished tribal inhabitants in eastern and central India, and will only fade when development is brought to such areas.
The difference in emphasis matters, but in fact disagreement is much greater outside of the government than within it. A comprehensive response—which combines both security and development—is the best of all. Thus on July 14th, the government said that it is setting up a “unified command” structure to oversee state-level efforts to fight against the rebels, using the expertise of a former army general, and increased army logistical support and helicopters. But it also announced there would be more cash for development projects in Maoist-dominated areas.
The government has so far failed to combine the twin requirements of force and development to produce a successful strategy. “There’s still no consensual policy, no clarity,” says Ajay Sahni of the Institute for Conflict Management, a think-tank in Delhi, commenting on the government plan. The battle against the rebels is being fought by an overstretched, ineffectual police force that has allowed the Maoists to spread from an estimated 56 of India’s 626 districts in 2001 to more than 200 today. The growth of the rebels, who today number 10,000-20,000, with countless thousands of village militias, has been aided by the 2004 merger of the country’s two main communist groups. In addition, speedy economic growth in the eastern states, especially in the mining industry, has given the rebels new targets for raising funds by extorting cash.
Late last year the government sent in thousands of federal police in an offensive across the worst-affected states: Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal. No notable improvement in the campaign followed. Instead, in recent months, Maoist violence has escalated sharply. This month 27 police were slaughtered in Chhattisgarh. In May Maoists were blamed for derailing a passenger train, killing at least 145 people. After reports of Maoist threats to their lives this month, the personal security of two high-ranking ministers was increased. The threats followed the killing by security forces of a leading Naxalite, Cherkuri Rajkumar, also known as Azad, in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh on July 2nd.
Politicians are so alive to the Maoist threat that when a train crashed in West Bengal on July 19th, killing at least 63 people, the railway minister, Mamata Banerjee, was quick to finger the rebels as suspects. In fact, the driver apparently ignored stop signals and failed to apply his brakes.
Increasingly, the insurgency is hampering efforts to open up east India’s mineral-rich forests to business. In particular, the rebel fondness for attacking railways and roads has made it difficult for some companies to operate. Work on a $7 billion steel plant by JSW Steel, India’s third-largest steel producer, has been delayed in West Bengal, as have steel projects by Tata Steel and Essar in Chhattisgarh. In June India’s coal minister, Sriprakash Jaiswal, said the threat of Naxalite attacks was substantially curbing coal production. Land conflicts between big companies and local people have done much to boost the appeal of the Naxalites.
The popularity of the Naxalites might yet diminish if people in rebel areas got more basic amenities such as roads, water and schools. The southern state of Andhra Pradesh has had great success in weakening Maoism with a combination of better development and policing. The state’s anti-Naxalite police have been better trained, paid and armed than forces elsewhere. Recruiting more police from the local communities who are familiar with the often difficult jungle terrain of Maoist areas would also help, rather than importing men who do not even understand the language of those they are fighting against.
Elsewhere, however, such measures have been slow in coming. A year ago police launched a big campaign in Lalgarh, West Bengal, to recapture the area from Maoist rebels. Today the rebels are still present, perhaps in part because public investment that was promised has not come as quickly as many had expected. Amitava Rath, a local journalist, points out that the support for the rebels is strongest in those villages with the fewest amenities. “The rebels have started carrying out some development work as if they are already running a state within the state,” he says.

Asia



Though pure BS, but this kind of article is some kind of recognition that SOMETHING IS WRONG IN THE SHIPKA GORGE.

[pranabjyoti]

http://naxalrevolution.blogspot.com/p/fan-mail.html
It is often heard from non-Indians that they have traveled to India, but found very little support for Maoists there, instead strong opposition. I am requesting them to go to the above mentioned link and see by yourself what kind of m*****f*****s they met in the metropolises and what is the real character of this "anti-Maoists". Sending them in Siberian labor camps isn't enough for them in my opinion.
Though this kind of behavior isn't unusual or unnatural for the creamy layer of a semi-feudal Asian country. It's their very basic character.

[this is an invasion]

Do you know what are the Naxalite's policies and actions in Kashmir ? What do they do, what are their links, etc. I have not seen much about it

Didn't they take inspiration from James Cameron's Avatar?

[pranabjyoti]

Didn't they take inspiration from James Cameron's Avatar?
Their own life experiences and struggle for survival is sufficient. No Hollywood Avatar is necessary. Instead, perhaps Mr. Cameron himself was inspired the those struggles worldwide before making this film.

[this is an invasion]

Their own life experiences and struggle for survival is sufficient. No Hollywood Avatar is necessary. Instead, perhaps Mr. Cameron himself was inspired the those struggles worldwide before making this film.

Oh maybe that was it

[pranabjyoti]

Lalgarh, W. Bengal – Massive protest by women against rapes committed by security personnel (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/lalgarh-w-bengal-%e2%80%93-massive-protest-by-women-against-rapes-committed-by-security-personnel/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/joint-forces-blocking-women-protesters-in-jhargram.jpg?w=400&h=216 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/joint-forces-blocking-women-protesters-in-jhargram.jpg)joint forces blocking women protesters in jhargram

Sanhati.com
by Partho Sarathi Ray
July 22, 2010
On 20th July, around 50,000 women under the banner of “Committee to save honour of women” tried to march into Jhargram town to protest against the recent incidents of raping of women in Sonamukhi village by the joint security forces. Such a huge, and militant, mobilization of women has not been seen in Jhargram in recent times. The marchers, including school students in uniform, teachers, housewives and even many elderly women tried to enter Jhargram town via four different routes. Even the vice-chairperson of the CPI(M) controlled Jhargram panchayat samiti, Shipra Barik, joined the march. The marchers carried posters demanding the hanging of CPI(M) leader Prashanta Das, who has been known to have identified the houses of anti-CPI(M) villagers in Sonamukhi following which women from these families were raped by policemen.
The women tried to reach the Subdivisional officer’s (SDO)
 office to register their protest and demand the punishment of the perpetrators of the atrocities. However, the joint forces blocked all the four routes they were following. One of the processions was blocked at the Jamda deer park. However, another rally, comprising around 5000 women, coming from the direction of the Jhargram Raj college evaded the joint forces and reached the SDO’s office. The employees in the SDO’s office all fled although the marchers remained completely peaceful. Somehow the additional SP reasoned with the marchers and persuaded them to leave the SDO complex.
However, the police confronted another rally of around 20000 women coming from the Lodhashuli side with force. The joint forces chased them all the way till Kalaboni. Many women were injured in the melee. Throughout the day the women marchers tried to enter the town multiple times but were confronted by joint forces personnel. Even though the marchers wanted to meet the SDO, C. Murugan, to place their demands he refused to meet them saying that he has done whatever he was supposed to do. The Sonamukhi atrocities have again taken the rage against the atrocities of the joint central and state forces occupying Jangalmahal to boiling point.
Again, NOTHING UNUSUAL ABOUT IT.

[The Vegan Marxist]

^ Same thing happened in the philippines, somewhat. There were reports where US military raped a local Filipino woman on stage. The Filipino Maoists have called for punishment against the US military for such actions.

[pranabjyoti]

^ Same thing happened in the Philippines, somewhat. There were reports where US military raped a local Filipino woman on stage. The Filipino Maoists have called for punishment against the US military for such actions.
At least, US military have one excuse that WHAT THEY ARE DOING IS IN OTHER COUNTRY. But, what logic the Indian police and paramilitary have in such a scenario? Believe me, this is a common practice of Indian armed forces for a long before and after independence. And the DEMOCRATIC Indian state have arranged full legal protection for them, perhaps which is unimaginable in European democracies.

[pranabjyoti]

Protest against Vedanta over India mine project (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/protest-against-vedanta-over-india-mine-project/)

[Amnesty International and Survival International led a protest of Vedanta shareholders, against a bauxite mine in India on Dongria Kondh lands.-ed.]
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/vedanta-placard_screen.jpg?w=300&h=211 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/vedanta-placard_screen.jpg)July 27, 2010
India-focused Vedanta Resources would face protests at its shareholders’ meeting on Wednesday from investors and pressure groups over its plans to establish a bauxite mine in an area sacred to indigenous people.
Pressure groups have long opposed a planned mine in India’s eastern Orissa state, but the sympathetic move by major asset manager Aviva Investors (part of insurer Aviva Plc) marks a more activist stance by institutional investors on social issues.
Aviva said it had organised a meeting on Friday of investors which in total hold around 5 percent of Vedanta shares with human rights group Amnesty International.
In order to show its concern over the Bauxite mining project and other issues with the company, Aviva said it plans to vote against three resolutions at Vedanta’s meeting on Wednesday, regarding the annual report and accounts, the remuneration report and the reappointment of the board member who chairs the health, safety and environment committee.
Vedanta shareholders will also confront more colourful protests as they enter the meeting, including two people made up as indigenous people from the hit film Avatar, which chronicles how a futuristic mining company threatens the existence of the Na’vi people.
A report on Vedanta submitted to the environment ministry in March said the company was violating environmental guidelines and had not taken adequate consideration of the impact on the Dongria Kondh people.
Meanwhile, Vedanta said that the mine in the Niyamgiri mountain forests, beneath which lie 78 million tonnes of bauxite, will not violate the rights of local tribes and the company is also funding schools, clinics and income-generation projects in the area.
Even Amnesty International protests.

[pranabjyoti]

CPI (Maoists) blogspot blocked

December 7 2007 09:50 IST
M.P.Prashanth
KOZHIKODE: The blogspot of People’s March, the unofficial magazine of the CPI (Maoists) which has been publishing the Maoist literature from all over the country, was blocked on Thursday.
It is not immediately known as to why peoplesmarch. googlepages. com was disabled, but the service provider has left a message saying that the action was taken for violation of ‘program policies.’
According to the Google Page Creator, its service should not be used for unlawful activities.
People’s March is being published from Tripunithura in Ernakulam and is edited by P.Govindan Kutty. The print edition is not banned by the authorities.
“I had uploaded an item yesterday. But today I found the site blocked. Even my gmail ID has been disabled,” Govindan Kutty told this website’s newspaper.
The website of People’s March was blocked a year ago by the Centre for its alleged association with the Maoists.
The blocking of the blog is the latest in the series of the war of wit between the Maoists in India and the law enforcing authorities.
Maoists have been widely using the internet to propogate its ideology among the public.
Resistanceindia. blogsot.com, a Maoist blog was hacked in August this year.
Another blog naxalrevolution. blogspot withdrew after one year of operation.
But the supporters of Maoists have created another blog maoistsresistance. blogspot.com which is active now.
There is another blogspot naxalwatch. blogspot.com, which is believed to be hosted or supported by the intelligence agencies to spread the message among the public that naxalism is “pure and simple terrorism which disguises itself in terms like class struggle and social justice.”
People’s March has been a major mouthpiece of the Indian Maoists. It has carried articles on Maoist programmes and interviews with leaders including CPI (Maoist) general secretary Muppala Lakshmana Rao alias Ganapathi and spokesperson Azad.
One issue of the magazine was exclusively on Dandakarayna region where the Maoists are running a parallel government and another on the women martyrs of the Maoist movement.
It also carried extensive reports on the developments in Nandigram.
Security agencies feel that it is impossible for a single person to produce a magazine like People’s March.
They believe that there could be many behind the venture who are behind the curtain at present.
Kerala is a state where the Maoists are keeping a low profile unlike the Andhra Pradesh and some areas in the north.
But it is no longer a secret that senior Maoist leaders keep frequenting the state at regular intervals.
Source: Newindpress, December 7, 2007
http://paulsoren.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/cpi-maoists-blogspot-blocked/
The cyber war is on.

[pranabjyoti]

India’s Embedded Journalists (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/indias-embedded-journalists/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/embedded-journalism.jpg?w=195&h=258 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/embedded-journalism.jpg)embedded journalism

Express Buzz, July 29, 2010
Is media a mouthpiece?
Seema Mustafa (http://expressbuzz.com/searchresult/seema-mustafa)
The Americans coined a phrase during their invasion of Iraq: embedded journalism, which basically underlined the use and misuse of the media by governments. Journalists embedded in the US tanks that rolled into Iraq gave glowing accounts of the war, the massacre of innocent Iraqis, and the terrible adversity of violence.
Since then sections of the media around the world have struggled to keep up with the phrase, working around the clock to please governments and pass on disinformation as the truth. Unfortunately, the same holds true of the Indian media where reporters and publications and news channels have deserted the people, to work for and on behalf of governments. Those who follow the government line well in Delhi are rewarded with trips with the prime minister, with select briefings denied to others, with access to the corridors of power, with planted information, with awards and seats of power at some point in time.
All that they have to do in return is to kill their conscience, report the wrong for the right, ask only those questions that their ‘masters’ and ‘benefactors’ want them to, and make sure that the voice of the people never becomes the news.
This is on a daily basis. And the government uses its television and newspapers in a way officials might term ‘creatively’ but in the book of old, honest journalism can only be described as crafty, devious and totally dishonest. So ministers make themselves selectively available to just a couple of high profile journalists for an ‘interview’ that is actually predetermined, and given on the condition that the journalist will ask only cleared questions. This disinformation then becomes information, and sets the ground for the new debate or discourse to follow government ordained lines.
It is amazing how today journalists accept the government version as the gospel truth. When we became journalists the doyens of the profession trained us to question everything, repeat, everything that the government said. We were told that journalists were not in existence to propagate government views, the government had its own very powerful propaganda machinery to use for this purpose, journalists were in place to speak for the people of India, for the poor, the oppressed, the victimised and the marginalised.
These adjectives are used with a certain deliberateness, as in Delhi as in most state capitals, the people for the media are represented by the glitterati and the flitterati. The rich and the powerful rub shoulders with the politicians and the select journalists to form an incestuous nexus that feeds on power and glory, and has little to contribute to classic journalism. The profession is dead for the reporter who either thinks he is the news, or thinks he is bigger than the news. Both are a death knell for journalism.
The result is that governments then have a field day to manipulate the news. As we know the media condemned certain individuals paraded by the police force for some of the worst terror attacks in the country. It is now revealed that all these persons were innocent and that totally different persons were responsible. That’s fine, but what about those who were arrested, tortured, confined in jails for their innocence? Who is responsible for the fact that their lives were lost? The media is as responsible as the governments, for we are in place to act as a check and as a watchdog on precisely these excesses and acts of corruption. But when journalists become part of the power bloc, there is no one left to speak for the victims.
In Jammu and Kashmir, the journalists who speak the truth are attacked. Stone-pelting youths are described as LeT operatives by a compromised government, and in Delhi the media picks up the echo of a completely wrong claim. Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah who also advises the government on Kashmir told NewsX in a recent interview that the young people were certainly not LeT. But that is the claim forwarded by chief minister Omar Abdullah and his mentor Union home minister P Chidambaram, that has been lapped up by sections of the media as the last word. Look at the damage this claim has done, as it is one more bridge of trust broken down and ruined by the government and the media. The same is the situation in the northeast.
And now even in the mainland states. Anyone can be described as an anti-national, a terrorist or a Maoist by the governments, and journalists fall in line to brand and propagate this news from the rooftops. Intellectuals who disagree with the government in its handling of the Maoists and poverty and development, are now being arrested, hounded and even killed by governments without a murmur of protest by the ‘mainland’ media. Is this journalism? Or have we all just become touts, to follow the powerful intelligence and government agencies without even bothering to exercise our minds on the side of truth?
Yes, one knows how powerful weak governments are, where muzzling dissent and implementing draconian laws are concerned. The more distant a government gets from its people, the more intolerant it gets with those who write the truth. We know that the government has all the laws it needs to slap against honest journalists. We know that ‘waging war against the country’ is a charge that governments can use at their discretion and can arrest and detain journalists and others at will. We know that journalists can be made to disappear when required. We also know how governments can embrace, and applaud, and award those journalists who do their bidding, and who write as they should.
But we also know that journalism is a great profession, despite all these odds. And that the people remain on the side of the truth regardless of government and corporate machinations. And that is why governments can cover and distort the truth only for a time, not for ever. A couple of newspapers defeated the Emergency. Truth, as they say, will out.
http://expressbuzz.com/opinion/columnists/is-media-a-mouthpiece/193640.html

Kindly read this essay and keep it in mind when you will read something about Maoists in India.

[pranabjyoti]

Half of Chhattisgarh’s diamond belt is in Maoist strongholds (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/half-of-chhattisgarh%e2%80%99s-diamond-belt-is-in-maoist-strongholds/) [When valuable minerals are in lands populated by adivasis (tribal people), the corporate and government plans for displacing the people often begin by calling those areas "Maoist strongholds."-ed.]
2 Aug
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/chhatisgarh-diamonds.jpg?w=148&h=188 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/chhatisgarh-diamonds.jpg)'here be diamonds'

Diamond reserves could be present in eight belts in Chhattisgarh, half of which according to the police are in Maoist strongholds, Chief Minister Raman Singh said Monday.
“A total eight belts have been listed as having possible reserves of kimberlite that contains diamonds,” Singh informed the assembly in a written reply to Congress member and former chief minister Ajit Jogi.
Singh said that districts of Bijapur, Dantewada, Bastar, Kanker and Narayanpur were among the list of possible diamond rich areas.
These five districts form a sprawling 40,000 sq km Maoist stronghold since late 1980s.
Police claim that up to 25,000 sq km area is intensively mined by Maoists and rebels run a parallel government in hundreds of villages of these districts with their hideouts ringed by land mines.
The chief minister said that Chhota Dongar belt in Bastar, Narayanpur and Bijapur districts was among the eight listed for possible diamond reserves.
The others are Tokapal belt in Bastar, Dantewada and Bijapur, Narayanpur-Lanjor belt in Kanker, Bastar, Narayanpur districts, Kanker-Keshkal belt in Kanker, Durg, Dhamtari and Bastar districts, Behradih belt in Raipur and Dhamtari districts, Pithora in Mahasamund and Raipur districts, Sarangarh belt in Raigarh, Janjgir, Mahasamund and Raipur districts and Eib-Maini belt in Jashpur, Raigarh and Surguja districts.
Source: www.deccanherald.com
Illegal, may be BUT CERTAINLY NOT UNETHICAL.

[pranabjyoti]

India’s Maoists’ solidarity with Kashmir: ‘Support the just national liberation struggle’ (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/india%e2%80%99s-maoists%e2%80%99-solidarity-with-kashmir-%e2%80%98support-the-just-national-liberation%c2%a0struggle%e2%80%99/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/solidarity.jpg?w=225&h=224 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/solidarity.jpg)Srinagar: In an emphatic statement issued Friday CPI (Maoist) extended the party’s backing for right of self determination to Kashmiris and appealed to people of India to support the “just national liberation struggle of the people of Kashmir”.
The party said ‘Kashmir belongs to Kashmiris’ and appealed people of India to “strongly oppose daily firing of Kashmiri people”, raise their voice against state atrocities and “heartless killing of youth by armed forces”.
“Fearlessly support the just national liberation struggle of the people of Kashmir,” the statement from the central committee of CPI (Moaist) said. “We appeal to all citizens and pro-people activists of India to demand the withdrawal of Indian paramilitary and military from Kashmir and take stern action against their officers.”
The party appealed to the people to see through the media propaganda about Kashmir that distorts its history. “Those who are aware of Kashmir’s history know that it was never a part of India.”
The two-page detailed statement indicates the depth of knowledge the party has about the details of day-to-day happenings in Kashmir.
“The Indian ruling class may claim that ‘militancy’ has ended and ‘separatist’ organizations have been crushed but the truth is that Kashmiri people keep struggling daily over one issue or another.”
The statement also castigates Omar Abdullah led coalition government in the state for its brutal response to “democratic resistance”.
“Government of India and its puppet government under Omar Abdullah have responded with firing, teargas, lathicharge and curfew to the peaceful and democratic resistance by the Kashmiri people which is still on.”
The statement also criticised recent attributions of stone throwing protests to having been instigated by LeT and elements from Pakistan. “Attribution (of protests) to LeT is disrespect of the freedom loving Kashmiri people.”
Through the statement CPI(Maoist) presented its revolutionary salute (Inqalabi Salam) to the struggling Kashmiri people.
“The armed struggle may have weakened, but the youth have used stones as weapons in their hands to fight the state armed forces. This only indicates their deep desire for liberation,” the statement said likening the “resistance” in Kashmir to that by the tribals of Dandakaranya. “Kashmiris are fighting Indian paramilitaries and police forces with stones just like tribals under the party are fighting in Dandakaranya using bows and arrows.”
“The enemy is the same here (Dandakaranya) as well as there (Kashmir).”
The central committee of CPI (Maoist) on behalf of the party, People’s Army and the revolutionary people vowed that it will wholeheartedly continue supporting “your struggle” in Kashmir.
[Kashmir Monitor]
Posted on 02 Aug 2010
Solidarity with the struggle of people of Kashmir.

[pranabjyoti]

New York City: Protest of “Operation Green Hunt” at Indian Consulate, August 13 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/new-york-city-protest-of-operation-green-hunt-at-indian-consulate-august-13/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/sanhati-logo.png?w=333&h=122 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/sanhati-logo.png)Dear friends,
Sanhati, and other organizations and individuals, are organizing a protest against the Indian government’s insidious war, named “Operation Green Hunt,” which has been unleashed on the inhabitants of the forested regions of East-Central India.
We urge you all to join us in this protest at the Consulate in New York City (3 East 64th Street) on August 13 at 11 a.m.
Contact: [email protected]
Kindly inform others about this protest by circulating this email.
The protest will approximately coincide with Indian Independence Day (August 15) to emphasize that the promises of independence have remained largely unfulfilled for a large section of the population, including the tribal peoples.
In its current phase, this war is concentrated primarily in the forested regions of East-Central India, stretching from the states of Chhattisgarh to Jharkhand and West Bengal. This region is home to significant amounts of natural resources.
Big corporations, both Indian and foreign, are plundering these natural resources for quick profits and plan to continue doing so while paying almost no attention to the enormous environmental and human costs inherent in their ventures. The state and central governments continue to welcome these big corporations with open arms by signing an unknown number of memoranda of understanding with them—whose details have been kept secret. A recent report by the Ministry of Rural Development, on the other hand, described these trends as one of the biggest land grabs since the time of Columbus.
Yet these forested areas house not only natural resources. This region is home to a large section of India’s roughly 100 million Adivasis (i.e., the tribal population). Using all means at their disposal, the Adivasis resisted the government’s efforts to forcibly drive them from their ancestral lands. Drawing on the Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, which is devoted to Adivasi rights and provisions for their protection, Adivasi activists challenged the government’s expropriations.
Instead of addressing the genuine grievances of the Adivasis, the Indian government has cracked down on their legitimate protests in violation of the letter and intent of the Indian Constitution. Peaceful resistance movements across this region have been met with police brutality and military might; this forced the arming of a section of the resistance movement. State-assisted vigilante groups like the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh and Harmad Bahini in West Bengal were a response of the state to the armed resistance of the Adivasis.
When that failed, Operation Green Hunt—a further escalation and militarization of the State’s response—emerged. Such militarization is facilitated by the Indian government’s military cooperation with the United States and Israel.
Sections of civil society have been urging the central government to stop Operation Green Hunt and begin negotiations with the diverse people’s organizations opposing the looting of natural resources. The response of the government to the idea of dialogue has in general not been encouraging in view of the plans of increased militarization, human rights abuses committed by the security forces, suppression of dissenting voices, and abductions and killings of the leaders of people’s organizations.
In this context, Adivasis in India, and all the people who are with them in this struggle for freedom from exploitation and oppression, need your support. Join us to protest against Operation Green Hunt and the increasing violence of the Indian State on democratic movements on August 13, 2010 at 11 a.m. in front of the Indian Consulate in New York City.
Oppose the biggest land grab since Columbus!
Oppose Operation Green Hunt!
Oppose the war on people!
###
Sanhati (www.sanhati.com) is a forum of activists, professionals, workers, academics and intellectuals that stand in solidarity with peoples’ struggles against corporate capital and for the upholding of democratic rights in India. The group strives to be an integral part of the international search for alternatives to the capitalist social order.
###
BACKGROUND NOTE
India Shining, so claimed the BJP-led government. Today, the Congress-led regime might boast that it successfully increased annual economic growth from 5.6% to 8.3% in the last six years, while criticizing the previous BJP-led alliance.
Between the 5.6% and 8.3%, there lurk other stories. About three-quarters of India’s people live on less than Rs. 20 per day, while almost half of the women in India are still illiterate and about 80% of households do not have access to safe drinking water.
Between 1997 and 2006, there lurk other stories. Nearly 170,000 farmers committed suicide by drinking pesticide because they could not keep up with demands to repay their loans. In addition to the agrarian crisis, whatever little access the poor had to common property resources has come under increasing attack by the Indian government in the guise of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and other “development” projects related to mining, industrial development, information technology parks, and so forth.
Immeasurable stories such as these are grafted onto the underbelly of neo-liberal economic “development” in India. A recent report, penned by the Indian Ministry of Rural Development, described these trends as the biggest land grab since Columbus. In truth, it wouldn’t be hard to keep citing official statistics revealing not only the shadows within the Shining India myth, but huge pockets of darkness. To be perfectly honest, none of this is new. If there is one image of India that has persisted in the Western media, it is the image of bone-thin, bare-bodied children with swollen bellies, scavenging for food-crumbs in trash-cans next to stray dogs and wild birds.
But something has changed in the last five years.
India, like many other parts of the world, has seen the emergence of a whole spectrum of mass movements challenging the global neo-liberal onslaught in many different ways. These movements are not attempts to “brainwash” the masses by English-spouting city-bred students or intellectuals with romantic dreams of social change. On the contrary, these movements are being led by the very people who have been persistently excluded from reaping the benefits of development and growth – in short, the people who live in the pockets of darkness within the so-called shining India.
The proverbial aam aadmi has spoken. The oppressed of India have shown an unwillingness to stay oppressed for eternity, despite the policy of the government to “kill the poor and not the poverty.” These struggles are primarily about defending their lands, rivers and homes from corrupt officials and swindlers. Moreover, these movements have demonstrated that not only has the government failed to deliver on the promises of the basic rights of the Indian constitution itself, the interests of the most economically disadvantageous people have seriously been compromised by its almost total and unconditional submission to the interests of corporations like Mittal, Vedanta, Tata, Essar, Salim, Jindal, and POSCO.
Instead of improving governance while addressing dissent and discontent in an inclusive way, as be-fitting any democratic government, the Indian government has unleashed severe state violence. The government of India has launched an insidious war nicknamed Operation Green Hunt. While the terror initiated by the government since 2009 is by no means unique in view of the history of the state repression across India (e.g., West Bengal, Orissa, Kashmir, the Northeasten states, Punjab, and Andhra Pradesh), Operation Green Hunt is unprecedented both for its array of military force and its media mobilization.
Since last year, more than 100,000 military and paramilitary troops have been sent into Adivasi (i.e., indigenous) areas. Moreover, it was recently announced that 36 battalions of Indian Reserve Forces will be added to the 105 already raised, along with 16,000 more “Special Police Officers” (civilians trained and armed by the government) bringing their total strength to 30,000. Through this new military campaign, which almost brings to mind histories of colonial occupation of land, the military “occupiers” are to gradually spread into one “sanitized” area after another.
Some additional relevant facts:
* Twenty Warfare Training Schools are being built in India.
* Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently spent $18 billion in the US to buy huge amounts of military supplies and munitions. This included state-of-the-art global positioning systems and night-vision-capable automatic rifles.
* Drones are being purchased from Israel and the Israeli Mossad is training Indian police as snipers. The aim of the training is to enable assassination of the leaders of diverse mass movements. The recent murder of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) spokesperson Azad, who was also the party’s emissary for negotiations on a ceasefire, clearly reflects one aspect of the government’s modus operandi (i.e., targeted killings).
* According to numerous reports, dozens of indigenous people are being killed each week in the Adivasi regions.
* The Communist Party of India (Maoist) has been declared India’s “gravest internal security” threat and has been banned. Bans have also been imposed on other democratic organizations on the claim that they are frontal” organizations of CPI (Maoist) and the witch hunt against these civil rights activists continues unabated.
* The last few months have seen the arrests of increasing numbers of media personnel, journalists, writers, and intellectuals who have shown the slightest sympathy to people’s struggles in the Adivasi heartland. The discussions within the ranks of the police forces in the state of Chattisgarh as to whether the Booker Prize winning writer Arundhati Roy is to be charged under an “anti-terrorism” law following the publication of her essay Walking With the Comrades is a case in point.
* The state of Gujarat has joined Operation Green Hunt by alleging that “Maoists” are attempting to expand their networks into Gujarat and in particular the tribal regions of South Gujarat. Several activists have been arrested. This witch-hunt of the Gujarat police amounts to a systematic effort by the state government to suppress all manner of dissension and opposition.
* Operation Green Hunt includes widespread incidents of rape committed by the security forces. Recently, about 50,000 women tried to march into Jhargram town in West Bengal to protest against these rapes (see photograph above). The marchers included school students in uniform, teachers, housewives and even many elderly women. Widespread rape is a progeny of Operation Green Hunt.
* The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), one of a number of anti-democratic Acts, continues to give Indian troops immunity from civil legal action and promotes human rights violations. The Naga People’s Movement for Human Rights has aptly observed that this Act is a systematic tool of the Indian government that contributes to terrorizing and dehumanizing civilian populations. This Act also protects security personnel in Kashmir guilty of killing and torturing the people of the valley.
The Indian state, in other words, has declared war on its own people. It has declared war precisely on those sections of the population who have always been at the receiving ends of multiple forms of systemic and institutional oppression. Instead of addressing the genuine grievances of Adivasis facing forcible displacement and dispossession, the Indian government has cracked down on their legitimate protests in flagrant violation of the letter and intent of the Indian Constitution.
Foreseeing the disastrous impact that Operation Green Hunt will have on the common people in those regions, different sections of civil society have called for a dialog between the state and various sections of the resistance, including the CPI (Maoist) and different people’s organizations, involved in struggles in the Adivasi regions. Several attempts to make progress in these efforts failed, with different politicians, bureaucrats and security officers continuously attempting to scuttle negotiations.
A glimmer of hope had risen due to the civil society initiative represented by Swami Agnivesh, with the Union Home Minister and Azad, as spokesperson of CPI(Maoist), responding to him in a letter detailing the suitable conditions under which a dialog might begin. It is reported that Azad was on his way to consult other members of CPI (Maoist) in order to decide future steps for proceeding with this initiative when he was allegedly abducted and killed, thus throwing the possibility of negotiations into disarray. The murder of a spokesperson of a political organization, with which dialog is supposedly being planned at this crucial juncture, raises serious doubts regarding the government commitment to such a dialog.
In this situation, the activists in India need your presence support. Join us to protest against Operation Green Hunt and the increasing violence of the Indian State on democratic movements on August 13, 2010 at 11 a.m. in front of the Indian Consulate in New York City. We have chosen August 13, as this date roughly coincides with Indian Independence Day, when the country became a sovereign nation-state following its colonial occupation by Great Britain. We would, therefore, like to record our protest and remind the public that the promises of the Indian independence have not only remain unfulfilled, but the current Indian government has resorted to military repression to quell democratic dissent in a way uncannily similar to the erstwhile British “overlords.” We invite all in diaspora, the international community of media activists, human rights workers, academics and intellectuals and artists to join us.
Comrades, those who can, kindly join.

[pranabjyoti]

Interview with Raghuram Rajan - Part I (http://naxalrevolution.blogspot.com/2010/07/interview-with-raghuram-rajan-part-i.html)

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POV

"Many of India's billionaires have made money by their proximity to govt"




The Bhopal-born Raghuram Rajan was the youngest person to be appointed as the International Monetary Fund's chief economist in 2003. In 2005,he was almost prescient about the downturn. Now, he's out with a new book, 'Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten The World Economy', that explores the global imbalances that lie at the root of the financial crisis. Shankar Raghuraman met up with Rajan to discuss everything from wealth to privatisation by stealth ... http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_spYZcV2TRZs/TFQnYRfRFzI/AAAAAAAAACU/zXnDbfEvScA/s320/raghuram.jpg (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_spYZcV2TRZs/TFQnYRfRFzI/AAAAAAAAACU/zXnDbfEvScA/s1600/raghuram.jpg)

You refer in your book to the fact that India has the second largest number of billionaires per trillion dollars of GDP as a "dubious distinction". Why?

It was second largest to Russia before the crisis, but I would suspect it is probably now the largest. I don't think there is a problem with wealth creation. I think one of the virtues of the new economy is that we actually celebrate the creation of wealth. I mean so many poor boys want to be like Bill Gates. I do think there is a problem if much of this wealth comes from proximity to the government. If you look at the areas where we have so many billionaires, many of them are not software entrepreneurs; it's things like land, real estate, natural resources and areas that require licences. Some (of our businessmen ) have genuinely created entrepreneurial firms that have done wonderful things. But there are other areas which are less competitive and where proximity to government helps. That's a worrisome factor. In the longer run, these things will correct themselves, sometimes. But you could go the way of Mexico. The way Mexico has gone is a situation where you essentially have oligarchies counterbalanced by strong unions and both have in a sense shut down economic growth. This is the famous middle-income trap that Mexico is in. Well, we're still not middle-income, but we could get trapped before then if we don't watch out for the need for ensuring that we have competition, ensuring that a few entities don't grab all the benefits that are coming from economic growth.

Are you suggesting that what's happening in India now is a sort of crony capitalism...

I would think that we are in a position to get to a more free enterprise form of capitalism than any of the fast growing developing economies primarily because we have a much more democratic set-up and we have in a sense an entrepreneurial spirit that has developed over many centuries. I wouldn't so much call it crony capitalism as oligarchic capitalism and I would argue that there is a danger that if we let the nexus between the politician and the businessman get too strong, we could shut down competition. That could slow us down tremendously and also maybe create questions eventually for our democracy. So, I would think this is one area - competition, transparency, more openness about government contracts, more openness about land deals - these are things we need to be working on.

You use a very interesting phrase in your book - the "privatization by stealth of the state in India". What exactly are you referring to?

It's more than that. I worry that in the areas where there isn't adequate governance, we are letting the private sector determine things that should naturally be the prerogative of the state. For instance, take the SEZ scheme where the whole apparatus of setting up the infrastructure for any area - because we don't have the entities capable of creating the apparatus - we are giving it over to the private sector but in many situations not necessarily charging an adequate return for the state for giving up the prerogative. Essentially, it's telling them, 'you make your money from real estate and so on, but in the process create the infrastructure that we cannot.' That to my mind is privatization by stealth. If there was an open auction and you got people bidding the price, that would be fine. But we don't do that and that is something we should be asking more questions about.

You also refer to land as arguably the single biggest issue in India today and you ascribe that to the fact that title to property is not clearly defined. Surely there is more to the land issue than that?

Absolutely. I argue that one of the great hindrances to inclusion, to greater equity in growth, is the fact that the rural economy has not been brought in or connected to the urban economy. We still have 50% living in rural areas, not all of them employed in agriculture, but a large portion. China during its phase of rapid growth has had tremendous migration into the cities. We haven't had as much, but it could well happen. We can't afford that. We can't also afford to have this dual track growth with the rural areas lagging behind. So we need to connect the rural areas to the urban areas through a tremendous growth in infrastructure. In creating this infrastructure, one of the biggest impediments that we face, that China for example never faced, is land acquisition. Increasingly we find that to get the land for infrastructure, for industry etc, you have to deal with farmers. It's not just farmers, it's landless labour, it's not just landless labour, it's the politicians who surround that whole process and want to exacerbate grievances. This whole negotiation process around land acquisition is the virtue of democracy, but it's also the weakness of democracy because it takes too long. We need to find a transparent process by which if in fact there is a ton of money to be made (and there is; this discussion about 'oh, they're converting prime farmland to industrial use' is such nonsense; every time you convert farmland to industrial use you are getting productivity that is many times more, so there is money to be shared), we need to find a transparent, equitable way of sharing it in such a way that you minimize political protests. We need to cut the ground from under the people who are using this as a vehicle to further their political interests.

But how do we create that transparency? Some of it is about title. If you have clear title you can actually bargain with those people. One of the reasons why many industrialists want to invoke the state in that bargaining process is because they are not sure of the title. If they buy the land, who knows who is going to come and stake a claim later. So they invoke the state. Posco, for example, could have gone and bought that land. It would have been minor in the whole scheme of things. But they wanted the government to do, because, one, the government had given them the assurance and, two, that ensures that the title is clear. So title is one part of it. But there are also people who have no title to the land but have natural employment there who are going to be dispossessed. How to create training opportunities for them? There is a whole rehabilitation process we need to think about, but we need to think about how it can be done quickly. I mean, Posco has been in a land acquisition frame for 5 years now. Well, at this point we're talking still about whether the environmental clearances have been given. It doesn't create a great image for us outside. But it also says that there are lots of things we need to get in place. We need a clear land acquisition Bill; one is in Parliament, but hasn't been passed. We need clear and transparent ways of compensating those who are dispossessed, but we also need clear title so that land can be acquired without getting into this endless battle with the government being brought in.

You said you hoped that migration from the villages to the towns will not happen in India on the scale it had in China. To what extent does a scheme like the NREGS help in this?

It is a temporary, stop-gap measure. But as a poor country we can't afford to keep paying these subsidies. We must create real jobs, not make-work jobs. I am not saying some of the NREGS jobs are not real jobs, NREGS is doing things that were otherwise not being done. But we need to create jobs that move the rural worker to the productivity levels of a manufacturing or service worker. That means working on at least four fronts. One, creating infrastructure to connect that rural worker to the modern economy. Second, education to create the capabilities for him to work in the modern economy. Third, health - give him the right healthcare right from early childhood. And, fourth, financial inclusion so that he has the ability to save, to get insurance. Credit is one, but not the main, aspect of financial inclusion. But I think there are huge benefits to all this. We keep talking of the population dividend. If we give them all this, they are part of the population dividend. But if we don't give them all this, they are part of the population curse. We need to solve that problem before it becomes much bigger than it already is.

You have suggested that the government should close down schools or dispensaries that are not functioning properly. But who would then provide those services to the poor?

I am not saying close down the existing schools or dispensaries without first creating an alternative; that would be stupid. I would say subject them to increasing competition. You would be surprised at how possible that is. Take schools. There are many states where the government school is so dysfunctional that people are willing to take their kid out of it and put them in a private school.


Now these aren't your Delhi public schools. These are local little private schools working out of two rooms, which are being taught by high school graduates, not the BA or BSc Pass who teach in the government school who also have a B Ed. These are high school graduates who are getting as good if not better educational outcomes because they are there, they actually show up at the school, they try and teach.

Isn't that a sub-optimal solution? Isn't it better to demand that the government school actually functions?

Absolutely. But how do you ensure that? That is my point. My point is, create more competition. You don't do it by requiring all those private schools to have playgrounds and have B Ed teachers - that's not going to happen tomorrow. Some of our government proposals are in that direction. The RTE Act mandates that we improve facilities in those private schools without giving a path for how to do that, while requiring nothing of the government schools. What you need is a system where there is much more competition. This is not to say the government plays no role. The key role of the government is to provide the kind of structure in which people can choose and to impose penalties on those entities that face, in a sense, the wrath of the marketplace. If you have a government school that cannot attract any students or attracts very few students, why should it continue functioning? The key here is to empower the people you are trying to help and this is where direct (money) transfers to them is a far better way of empowering them than making them hostage to the government delivery system - whether it is the PDS system, the health delivery system or the government school system.

My idea would be a two-pronged approach - don't close anything down. Make government the certifier of quality. People can't tell a private dispenser from a quack. The quacks need to be shut down. Currently the government is not doing enough of that, it needs to do more.


Apart from certification and regulation, the government may provide some services of its own but those services should be subject to the choice of the people being served. Right now we have a top-down mentality that we are providing these people charity so they have to accept the garbage that we inflict on them whether it is any good or not. Once we empower them by making direct transfers to them, by giving them vouchers or things like that, they have a choice. They can either continue patronizing the government school or they can go across the street. And if a lot them take their children out of the government school and put them in the private school, that's telling you something about the quality being provided by the government school. At that time, the government should be brave enough to say, 'ok you guys, you have one year to shape up. If you don't attract enough students despite that, we're going to put you out of a job.' A poor country cannot afford a government that doesn't work. It must be subject to competition of the people who are ostensibly being served. When you let the dispenser behave as if he is providing a charity rather than a service that people have a right to demand, obviously he'll show up when he wants, close down when it suits him.


I've been to the CGHS, I've seen the extent of rudeness that you sometimes get there. And I actually wore decent clothes. I can imagine how much worse a poor person had to face when he went to the same dispensary. So, how can the poor command respect? By empowering them with money and that we need to do more of. The government has some very bright ideas on this. The UID scheme, properly implemented, could be the basis for direct transfers. Other countries have done it - Mexico and Brazil have run very, very successful programmes. Maybe we can't directly import those ideas, but we need to look at them. We need to think more about empowering the poor, which means giving them resources as well as information and letting them make the choices rather than having the patriarchal attitude that we know what is best for them and we are going to provide it whether they want it or not.
http://naxalrevolution.blogspot.com/2010/07/interview-with-raghuram-rajan-part-i.html
To understand the real nature of Indian capitalism, kindly read it.

[t.shonku]

Rajya Sabha(council of states) seats for sale



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvOl55S7uU8&feature=youtube_gdata

[pranabjyoti]

OPEN LETTER TO SWAMI AGNIVESHJI (http://naxalrevolution.blogspot.com/2010/08/open-letter-to-swami-agniveshji.html)

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Source - http://www.swamiagnivesh.com/Open%20letter%20-.htm

OPEN LETTER TO SWAMI AGNIVESHJI

Dear Swami Agniveshji,

I recieved your latest letter dated 22nd July. I understand your feelings about the martyrdom of com Azad and sincere concern for the peace process. Though I could not get the attachements which you mentioned in the letter, I followed almost all of your interviews given to print media.

Since it is difficult for me to send any reply to your letter nor is it possible to send your letter to our comrades who had to decide and act on your letter. Hence this open letter. There was no other choice for me.

The deception is continuing. The deception by Mr. Chidambaram. Who ardently beleives in "quite diplomacy". He is doing the things quitely and coolly.

He offically agreed to make you the interlocuter in the "peace talks". You opened channels to send the proposals to us. He "quitely" and with a neatly chalked out plan entered our channels; knowing well that the communcication would have to reach com. Azad. Under the clear guidance from Chidambaram, the notorius APSIB implemented the plan. I feel that you too must have understood all this by now, but may be difficult for you to say so. I can understand that.

Chidambaram, had his hands were not wet with blood of our beloved com. Azad, his life partner com. Sitakka alias Padma, who was most probably shown as an encounter death in Gadcheroli on 6th July, and journalist Hem Chandra Pandey, he could have seen staight into his eyes and accepted for an enquiry in to this ablsolutely fake encounter. He knows that he was the brain behind this operation and that was why he could not have accepted this demand. Who knows like Amitshah who is exposed as the the main culprit in Sohara buddin case, Chidambaram too could be implicated one day, if there were to be an enquiry. Any way, he denigrated your status as an interlocutor by rejecting the most genuine demand.

Your letter dated 26th of June reached com azad, just before 30th. The APSIB which already entered the mechanism knew this. They know that they could scuttle the process by eliminating com. Azad. With that purpose only they entered through the channels you had opened to send your letters to us. We fell to the prey of this great deception by Chidambaram.

We feel that you are being used as a pawn in the whole process. Sorry for the straight talk!

Please ask Mr Chidambaram one question. What is that the APSIB has been doing in many states outside Andhra pradesh? In UP, west Bengal, In Delhi, so on so forth? Are they functioning without his knowledge? Does he not know that it is the APSIB team that arrested com. Kobad Gandhy and put him under illegal custody for three days and on 20th septemeber he was given to Delhi Police? Shall I inform you the list of the personnel of APSIB who arrested com Kobad Gandhy; and who headed that team? May be it will be a small addition to the wikileaks, and can be a scoop to the media.

The point is again the deception. He is talking of langauge of "peace". He is planning cold blooded murders with his trusted APSIB.

Now that you have given another letter to our CC. Appealing to take the further the peace process that was started.

Your letter dated 22nd july reached me. Not just the letter. Some thing more too. The APSIB too reached me. How can we understand this phenomenon? I just escaped very narrowly. On August 1st. If we can meet some time later, like we met on the dias of Karimnagar Peasant Labour Assocaition meeeting in 1983 where we addressed the gathering along with others, (You paid rich tributes to com Haribhushan who was killed by the then NTR regime), i can give you the details. Had I gone into the hands of this notorius Indian Mossad, your 22nd letter must have gone back to the chidambaram, pehaps with some blood marks on it, like your 26th letter reached Chidambaram in similar way. We do not have any iota of doubts in your genuine feelings regarding the peace process. I am afraid that you are pegion among the cats. The cats are using you to catch us in this process.
The APSIB encircled me and for the time being I am out of it. In these circumstances it is difficult for me to send any reply to you through some channels or send your letter to our comrades. I request you to openly publish your letters in the papers. Any channel if you try to send through, it might end up in some loss. I hope we can no more afford that.

Chidamabaram will continue to play unfair game. He has already claimed our beloved comrades lives along with life of a journalist.

Our comrades will reply to you on your proposals if you can publish your letters through media. The june 26th letter and the present one, since june 26th letter has not reached our comrades. Since they are written by you, it is your prerogative to publish openly or not. May be you have to go against Chidambaram by not doing these things "quitely". He is sticking upto his programme by doing "quitely".

Your lofty concerns and well meaning efforts are torpadoed by Chidambaram with his dirty tricks. He might have scuttled the peace process by killing com. Azad. Can he stop the revoution? The history of Hitler is before us.
I stated hard facts.

with warm regards,
[email protected] Sukant
Central Committee Member,
CPI(Maoist)
August 3rd
Letter to Swami Agnivesh from CPI(Maoist).

[pranabjyoti]

Raghuram Rajan Interview Part II (http://naxalrevolution.blogspot.com/2010/08/raghuram-rajan-interview-part-ii.html)

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Raghuram Rajan's POV on Inequalities and Free Enterprise.

This blog does not endorse his views, but he is an intelligent man and I hope readers of this blog could gain some insight from his views, even though they may entirely disagree with his view point.

The first part is here . (http://naxalrevolution.blogspot.com/2010/07/interview-with-raghuram-rajan-part-i.html) The second part follows below


Now that we are at the high table, it's time to ask...


In the second part of his interview, economist Raghuram Rajan tells TOI-Crest that India needs to become proactive on the global stage

In India, there's been a lot of talk about how the G-20 is a sign of India having arrived at the high table. Does the G-20 have little more than symbolic value?

You saw what happened. When it was time to spend, the G-20 told them all to spend. They all spent. A year later, some of them got into trouble spending, so the G-20 said 'ok, some of you spend, some don't spend'...

So it basically told them to do what they were already doing?

Exactly. You didn't need encouragement to spend, as politicians, in a downturn. They all went out and spent. They just got political cover in some sense — you were doing what the G-20 said. But now it comes to hard policy change that each country has to do and now you're seeing the differences. So I don't really think the G-20 has that much capacity to do the change. The second thing I would say is that even whatever little the G-20 can achieve has to be through the power of ideas. This is where we also need to say, now that we've arrived at the high table, what is it that we want the high table to do. It's not clear to me that we have a strong sense of where we want the high table to go.


Our position in the past has been largely reactive — we don't like this, we don't like that, you've got to change this, you've got to change that. But it has rarely been proactive in the sense of 'here's what we think is for the global good'. I think we need more of that. We did play a little bit of that role in the Non-Aligned Movement, but we need to play that role again. China has tried to take up some of that role, acting as the voice of the developing countries. Brazil has. We need to do that in a way that enhances the debate.

Joseph Stiglitz in his book on the crisis argues that economics as a discipline needs to be reformed too because it has become "the biggest cheerleader" for freemarket capitalism. Your comments...

The cause of this crisis was not free enterprise, it was the interaction between the government and the private sector. If it had been just free enterprise, we'd have seen the problems in the corporate sector. The corporate sector was untouched. We saw the probem in low-income housing. Why? The banks in this country have to be prodded to lend to the poor because there is no money to be made there, right? The same is true of the US. Why are the banks going and lending to people who are less well off? The hand of the government is obvious. Now, who is to blame? The government was well-intentioned , the private sector tried to take advantage of the government.


You can't blame the private sector either, it's their job to try and make money and if the government is willing to step in and provide cheap money, they will take advantage of that. The key is to make each play its role in an appropriate way and that is where economies failed. There are weaknesses in free enterprise capitalism. The question is: what do we replace it with? so what's the alternative? Winston Churchill's comment that democracy is the worst system except all the other ones that have been tried applies here too. It's a pretty bad system, but given human incentives it is something that works much better than anything else, so we just have to make this work much better.

As you point out in your book, the government's urge to boost low income housing was because it was seen as the simplest way of addressing resentment about widening inequalities. Isn't that inherent in free market capitalism?

Well, there are different kinds of inequality. There's inequality that comes because somebody is much more talented and therefore capable of producing something much better. I don't grudge Steve Jobs his billions, because he's a really smart guy who manages to produce products that the world wants to buy. In a system where everybody thinks they have the opportunity to become Steve Jobs, people don't grudge Steve Jobs. That's the way the US used to be. Where people believe that they are shut out from ever becoming a Steve Jobs, inequality breeds resentment, especially when you think, 'Steve Jobs didn't get there because he was Steve Jobs, he got there because he knew the minister for computers'.


So, inequality that comes from privilege is very different from inequality that comes from talent and I think increasingly the US is becoming a society where inequality comes from privilege. The biggest difference in the US is between kids who go back to a home in the summers where they read books and work on summer projects — typically white kids –— and kids who go back home and watch TV. Those three months make an enormous difference in their educational attainments. There have been studies showing that the gap increases over time between white kids and minority kids simply because of the way they use their summer.


This indicates you are a product of your family. As more of these differences make their effect felt, you get a growing gap between the haves and have-nots with the have-nots knowing they can never become the haves. This wasn't the case in the US in the past.

Read the original article at

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/6270009.cms?prtpage=1#ixzz0w2FfSJh9



The second part. A must read to understand the nature of Indian capitalism.

[pranabjyoti]

India: Andhra Pradesh protest of Human Rights Violations in Kashmir (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/india-andhra-pradesh-protest-of-human-rights-violations-in-kashmir/)

http://icawpi.org/images/stories/approtestkashmirhr.jpg


Monday, 09 August 2010

www.icawpi.org
http://icawpi.org/templates/ja_teline_iii/images/printButton.png (http://icawpi.org/peoples-resistance/38-solidarity/516-ap-protest-of-human-rights-violations-in-kashmir#)

A protest demonstration was conducted by the rights group of Andhra Pradesh at Indira Park, Lower Tank Bund road from 11 AM to 2PM. The demands which are made are:
1. Stop all violent actions immediately on people of Kashmir.
2. Withdraw all the Armed forces from civilian areas immediately and confine them to barracks.
3. Release all the people arrested during demonstration and agitations.
4. Handover law and order to the state government.
5. Constitute a Judicial enquiry with a sitting judge of Supreme Court on all incidents of violence by Armed Forces at least in the past two years.
6. Repeal the Armed Forces Special Power Act, Public Security Act and Disturbed Areas Act immediately.
7. Withdraw the Armed forces from the Kashmir Valley immediately.
8. Initiate the unconditional dialogues with the representatives of people of Kashmir
9. Promise to the people of Kashmir that it would honour the promise of Plebiscite made to the United Nations in 1950.
10. Accept the fact that the Accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India was Conditional that it would honour the aspirations of the people.
We believe that only the announcements of these measures by Indian state can restore normalcy and instill sense of confidence about its democratic intentions and credibility among people of Kashmir as well India. On this occasion Mr. Lateef Mohd. Khan expressed the solidarity with the people of Kashmir and has given the assurance that the committee will be always in forefront in their democratic demand to protect the Human Rights.
On behalf of Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee the people participated are: Lateef Mohd. Khan, Dr. Rafat Seema, Kaneez Fathima, Dr. Ibrahim Ali Junaid, M.Mandakini, Taher Ali Omair, Mohd. Ismail Khan, Syeda Sahar, Mohd. Daanish Khan, Mohd. Maaz Khan, Sumaiyya Iram.


Comrades, please join in.

[pranabjyoti]

Dispossession of the Adivasis of Jharkhand, India (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/10/dispossession-of-the-adivasis-of-jharkhand-india/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/india-strip-mine.jpeg?w=320&h=240 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/india-strip-mine.jpeg)Coal strip mine in Jharkhand

By Stan Swamy
05 August, 2010, Sanhati.com (http://sanhati.com/articles/2624/)
The dispossessed Adivasi is hunted as a criminal; the looter-outsider has become ‘honourable citizen’
1. The sad story of impoverishment of the Adivasi [the tribal people of India]: A few examples will suffice. Gladson Dungdung is a young human rights activist and writer. His family had 20 acres of fertile land in Simdega district, Jharkhand . It was forcibly acquired by the govt for the construction of a dam at a terribly low rate. The compensation for the 20 acres fertile land the family got was Rs. 11,000. Even by minimal standards, it should have been at least Rs. 20 Iakhs. This is just one example among many many such deprivations. Is this not deliberate impoverishment of a people ?
2. The Suvernrekha Project in Chandil, Jharkhand, displaced 120 villages and alienated 43,500 acres of land from the Adivasi, Moolvasi communities. A rehabilitation package was worked out 27 years ago. But it has not been implemented in about half of the villages. Yet people of these villages have lost every thing they had. To add insult to injury, the project management wants to close the radial gates of the dam which will inundate 44 villages awaiting rehabilitation Is this not a deliberate act of deprivation of a people?
3. Heavy Electricals Company (HEC) in Ranchi displaced 12,990 families and alienated 9,200 acres of land from Adivasi, Moolvasi communities. Of this, about 2000 acres of acquired land has been lying idle during half a century. This surplus land should as per law be returned to the original land owners. But the govt is giving it for real estate housing for the well-to-do. Is this not a deliberate violation of the legal rights of a people?
4. During the past five decades, about 17 lakh of Adivasis & Moolvasis [1.7 million people] have been displaced and about 24 lakh acres of their land has been alienated from them at minimal compensation. Of the displaced, only 25% have been resettled. The remaining 75% have been neatly forgotten. This whole process of dispossession took place without any rehabilitation policy in place. Is this not a deliberate dispossession of a people ? 5. The sad story of annihilation of the Adivasi: Now big giants in the form of national & multinational companies are landing in Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Orissa like devouring lions to capture huge tracts of Adivasi /Moolvasi land in view of looting the mineral riches. Over 100 MoUs between the govt and respective companies have been signed in Jharkhand alone, threatening the take over of 1,04,000 acres of land. There is no estimate of how many hundreds of villages, how many thousands of families, how many lakhs of persons will be displaced. All this is done without any reference to the gram sabhas which is a requirement as per the PESA Act. Is this not a calculated move by the ruling capitalist class to further impoverish the Adivasi / Moolvasi people ?
6. Having been pushed to the wall during all these decades, the Adivasi/ Moolvasi people have reached a stage when they cannot be pushed any more. They have decided to take their life back into their hands. Clear Resistance Movements are emerging through which they have begun to tell one and all that they will not part with any of their land to any company. Consequently, big companies demanding big chunks of land have not been able to open shop in Jharkhand. A clear assertion of people’s power.
7. And this is what the capitalist ruling class, the Indian govt, the corporate houses, the urban middle class, the bureaucracy cannot tolerate. They cannot understand how and why the poor Adivasi / Moolvasi farmers can defy the mighty power of the state and the powerful corporate houses. So they have compelled the Indian Govt to declare Operation Green Hunt against the Adivasi and the Moolvasi. It is actually a hunt for the green fields and green forests of the tribal region of central India, because it is beneath the green fields and green forests lay a treasure of minerals of all kinds. And the corporates want to loot them by all means. This is the last straw on the camel’s back, after which the tribals of central India will be wiped out of existence. Is this not a malicious move against the Indigenous People of India?
8. Now, how to go about doing this act of annihilation? It has to be done in a cleverly manipulated way so that the general usually unthinking majority of the population can be carried along so that the act of extermination does seem justified. Terrorism, extremism, Maoism, Naxalism and the urgent need to counter them is continuously splashed in electronic & print media and the general unthinking public accepts the state’s action of annihilation as legitimate. The stage is now set for the drama of finishing off the extremists by pouring in thousands of para-military forces equipped with sophisticated weapons especially in those areas where there is an abundant stock of minerals.
9. The villages inside jungles or adjoining jungles are occupied by these mercenary forces. School buildings are occupied thus putting an end to rural children’s education and by the same action stopping the mid-day meal to the children for most of whom that is the only full meal they get to eat. All the young men in these villages become suspects; they are picked up, abused, tortured, arrested in the garb of being ‘naxalites’. Young women wearing salwar-kamiz clothes are abused as being aides of naxalites and ordered to wear saries or school uniform. Grown up men are also beaten up because they do not give the expected answer to the queries of the occupying forces. People are not allowed to have small meetings by themselves as also not allowed to travel out of their villages. Women and children are prevented from going into the jungle to collect minor forest produce. For the first time in tribal history, the village bazaars are closing down because people cannot bring forest produce to buy and sell. The whole village is tense and a sense of fear prevails.
10. How long will the people live in such an atmosphere? The sad fact is that poverty is deepening in rural tribal areas. Added to this is the fact that monsoon has failed last two years, and a people who survive on mono-monsoon-crop have nothing to eat. Hunger and malnutrition is a stark reality. The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) done recently by Oxford University points out that the eight central Indian states have more poor people than all the sub-saharan African countries put together. Its estimate of poverty in India is: 81% of Scheduled Tribes, 66% of Scheduled Castes, 58% of Other Backward Castes are poor as per the measures of MPI. Why doesn’t the govt do some thing about this rather than hunting the hungry Adivasi people in the name of ‘naxalites’?
11. Finally, the police and CRPF are indiscriminately using The Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) picking up young men from inside buses, from inside their houses, from village bazaars. Most often one does not know where these young men are taken and what happens to them. The judicial process of producing arrested persons before a magistrate within 24 hours has been dispensed with . The tribal areas of Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Orissa wear the look of ‘police state’. The electronic and press media are playing to tune of the govt. A frightful situation indeed. At the same time, the laws which are in favour of the Adivasi/ Moolvasi, such as The Panchayats (extension to Scheduled Areas) 1996, The Forest Rights of Scheduled Castes and other traditional forest dwellers Act, 2006, are not implemented. So the principle seems to be “starve them, shoot them and finish them”! What is awaiting the Adivasi and Moolvasi People of central India in the near and distant future is difficult to predict. One thing is certain: the corporates, the capitalist ruling class, the Indian State, the urban middle class want to see the end of the Indigenous People of India.



In Chhattisgarh’s war zone, no value on an adivasi’s life (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/11/in-chhattisgarhs-war-zone-no-value-on-an-adivasis-life-2/)

[As it intensifies its war against the tribal people, the Indian government creates a climate of fear. Threats and vicious attacks by uniformed forces are joined with further attacks from paramilitary and organized gangs. All this is followed by more threats, and with bribes, giving candy to children and money to those who will join the gangs and paramilitaries who are suppressing the people's struggles. This story is rarely told in the media.]
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/chhatisgarh.jpg?w=227&h=205 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/chhatisgarh.jpg)The Hindu newspaper, 10 August 2010
by Aman Sethi
After ‘encounter’, police try to buy villagers’ silence with money and snacks A cloud of doubt looms large over the scene of last week’s bloody encounter
Kutrem (CHHATTISGARH): The monsoon skies have cleared over this village in Dantewada district, but a cloud of doubt still lingers over the site of last week’s encounter between the police and suspected cadres of the CPI (Maoist). On August 4, according to the official version, the Koya commandos spent 18 hours combing through the rain-soaked forests near Kutrem, during which they broke through a Maoist ambush, engaged in a fierce gun battle lasting several hours and ultimately recovered the body of a uniformed Maoist fighter, a 12 bore shotgun and two improvised explosive devices.
The Koya commandos are a specialised police team largely comprising surrendered Maoists or Adivasis whose families have been targets of Maoist violence.
“We were ambushed deep in the jungle and fought the Maoists for about four hours,” said a policeman who was part of the operation, “We fired hundreds of rounds of ammunition … and killed six Maoists, but could recover only one body.” The corpse was identified as Kunjami Joga, a 23-year-old resident of Kutrem.
Villagers’ account
At Kutrem, however, the villagers have a very different account of the circumstances that led to Joga’s death.
About 11.30 a.m. on August 4, the villagers say, a party of the Koya commandos cordoned off Kutrem and took positions outside several houses in its Kotwalpara neighbourhood. Kunjam Hidme, 40, sat quietly in her house when she suddenly heard a policeman scream, “Hold your fire, don’t shoot!” followed by a burst of automatic fire.
“Kunjami Joga was stepping out of his sister, Karti Budri’s house, when he was shot,” said Hidme. He was unarmed, and was wearing a blue shirt. “I could hear him shouting ‘Ma, Ma’ as he lay on the path.” Hidme says the commandos hurriedly dumped the body on a wooden cot they took from one of the houses and left the village soon after.
On August 5, the Chhattisgarh police conducted post-mortem, initiated a magisterial inquiry and handed over the body to Joga’s parents. “When I got back his body, Joga was naked except for his underclothes,” said Joga’s father, Kunjami Lakhma, “He had a bullet here [pointing to the small of the back near the kidneys] and knife marks on his chest.” As per custom, the body was cremated the same day.
On August 7, the villagers say, the Koya commandos visited Kutrem again, this time with a carton of biscuits and sachets of Haldiram’s mixture. “The force called a public meeting outside the primary school,” said Kunjami Aiyte, Joga’s aunt, “They said, ‘If the press comes, tell them that Joga was killed in the forest, not in the village’.” Aiyte says the police then gave Rs. 1,100 to the gathered villagers for “food and alcohol.” The biscuits and mixture were distributed among the children.
“The Koyas gave me Rs. 2,000 and told me to keep quiet about Joga’s death,” said Kunjami Lakhma when asked whether he had been given any compensation.
Police surprised
Senior police officers expressed surprise when The Hindu questioned them about the money paid to Kunjami Lakhma. Sources refused to come on record, citing the sensitive nature of the allegations and the ongoing magisterial inquiry.
“No one has authorised this [payment],” said a senior policeman speaking on background.
“It is hard to keep control of the Koyas once they are sent out on operation,” continued the source, “The wireless set is our only link to the patrolling companies.” On the day of the encounter, this link was severed by heavy rain and inclement weather. Police officers said the Koyas were not supposed to go to Kutrem at all.
“We were just supposed to go up till Hiroli,” admitted a policeman involved in the operation, “But at Hiroli we received information that a Maoist company was moving between Gumiapal and Kutrem village.”
The patrolling party tried to radio headquarters for permission to pursue the Maoists; when the wireless set stopped working, the patrolling party chose to press on moving to Kutrem without waiting for permission.
http://www.thehindu.com/2010/08/10/stories/2010081062401000.htm
The real condition of the biggest demo(no)cracy of the world.

[pranabjyoti]

Bangladesh Maoists Express Solidarity with CPI(Maoist) (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/bangladesh-maoists-express-solidarity-with-cpimaoist/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/bangladesh.jpg?w=225&h=221 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/bangladesh.jpg)Statement of PBSP (MUG) [Proletarian Party of East Bengal-Maoist Unity Group] condemning the murder of Com. Azad and Com. Hem Pandey by the Indian state
We are deeply shocked at the news of murder of comrade Azad along with com. Hem Pandey by the Indian expansionist state. We express our anger and hatred against this monster that is not only killing Indian revolutionaries and masses but also Bangladeshi people in the border.
They must be punished for their crime!
Indian Maoists are our big inspiration who stood up in resistance when leaders of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) surrendered to imperialism.
Indian regime is that coward who tells lies and make false stories to hide their crime. So do their Bangladeshi junior partner. They don’t have the courage to say the truth.
Comrade Azad is a glorious son of India. We express our best sympathy to the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and the families of martyred comrades.
We need a direct coordination with Communist Party of India (Maoist).
We want a joint fight against the Indian and Bangladeshi state.
Long live Indian revolution!
Long live Bangladeshi revolution!
Polas, on behalf of the provisional leading body of the Maoist Unity Group of the
Proletarian Party of East Bengal, PBSP (MUG)/Bangladesh
Date: August 1, 2010
Solidarity from Bangladesh.

[pranabjyoti]

The Telegraph (UK): The world wants to think the best about India. So we turn our back on Kashmir (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/the-telegraph-uk-the-world-wants-to-think-the-best-about-india-so-we-turn-our-back-on-kashmir/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/srinigar123.jpg?w=460&h=288 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/srinigar123.jpg)Kashmiris run for cover as Indian paramilitary soldiers fire teargas shells

[As the story of India's occupation of Kashmir spreads, old myths are dispelled, and sentiment begins to turn. This article, from the UK, illustrates this well.-ed]
By Dean Nelson
Think of India and it’s all Gandhian saintliness, Ravi Shankar’s sitar, a whiff of incense and the feel-good beats of Bollywood Bhangra. These memories, sounds and smells conjure images of the world’s largest democracy, where tolerance and spirituality supposedly reign over realpolitik.
We don’t think of it as a country whose troops are jailing opposition leaders or placing them under house arrest, denying people the right to gather in prayer, beating children to death, or massacring stone-throwing protesters. The words “shoot to kill” are a grim relic from our own recent past, and certainly nothing we ever associate with India.
That’s why India is the world’s first “soft superpower”. It can barely do wrong for doing right, and if it does we don’t really want to know. As David Cameron made perfectly clear during his recent visit, we’re interested in India as the world’s second fastest-growing economy and by its contribution to the war on terrorism, but not how it treats its own people.
So despite the fact that 50 mainly young men and teenagers have either been shot or beaten to death in the last eight weeks in Kashmir; the two main separatist leaders have been jailed or placed under house arrest; that the Kashmir Valley has been locked down and the streets of Srinagar occupied by swaggering Indian troops who threaten housewives with big sticks, our leaders have remained completely silent.
Had these incidents been in Taliban-controlled parts of Afghanistan, or had the victims been Tibetans revolting against Chinese rule, we would have called it a massacre. But India’s great “soft power” is that the world wants to think the best of it.
To that end, our leaders overlooked the 53 young men and teenagers who were treated for bullet wounds in just one hospital in Kashmir’s state capital, Srinagar, last week. They had been shot either for throwing stones during protests against killings by Indian security forces in Kashmir – or for being in the wrong place at the wrong time in their own city.
This present wave of protests began after Indian soldiers shot dead three young Muslim men in the hope of passing them off as Pakistani terrorists and themselves as war heroes. They had lured them with the promise of jobs. A few weeks later a 17-year-old schoolboy was killed when Indian police fired a tear gas canister at his head.
Last week I interviewed Fayaz Ahmad Rah, a Srinagar fruit seller, as he mourned the death of his nine-year-old son, Sameer. Neighbours told me they had seen members of India’s paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force beat him to death with sticks and then dump his body in stinging nettles. The CRPF claims he was in fact a protester and that he had been trampled by other demonstrators as they fled a police advance.
Fayaz said his son had been walking through their usually safe tiny back lanes to his uncle’s house 100 metres away after stopping to buy sweets. When he washed his son’s body for burial, there was a half-chewed toffee still in his mouth, he said.
Over the last eight weeks a round of teenage civilian deaths, protests and more shootings followed by further protests has sucked Kashmir into a bleak vortex. But since it began, not a single member of India’s security forces has been shot or killed. It couldn’t be a more unequal contest.
Luckily for India, it happened in Kashmir where the words “Muslim”, “Pakistan” and “militants” shield what is either bad marksmanship or a shoot to kill policy from scrutiny and criticism.
This decision to look the other way only fuels the anger in Kashmir. From his home where he was being held under house arrest last week, separatist spiritual leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq told me India had turned Kashmir into a “police state” and that British politicians and others were turning their back on it.
He had not been allowed to go to his mosque for more than six weeks, while other separatist Hurriyat leaders were also in jail or under house arrest. In many mosques throughout the state, only men over the age of 50 – regarded as beyond their stone-throwing years – have been allowed to meet to pray.
“It’s a direct interference in our religious affairs, a situation in which in a muslim state, if we’re not allowed to pray, the Muftis will say we have to call a war on the state,” he said.
Those demonstrating are part of a new generation born into violent protest which has seen leaders like Mirwaiz Umar Farooq sacrifice their credibility for talks with India, which came to nothing. “People now ask the question ‘you went for dialogue, what did you get? Did the killings or violence or disappearances stop?’ All it did was undermine the credibility of those who wanted, like me, to give dialogue a chance,” he said.
He believes India is not sincere about talks and is only interested in continual delay in the hope that protests and the desire for Kashmiri independence will peter out.
India has its own arguments, of course. It focuses on earlier killings and “ethnic cleansing” of Kashmiri pandits, and the reluctance of Buddhist Ladakh and Hindu and Sikh majority Jammu to follow the Muslim-dominated Kashmir Valley into Pakistan or independence. It criticises the refusal of separatist parties to take part in state assembly elections.
These are valid points, and I certainly don’t have the answers to a problem which has blighted India and Pakistan and provoked three wars between the nuclear enemies since their independence from Britain.
But I do think Britain might come to regret its silence and India its troops’ brutality. We risk alienating the remaining friends we have in the Muslim world and within our own substantial Kashmiri community in Britain. India risks losing the tremendous goodwill it had built up throughout the world over decades.
The Kashmiris, on the other hand, have little left to lose: the world has forgotten them.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/deannelson/100050312/the-world-wants-to-think-the-best-about-india-so-we-turn-our-back-on-kashmir/
Thanks to the author. At least, he can see behind the veil.

[pranabjyoti]

Maoist land reform in India (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/maoist-land-reform-in-india/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/agitating-tribals-lay-siege-to-orissa.jpg?w=360&h=270 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/agitating-tribals-lay-siege-to-orissa.jpg)[The Times of India looks into Maoist land reform, and describes it in contrast to the practice of the CPM, a bourgeois party that still uses, disingenuously, the name of "Communist Party of Indian (Marxist)".-ed]
MIDNAPORE: It was land distribution under Operation Barga that brought CPM to power in 1977. Thirty-three years later, the Maoists in Jangalmahal are treading a similar route to consolidate their support base in 200 villages from Goaltore to Midnapore town. The 60-kilometre stretch forms the ” Maoist core zone”, where men most wanted by the police like Manoj Mahato, Asit Mahato and Gopal Pratihar have a free run.
But this new avatar of Operation Barga is different from the one implemented by the CPM. Maoists have set their own parameters for land reform here. Family income and connections with the ruling party get maximum weightage in this reform process.
The jotedars close to mainstream political parties CPM and Jharkhand Party are the targets, and the beneficiaries are the landless farmers. The Maoists have begun this process in two villages Chandabila and Malkuri under the Midnapore Sadar block, six kilometres from Midnapore town.
First, they drove out Toton Singh and Naru Singh jotedars of Malkuri village, who have 150 bighas [about 50 acres] of land and own a huge ancestral house. Like CPM zonal secretary Anuj Pandey’s house, this building too was pulled down by Maoist-led labourers of around a month and a half ago. Then the guerrillas took possession of the entire land and distributed it among 53 local landless labourers. Naru Singh’s son Ajit, who is known for his proximity to CPM minister Sushanta Ghosh, could do little to prevent it.
One such beneficiary is Satrughna Mahato who has been tilling the land as a wage labourer since long. “We are five brothers with a total land holding of one bigha, including our homestead land. That was not enough to run the family. But now, we can make ends meet,” said Mahato.
However, there are not too many such jotedars in West Bengal where the government has carried out the primary land reforms. In the last 33 years of Left Front rule, villages in the Jangalmahal saw the emergence of a new breed of CPM leaders who have been enjoying vested government lands and even forest land distributed to some non-existent land labourers. Villagers call it kalo patta a false tiller’s deed. Such a practice has been rampant in the villages under Salboni block Rameswarpur, Kolshibhanga, Malbandi, and Madhupur. The Maoist-led People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA) has occupied such lands and has started distributing those among the landless.
This is not all. Maoists are also distributing seeds and fertilizers to the landless to begin cultivation. Kamal Middya of Chandabila has already received it. “I used to till Singh’s land in Chandabila. Now I have three bighas in my possession,” Middya said.
Similar is the scene at Belasol village under Salboni block. Here Maoist-led committees have installed deep tubewells and have set up a water reservoir to provide irrigation water to villagers. Other development activities include running of medical camps and also a rural hospital to treat locals. TOI
Though I myself like this land to be tilled by a collective farm, rather than small individual farmers. But, still that is encouraging.

[pranabjyoti]

NYTimes turns spotlight on Indian forces facing broad revolt in Kashmir (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/nytimes-turns-spotlight-on-indian-forces-facing-broader-revolt-in-kashmir/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/kashmir_337-span-articlelarge-1.jpg?w=480&h=264 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/kashmir_337-span-articlelarge-1.jpg)Aabid Nabi, right, sat next to his brother Fida Nabi, who was shot in the head during a protest, in a hospital in Srinagar. Mr. Nabi later died from his injury.

[In the context of the rapidly growing collaboration between the US and India on political, economic, military, and security concerns, the US has been pushing India to take a larger role in the imperialisit ventures in West Asia. In this, the relations between Washington and India and Pakistan grow in importance. And Kashmir, long ignored by the Western media, becomes an important testing ground. This article raises current events in Kashmir to active and urgent consideration, as the ability of India to handle this crisis will condition their public role in the regional conflicts ahead.-ed.]
August 12, 2010
By LYDIA POLGREEN
SRINAGAR, Kashmir — Late Sunday night, after six days on life support with a bullet in his brain, Fida Nabi, a 19-year-old high school student, was unhooked from his ventilator at a hospital here.
Mr. Nabi was the 50th person to die in Kashmir’s bloody summer of rage. He had been shot in the head, his family and witnesses said, during a protest against India’s military presence in this disputed province.
For decades, India maintained hundreds of thousands of security forces in Kashmir to fight an insurgency sponsored by Pakistan, which claims this border region, too. The insurgency has been largely vanquished. But those Indian forces are still here, and today they face a threat potentially more dangerous to the world’s largest democracy: an intifada-like popular revolt against the Indian military presence that includes not just stone-throwing young men but their sisters, mothers, uncles and grandparents.
The protests, which have erupted for a third straight summer, have led India to one of its most serious internal crises in recent memory. Not just because of their ferocity and persistence, but because they signal the failure of decades of efforts to win the assent of Kashmiris using just about any tool available: money, elections and overwhelming force.
“We need a complete revisit of what our policies in Kashmir have been,” said Amitabh Mattoo, a professor of strategic affairs at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and a Kashmiri Hindu. “It is not about money — you have spent huge amounts of money. It is not about fair elections. It is about reaching out to a generation of Kashmiris who think India is a huge monster represented by bunkers and security forces.”
Indeed, Kashmir’s demand for self-determination is sharper today than it has been at perhaps any other time in the region’s troubled history. It comes as — and in part because — diplomatic efforts remain frozen to resolve the dispute created more than 60 years ago with the partition of mostly Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. Today each nation controls part of Kashmir, whose population is mostly Muslim.
Secret negotiations in 2007, which came close to creating an autonomous region shared by the two countries, foundered as Pervez Musharraf, then Pakistan’s president, lost his grip on power. The terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India’s financial capital, by Pakistani militants in 2008 derailed any hope for further talks.
Not least, India has consistently rebuffed any attempt at outside mediation or diplomatic entreaties, including efforts by the United States. The intransigence has left Kashmiris empty-handed and American officials with little to offer Pakistan on its central preoccupation — India and Kashmir — as they struggle to encourage Pakistan’s help in cracking down on the Taliban and other militants in the country.
With no apparent avenue to progress, many Kashmiris are despairing that their struggle is taking place in a vacuum, and they are taking matters into their own hands.
“What we are seeing today is the complete rebound effect of 20 years of oppression,” said Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, the chief cleric at Srinagar’s main mosque and a moderate separatist leader. Kashmiris, he said, are “angry, humiliated and willing to face death.”
This summer there have been nearly 900 clashes between protesters and security forces, which have left more than 50 civilians dead, most of them from gunshot wounds. While more than 1,200 soldiers have been wounded by rock-throwing crowds, not one has been killed in the unrest, leading to questions about why Indian security forces are using deadly force against unarmed civilians — and why there is so little international outcry.
“The world is silent when Kashmiris die in the streets,” said Altaf Ahmed, a 31-year-old schoolteacher.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made an emotional appeal for peace.
“I can feel the pain and understand the frustration that is bringing young people out into the streets of Kashmir,” the Indian prime minister said in a televised speech. “Many of them have seen nothing but violence and conflict in their lives and have been scarred by suffering.”
Indeed, there is a palpable sense of opportunities squandered. Despite the protests of recent years, the Kashmir Valley had in the past few years been enjoying a season of peace.
The insurgency of the 1990s has mostly dried up, and elections in 2008 drew the highest percentage of voters in a generation. High expectations met the new chief minister, Omar Abdullah, a scion of Kashmir’s leading political family, whose fresh face seemed well suited to bringing better government and prosperity to Kashmir.
But election promises, like repealing laws that largely shield security forces from scrutiny and demilitarizing the state, went unfulfilled. After two summers of protests on specific grievances, this summer’s unrest has taken on a new character, one more difficult to define and mollify.
That anger has led to a cycle of violence that the Indian government seems powerless to stop. Events that unfolded last week in Pulwama, a small town 20 miles from Srinagar, illustrate how the violence feeds itself.
It began on Monday, Aug. 2, when a young man, Mohammad Yacoub Bhatt, from a village near Pulwama was shot dead during a march to protest the earlier killings of other young protesters.
Four days later, a procession set off to protest his death. Soon it swelled into the thousands. The police blocked the road and refused to let the marchers pass, worried that the crowd would burn down government buildings, as previous crowds had.
What happened next is disputed. Protesters claimed that when they tried to surge through a barricade, the police opened fire.
“We did not think they would open fire,” said Malik Shahid, 17, who had joined the march. “There was no violence. It was a peaceful protest.”
First the police fired in the air, witnesses said, then into the scattering crowd. A bullet felled Mr. Shahid’s uncle, Shabir Ahmed Malik, a 24-year-old driver, and killed him on the spot.
Mr. Shahid, a 12th grader who hopes to become an engineer, said the latest violence was evidence to him that remaining part of India was impossible.
“If India took steps against those who kill us, maybe the people of Kashmir would be willing,” he said. “But when there is no justice how can we remain with India? They are not doing anything but killing. So we will just go for freedom.”
Commandant Prabhakar Tripathy, spokesman for the Central Reserve Police Force, the main paramilitary force trying to keep order in Kashmir, declined to comment on the episode but said that the protests were not as spontaneous as they appeared.
“Militants are just mingling with the crowd, firing bullets from the crowd,” Mr. Tripathy said. “Now they are trying to raise this confrontation between the public and the security forces.”
“We are charging them with tear gas, rubber pellets, firing in the air, nothing works here,” he said. “When a crowd of thousands attacks the camp, what can you do?”
Indian officials have tried to portray Kashmir’s stone-throwing youths as illiterate pawns of jihadist forces across the Pakistan border and have suggested that economic development and jobs are the key to getting young people off the streets.
But many of the stone throwers are hardly illiterate. They organize on Facebook, creating groups with names like “Im a Kashmiri Stone Pelter.” One young man who regularly joins protests and goes by the nom de guerre Khalid Khan has an M.B.A. and a well-paying job.
“Stone pelting is a form of resistance to their acts of repression in the face of peaceful protest,” he said in an interview. “I would call it self-defense. Stones do not kill. Their bullets kill.”
Each death seems to feed the anger on the streets, creating new recruits for the revolt. Fida Nabi’s brother, Aabid, 21, watched over him as he drifted toward death this week, his head swathed in white bandages, his chest rising and falling to the ghostly rhythm of the ventilator.
Aabid thought he had his life all mapped out — making more than $200 a month as a news photographer. But since his brother was shot his priorities have changed. “I used to cover the protests,” he said. “But now I will join them.”
Hari Kumar contributed reporting.
Thanks to NY times, despite being an imperialist tool.

[pranabjyoti]

Statement of Solidarity from Greece to India (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/17/statement-of-solidarity-from-greece-to-india/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/cpgml3-cherukuri-rajkumar-jitender-honor-and-glory-to-the-indian-revolutionaries-signed-by-cpgm-l.jpg?w=448&h=336 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/cpgml3-cherukuri-rajkumar-jitender-honor-and-glory-to-the-indian-revolutionaries-signed-by-cpgm-l.jpg)Let us express our solidarity to the people’s revolutionary movement of India
Lately, great military and police forces of the Indian state, supported by para-military organizations, have conducted a murderous raid to crash the resistance of the poor native peasants that defend their land and wish to live in their homeland under human conditions.
The Communist Party of India (Maoist), that supports and participates in this revolutionary struggle of the peoples’ masses, is under the fierce attack of the forces of the Indian reactionaries. As a result, in the beginning of July, the forces of the Indian reactionaries murdered in cold blood a party leader and an independent journalist, thus outraging the left and democratic people not only in India, but all over the world.
A few days before this event, the Communist Party of Greece(marxist-leninist), CPG(m-l), took the initiative to call a meeting of parties and organizations of the left, which concluded in a joint statement of condemn to the murderous military operation of the Indian state and solidarity to the peoples’ revolutionary movement. The statement was published in newspapers of the left and also in one of the biggest daily newspapers.
The meeting decided a protest outside the Indian Embassy in Athens, which was held on July 6th. The murder of the Indian revolutionary and the journalist was already known when the protest took place. CPG(m-l) had a banner with their names and the slogan “honor and glory to the Indian revolutionaries”.
These are the slogans of the protesters:
- Victory to the struggle of the Indian people
- The raid of the army and the police murders militants and peasants
- The land belongs to those who work it, not to the multi-nationals that loot it
- In India are slaughtered the militants, the poor peasants and the communists
- Hands-off the Indian peasants, hands-off the Indian guerillas
- Peoples are victorious with weapons in their hands
- Solidarity to the Indian people
- Those that now murder will confront the peoples’ struggle
The revolutionary struggle of the Indian people can and must find support and solidarity all over the world. It is an armed revolutionary struggle that the more it strengthens the more will become a reference to revolutionary forces in every country, which will feel it as their own struggle.
Revolutionary forces should lead the creation of a broad movement of solidarity and support of this great struggle of the Indian people.
Solidarity is the weapon of the peoples.
August 2010
Communist Party of Greece(marxist-leninist)
Solidarity from Greece.

[The Vegan Marxist]

For those who haven't kept up on the events within India, & the differences between the main Communist party & revisionist factions, the CPM is the Marxist armed rebels in India. The Maoists are a different group known as the CPI (Maoist). The CPM are on a revisionist battle against the CPI (Maoist). It’s up to the Maoists to make sure this counterrevolutionary group doesn’t succeed, & rather the Maoists succeed themselves.


CPM continues battle against Maoists

MIDNAPORE/PURULIA: Armed CPM cadres allegedly continued their operation against the Maoists and members of People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities in some parts of West Midnapore. On Thursday, around 200 armed CPM cadres reportedly entered several villages near Belia, Chandra, Malbandhi and Pukurmuri in Midnapore Sadar block and drove out the PCPA supporters. Interestingly, there was little resistance from the Maoists on Thursday.

On Wednesday night, however, the red guerrillas resisted the CPM cadres near Dherua and stopped their advance towards Lalgarh. The CPM force, which had started their march from Enayetpur party office, is now camping at a primary school in Malbandhi.

PCPA secretaryManoj Mahato alleged, “Goons led by CPM leaders Anuj Pandey and Satyen Maity ransacked houses and set villagers’ homes on fire.” Mahato claimed that CPM cadres set fire on houses of Bijay Mandi, Bidhan Mandi and Bishu Mandi at Pukurmuri village.

On Thursday, police admitted that they have heard about some arson in some villages. They, however, did not try to enter those villages.

Purulia police meanwhile rounded up five Maoist squad members including an area commanderNandakumar alias Anandkumar. The four others have been identified as Bhabataran Mahato, Gobardhan Mura, Umacharan Mura and Mansaram Mandi. Police claimed that all five are the members of a Maoist squad active in the Ayodhya Hills.

Nandakumar was one of those most wanted Maoists who had a `50,000 award on his head. Purulia police had announced this reward on him a few months ago. Purulia SP Rajesh Yadav said, “We will pay the money in cash to the source who provided us with the information about Nandakumar. It’s a major breakthrough.”

Police said Nandakumar had been wanted in more than 15 cases, including the murder of Forward Bloc leader Suryakanta Banerjee. He also led the team that had looted several rifles from RPF personnel at Balarampur in 2007.

Nandakumar hails from Kerua village near Ghatbera of Balarampur and the four others are from the Bagmundi area. Police recovered a revolver from them.

Nandakumar’s arrest is important for police as they have reasons to believe that several senior Maoist leaders have been camping in the Ayodhya Hills at present. “We might be able to arrest them after interrogating Nandakumar,” said a senior police officer.

In a joint operation, East Midnapore district police have also rounded up eight suspected Maoists from Kapasberia near Mahishadal. They had reportedly be staying at a hotel there. After detaining all eight at Mahishadal police station since Sunday night, police handed them over to their West Midnapore counterparts on Wednesday. Three of the suspected maoists were identified as Gurucharan Tudu, Ramapada Soren and Joyram Murmu from the Jhargram area.

Police claimed that Gurucharan is involved in some murders in Jhargram. They will be produced before the court on Friday. Following their interrogation, police reportedly recovered four bodies buried beside a canal near Kumirkata village of Binpur. One of those four bodies was identified to be Monotosh Singh of Patiyara village of Binpur. The bodies of a man and two women are yet to be not identified. “Those have been brought to Jhargram for post-mortem,” said Jhargram SP Praveen Tripathi.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata-/CPM-continues-battle-against-Maoists/articleshow/6302166.cms#ixzz0wUlTMsjP

[pranabjyoti]

China: Signs of Support to Maoists of India and Nepal (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/china-signs-of-support-to-maoists-of-india-and-nepal/)

CHINA: SIGNS OF ULTRA-LEFTIST SUPPORT TO MAOISTS OF INDIA AND NEPAL
Guest Column by D. S. Rajan, Oct 5, 2005
http://www.saag.org/common/uploaded_files/paper1565.html
Ultra-leftist elements in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), claiming absolute loyalty to the late leader Mao Zedong and firmly against the regime’s reformist course both at home and abroad, may have become an insignificant factor in the country’s politics now, but what is intriguing is that the present Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership has more or less chosen to tolerate their dissent.
The present Government has so far shown no intentions to impose a ban on the activities of such elements in contrast to the crackdown being carried out in the case of pro-democracy groups within the country. The only possible explanation to the above could be the CCP’s realization of the importance of Mao’s name, irrespective of the times, to its legitimacy as a ruling party and its feeling in that context that any action against die-hard Mao followers, apparently enjoying the indirect backing of some veteran, but still influential, cadres, could turn out to be counter-productive.
Party Chief Hu Jintao himself has come out with a strong defence of Mao, unprecedented since the 1981 official verdict on the late Chairman in a key Party document. “Mao is a matter of pride for the CCP, the Chinese people and the entire Chinese race. Whatever the time and whatever the circumstances, we must always hold up the great banner of Mao Zedong thought”, said Hu at the 110th birth anniversary of the leader (Beijing, December 26, 2003).
The “Mao Zedong Flag Net Executive Council” (located at No.10/405, Zhen Guang Lu, Dong Cheng District, Beijing), led by Sun Yongren, presently Standing Committee member, China Historical Materialism Study Institute, is one such Mao-loyalist organizations in China, which is freely operating without any official or Party interference. Set up in the Year 2003, this Chinese language registered website “www.maoflag.net (http://www.maoflag.net/) <http://www.maoflag.net/> “, of which Sun is the Executive Councilor, is regularly expressing views questioning the official domestic and international policies, for e.g., opposing Deng’s line of allowing some people to get rich first ,criticizing privatization efforts in China, publicizing demands from former Foreign Ministry cadres for giving a blow to US-Japan military alliance against China, carrying comments against Xinhua, Central TV etc for their negative projection of Mao and arguing for China’s support to revolutionary world movements. It is also spearheading a campaign to declare Mao’s birthday (December 26) as a national holiday. Among the Party veterans whom the site quotes in support are Deng Liqun, who was once powerful Party Propaganda Chief and several surviving old revolutionaries. This net was also instrumental in organizing the commemoration ceremony of Mao’s 29th death anniversary (Beijing, September 9, 2005) attended among others by Mao’s daughter Li Min.
It is the international line of the Maoflag group which is of special interest. In particular, it firmly supports the Communist Party of India (Maoist) (CPI-Maoist) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN-Maoist). A Chinese language article by Zhang Zheng in the Maoflag website (April 3, 2005) cited reasons to conclude that “the Indian Government can not succeed in suppressing the armed revolution of India’s Maoists”. Another article (September 14, 2005) favourably viewed the decision taken by the CPN-(Maoist) leader Prachanda for a ceasefire in Nepal
The Maoflag group website gives publicity to a good number of other Mao-loyalist Chinese language websites, thus indicating the existing nexus among all of them. Among the latter, the www.gjgy.net (http://www.gjgy.net/) <http://www.gjgy.net/> (Guoji Gong Yun or International Communist Movement), is prominent. This site is more vociferous than the Maoflag group in supporting the Maoist parties in India and Nepal The International Communist Movement site took note of the birth of the CPI-Maoist in October 2004 with a detailed report (September 14,2005) on the subject, accompanied by the full text of that Party’s report in English, containing information on the CPI ML-MCC merger process, the nature of the epoch( threat from imperialism, feudalism and comprador bureaucratic capitalism; Indian expansionism great security threat in South Asia; People’s War advancing in Andhra, Jharkhand, Bihar, Dandakaranya and the adjoining parts); coordination with other World Maoist Parties like those in Peru, the Philippines and Turkey; Five Political Documents adopted; Party Programme (New Democratic revolution through protracted People’s war); Strategy and Tactics (Establishing base areas, forming an United People’s Guerilla army) and the new Party Constitution. Another article in the same website (September 27, 2005) criticized the “repression” in West Bengal of CPI-ML (PW) workers and asked for “strengthening of a revolutionary movement” in that state against the ruling CPI-M.
The above mentioned Chinese language website is equally emphatic in its support for the CPN-Maoist. It highlighted (June 5, 2004) the publication of a book captioned “Problems and Prospects of Revolution in Nepal”, a collection of articles by Prachanda and other CPN-Maoist leaders. A write-up in the site (June 6, 2004) on ”Introduction to the CPN-Maoist policies”, was in the nature of informing the Chinese population about the growth of that Party in Nepal. Significant observations were made in the site (March 27, 2005) by a scholar of the Department of International Relations, Beijing University. Quoting analysts, he projected the view that contrary to common perceptions, the CPN-Maoist does not fall in the category of a world terrorist movement which needs to be fought and that instead, the Maoists in Nepal are a product of the country’s poverty. As evidence that the site is in a position to receive regular on-the-spot reports from Nepal, a series of dispatches on `Revolution in Nepal’ is being carried by it (the 22nd such dispatch has appeared on September 14, 2005). The dispatches have given an open support to the ”People’s War” line of the CPN- Maoists under the`inspiration of Mao Zedong Thought’. The illegal `re-arrest’ of a Maoist leader K.C.Krishna in Nepal was criticized in the latest item of the website (September 26, 2005).
“China and the World” is a Mao-loyalist e-journal (Chinese language) set up in 1996; this is being brought out by another one of the websites (www.zgysj.com (http://www.zgysj.com/) <http://www.zgysj.com/> ), being given publicity by the officially-tolerated Maoflag group. A speciality of this site seems to be its boldness in criticizing the CCP’s international policies. A signed article in its issue (May 10, 2005) commented in particular on the CCP’s line towards Nepal Maoists. It predicted a `certain victory’ for the CPN-Maoist, joined issue with the CCP and the PRC Government for their line of abandoning the `Revolution in Nepal’. The article charged “This line amounts to showing red flag against red flag and is a betrayal of the CCP’s declared policy of supporting the people of the world in defeating the US aggressors and their running dogs. Why an armed revolution can not end in victory in Nepal when the same had been successful in Russia China, Korea, Cuba and Vietnam? Why only China can hold aloft the Mao banner, why not other countries like Nepal can do so?” It condemned the arrests by the Tibet Police on charges of arms smuggling of two CPN Maoist cadres against whom prosecution cases were launched in October 2003 in the Rikaze (Shigatse, Tibet) court, resulting in their imprisonment.
The CCP does not officially recognize the CPI-Maoist and the CPN-Maoist. It does not even mention the two Maoist parties by name. Specifically in the case of CPN-Maoist, Beijing calls that Party as an “anti-Government armed group”. So called Maoists in Nepal “misuse the name of Chairman Mao, which impairs the image of the great leader of China and could serve as an excuse for the international anti-China forces to create troubles”, said the Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Wu Congyong in 2002.
When the Royal Nepal Army Chief Pyar Jung Thapa visited China in July 2005, Beijing agreed to provide military help to Kathmandu in subduing the Maoists, according to reports. Notwithstanding such official positions, from what has been brought out above, a Chinese tendency may have become visible, seeing the CPN-Maoist in somewhat benevolent terms (no outright condemnation, not as a terrorist force and only as an anti-government outfit). This raises a question – Are the Chinese keeping their options open to deal with a CPN- Maoist which may in future capture power in Nepal? The Chinese would certainly deny any official connection with the ultra-leftist websites which have openly come out in support of Maoists in India and Nepal (for that matter the Maoist groups in other parts of the world also). But will they succeed in removing the suspicions that have arisen?
(The Writer is Research Fellow in the Observer Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter , India . He was earlier Director, Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, and New Delhi.)
Support from the Chinese New Left.

[pranabjyoti]

India: Anti-Displacement Leader Madan Kalundia Dies in Judicial Custody (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/15/india-anti-displacement-leader-madan-kalundia-dies-in-judicial-custody/)

Madan Kalundia, a leader of anti-displacement movement of Kalinganagar (Orissa), died on August 3, 2010 in judicial custody.
Death of Com. Madan in judicial custody has come as a part of the Govt. Admn.-police attempt to crush the anti-displacement struggle of tribals against TATAs. His death is a telling story of the criminal disregard of basic rights of the people by not only the police and admn. but even judiciary in the service of corporates.
Hundreds of tribals have been thrown out of jobs in the industries of the area for refusing to leave their land for TATAs. Leaders and activists of the movement are arrested and not allowed to come out even on bail as they are re-arrested on trumped up charges.
Leaders and activists are being implicated in the open ended FIRs routinely registered against the agitators for false and fabricated charges. The power of different wings of the state and the goondas of TATAs is being openly employed to strangulate the struggle of tribals for saving their land.
Madan Kalundia, a 34-year-old Adivasi from Baligotha village of Kalinga Nagar was arrested on 15 September 2009. He is one of the several Bisthapan Birodhi Jan Manch leaders and activists who have been picked up and framed under false charges. Madan had 6 criminal cases against him the most severe being a case under Sec 506 of the IPC. 3 cases were of 2007, 2 cases of 2008 and 1 case of 2009. Then another 8 cases were slapped against him on the 5 Oct ’09 including one under Sec 307 for attempt to murder. 2 cases were of 2006, 2 of 2007 and 4 of 2008 which included the attempt to murder case.
Then on 10 Feb ’10 one case from 2005 was brought up against him and on 23 Feb ’10 another case from 2006 was made against him. In the 1st week of May Madan got bail in 14 cases and 2 cases were still pending. That day Madan had requested the judge to direct authorities to provide him with immediate medical aid as he was in severe ill health. The judge did not even acknowledge his plea and Madan died on 3 August ’10 either in Chowduar jail or at SCB Hospital, Cuttack. Death of Madan Kalundia in judicial custody through denial of medical aid to him is clearly a case of killing of a anti-displacement struggle leader by the state agencies.
It is not yet clear what the official cause of death is but an investigation into a few recent incidents indicates what might have transpired with Madan in the jail. Before being shifted to Chowduar jail on 26 July ’10 he was being held at Ragadi jail in Jajpur. While in Ragadi jail, news reached Madan’s relatives in Baligotha village that he was suffering from jaundice. So the widows of his two deceased brothers visited him in jail with herbal medicine for jaundice. One of Madan’s deceased brothers is Ghanshyam who died earlier this year due to lack of medical aid in the village that still remains cordoned off from the rest of the world by the police and Tata goons.
When Madan’s relatives met him in the jail they found several injuries on his body likely to have been incurred from torture. Madan was also unable to walk by himself and had been brought to the visitors’ area with the aid of two wards of the jail. His eyesight had also deteriorated badly and he could recognize his relatives. The herbal medicines brought by the relatives was denied by jail authorities who said they would take good care of him. Madan’s relatives had visited him around the 20 July ’10. On 10th July ’10 he had been taken to Jajpur hospital where the doctors said he had no physical problem and his ill health was due to psychiatric problems.
Madan’s death again exposes the ugly & brutal reality of a State that is ready to torture people, deny them medical aid and kill them in captive for the sake of companies like Tata and Vedanta. Whether Madan died from torture or jaundice the blame definitely rests on the Govt. The Tata project seems to be setting up a mega graveyard of Adivasis rather than a steel factory. A powerful resistance of the tribals is emerging from this graveyard — deaths and sacrifices of the leaders and activists of the struggle like Madan Kalundia are part of it.
The whole system, including the judiciary is turned against the common people.

[pranabjyoti]

8/13/2010: Report on New York protest of Operation Green Hunt (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/15/a-report-of-anti-ogh-protest-in-new-york-on-august-13-2010/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/ny-sanhati-1.jpg?w=128&h=96 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/ny-sanhati-1.jpg)Sanhati, a forum for solidarity with peoples’ struggles in India, successfully organized a protest demonstration in front of the Indian Consulate in NYC on August 13 against Operation Green Hunt to coincide with India’s independence day on 15th August . The protest demonstration was endorsed by the Alliance for a Secular and Democratic South Asia and was attended by individuals from Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas representing diverse South Asian and international organizations like SASI (South Asia Solidarity Initiative), ILPS (International League of Peoples Struggles), ISO (International Socialist Organisation), RCP (Revolutionary Communist Party) USA, FRSO (Freedom Road Socialist Organization), WWP (Workers World Party) and others. A legal observer from the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) was also present during the protest.
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/ny-sanhati-2.jpg?w=128&h=96 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/ny-sanhati-2.jpg)The demonstration continued from 11 am to 1pm and was marked by chanting of slogans, distributing pamphlets to passers-by, making speeches in support of peoples’ struggles in India, singing songs of resistance and finally submitting a signed petition registering a strong protest against the government’s military offensive in the regions populated by the indigeneous (adivasi) people. The text of the petition is appended below for reference.
Sanhati Collective
———— TEXT OF PETITION ————–
To: Consul General
Consulate General of India
3 East 64th Street
New York, NY 10065
(Subject: Petition against Operation Green Hunt in India)
Dear Sir/Madam,
We, the undersigned, would like to register our strong protest against the Operation Green Hunt, the Government of India’s (GOI) deliberate move to escalate military intervention against the indigenous people in the forested regions of East-Central India. Such a military campaign already will endanger the lives and livelihoods of millions of the poorest people living in those areas, resulting in massive displacement, destitution and human rights violation of ordinary citizens, especially the indigenous people.
We are acutely aware of the fact that the geographical terrain where the GOI’s military offensive is taking place, is very rich in natural resources like minerals, forest wealth and water, and has been the target of large scale appropriation by several Indian and foreign corporations. The desperate resistance of the local indigenous people against their displacement and dispossession has in many cases prevented the government-backed corporations from making inroads into these areas and has thankfully impeded the setting-up of ecologically disastrous industries. We fear that the government’s on-going military offensive is an attempt to crush such popular resistances in order to facilitate the entry and operation of these corporations and to pave the way for unbridled exploitation of the natural resources and the people of these regions.
We feel that it would deliver a crippling blow to Indian democracy if the government tries to subjugate its own people militarily without addressing their grievances. As has been witnessed in the case of numerous peoples’ struggle around the world, such military campaigns end up in enormous misery for the common people.
Therefore, we demand -
1) An immediate end to the Operation Green Hunt and withdrawal of all armed forces from these regions
2) The GOI should engage with the civil society mediated initiatives for negotiations with representatives of peoples’ movements in order to address the grievances of the common people.
3) All Memoranda of Understanding (MoU-s) signed with different corporations, for the extraction of natural resources from the vast areas of East-Central India, must be revealed and immediately cancelled.
4) All draconian laws like Unlawful Activity (Prevention) Act, Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, Armed Forces Special Powers Act should be immediately repealed. Ban on political organizations should be withdrawn and all political prisoners should be released.
5) All state-assisted vigilante groups like the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh and Harmad Bahini in West Bengal should be immediately disbanded and the concerned criminals associated with these organizations, including government officials, should be brought to book.
Report on NY protest.

[Red Commissar]

The world's largest "democracy" at work folks.

Edit: Hit send too early

It always made me wonder how people can continue defending India's current policy by saying it's a "democracy" when it clearly has shown it is unable to deal with the demands of the people, and rather for the benefit of the few. But then again I guess this is a reflection of western society.

[t.shonku]

Originally Posted by Pranabjyoti
The whole system, including the judiciary is turned against the common people. India's Judicial system has traditionally been like that.It even took away life of a freedom fighter named Ananta Singha even after India got independence.Indian judiciary took life of the man who fought to free India.



But unfortunately for him he was sent to jail again an independent country for the bank robbery that he had committed part of his revolutionary activities under British rule. He was in jail for eight years (1969-1977). He suffered a cardiac attack in jail and was released a few months before he died because of the illness
The above is taken from Banglapedia
http://www.banglapedia.org/httpdocs/HT/S_0400.HTM

[pranabjyoti]

Bhopal gas tragedy a closed case now: US (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/bhopal-gas-tragedy-a-closed-case-now-us/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/arrest-anderson.jpg?w=240&h=154 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/arrest-anderson.jpg)August 20, 2010
Washington: The United States on Thursday said that the Bhopal gas tragedy is a closed case now.
“Yes”, State Department Spokesman PJ Crowley told reporters when asked if US considers Bhopal gas tragedy as a closed case now.
Later, the State Department official clarified that legally Bhopal gas case is closed. http://www.zeenews.com/image/spacer.gif

In December 1984, a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal spewed toxic gas into surrounding neighbourhoods, killing thousands instantly and tens of thousands later.
In 1999, Dow Chemical Company bought the Union Carbide which was responsible for the world’s worst industrial disaster in 1984 – the Bhopal gas tragedy.
This year, a court sentenced seven Indian managers to two-year jail terms.
http://www.zeenews.com/image/spacer.gif After public outrage that the sentences were not tougher, India promised to renew efforts to extradite Union Carbide’s former boss Warren Anderson.
Meanwhile, BJP and Left parties yesterday alleged that the US was trying to arm-twist India to let Dow Chemicals go scot-free with regard to its liability in the Bhopal gas tragedy.
PTI
They consider us, the Indians, as subhumans.

[pranabjyoti]

Fake Military Encounters in Jharkhand, India (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/fake-military-encounters-in-jharkhand-india/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/fake-encounters.jpg?w=267&h=189 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/fake-encounters.jpg)By Gladson Dungdung
In the afternoon on July 5, 2010, the security forces comprising of JAP and SAF under the leadership of E.H. Siddique the officer-in-charge of Tamar Police Station arrived to Gunti village and picked up 45 year-old Etwa Munda of Papirdah village (which comes under Tamar police station of Ranchi district in Jharkhand), when he was in the house of his relative Manav Munda. The police also caught a girl Bengi Kumari and escorted both of them towards Jabla pahari (forest). After sometime, the villagers heard the sound of firing and rushed toward the spot. They were shocked to see the dead body of Etwa Munda laying on the ground.
The police framed the cold-blooded murder of Etwa Munda as a result of an encounter between the police and the Maoists. The police also depicted him as a hardcore Maoist who was very closed to the Maoist Zonal commander Kundan Pahan. Perhaps, Etwa Munda was not an innocent person but under which laws the police killed him in a fake encounter is the question needs to be answered.
Since the villagers were fully aware of the cold-blooded murder of Etwa Munda therefore the police spared Bengi Kumari and threatened the villagers and family members of the deceased for keeping quite. However, the villagers wanted to raise the issue therefore they approached to a local activist Xavier Soy and told him about the fake encounter.
Meanwhile, when the police came to know about Xavier Soy’s acts of attempting to unearth the fact of the fake encounter and encouraging the villagers for raising the issue, the police put Xavier Soy with his school going son behind the bars alleging them of keeping the Maoist literature in their house. The police also do not allow the outsiders especially the Human Rights Activists and the Journalists to roam in the area so that the truth remained buried. Finally, the police succeeded in shutting up the villagers’ mouths and in framing the cold-blooded murder as a genuine case of encounter between the police and the Maoists.
Amidst, Tamar police again picked up another villager Rajesh Singh Munda of Papridah village on August 1, 2010 before the dawn from his village when he was sleeping. The police took him near Koja River in Heso forest and gunned down after branding him as a hardcore Maoist and aide of the Maoist Zonal Commander Kundan Pahan.
The former Jharkhand chief Minister Arjun Munda raised the question and demanded for the CBI inquiry alleging that the Police killed Rajesh Singh Munda in a cold-blooded murder. He also said that the Naxalism would grow if innocent villagers were being coined as Naxalites and killed in fake encounters. He further said that the police kill innocent Adivasis precisely because they are voiceless. Perhaps, this is the first time in Jharkhand when a political leader has raised questions against the cold-blooded murder. Obviously, the most of the people keep quiet on the case of fake encounter because the licensed killings are not only accepted in our so-called civilized society but we also applaud for it, award the killers and make them heroes of our Indian society, which foundation lies on the non-violence ethos.
It would be very interesting to know whether Etwa Munda and Rajesh Singh Munda were members of the Maoist groups? The circumstances suggest that they were not the members of the Maoist groups. For instance, the Maoists had called off ‘India block’ on July 7th after alleged killing of their leader Azad. Similarly, on 8 August 2010, they shut down Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhatsgarh and West Bengal against the arrest of Maoist leader Rajesh alias Udayji from Ranchi the capital city of Jharkhand. However, they did not even issue a statement after brutal killings of Etwa Munda and Rajesh Singh Munda by the Security Forces, which is a clearly indication that they were not the members of the Maoist groups. However, the villagers do not deny Etwa Munda’s involvement in some illegal activities but denied him being the member of Maoist groups. Perhaps, Rajesh Singh Munda was completely innocent.
Indeed, the police often conduct fake encounters for ensuring medal, award and promotion for them but now the things have changed. The purposes of cold-blooded murders are entirely different in the red corridor. The Security forces have been organizing the fake encounters in the forests with the intention of frightening the villagers so that they can stop supporting the Maoists. It is to show the brave work of the security forces to the city dwellers especially the middle class for getting their support for the bigger assault against the Maoist. It is also to bring back the lost moral ground of the security forces. And of course, it is to shield their failures and to justify the so-called anti-Naxal operations of the Indian government.
For instance, on July 1, 2010 the Police had organized a mass meeting at Sarjormdih village near Bunda police station of Ranchi district in Jharkhand against the Maoists, where 3000 villagers of 24 villages had participated and challenged the Maoists. Instead of surrendering, the Maoists killed Sandu Munda on July 3, who was the first speaker in the meeting. The police had instigated the villagers for going against the Maoists without ensuring their security therefore the Jharkhand Police had faced heavy criticism. In this situation, there was no other way to counter the criticism therefore the police killed Etwa Munda and Rajesh Singh Munda in cold-blooded murders and depicted them as hardcore Maoists. The people just followed the media’s story and kept quiet.
Since, the so-called anti-Naxal operations have very clear link to the corporate interest therefore one should understand the media’s silence on the state sponsored human rights violations. Meanwhile, It is very strange to know about the silence of Human rights groups on humiliation, molestation, torture, rape and cold-blooded murder by the Security Forces during the ongoing anti-Naxal operations in the state, who ensure their bread and butter in the name of promotion and protection of the human rights. Perhaps, these human rights groups are afraid of the state agencies since anyone who raises the issues of human rights violation in the red corridor is coined as a Maoists supporter. But does it mean they should keep silence?
However, the Indian constitution does not deny the right to life to anyone residing in the country. Similarly, our corporate Home Minister P Chidambaram while responding to a question of alleged killing of Maoist leader Azad in the Parliament said, “Whether somebody is a good man or bad man, he should not be killed in a fake encounter.” He further said, “When I took the charge of my ministry, I made it clear that there would no fake encounter killings by central agency”. What does it mean? It clearly means the Indian State has been carrying on the fake encounters, which must be a serious concern for us. Therefore, the CBI inquiry should be established in all the cases of encounters taken place in the so-called red corridor since January 1, 2001 to 15 of August 2010. If it happens the people of the country would be shocked to hear that how the security forces have killed the innocent people in the fake encounters.
There are some very significant points in the so-called encounter cases. Interestingly, when the police kill any person either in a genuine or fake encounter, the person is coined as the top Maoists (area commander or zonal commander) and when the Maoists attack on police the most affected are small policemen. Why are the police not able to target the guerillas though they are always able to target the top guns of the Maoists? Similarly, whenever police catch a person, he is propagated as a hardcore Maoist. The strange thing is at the end of the day police fail to provide sufficient evidence in the court and the most of the so-called hardcore Maoists are acquitted due to lack of evidence. What does it mean? It clearly means the police victimize the innocent people and put them behind the bars. Can the Indian State tell its people that how many Maoists were convicted for last four decades?
The peculiar thing in every case of encounter is the Maoist fire more bullets on the security forces than the security forces fire on the Maoists. Ironically, non-of our security force gets injury and the Maoists are killed. Therefore, it is very difficult to understand the puzzle of encounter. Precisely, because though our security forces are so smart but at the same time they are not able to cleanse the Maoists. In the case of Rajesh Singh Munda, the police claim of the Maoist firing 300 rounds bullets on the Police and the Police fired merely 150 rounds in their response. However, Rajesh Munda was shot dead and not a single policeman got injury. Of course, one Indian would never like its soldier to be injured but we have to understand the logic of so-called ‘encounter’.
The so-called educated people who always raised the questions on intention of the Human Rights Groups and attempted to brand them as the Maoists over ground, Maoist sympathizers and supporters must understand that we are the concerned and tax payer citizens of India, who have also given our mandate to the Indian State for promoting, protecting and ensuring everyone’s constitutional rights. Therefore, even if the Maoists create problems in the country, the responsibility lies with the Indian State. We also have every right to question the Indian State whenever and wherever the human rights of the marginalized people are violated. Any one who is annoyed with the questions does not deserved to be in the power. If P. Chidmabaram does not want to hear our cries, he must step down from the Home Ministry immediately because the buck would always stop at his desk whenever and wherever the central forces violate the human rights of the people in India.
However, whether Etwa Munda and Rajesh Singh Munda were innocent or guilty, their constitutional rights – right to life was taken away by the mighty guns and the state is responsible for it therefore it must tell its people the truth. Can we accept killings of anyone either legally or illegally in the civilized society? Are we really civilized people? How can we take anyone’s life if we can not give life to anyone? In some cases of licensed killings we might be the egally right but we would be always ethically wrong. And of course, the killing is a sin for humanity. Therefore, we must ask the state to uphold the constitution of India and we should not accept the cold-blooded murder in any circumstance. The state is duty bound to promote, protect and ensure the human rights of everyone therefore it can not wither away from its responsibility. And of course, we should not let it go.
While addressing to 64th Independence Day, the Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh said that his government is committed to protect its every citizen therefore one would question whether Etwa Munda and Rajesh Singh Munda were Indian citizens too? Is Indian government committed to protect only the corporate sharks, politicians and bigwigs? Or whether the Indian State is also committed to protect the common men? If so then it must stop handing over the livelihood resources of the common men to corporate sharks and stop the operation green hunt, which is hunting the innocent rather than cleansing the Maoists. Perhaps, the question may remain unanswered is will Etwa Munda and Rajesh Singh Munda get justice or our police men would be allowed to enjoy impunity as they have been doing? Certainly, one can hope for justice for the victims of cold-blooded murders after development of Sohorabudding fake encounter case in the right direction but only the time will tell.
Gladson Dungdung is a Human Rights Activist and Writer from Jharkhand. He can be reached at gladsonhractivist
Source: The South Asian
That's going on Inside the world's biggest democracy.

[pranabjyoti]

Despite Scandals, Indian Mining Bosses Thrive (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/despite-scandals-indian-mining-bosses-thrive/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/reddy.jpg?w=250&h=218 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/reddy.jpg)BELLARY, India — Janardhana Reddy insists he is not a king. No, no, no, he protested, as a servant trotted across the courtyard to deliver a cup of cooled water. Men with machine guns stood outside. An architect waited to discuss the new mansion, while another man hovered nearby, sitting in the grass.
“He’s the state minister of health,” Mr. Reddy said of the man in the grass, who stood up, made a little bow and hurried away.
Mr. Reddy may not be a king, but he does represent a new phenomenon in the political economy of India: He and his brothers are the country’s most powerful mining bosses at a time when illegal mining has become a national scandal, amid accusations that billions of dollars of publicly owned minerals have been stolen, often by people holding public office.
For decades, moneyed interests have bankrolled India’s political parties, but nouveaux mining magnates like the Reddy brothers have conflated money and politics in far more naked fashion, as the thirst for iron ore in India, and more so in China, has created huge fortunes.
Mining scandals have emerged in at least five Indian states, with more than 20,000 complaints of illegal mining filed nationally in the past three months. Politicians in several states are accused of enriching themselves or their friends, including a former chief minister of the state of Jharkhand, who is charged with extorting huge bribes in exchange for granting mining leases.
This week, the Indian media reported that the central government would form an inquiry to investigate illegal mining across the country, a move regarded as a first step in reversing past failings in regulation. Here in the southern state of Karnataka, the controversy surrounding the Reddy brothers has become a national political melodrama, threatening at different times to bring down the state government, while also throwing global markets for iron ore into turmoil.
The Reddys, who say they are innocent of claims of illegal mining, have transformed themselves in less than a decade from obscure activists for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., into political bosses who directly or indirectly control three state ministries and dominate local government in the Bellary district, which holds the state’s richest iron ore deposits.
“You’ve never had mining dons entering politics and controlling government,” said Ramachandra Guha, a historian who lives in the state capital of Bangalore. “They are more or less uncrowned kings in their district. There is a level of brazenness that even by the standards of Indian politics is new.”
What prompted the change, and the rush by political figures into mining, was the steady rise in iron ore prices during the past decade. India relaxed its export restrictions at roughly the same time that China was in the throes of the biggest construction boom in history, culminating with the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Technical advances allowed more types of ore to be exported, and the price per metric ton soared. Where once it had brought about $17, today the price is about $130.
“It encouraged practically everybody who was somebody to come into this business,” said N. Santosh Hegde, a former justice on India’s Supreme Court who is leading an official corruption investigation into illegal mining in Karnataka. “People who had no knowledge of mining but who had money power or muscle power — either would work — they came into mining. It really became sort of a rat race.”
Mr. Hegde’s investigation has discovered that at least 10 members of the Indian Parliament or the Karnataka state assembly control leases in the Bellary region. By 2004, when the Reddys got their first lease, they had emerged as political players. The sons of a police constable, Janardhana Reddy and his two brothers had been key supporters of a B.J.P. candidate, Sushma Swaraj, in a local parliamentary race in 1999 that became a national showdown against Sonia Gandhi, the scion of the governing Indian National Congress Party.
Ms. Gandhi won the race, but the Reddys would steadily turn the Congress Party stronghold toward the B.J.P. Ms. Swaraj, now the leader of the opposition in Parliament, became their patron. To get rich, however, the Reddys transcended partisanship and allied themselves with the Congress Party’s Y.S.R. Reddy (who is no relation), the powerful chief minister in the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh. Iron ore deposits straddle the border of the two states, and the Reddys obtained leases on the Andhra Pradesh side.
The Reddys got richer, bought a helicopter and are believed to have bankrolled numerous political campaigns. In 2008, they financed B.J.P. victories that helped the party to take over the Karnataka state government. As his reward, Janardhana Reddy became the state’s minister of tourism; his brother Karunakar became minister of revenue; his brother Somashekhar became president of the state’s powerful milk federation; and their close ally, B. Sriramulu, became the health minister.
Last year, when the state’s chief minister, B.S. Yeddyurappa, tried to levy a fee of about $21 per truckload of ore, the Reddys led an internal party revolt, rallying loyal legislators and threatening to withdraw support for the government. Faced with the potential collapse of his administration, Mr. Yeddyurappa relented on the levy, fired two close allies who had opposed the Reddys and wept during a news conference. Meanwhile, Janardhana Reddy’s portfolio also included the post of minister in charge over the Bellary district. “The entire government machinery is under his belt,” complained Raghavendra Rao, a spokesman for the Baldota Group, a mining conglomerate at odds with the Reddys.
Now, though, the Reddys’ power is being tested. Last year, their patron in Andhra Pradesh, Y.S.R. Reddy, died in a helicopter crash. Without his political protection, the Reddys were subjected to notices for illegal mining, building illegal roads and moving state boundary markers to expand the reach of their mine. In the interim, their mining in Andhra Pradesh has been suspended.
At the same time, Mr. Hegde, the corruption investigator, is looking into claims that the Reddys have been secretly controlling mining on the Karnataka side of the border by illegally operating leases held by other people — and taking the majority of the ore.
With bad publicity mounting, the B.J.P.’s national leadership has appeared divided over the Reddys. The Congress Party, sensing opportunity, held a 190-mile protest march from Bangalore to Bellary. The B.J.P. held a counter rally.
Under pressure, the Karnataka chief minister recently acknowledged that illegal mining was rampant and blocked exports from state ports, a move that contributed to a spike in prices of about 4 percent on global markets. Yet the chief minister has still protected the Reddys by blocking an investigation by India’s Central Bureau of Investigation and saying no wrongdoing had been proved against them.
Sipping his cup of water, Janardhana Reddy seemed unconcerned about the growing uproar. Asked about the investigations, and about whether he controlled the state and local governments, Mr. Reddy blamed partisan politics, saying the Congress Party was determined to smear him to win back Bellary.
“Go and ask any common man and they will tell you that I don’t act like a king,” he said. “God is great. And God has been giving me these beautiful mines.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/19/world/asia/19india.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all
Hari Kumar contributed reporting. Saimah Khwaja contributed research from New Delhi.
A very good of example of "capitalism". If you are reading "Das Capital", then kindly read about the Indian situation regularly. That will help you to understand the great book well.

[pranabjyoti]

Toilet-Paper Scandal in India ‘Shames’ Commonwealth Games Host (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/21/toilet-paper-scandal-in-india-shames-commonwealth-games-host/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/commonwealth-21.jpg?w=440&h=293 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/commonwealth-21.jpg)In this Aug. 17, 2010 photo, laborers work at Shivaji stadium, one of the practice venues for the upcoming Commonwealth Games, in New Delhi, India. The sporting event which India hoped would herald its emergence as a regional power and serve as a springboard to an Olympic bid has instead turned into a chaotic mess. Less than seven weeks before New Delhi is to host to the Commonwealth Games, venues are still under construction, top officials have been forced out in scandal, costs have soared and many are questioning the wisdom of spending so much money on an event in a nation riddled with social ills. Photo: Saurabh Das / AP

[The human needs of people in India are not high on the government's agenda, which is filled with such fast-buck boondoggles as the "Commonwealth Games" and other corrupt corporate ventures.-ed.]
By Mehul Srivastava – Aug 19, 2010
Organizers of the Commonwealth Games called a press conference this week to talk about how prepared New Delhi was to host a sporting event for 71 countries. Instead, they fielded questions about how much they paid for toilet paper.
Allegations of corruption and mismanagement are overtaking a tournament that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said would “signal to the world that India is rapidly marching ahead with confidence.” The Economic Times newspaper, citing internal documents, said organizers bought $80 rolls of toilet paper, $61 soap dispensers and $125 first-aid kits.
Government spending for the Commonwealth Games has overrun a 2003 estimate of $500 million by more than nine-fold. The Games have been criticized as the most expensive ever by the Comptroller and Auditor General agency and opposition parties in a nation where the World Bank says 828 million people live on less than $2 a day.
“The publicity that we have received, and how the world is looking at us, is in a negative fashion,” said Randhir Singh, vice chairman of the organizing committee of the Commonwealth Games 2010. “That brings me great shame.”
Singh declined to comment to Bloomberg News on the newspaper reports. Lalit Bhanot, secretary general of the organizing committee, said the reports were “inaccurate and mischievous.” He declined to elaborate.
No ‘Extravagance’
India spent at least $4.6 billion — compared with its December 2003 estimate of $500 million — upgrading stadiums, refurbishing roads and building power and water utilities. It spent another $2.7 billion on a new airport terminal to welcome athletes participating in the 12-day event starting Oct. 3.
“We have not indulged in any extravagance,” M.S. Gill, the minister for sports, told lawmakers last week.
India is spending less money than London and Beijing as hosts of the 2012 and 2008 Summer Olympics, respectively, he said. The last time India spent money upgrading and building new stadiums was for the 1982 Asiad Games, he said.
“The newly built stadia are not only spacious but are best with the state-of-the-art technology,” Gill said. “They are not only beautiful but economical in comparison with those built in London or China.”
Officials Resign
The controversies prompted the organizing committee’s treasurer and another member to resign. Prime Minister Singh ordered an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation and said Aug. 14 he would personally inspect some facilities.
At least 20 stadiums were refurbished or built from scratch for $640 million, said Manish Tiwari, spokesman for the Congress party-led ruling coalition. Three are ready to use, organizers said. The others are being fumigated for mosquitoes carrying dengue and malaria as structural work finishes.
A day after the weightlifting hall opened Aug. 1, its roof leaked during a monsoon, and workers in white helmets climbed across the structure to patch it.
India’s Central Vigilance Commission said in August that “almost all” the contractors for games-related projects inflated their costs. The quality of work was poor, and “test records were fabricated to show high strength,” according to the government commission set up to investigate corruption.
The commission said concrete samples from stadiums, athlete housing and parking facilities failed a key strength measure, and the structures used reinforced steel that wasn’t properly treated with anti-corrosive materials.
$61 vs. $1.97
“The Commission has advised the organizations concerned to take corrective steps,” it wrote in a report urging authorities to fix “responsibility against officers identified for lapses.”
Organizers spent $220 on mirrors costing $98 retail, $61 on soap dispensers costing $1.97, and $250,190 on high-altitude simulators costing $11,830, according to reports by the Economic Times and India Today magazine, citing tender documents.
Bhanot declined to comment to Bloomberg News.
From the start, the government was criticized for spending money on the games instead of on programs to alleviate poverty. UNICEF says 665 million Indians don’t have access to toilets, so they defecate in public.
The games will displace at least 400,000 of New Delhi’s 11.8 million residents, according to an estimate by the New Delhi-based Housing and Land Rights Network.
“Developing countries have very little reason to host these games,” said Shalini Mishra, a senior researcher at the non-profit organization. “The amount of money that has been spent on stadiums alone could have done so much more for the poor. The government seems to have lost its sense of priorities.”
Bamboo Screens
Slums that weren’t cleared in time will be screened off with bamboo to “conceal the sights,” said New Delhi Chief Secretary Rakesh Mehta, the city’s top bureaucrat. Beggars will be taken off the streets, traffic will be rerouted and much of the city center will become a high-security zone.
As traffic whizzed by her 2-year-old son, Malati Mahto chipped away at the pavement on New Delhi’s posh Lodhi Road, refurbishing the main thoroughfare for traffic to the main arena, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, and parking lots. She said she earns $1.22 working 12-14 hours a day with no helmet or gloves.
The New Delhi government said all laborers are supposed to earn at least $9 a day.
The 2.5-kilometer (1.5-mile) stretch is getting a $3.9- million makeover, according to the New Delhi Municipal Corp. The city is spending $3.5 billion to upgrade highways, expand the subway system and build the airport terminal, minister of urban development S. Jaipal Reddy said.
Mahto, 28, said she was told by the contractor who hired her that her family must leave their blue, plastic hut alongside Lodhi Road by Sept. 15.
“They told me that people will come from England and Australia to run and jump,” Mahto said.
Again, nothing unusual in India, it's a common practice.

[t.shonku]

First farmer suicide in West Bengal


PTI, Aug 21, 2010, 05.23pm IST





BURDWAN (WB): West Bengal, where 11 districts were declared drought-hit, registered its first farmer death in the rice bowl of Burdwan district.

45-year-old farmer Yunus Sheikh of Basantapur village of Ausgram I block drank pesticide last evening and died at the Burdwan Medical College Hospital (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Burdwan%20Medical%20College%20Hospital) today, SDO, Burdwan, (North) Arindam Neogi said.

"We have sought a report from the local BDO and panchayat samiti sabhapati," he said.

Family member Ziaur Rahman said he had outstanding loans since last year for raising crops on his land but lack of rains this year had driven him to desperation.

Yunus was entirely dependent on rain water to irrigate the paddy land as there was no irrigation facility in the area, he said.

Moreover, he had a daughter whom he could not marry off, Rahman said.

District agriculture department said of the total 17,000 hectare, kharif cultivation was done on 11,900 hectare, mainly due to monsoon failure.

The SDO said he directed the local administration to arrange for shallow pumps in the area and there should not be any load shedding there for 30 days so that those pumps could function.

Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Buddhadeb%20Bhattacharjee) was in the district to meet district officials over the drought situation.
Look at wonder of Indian Democracy,the country can afford to send probe to moon,can afford to spent billions and millions on anti-Maoist campaign.But when it comes to looking after a farmer India suddenly runs out of money

At the same time look at CPI(Marxist),they don't care about farmers, all they care about is how to clear off the jungles to set factories for their corporate masters.

[pranabjyoti]

post-mortem indicates azad was shot from close range (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/post-mortem-indicates-azad-was-shot-from-close-range/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/examine-document.png?w=322&h=273 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/examine-document.png)august 23, 2010
top maoist leader azad, who the andhra pradesh police claimed to have killed in an encounter on july 1, was shot from very close range, according to his post-mortem report accessed by rediff.com’s krishnakumar padamanbhan.
Top maoist leader azad, alias cherukuri rajkumar, who the andhra pradesh police claimed to have killed in an encounter in the forests of adilabad district in andhra pradesh, was shot from very close range, probably from less than one foot, according to his post mortem report, accessed by rediff.com
the post-mortem report stands in contradiction with the police version that azad was killed in a gun-battle between 11 pm and 11.30 pm on july 1 in sarkepally village, wankedi, in adilabad district.
After the andhra pradesh police claimed azad, a member of the communist party of india-maoist central committee and politburo as well as its national spokesman, was killed in the forests of adilabad district, the maoists claimed that he had been picked up in nagpur a day earlier, flown to adilabad by helicopter, and executed in cold blood along with a man named hemchandra pandey.
In may, home minister p chidambaram [ images ] had invited swami agnivesh, who had led a peace march in chhattisgarh in april, to mediate with the maoists and explore the possibility of a cease-fire, which would likely result in peace talks with the central government.
With chidambaram’s permission, agnivesh met with senior maoist leaders kobad gandhy in delhi’s [ images ] tihar jail and narayan sanyal in raipur jail in chhattisgarh to begin the peace process.
He also wrote to the maoists, informing them about the government’s interest in a dialogue, to bring about a peaceful resolution to the leftist insurgency that has crippled life in many districts in the country.
Azad responded on the maoists’s behalf, expressing willingness in possible talks with the centre and indicating that his organisation could think of a cease-fire.
One sticking point was chidambaram’s insistence on a date for a cease-fire, which the home minister felt would indicate the maoists’s intentions.
Once a cease-fire — the duration of which could extend for three days or six months or longer — was in place, chidamabaram told agnivesh talks could begin.
In late june agnivesh wrote again to azad, suggesting three likely dates in july when the cease-fire could go into effect.
Azad was carrying agnivesh’s letter with him the day he died.
There are other discrepancies in the police inquest and the first information report, which too was accessed by rediff.com
according to the post mortem report, the first bullet, which killed azad left ‘a one centimetre oval-shaped wound with darkening burnt edges present at the left second intercostal space’and exited ‘at the 9th and 10th intervertebral space, lateral to the spinal vertebrae on the left side’.
This raises two key aspects regarding the shot that killed azad:
First, according to doctors and experts, such darkening edges in the entry wound happens only due to burns caused by a bullet fired from very close quarters, mostly from less than a foot.
Second, the intercostal space is the part between two ribs. The intervertabral space is the part between two vertebrae. This means that the bullet hit azad high on the chest and exited through the middle of his back.
For this to happen the bullet must have been fired from above the victim at close quarters.
But according to the first information report, the police was firing at azad, who they said was on a hilltop, from a distance and from below.
The fir says azad, accompanied by 20 to 25 maoists, opened fire on the police from the hilltop, after which the police retaliated, killing azad and hemchandra pandey.
The andhra pradesh police, however, denied the fake encounter theory and maintained that it was a genuine gun-battle.
Regarding the darkening at the entry wound, they said burn marks happen in case of firing from a distance also.
“we have also checked that aspect with forensic experts. They say it is possible that shots fired from a distance can also cause burn marks,” a senior officer told rediff.com
the police report has a lot of holes in it, and raises many questions:
The gist of the fir (crime number 40/2010) filed by station house officer mansoor ahmed at the wankedi police station, adilabad, at 9.30 am, july 2, is:
Intelligence divisions informed them that a group of 20 cpi-maoist members had crossed into andhra pradesh from maharashtra [ images ] and were moving about in the forest area.
At 9 pm, personnel from the asifabad police station and a special police party launched a search operation in the forested and hilly region between sarkepally and velgi.
At 11 pm, the police team — equipped with night vision devices — spotted the maoists on a hilltop and asked them to surrender.
As the maoists opened fire, the police retaliated in self-defence.
The firing lasted for 30 minutes after which the police climbed the hilltop and halted.
When they searched the area early in the morning, they found two unidentified bodies — a 50-year-old man, and a 30-year-old man wearing sandals with an ak-47 and a 9 mm pistol lying by their respective sides.
1. If, according to the fir, the maoists were on a hilltop — which strategically means the maoists had the terrain advantage — how was azad killed by a bullet fired from such close quarters that it caused a burn?
2. The fir is against ‘unknown maoist terrorists’.
But in their inquest, accessed by rediff.com, the police have identified the slain maoist as azad at 6 am, july 2.
In fact, local journalists said they got phone calls at 6 am from senior adilabad police officers informing them that azad has been killed in an encounter.
“the adilabad sp (superintendent of police) called me and other journalists at 6 am and told us azad had been killed in an encounter in this area. We reached the place immediately. We searched the area till 1 pm but were unable to locate the bodies. Then, some local policemen came and guided us to the location. We saw the bodies of azad and another person,” says a local journalist.
Question: If the police had already identified azad at 6 am, why did they not name him in the fir, which was filed three-and-a-half hours later?
3. The fir says the police party, which was tipped off about the presence of maoists in the forest, reached there around 9 pm, july 1 and with the help of night vision devices, spotted 20 to 25 maoists.
The fir also says that after the gun-battle ended at 11.30 pm, the policemen reached the hilltop and halted. It says the police party found two bodies at 6 am when they began searching.
Question: If the police had night vision devices, as claimed in the fir, and if they had reached the hilltop occupied by the maoists after the gun-battle had ended, why did they not use the same devices to check for dead or hidden maoists at that time? Why did they have to wait for sunlight to spot the bodies?
Outside of these discrepancies and questions arising out of the official documentation, there are also some other pertinent questions:
4. In cases of encounters, the police are supposed to launch a magisterial probe into the matter.
But in azad’s case, even 52 days after the encounter, the revenue district officer, who is supposed to conduct the probe, has not even issued a notification where witnesses from the general public, if any, are called to present themselves before the magistrate.
The villagers in sarkepally and velgi — the place where the police claim that the encounter happened is between these two villages — said they saw police vehicles go to the spot on the night of july 1.
“we saw some vehicles go past our village. Then at about 11.30 i heard gunshots,” said a villager who did not want to be named. “we have seen encounters here in 1997 and 2005. Those times, the police came during the day and we could hear gun shots throughout the night. This time it was not like that. They came in the night and we heard some shots and that was it.”
they also said there has not been any maoist movement in the region for at least a year.
“after 2005, their movement thinned quiet a bit,” a village elder said. “in the last two years or so, there have not been any maoists in the area.”
kranti chaitanya, general secretary, andhra pradesh civil liberties committee, who has challenged the police in several fake encounter cases, said the sizes of the entry and the exit wounds clearly show that azad was shot from close quarters, and that it raises critical doubts about the police claim that he was killed in a gun-battle.
“even dead bodies tell a lot of stories. In azad’s case, the entry wounds are all narrow in diameter, meaning he was fired at from point blank range. Had he been involved in the gun-battle and the police had fired from the distance that they claim, the wounds would have been bigger in diameter,” chaitanya, who recently helped bring out a book on fake encounters, said.
Activists of the co-ordination of democratic rights organisations, who visited the encounter spot and the wankedi police station on a fact-finding mission on august 21, said the encounter raised several larger and disturbing questions.
“from our fact-finding, this is clearly a fake encounter,” said prashant bhushan, senior supreme court counsel. “but more than the incident itself, it raises several significant issues. It is well known that the union home ministry was, through swami agnivesh, engaged in exploring the possibility of a dialogue with the cpi-maoist. Agnivesh was talking to the maoists through azad.”
“the alleged encounter in these circumstances and at such a time raises important questions: How could the andhra pradesh police’s special branch, dedicated to combating maoists, murder azad in this manner without the knowledge of the union home minister and the state government, particularly when the union home ministry is said to be leading the joint offensive against the maoists?” bhushan asked.
He said if the union government was sincere in seeking dialogue, it would have been “natural for home minister (palaniappan) chidambaram to express concern about the execution of the key actor from the maoist side with whom he was exploring the peace dialogue.”
“his explanation on the floor of parliament was that the enquiry is a state subject,” bhushan said. “this is unacceptable because the andhra pradesh state government is run by the congress party and had the union home minister sought an enquiry they could not have refused,” he said.
The umbrella organisation’s fact-finding team also raised some other questions.
“how did the police pinpoint the maoists’ location in a forest several hundred square kilometres along the andhra-maharashtra border? And despite 30 minutes of firing not a single police personal suffered any injury, whereas only azad and hemachandra pandey are killed — this when the police themselves say the maoists were on a hilltop and they were on lower ground,” asked gautam navalakha of the people’s union for democratic rights.
The activists demanded a judicial enquiry into the encounter.
“in any case, the central government is empowered to constitute an enquiry under the commission of enquiries act, 1952. In the light of the significance of the assassination, which has scuttled the peace process, it is imperative that the government institute a high level independent enquiry headed by a sitting/retired supreme court judge nominated by the chief justice of india [ images ],” said activist kavita srivastava, who was part of the team as an independent member.
It also demanded that an fir be registered against the police and the case be independently investigated in accordance with the national human rights commission guidelines.
Rediff.com india news
a murder indeed.

[pranabjyoti]

Lohandiguda, India: We won’t give up our land! (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/lohandiguda-india-we-wont-give-up-our-land-2/)

http://moonchasing.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/rdi0560.jpg?w=405&h=280&h=280
Land nor Freedom

August 22, 2010, New Indian Express
‘Nahi denge zameen!’ (we won’t give our land) – said one villager of Lohandiguda, as over 150 villagers – Sarpanches and ward members with their families, stood up, and walked out of the meeting with government officials on the 12th of May of this year. In 2005, the villagers in Lohandiguda didn’t even know their land was up for acquisition by Tata Steel – they learnt about it after they read the newspapers.
It is a known fact that the Adivasis have existed long before there was any idea of India. And there are estimates that there has been more displacement by development projects in India than by the Partition, and a majority of the displaced have been Adivasis.
It’s therefore not surprising that the Maoists don’t believe that India has attained independence. In a school in the liberated-zones of Dantewada, a lone poster of Chandrashekar Azad remains, there’s no sign of Gandhi or Nehru. In the Red Corridor, the Maoist squads go to schools in the middle of their Independence Day celebrations, remove the tricolour, holster up a black flag, distribute sweets or biscuits to the children and leave.
63 years after independence, the history of the tribals in Independent India has been wrought by promises never kept.
In 1955, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had addressed an All India Conference of Tribes in Jagdalpur, Bastar District of Chhattisgarh (Then Madhya Pradesh) and had said: ‘Wherever you live, you should live in your own way. This is what I want you to decide yourselves. How would you like to live? Your old customs and habits are good. We want that they should survive but at the same time we want that you should be educated and should do your part in the welfare of the country.’
Today, Rights guaranteed to the tribals by the constitution, embodied in the PESA are floundered routinely all across the Fifth Schedule areas. The PESA enables the adivasis to govern themselves through Gram Sabhas, and the state has no right to acquire lands, nor dish out mining leases without the permission of the Gram Sabhas. Yet the State of Chhattisgarh, is using a ‘Colonial-era law’, the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, to acquire lands.
‘They asked us to hold a Gram Sabhas and there was police everywhere.’ Said one of the village-leaders of Sirisguda, in a meeting with the Express a few days ago, ‘And yet we said no to Tata!’
Nevertheless, the next day, all the local newspapers were reporting that the villagers of Lohandiguda had accepted Tata’s plan for acquisition. This pattern would repeat itself regularly throughout the years. A public hearing would be held, the villagers would say no, and the local press would print their assent.
‘We always say no! And you write yes!’ they screamed at the press at Lohandiguda.
Today, the discrepancies in numerous Gram Sabha resolutions and public hearings held in Chhattisgarh rarely find any report in the Chhattisgarh press, nor the national press, but only in a citizen-run initiative called CGNet Swara.
CGnet Swara is an innovative audio-based news service. One simply has to call 08041137280 from their mobile phones, and can either press 1 to record news, or 2 to listen to the news. After some cross-checking, the moderators release the recordings, which include reports on public rallies, discrepancies in the PDS, water issues, medical issues, arrests of activists, fake encounters, child labour issues, anti-liquor campaign issues, and every issue governing adivasi and village life.
Yet they have been particularly useful in bypassing a compromised local press and giving grass-root reports about public hearings. For instance, a public hearing held on the 5th of May, this year in Dantewada district, regarding the NMDC in Kirandul, was considered fraudulent as many of the villages who’d be directly affected by the project weren’t even present during the hearing.
‘The public hearing was held 50 kilometres away from the affected villages, and the people at the hearing were contractors and other lackeys of the NMDC.’ Said a news report from CGNet Swara, in Hindi.
Similarly, another public hearing was held in Raigarh district in Chhattisgarh on the 3rd of July organized by Hind Multiservices for a 15,000 TPA Ferro Alloy Plant, where the affected villagers weren’t even informed of the hearing.
‘Only 32 people showed up, mostly activists, and it is safe to say, there are no affected villagers here because they were not informed. This whole hearing was a farce.’ Said another news report from CGnet Swara.
Each report from CGnet Swara explicitly begins to highlight the muted voice of the adivasis in their own fate, whether it is the public hearing or the Gram Sabha. And this brings us to an interesting Censored Chapter.
The Censored Chapter
A recent study by the Institute of Rural Management, commissioned by the Panchayat Raj Ministry, on the functioning of Panchayat Raj highlighted the violations in the Panchayat (Extension to Schedule Areas) act, or PESA. To quote:
‘The central Land Acquisition Act of 1894 has till date not been amended to bring it in line with the provisions of PESA and to recognize the Gram Sabha, while a newer bill meant to replace it is yet to be tabled in parliament. At the moment, this colonial-era law is being widely misused on the ground to forcibly acquire individual and community land for private industry.’
‘In several cases, the practice of the state government is to sign high profile MOUs with corporate houses (Government of Jharkhand 2008 and IANS, 2010), and then proceed to deploy the Acquisition Act to ostensibly acquire the land for the state industrial corporation. This body then simply leases the land to the private corporation – a complete travesty of the term ‘acquisition for a public purpose’, as sanctioned by the act.’
‘In some cases, administrations run through the motions of a PESA consultation, but in no instance has the opposition expressed by tribal communities to acquisition of their land resulted in a plan for industry being halted, suggesting the disempowerment of the Gram Sabha.’
There was no surprise that the chapter, aptly titled, ‘PESA, Left-Wing Extremism and Governance: Concerns and Challenges in India’s Tribal Districts’ was entirely taken out of the final report released by the government, for it is a damning indictment of the state’s pro-industrial policies. The report even goes on to mention, that the growing strength of the Maoist movement in central India is inextricably linked to the government’s ‘exclusionary’ policies:
‘Some analysts read the resurgence and spread of left-wing extremism as a phenomenon of tribal self-assertion. They point to the co-incidence in the rise of economic reforms and the deepening of the Maoist movement in India’s polity, the latter being a retort to the exclusionary nature of these policies. According to one senior politician, ‘If the state is neglectful and oppressive, as it has been, it provides the water in which the guerilla fish swim.’ Another senior politician seconded, ‘PESA has not yet been honestly implemented in a single district yet. If it is, we will solve the Naxal problem.’
Lohandiguda also finds mention in the censored chapter of the PESA report.
‘Resident Mahangu Madiya has Rs 55 lakh in his account, but does not even own a mobile phone. He has no use for most such material possessions. Or even this significant sum of money, which he has not touched since it landed in a bank account this January as ‘compensation’ given by the state, in return for acquiring his 35-acre farm for a proposed steel plant. “I am concerned with farming. My land is important to me. What will I do with this money?” asked the middle-aged farmer’.
Eventually, resistance to the land grab began to accentuate. The Communist Party of India had no influence in Lohandiguda before Tata showed up. They only found footing as they’re openly anti-displacement and anti-corporate land grab. Both the BJP and Congress have supported Tata’s project, but today only CPI party workers, or those explicitly anti-displacement work in Lohandiguda.
‘I remember telling people, that we need to protest first, we need to organize ourselves first, and then only will people come and support us.’ Said Advocate Girju Kashyap, who at some point, was also detained by the police and prevented to appear in court.
Most of his clients are villagers from Lohandiguda with cases slapped against them.
Yet even the CPI has not been able to hold off Tata’s project, and there is a severe sense of frustration with the villagers of Lohandiguda.
The Meeting
Lohandiguda is far from the theatre of war at first sight. Yet there’s a permeable tension that everything shall burn. On the 11th of May, the Naib Tehsildar of Lohandiguda PR Marghya had began a ‘bhoomi puja’ (inaugration ceremony) near the proposed project site for Tata’s steel plant, at Dhuragaon village. A few villagers of Lohandiguda would then beat him up, mistakenly believing, he was commencing with Tata’s project on their land.
The next day the administration decided to talk to ward members and Sarpanches of all the villages of Lohandiguda.
They had asked them to come at three in the afternoon.
On that afternoon, the villagers at Tarkeguda weren’t interesting in attending the meeting. They were busy with a family dispute. A forty-year old lady was being screamed at by her husband and her 20 year old son, as some twenty other villagers sat around them.
Hidmo Ram Mandavi, one of the leaders of Tarkaguda, was almost dismissive of the meeting with the government.
Meanwhile, the story of the family dispute would come to light. The Mother-Wife had apparently gotten drunk and slept with a man half her age.
At some point, her son charged at her in a fit of rage. His mother would scream back at him, asserting her rights. Eventually, she would leave with her young toy boy. Her family screaming at her to never come back.
That’s two more tribals out of Lohandiguda.
Yet eventually the meeting (that the villagers of Tarkeguda didn’t care for) commenced at five in the evening. The Superintendent of Police, the Collectorate and members of the local press arrived to meet villagers who had been waiting for two hours.
Machinegunned policemen spread across the area, surrounding the villagers.
The meeting commenced as the Upper-Collector Fulsingh Netaam stands up and speaks politely to the villagers. He started by speaking about everything the administration has done for the people and how much more they will be doing. The reaction is lukewarm. No one is interested.
‘We will give you land for land,’ he finally said.
‘Where is that land?’ Asked one villager loudly, ‘Show us the land.’
‘It’s there. Don’t worry.’
The meeting only lasted some two minutes after that. One man screams ‘nahi denge zameen’ (we won’t give our land) and the villagers got up raising their fists, screaming at the Collector, the Superintendent of Police and every other official. An old lady with a baby tied to her chest, stood before all the officials, screamed vociferously, gestured violently and then only walked away.
The police videographed every loud protestor, every violent gesture, and eventually they all drove away.
Meanwhile, the local administration claims that out of the 1707 affected families, 1163 families have already accepted compensation. When asked about alternative land, the Upper-Collector responded, ‘we are ready to give land, but they don’t come to us.’
Many villagers still allege deceit and corruption, and the intimidation and arrests of village leaders who opposed Tata, some of whom were all forced to sign blank sheets of paper.
The most effective tactic employed was however, distrust – turning family members against family members, villagers against villagers.
‘Whoever took Tata’s money should be thrown out of the villages.’ Said an elder from Sirisguda.
Yet many people in Lohandiguda, have refused to withdraw the money that was put into their bank accounts. And no one knows who withdrew their money, and who didn’t. Everyone suspects the other village of accepting compensation, and the other home of taking money.
‘Some people went and took Tata’s money, and spent it, and now they’re back.’ Said the village elder, ‘It’s because of them, things are like this. Some people had to get greedy.’
That's how revolution spreads. It will spread more in near and distant future.

[pranabjyoti]

Maoists outdo govt offer on surrender (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/maoists-outdo-govt-offer-on-surrender/)

[While it is impossible to verify the truth of this news report, if it is true the Maoists are cleverly turning the tables on the government's "reward money" campaign which suggests that revolutionaries are not highly motivated, but are in it for the money-- just like the reactionary harmad brigades of armed raiders.-ed]

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/rupees.jpg?w=275&h=183 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/rupees.jpg)Snigdhendu Bhattacharya, Hindustan Times
Kolkata, August 23, 2010


In a unique show of one-upmanship, the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) has offered to reward all non-Maoist political workers (read CPI-M cadres) for surrendering arms and returning to the mainstream.
On July 28, the West Bengal government made an offer to lure the rebels to the mainstream. Now, the Maoists have made a seven to 10 times bigger counteroffer to disarm the CPI(M) cadres.
The deal was announced by the Maoists’ Bengal-Jharkhand-Orissa ‘Border Regional Committee’ in a leaflet distributed in areas of Purulia and Bankura districts. The leaflet said, “Members of the CPI(M)’s harmad (armed raiders) brigade can surrender and return to the mainstream.” It also warned: “We urge all harmads to surrender. If they do otherwise, the people will show no mercy towards them.”
The Bengal government offered Rs 25,000 for a machinegun and Rs 15,000 for an AK-47 assault rifle, besides a stipend of Rs 2,000 for three months for taking up vocational training. Another Rs 1.5 lakh is offered to be deposited in a bank account in the Maoist or his nominee’s name.
The rebels are offering Rs 1 lakh for every AK-47 and INSAS self-loading rifle, Rs 70,000 for a Sten gun or a pistol or a branded revolver and Rs 50,000 for non-automatic rifles. As for ammunition, the rebels claimed they would offer “market rates”.

// <![CDATA[// http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/590847.aspx (http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/590847.aspx#)

F you and your money. I spit on that.

[pranabjyoti]

Indian government rejection of Vedanta bauxite mine a “landmark victory” for Indigenous rights (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/indian-government-rejection-of-vedanta-bauxite-mine-a-%e2%80%9clandmark-victory%e2%80%9d-for-indigenous-rights/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/vedanta-dongria-kondh.jpg?w=259&h=194 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/vedanta-dongria-kondh.jpg)Dongria Kondh protesting Vedanta's bauxite mine project

Amnesty International :: 24 August 2010
Amnesty International today described the Indian government’s decision to reject the bauxite mine project in Orissa’s Niyamgiri Hills as a landmark victory for the human rights of Indigenous communities.
India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests today rejected the mine project proposed by a subsidiary of UK-based Vedanta Resources and the state-owned Orissa Mining Corporation, after finding that the project already extensively violates forest and environmental laws and would perpetrate abuses against the Dongria Kondh adivasi and other communities on the Hills.
“The Dongria Kondh and other local communities have been struggling for years for this decision, which is a very welcome one,” said Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Deputy Director, Madhu Malhotra.
“The companies and the Orissa government should now guarantee that they will not attempt to simply move the project to another site without ensuring adequate safeguards – they must ensure they will respect the human rights of Indigenous and local communities wherever the companies operate.”
Amnesty International also welcomed the government’s decision to suspend the clearance process for the six-fold expansion of the Lanjigarh refinery at the foothills of Niyamgiri, operated by Vedanta subsidiary Vedanta Aluminium, after a government’s expert committee found it to be illegal.
“The authorities should order a clean-up of the Lanjigarh refinery, which has caused air and water pollution, seriously affecting the rights of neighbouring communities who are finding life there unbearable”, said Madhu Malhotra.
Amnesty International called on government authorities to establish a clear and transparent process that seeks the free, prior and informed consent of any Indigenous communities who may be affected by such projects, and respect their decision, in accordance with national and international law.
The Ministry-commissioned expert report that underpinned today’s decisions, documented the companies’ legal violations and human rights abuses. Its findings and the rejection of the project are consistent with Amnesty International’s extensive report published in February 2010, Don’t Mine us out of Existence: Bauxite Mine and Refinery Devastate Lives in India.
For eight years, the Dongria Kondh and other communities in Niyamgiri have been protesting against bauxite mining plans by Vedanta Resources subsidiary, Sterlite Industries India, and the Orissa Mining Corporation.
The communities were concerned that the project, which would have been situated on their traditional sacred lands and habitats, would result in violations of their rights as Indigenous peoples to water, food, health, work and other rights to protection of their culture and identity.
“After years of struggle and visits by committees our voice has finally reached Delhi,” a Dongria Kondh leader today told Amnesty International.
From http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/indian-government-rejection-vedanta-bauxite-mine-%E2%80%9Clandmark-victory%E2%80%9D-indigen
Without the Maoists, do you think this kind of "victory of democracy" is possible? Kindly note that the bureaucrats, the District Magistrates and other Govt. officials, who are involved in this illegal activity, is still untouched and have very little chance of any action against them.

[t.shonku]

The shameless capitalist government of India thinks that it can put a price tag on everybody,well it's a BIG MISTAKE.
I have one word for the Capitalist government,well it's not my word it's that of Gorky

"Если враг не сдается, его уничтожают" (If the enemy doesn't surrender, he shall be exterminated!)

[pranabjyoti]

“I told them I was not a Maoist’ (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/i-told-them-i-was-not-a-maoist/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/lodu-lado-sikaka.jpg?w=252&h=224 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/lodu-lado-sikaka.jpg)Anti-Vedanta leader Lada Sikaka Majhi

Bhubaneswar, August 22, 2010 Both the SPs of Rayagada and Kalahandi deny that anti-Vedanta activist Lada Sikaka Majhi (35) was tortured in custody. But the deep injury marks on Majhi’s body have something else to say. Majhi is associated with the Niyamgiri Surakshya Parishad, which is opposing the Vedanta Group’s proposed mining lease in Niyamgiri hills, spread over Kalahandi and Rayagada districts, both about 550 km south-west of Bhubaneswar.
It is meant to be a captive unit of the group’s R8,400-crore, 500,000-tonne aluminium plant in Orissa.
On August 9, Majhi was on his way to Raipur in Chhattisgarh in a vehicle, along with two other anti-mining activists, to board a train to New Delhi. They were to attend a meeting on the Forest Rights Act.
As their vehicle was passing through the Niyamgiri forest, more than 12 armed men with AK-47 rifles stopped their car, snatched the car key and a mobile phone, and dragged out Majhi, his companion Sana Majhi and a woman activist. The men packed them into another vehicle and drove towards Rayagada. They threw Sana Majhi and the woman out of the vehicle on the way.
“I could not see where they were taking me because I was blind-folded. After about four hours, my blind-fold was removed and I found myself in a police station,” Majhi said.
“There they started beating me with bamboo sticks. They accused me of being a Maoist, organising Naxal meetings on the Niyamgiri hills and uniting the Dangria Kandhs (tribe) to protest against Vedanta.
“I told them that I was not a Maoist and organising meetings of the Niyamgiri Surakshya Parishad, fighting for the protection of the hills. But they did not listen to me and beat me.”
This continued for the next three days, he said. The police then coerced out of Majhi a statement saying that he had sheltered Maoists. On the fourth day, they took his left thumb impression on a blank piece of paper and let him off with a warning: “No further meetings.”
When asked why Majhi was taken into custody, Rayagada SP Anup Krishna said: “We had information that he had Naxal links. We let him go the day after we found that he was just organising meetings for the Niyamgiri Surakshya Parishad.”Kalahandi SP Sudha Singh and Krishna denied that Majhi was beaten up. “He is lying,” Singh said.
If you are a commoner, then this is a general rule of behavior from administration in India. That's not a exception, but rather a rule.

[pranabjyoti]

7 Questions on the Revolution in India (http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/7-questions-on-the-revolution-in-india/)

Posted by Mike E (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/) on August 24, 2010
http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/women-guerrillas-maoist-india.jpg?w=350 (http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/women-guerrillas-maoist-india.jpg)This is an interview with the group “To the Struggle” (based in Norway) conducted by Nickglais, editor of Democracy and Class struggle. (http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.com/2010/08/seven-questions-on-struggle-in-india.html)
1. Can you tell us briefly about Communism in India?
The Communist Party of India was founded originally in 1919 in Kolkata then re-founded in Soviet Tashkent in 1925 under the impact of the Russian Revolution.
The Communist Party of Great Britain was closely involved in the formation and British Indian comrades like Saklatvala and Rajani Palme Dutt were early influences on the Communist Party of India. N M Roy an Indian Communist also distinguished himself with contributions to the Comintern.
The Communist Party of India concentrated on the urban areas in the 1920’s and 1930’s and faced repression by the British authorities who banned the party. Of the repression the most famous case in the 1930’s was the Meerut trial.
The Second World War brought out some contradictions within the Communist Party of India especially when the party refused to support the quit India Movement.
However some of the finest years of the Communist Party of India manifested themselves in the 1940’s with the famous Telengana struggle from 1946 -1951 when the Communist Party of India supported the struggle of the rural poor in Hyderbad.
With the defeat of the Telengana struggle the Communist party of India embraced Krhuschevite revisionism under the leadership of Dange.However revisionism pre dates Dange in the Indian Communist movement with the rejection of the Maoist model by Indian Communists in the 1930′s. However in the great debate the Namboodiripad faction in the Communist Party of India sided with China and broke away to form the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in 1963.
However the anti revisionist promise of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was soon exposed by the Spring Thunder of 1967 which saw the Naxalbari uprising. When the tribal poor rose against the West Bengal State they were met with serious repression including from the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
It was the Darjeeling District Secretary of The Communist Party of India (Marxist) Charu Muzumbar who created the revolutionary third trend in Indian Communism which led to the creation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) by the 1970’s.
However severe repression of the third trend within Indian Communism which championed India’s rural poor led to a splintering of the movement
By the late 1970’s and early 1980’s new groups of the third trend emerged in different parts of India in Andhra Pradesh we saw the rise of the Communist Party of India Marxist Leninist Peoples War) and in Bihar and West Bengal the of the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) which has a long history back to the 1960′s. Other groups like Communist Party of India Marxist Leninist (Party Unity) also emerged.
http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/maoist-militia-training-in-india.jpg?w=350 (http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/maoist-militia-training-in-india.jpg)By the 1990’s these forces met up geographically in central India with violent clashes unable to resolve contradictions in a comradely way.
This low in the Indian Maoist movement then gave way to a drive for unity first with the Peoples War Group with Party Unity and then with the Maoist Communist Centre to create an all India Communist Party – The Communist Party of India ( Maoist) in 2004. For the first time Maoists in India could work on an all India revolutionary strategy
2. The Indian Maoists have criticised the line of the Nepalese Maoists – what is their critique all about?
Comrade Azad of the Communist Party of India Maoist who was recently murdered by the Indian authorities wrote a polemic attacking the Nepalese Maoists after 2006 for participating in bourgeois elections and agreeing to the cantonment of the Peoples Liberation Army.
The Indian comrades believed that the People’s War in Nepal should have been continued. Of course the Nepalese comrades think that they are continuing Peoples War in another way by developing a strategy to take control of the urban centre’s like Kathmandu. The Nepalese Maoists are utilising elections to win mass urban as well as rural support.
The exchanges between the Nepalese Maoists and the Indian Maoists reflect the different level of struggle in the two countries. Comrade Ganapathy of the Communist Party of India Maoist in his interview with Jan Myrdal approvingly notes that the Nepalese Party is involved in a two line struggle of the issues raised by Indian comrades.
However I would like to add that we should not seek to exacerbate the real differences that exist between the Indian and Nepalese comrades has some so called revolutionary groups do in the West.
It is our duty to help Indian and Nepalese comrades resolve differences to advance the cause of revolution in South Asia
3. How do Communists unite the mass movement with the Communist movement in India?
This is a difficult question but we know the outlines of the problem. Has Bernard D’ Mello of the Economic and Political weekly has said the Communist Party of India Maoist has raised the struggle of the rural poor to new heights in India with the Adivasi struggle.
However on its own the rural struggle cannot produce the Indian revolution – it can provide the spark – the urban areas need to be won over to the cause and the Communist Party of India Maoists recognises the problem and welcomes criticisms by urban groups involved in the struggle to build unity with the rising communist movement. See Ganapathy interview with Jan Myrdal.
Has the urban struggle unfolds and unites with the struggle of the rural poor practice will provide an answer to the question of uniting communists with the mass movement.
4. What kind of contradictions exists between the communist movement and the mass movement?
The Maoist movement is primarily a rural movement and need to develop its slogans and policies for the urban areas. Has Harsh Thakhor has written
http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/india_red_corridor_800-11.jpg?w=350 (http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/india_red_corridor_800-11.jpg)“On the trade union front the CPI Maoist has not been able to form democratically functioning trade unions and has often ended up giving political slogans of revolutionary armed struggle not compatible with the political capacity of broad sections of the working class
The working class was not fully explained the link between their interests and the agrarian revolutionary movement but slogans glorifying heroes of armed squads.”
Harsh Thakor’s position could be criticised because it does not take account of the slowness of the development of urban infrastructure in India
Overcoming the contradiction between the rural and urban struggles is one of the primary questions addressed by the CPI Maoist today.
5. What is the Red Corridor and why do Communists have many sympathisers in that region or area?
The area of central and northeast India from Bihar which borders Nepal to Andhra Pradesh constitutes the Red Corridor of India some forty percent of rural India.
This area is also the forested and jungle area of India and it also happens to be the area where the poorest and most hunger stricken area of India which according to Binyak Sen and Arundhati Roy should be declared famine zones by the Indian Government.
However the Indian Government has chosen food has a weapon of war to fight the Maoist and Adivasi rebellion.
This area of the Red Corridor also happens to have rich mineral resources like coal and iron ore, bauxite, gold and diamonds. The Indian Government and State Governments has signed hundreds of Memorandums of Understanding ( MOU’S) with Multi National Corporations and Indian compradors selling both land and resources under the feet of the people who live there.
The Maoists have also operated in this area for 30 years originally as separate groups like Peoples War and Party Unity and Maoist Communist Centre. They have long campaigned for the defence of the Adivasis and the unified party in 2004 launched a campaign against the Multi National Companies and the Indian Compradors.
Hence this is the area of the greatest sympathy for the Maoists who are defending the Adivasis people against the Genocidal onslaught of the Indian Government with Operation Green Hunt. This is an Indian Government that would happily starve its Adivasis population to death so it can steal the minerals and resources for the MNC’s and the compradors.
6. What are the biggest challenges that the Indian Communist movement is facing today?
The first challenge is the enormous military offence launched against the Maoists and Adivasis people. A bigger military deployment than western forces in Afghanistan.
However the long term strategic challenge is developing a mass movement in the urban areas to create a coalition of forces to bring about the Indian revolution
The question of the nationality movements and the Dalit (untouchables) and the gender struggle require creative development of Marxism Leninism Maoism. Communists have not been very successful in the 20th Century in nationality movements and Indian Maoists need to advance the Dalit Question from caste struggle to class struggle.
Overcoming these challenges will help create the all India coalition for revolution led by the Indian Maoists.
7. What are the lessons can Communists in the West learn from the contradictions that the Indian comrades have faced, solved
Th first lesson that Indian Maoists have advanced is the question of resolving contradictions amongst themselves.
It was only in the 1990’s that rival groups of Maoists were killing one another by the 21st century not only are most Maoists united in one Party the Communist party of India Maoist but they are resolving contradictions in line with struggle transformation unity and not struggle split has in the past and a healthy two line struggle is the new weapon of communist advance in the 21st century.
The second lesson we can learn from Indian Maoists is the successful application of the mass line in the rural areas and particularly the success with the indigenous tribal peoples. The application of a mass line that “listens” to the Adivasis and not just “commands” them is an important development requiring emulation.
There are still many more contradictions the Indian comrades have to face especially in regard the nationality movements the gender question and the Dalit Question – however on past experience we can be confident the Indian comrades will resolve these contradictions and further advance the cause of the Indian and World Revolution.
Thanking for asking me such thoughtful questions please study the book India’s War on the People published by Democracy and Class Struggle and watch my site Democracy and Class Struggle on the Internet for updates on the Indian Struggle – Please build solidarity with our Indian comrades from Norway.
Seven questions and their answers.

[pranabjyoti]

Fact-Finding Report on the Anti-Displacement Movement in India (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/26/fact-finding-report-on-the-anti-displacement-movement-in-india/)


http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/india-posco-picture.jpg?w=300&h=224 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/india-posco-picture.jpg)Villagers man checkpoint to keep out government and company officials at site of planned POSCO plant in Jagatsinghpur, Orissa.

Over the past three years, there have been a number of particularly significant victories by the anti-displacement movement in India: In West Bengal at Nandigram (Dow Chemical), Singur (Tata Motors), Salboni (Jindal Steel); in a number of places in Jharkhand; and now the historic victory at Vedanta’s proposed bauxite mine at Niyamgiri, Orissa.
In the summer of 2008, US activist David Pugh travelled to five states in India to report on the anti-displacement movement, including the intense ongoing battles against US and South Korean owned POSCO, and against Tata Steel in Kalinga Nagar, both in Orissa. Below is the complete report on his fact finding trip.
Fact Finding Report on Forced Displacement in India
by David Pugh
I recently spent three weeks gathering information about the anti-displacement movement in India. I traveled to India on this fact finding mission in my capacity as a member of the Initiative Committee of the International Campaign Against Forced Displacement that was launched in June 2008 by the International League of Peoples’ Struggle.
As a guest of Visthapan Virodhi Jan Vikas Andolan, I traveled across five states in central and eastern India visiting the sites of proposed industrial and mining projects, Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and real estate developments. I spoke with hundreds of villagers who are threatened with displacement and with many dedicated activists who are helping to organize the people’s resistance.
The villagers I spoke to, tribals, dalits and members of “other backward castes,” told me that the lives of their families are at stake. Rapacious industrial and mining enterprises, supported by the state and central governments, are trying to grab fertile agricultural land. When bribery doesn’t work, the industrialists and government officials have sent in the police and hired outside goons to terrorize the villagers into submission.
In return for their land, farmers are being offered paltry monetary compensation that will be gone in a year or two (villagers without land will get nothing); illusory promises of jobs in the new industries; and for a few, “relocation colonies” where they do not have enough land to farm to support their families. The result of these threatened displacements, like the displacements of the past 50 years, is the creation of millions of new landless farmers who will end up swelling the ranks of the urban slum dwellers.
The overwhelming response of the villagers I spoke to is that they would not give up their ancestral lands under any conditions. As many put it, “We will sacrifice our lives, but we will not give up our land.”
My trip took me through the states of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa. I will share with you what I learned in chronological order.
I. Maharastra
My first stop was Mumbai (Bombay). My guide and translator was a member of the VVJVA, or the People’s Movement against Displacement and for Development, a nationwide organization of anti-displacement activists. He put me up for three days and guided me expertly through the monsoon-soaked streets of Mumbai and surrounding areas. His presence reassured me that the seeming free-for-all on the streets and roads between trucks and buses, auto and pedal-rickshaws, and small cars and motorcycles has its own rules and logic.
He also made sure that I got a close-up view of the slums where over 60% of the people in Mumbai live in tin and asbestos shacks or small rooms with exposed brick. According to some estimates, only a quarter of the 40 million displaced people since independence in 1947 have been “rehabilitated,” or resettled. Even then, the quality of the resettlement is often poor, with small parcels of land or land of low fertility.
A. Reliance SEZ
Our first destination was a hunger strike at the Azad Ground in downtown Mumbai, which was aimed at the Reliance Company and the Maharashtra state government. Reliance had set up a large Special Economic Zone (SEZ) composed of 35,000 acres, or 15,000 hectares, centered at the village of Pen. Reliance, the corporate creation of the billionaire Ambani family, has plans to build an upper and middle class “New Mumbai” south of the city on top of the rice fields of Pen. This SEZ will displace 45 villages and 250,000 people.

Based on a law passed by the central government in 2005, SEZs are usually large industrial projects, often involving foreign investment. However, Reliance hasn’t given any indication that it is interested in industrial development. Reliance is instead trying to take advantage of the many profit-making opportunities of SEZs. They offer hefty exemptions from taxes for 10 years, no tariffs or duties, and exemptions from most labor legislation. Since SEZs are treated as “public service utilities,” strikes are illegal. SEZs are essentially foreign enclaves on Indian soil. Over 500 SEZs have been approved by the Central and State authorities. Most of them are under construction or in the process of land acquisition.
My guide provided some background to the struggle against the Reliance SEZ. 87% of the farmers in the area have refused to sell their land to Reliance, and some of the 13% who have sold their land are having second thoughts. A number of years earlier, the government had built a dam that was supposed to irrigate 18,000 acres, or about half, of the land in the SEZ. However, the water from the dam was diverted to nearby factories, depriving the farmers of Pen and surrounding villages the opportunity to grow second and third crops every year. According to government itself, SEZs are not supposed to be built on irrigated land. The Pen activists have seized on the promise of the government to irrigate this land to demand that these 18,000 acres be excluded from the SEZ.
As we walked to the site of the hunger strike, a group of young women were singing from the stage, “The land belongs to us, break away from the old thinking, farmers be united and win the struggle.” One of the hunger strikers, 74 year old Janardhan Mhatre, was sitting on the stage. He told me, “We have been cultivating our farms for generations. What will happen to the next generation if we sell our land? If Reliance builds big buildings on our land, this development won’t benefit us. Where can we go?” A 65 year woman from a village adjoining Pen described Reliance’s attitude towards the people, “You tax the people, take away our land and provide sweets to rich people.”
One of the organizers on the stage told me that the “agri-community” (the agricultural castes) around Pen are very militant. “So far the movement is peaceful, but if the government tries to take the land by force, it will be the next Nandigram.” (This refers to an uprising of thousands of farmers and villagers in West Bengal in 2007 that defeated a proposed SEZ.)
The MC for the event was social activist Vaishali Patel. She took a minute to speak with me and explain the strategy of focusing on excluding the 18,000 acres of land (or 22 of 45 villages) to be irrigated from the SEZ, while opposing any further land acquisitions. “If you want to uproot a tree, first you take down the branches, then take up the root.”
The following day, my guide and I took a two-hour bus ride in steady rain to Pen. Our first stop was Vaishali’s apartment, where she lives with her husband and two daughters, 14 and 8. Vaishali has been working with tribals, small farmers and agricultural laborers in the area for 15 years. She described the interdependence between the tribals and small farmers of the district, of which 13% are tribals who mainly live in hilly areas. In addition to producing food from the forest, the tribals work as seasonal agricultural laborers. In exchange, the tribals look after the farmers’ cattle during the rice growing season so they won’t trample the paddies. Already malnourished and poor, tribals will get no compensation for their land, and will be even more deprived with the loss of work and wages on the farms. Vaishali explained that in addition to the tribals, the small artisans and shopkeepers who live in the villages will receive no compensation for land and will become destitute.
Our next stop was a meeting with a group of farmers at a house set in the middle of green rice fields, where the rice plants were already about a foot tall. This year the first seedlings died due to lack of rain, so farmers in the area had to replant their entire rice crop. The head of the household was Ganesh who has 7 acres of rice paddy, as well as some coconut and mango trees. Some farmers sell chickens and have small-scale dairy operations. On the off-season, farmers drive rickshaws, and do construction and other manual work in the area.
When I asked Ganesh why he was not selling his land to Reliance, he replied: “If a thousand of us farmers went to Ambani to buy their land, would they sell to us?” Speaking with confidence, Ganesh said, “Many generations have lived on this land, and many generations in the future will live on this land.”
Several other rice farmers had gathered at Ganesh’s house to meet me and talk about their struggle against Reliance. During the 2007 rainy season, they described how 50,000 people demonstrated at a government office to oppose a number of SEZs in Maharashtra. Locally, they had mounted four road blockades, one involving 4,000 people, to protest the SEZ and Reliance’s attempts to acquire land around Pen. Their last road blockade in June had given the government 30 days to meet their demand to remove the 18,000 acres from the SEZ. At this blockade, several protestors had been arrested, prompting a march of 400 people to the police station to demand the release of those arrested.
When we returned to Mumbai, we received the news that the Chief Minister of Maharashtra had agreed to remove the 22 villages from the SEZ. Though there was a short appeal period in which Reliance was sure to raise objections, organizers were already planning for a victory celebration on August 10.
The following day we visited the second hunger striker, whose action had played a big part in the partial victory against the Reliance SEZ. N.D. Patil is the vigorous 80 year old leader of the Peasants and Workers Party, and a representative in the Maharashtra legislative assembly. He is also a leading figure in Maharashtra’s Anti-Globalization Front. We caught up with him in a government hospital, where he had checked in due to a rise in his blood pressure.
Patil explained that he had started his fast on July 24 out of strong sense of personal responsibility. Exactly one year earlier, he had persuaded a group of hunger strikers to end their action when ranking government personnel had promised to remove the 22 villages from the Reliance SEZ. However, the government stalled, prompting Patil to resume the hunger strike on the one year anniversary of the government’s original promise.
According to Patil, the 2005 law establishing the legal framework for SEZs stated that at least 35% of the land must be used for industry. However, the definition of industry is “beautifully vague”—the law defines it as “any economic activity’—which has permitted Reliance to go ahead with an SEZ devoted primarily to real estate development.
Patil described SEZs as “foreign entities” within India. They have their own administration and development commissions taking the place of village and district governmental bodies. All residents will have identity cards issued by the commissioner. Patil read from a government handout: “The SEZ is a specifically delineated duty-free enclave and shall be deemed to be foreign territory for the purposes of trade operations.” Section 51 of the law adds that if any other law is inconsistent with the SEZ law, the law of SEZ will prevail.
Patil exclaimed: “We tasted this poison 400 years ago!” He proceeded to explain how the British East India Company arrived in 1603 and obtained concessions to export commodities without duties. Slowly it extended its area of control from Calcutta, forming its own security forces and then its own private army. “This is no less dangerous than a tsunami. Here you are wishfully bringing the enemy into our own house.” After abolishing 600 “independent” states in 1947 (all of which were under British control), “this government is creating new rajahs and maharajahs.”
For Patil, national sovereignty and self-sufficiency in food production are closely related. He noted that according to current projections, India will be a net importer of food grains by 2020. In this situation, “India must think 10 times, 100 times before letting one inch of agricultural land be used for non-agricultural purposes,” and this land must be used “intensively and collectively.”
Patil answered the stock argument that critics of SEZs are “opposed to development.” He made it clear that he is not opposed to industrial development, but that new industries should be located on uncultivable land. He disputed claims that SEZs will create large numbers of new jobs, pointing out that most of the new industries will be highly automated, and that none of the new employees will be displaced “sons of the soil.” Patil also described the India Finance Minister’s recent trip to Shenzen, China, the heart of the six sprawling economic zones where foreign investment in China in concentrated. He asked, “Why should we copy China’s labor policies and land policies? Why should we want China’s pollution problems?”
Finally Patil underlined a serious problem that has repeatedly reared its head in struggles against the SEZs. “The highest government officials are in the employ of the big industrial houses, they take bribes, they take one or two year leave of absence to work for the Ambanis or Tatas, or they retire and go to work for these industries.”
B. Essel World SEZ
Essel World has an amusement park in Gorai, a coastal village outside Mumbai. It has formed an SEZ that will take over 5,000 acres in order to build another amusement park, including water sports, casinos and 5 star hotels for foreign tourists and rich Indians. Ten villages and 125,000 people will be displaced, including large number of Catholic fishermen.

Because of flooding due to heavy monsoon rains, we were not able to travel to Gorai and meet with villagers and anti-displacement activists. So my guide explained that the fishermen and villagers around Gorai have been agitating for the past three years against this development. When Essel World encountered difficulty in buying the land, it handed off this task to the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation, which will in turn sell the land to Essel World in the future. So far almost no farmers have sold their land.
The local Catholic Church has supported the struggle against Essel World. It has offered its grounds for meetings and has provided other logistical support for road blockades and other resistance to the SEZ.
After three days in Mumbai, I boarded a train to Raipur, the capital of the state of Chhattisgarh in central India. This 23 hour train ride took me past two areas of interest.
First, we made a brief stop in Nagpur, a major city and industrial area where Boeing and Airbus are planning to set up maintenance shops. A small village called Khairlanji, 150 kilometers from Nagpur, is the site of an infamous caste atrocity. Four members of a dalit (untouchable) family were murdered by upper caste farmers; the women were first gang raped and then killed. This family had refused to give up land to the upper caste farmers that would have cut the farmers’ travel time to their fields.
According to Sudeep Chakravarti in Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country, there are over 200,000 pending cases of violence against dalits and lower castes, with a rate of conviction of just 2% in these cases. Of the 162 million dalits in rural India, more than 70% do not own their own land and are particularly vulnerable to SEZs and other forms of displacement.
My train also passed through the Vidarbha region, for which Nagpur is the main urban centre. This is India’s best known agricultural death row. According to Chakravarti, between June 2005 and May 2006, 520 cotton farmers in the region committed suicide, usually by drinking pesticides. By the end of 2006, the number of farmer suicides passed 1000. (Keep in mind that Maharashtra is responsible for only 15% of India’s farmer suicides in recent years.) About 150,000 farmers committed suicide in the past decade in India according to official records.
The most common cause of this epidemic is deep indebtedness to private money lenders charging interest rates of 100% or more per year. The combination of drought and lack of irrigation, higher input prices, and falling prices for cotton due to the lowering of duties on cotton goods starting in the 1990s have placed cotton farmers at the mercy of the money lenders. The plight of Maharashtra’s cotton farmers concentrates the Indian government’s priority on industrial development and its willingness to displace millions of farmers and villagers in the name of “development.”
II. Chhattisgarh
My new guide, who speaks fluent Chhattisgarhi, meets me at the Raipur train station. She is an anti-displacement activist and member of the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha (Chhattisgarh Liberation Front), an alliance of workers and peasants. She gives me an overview of industrial and mining projects and anti-displacement struggles in the state.

She explains that multinational companies have been making a beeline to Chhattisgarh, attracted by rich natural resources and labor paid less than $2 per day. The two largest cement companies in India, Holcim and LaFarge, are owned by Swiss and French companies, which have established the cheapest cement producing plants in the world. This has put these MNCs on a collision course with the tribal people of Chhattisgarh, who make up 28% of the 21 million people living in the state. These tribal peoples, or adivasis, are concentrated on the forested lands (42% of the state’s land) coveted by big industries and mining companies.
My guide has invited a dozen villagers from central Chhattisgarh to travel to the state capital, Raipur, to share their stories with me.
A. “We are not flowers, we are the sparks”

I met with three leaders of a struggle against a Special Industrial Zone that would empty seven villages in order to make way for a food processing plant. Their village is composed of 40 households farming 180 acres of rice, wheat and dal (lentils). Even though their land is not irrigated, they are able to bring in two crops every year. They live in the best organized village which has played the lead role in activating people in the other villages.
Here the government has invoked the British colonial-era Land Acquisition Act of 1894 in order to force the villagers to sell their land at a price fixed by the government. The villagers are taking advantage of the fact that the government did not give notice of its intention to acquire the land under Section 4 of the Act to slow down the process and unite the people from all of the villages to refuse to give up their land.
In December 2007, while there was a stay order in the courts, government officials with police escorts appeared in one of the villages. A woman with a sickle stopped them and then 150 women and men surrounded the officials and told them they wouldn’t give up their land. One of the women told a revenue official, “Give up your post, I’ll be the collector.” On another occasion, one of these village activists was approached by an “industry fellow,” who wanted her to show him her fields. She said, to laughter by all present, “He wanted tea, but I didn’t even give him a cup of water. Once he tasted the water, he would say it’s not very tasty.”
They told me that in this struggle they have two strengths. “We have women in the forefront, who are very uncompromising. They understand more clearly than the men that they cannot give up the land.” Second, “we have a clear understanding that money will not help us. What about our children? What about the generations to come? We are the masters when we are doing our own agriculture.” Like many other villagers I spoke with, the three told me, “We’ll give our lives, but we won’t give up our land.”
I asked them how they respond to the charge that they are “against development.” They said that “this is not development for the poor, for farmers. Any money we get will run out and we will have nothing, no future. Those without land–the agricultural laborers, the cattle grazers–they will not even get any money from this development. New factories should be built on barren land or where industries have closed down.”
When I asked these three village activists if they wanted to know anything about the U.S., they peppered me with questions. “Are there any exploited people in the U.S.?” “Does the U.S. have a caste system?” “What do you think of Obama and his party?” “What is the source of U.S. power in the world today?” And “Will the U.S. occupy India like it is occupying Iraq?” When I asked if they had a message for the American people, the three conferred and agreed, “Support us in our struggle. Workers of the world unite.”
Next I met with six women who live in a slum of 3,000 people located in the middle of one of Raipur’s industrial areas. The slum dwellers are villagers displaced by the surrounding factories. Some of them had been contract workers for the Universe Group, a multinational company that produces woolen clothes for export. They had been making less than the minimum wage of 80 rupees per day (about $2), and had worked 15 day shifts and then 15 nights, with no days off. After the contract workers walked out on strike and 150 were fired, they received assistance from the CMM (Chhattisgarh Liberation Front). These women were not only active in the CMM, but in the Women’s Liberation Front, whose slogan is, “We are not flowers. We are the sparks.”
Their area, called Mazdoornagar (Workers’ Town), is located near the Woodsworth wood products factory, which wants to take over their land. The residents have responded by demanding official recognition of Mazdoornagar with the right to have municipal services such as schools, water and food ration shops. In the meantime, they have tapped into Woodsworth’s water pipes for drinking water, and into its transformers for electricity. In addition to demanding land for decent housing, the residents are fighting for the implementation of labor laws, and the right to be considered part of a trade union.
I also met with a group of three women who live 15 kilometers from Raipur in the middle of a complex of sponge steel factories—which are an intermediate stage in steel production. These factories are notoriously unsafe and pollute the entire area, making it impossible to grow crops. They employ contract labor with no medical benefits and no wage slips that the workers can use to assert their legal rights. While men work in the more skilled jobs, women get paid less for heavier work carrying industrial materials. Women sift iron from scrap metal, for which they are paid Rs.1 per kilo.
The area’s Industrial Development Authority has steadily been encroaching on their village. After bulldozers broke down five houses recently, the women had a gherao (a sit down) surrounding the authority’s office for a day. The residents have also been attacked by company goondas, killing one boy.
Like the other group of women I interviewed, these women were taking matters into their own hands. They “borrow” electricity from local companies. They have built their own school. And they have fought off a local sponge steel company’s plans to dump steel dust on village land.
They have built a separate women’s organization that has a committee that runs the school, a committee for demonstrations, a committee to collect funds for village needs such as digging wells, and a campaign against liquor shops and their husbands’ habit of wasting scarce funds on alcohol. When I asked them what they wanted for the future, one of the women told me, “We want a good world for our children. We will forge a new identity. The workers and peasants will rule.”
B. Anti-Displacement Struggles in southern Chhattisgarh
The southern part of Chhattisgarh is extremely rich in iron ore, bauxite and other minerals, and is the site of a number of important anti-displacement struggles. One of these is taking place near Jagdalpur, in Lohandiguda, where the Tata industrial group is trying to grab land to build a steel plant. Twelve villages are threatened with displacement. Village assembly leaders have been arrested by police and paramilitary forces. The resistance to the steel plant is being led by the Adivasi Mahasabha, which is affiliated with the Communist Party of India. The National Security Act has been employed to arrest and restrict the activities of the leaders of the struggle. Due to the lack of an English interpreter, I was not able to visit the villages involved in this struggle.
In Dhurali, Dantewada district, there is an active struggle against the efforts of Essar Steel to acquire 1500 acres in order to set up a plant that will send a mixture of iron ore and water by a pipeline to the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh. In Kanker district, a NECO mining project was started and then stopped due to villagers’ resistance. Chhattisgarh Mineral Metal has received a lease for a 300 square kilometer tract for bauxite mining that will displace 70 villages. The mines and the processing unit that is planned are shaping up as an important battleground.
After a long bus ride from Raipur, I arrived in Kanker, one of the districts making up the Bastar region. My host is Ratneshwar Nath, the head of the Ektaparishad, or Unity Forum, and a social activist. Founded by Nath in 1980, Ektaparishad has provided leadership training for tribal youth, set up units to resolve disputes in more than 200 villages, and has waged campaigns against bauxite mining and mass deforestation.
Nath tells me that 64% of the 2.7 million people in the Bastar region of southern Chhattisgarh are tribal’s (adivasis), and the government has long ago made a political decision to offer Bastar’s minerals for exploitation to large industries at the expense of the tribals. In most of the villages where the tribal people live, there are no health facilities and if there are schools, they have no teachers.
Nath describes the bitter experience Bastar’s tribals have had with large-scale mining. In 1966, the National Mining Development Corporation (NMDC) displaced 22 adivasi villages for an iron mining project, promising better housing and jobs for the local people. Over 40 years later, the 22,000 villagers living on the land have been scattered into the forests. Out of 9,000 NMDC employees, only 127 are from the Bastar region.
In 2000, after NMDC tried to grab another 4,450 hectares of tribal land, a strong andolan (movement) was launched to block the iron ore mine, which was supposed to use advanced Russian technology. As a result of a series of demonstrations, the Russian government decided not to hand over the technology and the project was put on hold. 103 adivasi families are still living on the land, and the struggle to protect their land is continuing.
In 2006 alone, 35 Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) were signed between the state and mining and industrial companies, including Jindal, Tata, SR, NECO and Bhilai Steel Company. The size of some of these projects is indicated by NECO’s Chargaon Project, where 19,300 hectares of forest and 450 hectares of farmland have displaced 60 villages in order to make way for a huge iron mine.
Nath explains that there are two kinds of organizations in Chhattisgarh working around displacement issues. “The pro-people organizations are struggling along with the people, but others are taking grants and supporting anti-people programs and diverting people’s attention from their real problems.” He gives as an example several non-governmental organizations that are supporting a highway that will displace more than 300 villages. While Ektaparishad is itself a small NGO, Nath says that “In India, NGO has a bad name. It means foreign funding with lots of paperwork and little results. What we need are mass people’s movements.”
C. Northern Chhattisgarh
After our interview, Nath introduces me to his wife, Rashmi Didi (elder sister Rashmi). She has been working for years with the Baida people, a “primitive tribe” in northwestern Chhattisgarh that grow crops and herbs in the forests. The Baiga have a long and proud history of repelling the British and resisting attempts by the post-1947 Indian government to “resettle” them. Most recently they have organized a mass people’s organization called Maha Panchayat among 17,000 families whose slogan is “Our strength is in our own hands.”

Since 1991, the Baiga have been organizing against bauxite mining. In early 2005, the government conducted a survey and suddenly started bauxite mining in their area, displacing five villages. In response, 2,000 Baigas marched 220 kilometers on foot to Raipur and gheraoed the Chief Minister’s house. As a result, the displaced Baiga received enough compensation to allow them to establish new villages. Their agitation also forced the government to provide land rights to 44,000 Baigas in three districts.
At present, the government is trying to move out tens of thousands of Baigas as part of a plan to set up two wildlife sanctuaries. The response of the Baiga is that these sanctuaries aren’t needed and “the tigers, lions, forest and hills should stay with us.”
My guide and I took a long bus ride to Raigarh, the largest city in the northern part of the state. Here I met with seven social activists at a space rented by the Tribal Welfare Society (TWS). Pravin Patel, director of TWS for Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa, introduced me to Bulu Behan (Sister Bulu), who traveled eight hours for our meeting. For four years, with the support of the Order of Notre Dame, Bulu has been working with 2,000 women in Jashpur district which is 95% tribal. Her 14 staff members are all local women working on issues that empower women economically, politically and socially. These include a village savings/investment program, setting up cottage industries and animal husbandry projects, and an educational program to oppose the sexual trafficking of tribal girls to the cities.
The main issue for the women she works with is to protect their land from unrestricted and environmentally harmful mining. Since 1994, 254 contractors have applied for mining licenses in her district, almost none of them tribals. Bulu’s group is making use of the “Samata Judgment” of the Indian Supreme Court, which upheld the right of the tribals to have priority in receiving mining licenses, to promote small-scale, cooperative mining projects that will not displace villagers from their land. She is also mounting a campaign to enforce the PESA Act of 1996, which requires calling Gram Sabha or village council meetings to consider mining proposals by outside interests.
Bulu described how at night she shows videos such as “Development at the Barrel of a Gun” on TV sets powered by kerosene generators about who benefits and loses from industrialization. “This helps the women to analyse all aspects of a problem, and then they decide what to do and how to fight. In this process, new women leaders emerge and challenge the traditional leaders.”
Later that night over dinner, Bulu explained to me that “Social activists are trying to organize the people under the repressive watch of the government. They have many Acts they can use to arrest everyone in this room.” One prominent victim of state repression is Dr. Binayak Sen, a civil libertarian and doctor who has actively opposed the forced displacement of 300,000 tribal villagers in southern Chhattisgarh (by the Salwa Judum, see Section D below), and has been imprisoned for more than a year. She also mentioned Dula Mandal from Orissa, a social activist who was shot and killed in the course of an anti-displacement struggle. Nearly every social activist has been accused at some point of being a Naxalite or a Maoist.
Sister Bulu described her belief in liberation theology, how “the teachings of Jesus to break the chains of bondage drives me to do this work. There will be change only through the people’s struggles. I believe in it. I am optimistic about the future.” When I asked her what message she wanted me to carry to concerned people in the U.S., Bulu said, “People everywhere in the world should get united. All the intellectuals and thinkers and those who are concerned about the people should join hands with the oppressed, marginalized people to save humanity.”
During the day’s meeting, Pravin Patel from the Tribal Welfare Society described the extent of mining, especially coal for power plants, in northern Chhattisgarh. He said that in one district, more than 55,000 hectares of land are full of minerals. While farmers have been struggling for water to irrigate their crops for the past 60 years, the government has built dams to power plants and mines and to clean minerals. Due to widespread displacement from these dams, “proud landowners have become vulnerable daily wage laborers.” The money received by farmers has not been enough to buy land, and the “land for land” policy exists on paper only. “Not a single displaced person has been given land in the whole state.”
Patel told me that the coal mines, power plants and steel plants sprouting up within 50 kilometers of Raigarh are causing serious air and water pollution problems in the cities and villages alike. The government is deliberately suppressing the environmental data in order to protect the big industries and mining companies.
At the end of our interview, Patel raised a pointed question, “In India, 5% of the people have got more than 80% of the wealth, while 95% of the people have less than 20% of the wealth. How do you bridge this gap?”
At this meeting, I also had a chance to talk with Jayant Bohidar, a leader of the struggle against the Jindal plants in the area. He listed a number of plants that had displaced tens of thousands of farmers and tribal people in the past 20 years: Jindal Steel and Power at Patrapali (4,000 displaced in 1990); Jindal Power at Tamnar (1200 people in 2005); Jindal Coal Mines at Dongamahua (2,000 people in 1998): IndSynergy at Mahapali and Kotmar (500 people in 2005), and Kelo Irrigation Project at Lakha (2,100 people displaced by work underway).
Over the past year, Bohidar described how he has been involved in road blockades, processions and dharnas (sit-ins) against the efforts of 57 plants to gobble up more farmland. From January 5-9, 2008, he led 1,000 tribal people in an economic blockade against Jindal Power’s plan to expand its plant at Tamnar. After a police lathi charge, he was arrested. In 2005, Bohidar was arrested under the National Security Act for conducting agitation against displacement. On August 29, he and the other activists at this meeting were planning for an environmental clearance hearing concerning an expansion of IndSynergy’s steel plant. They expected around 1,000 people from three states to attend this meeting and demonstrate strong opposition.
D. Displacement as Counter-Insurgency in southern Chhattisgarh
Before I left for the Bastar region in southern Chhattisgarh, my guide filled me in on a massive displacement of tribal people that has taken place in two districts. This is an attempt to make way for industry and mining enterprises by means of counter-insurgency operations aimed at the Maoist forces operating in this area, who are defending the adivasis.
She explained that after 1947, the conditions of the tribals in the area had remained unchanged. They faced extreme exploitation at the hands of the forest officials and police. In the early 1980s, Maoist cadre from Andhra Pradesh crossed into the area to live and organize among the Gondi-speaking tribal people. Over 25 years, they developed a following of around 50,000 tribals in their sanghams, the mass organizations of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), which was formed in 2004 by a merger of the two largest Maoist groups in India. The Maoists have set up a parallel government in parts of two districts in southern Chhattisgarh, Dantewada and Bilaspur. They have driven out the forest officials and police, while allowing in teachers, health workers and government food ration shops.
My guide explained that the exact origins of the Salwa Judum, or “Purification Hunt,” are somewhat murky, but that in June 2005, a section of the adivasi elite, led by Congress Party leader Mahendra Karma, started organizing to eliminate Maoist influence from several villages. The state government threw its forces behind this effort to pit tribals against each other, arming tribal youth as Special Police Officers to conduct raids on villages that had been identified as “Maoist-affected.” During these raids, villagers were ordered to leave their homes, which were burned, and to make long trips to 23 “resettlement” camps.
Those who refused to leave were treated harshly. 538 murders and 99 rapes in three districts are cited in a petition concerning Salwa Judum in India’s Supreme Court. This scorched earth campaign eventually extended to 644 “Maoist-affected” villages in the Bastar region, emptying them of around 300,000 tribal people. In the course of the ”Purification Hunt”, Maoist guerrilla squads retaliated, killing Salwa Judum leaders, paramilitary forces, informers and SPOs. The Maoists also attacked an Essar Steel plant in Dantewada district in order to underline their opposition to industrial displacement in the area.
My guide added that the same month that Salwa Judum started, Tata Steel and Essar Steel signed Memoranda of Understanding to start up operations in southern Chhattisgarh. Many suspect that this was not a coincidence, and that one of the objectives of the Salwa Judum is to drive tribals off the land and open up new territory for mining and industry.
Civil libertarians and others who are speaking out are saying that tribal people must be permitted to return to their villages without interference, the camps must be closed down, and the police, paramilitaries and SPOs of the Salwa Judum must be disbanded.
I took a long bus ride to Dantewada district to meet with Himanshu Kumar, a Gandhian activist and leader of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram to learn more about Salwa Judum. He has played a leading role in exposing conditions in the 23 Salwa Judum camps. He took a few minutes to describe jail-like conditions, where nearly 50,000 people are living in crowded quarters with no work, not enough water and rampant medical problems. There is constant violence in the camps; recently, three villagers were shot and killed by paramilitary forces. Many have escaped from these camps and run away.
According to Kumar, since villagers have been returning from the forests to rebuild their homes, the police and SPOs have continued to raid the villages, burning them down two, three and more times. Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) has been denied permission to go into these villages and treat people for malaria and other communicable diseases.
In this situation, Kumar’s group has launched an initiative to publicly resettle the village of Nendra in southern Dantewada district. He described what the villagers at Nendra had endured: “I haven’t faced such brutality, four rapes of daughters, killing nine children in one day by SPOs and police, 16 adults killed, and three girls forcibly kept in the camps even now.”
The day before I spoke with him, staff members from the Ashram had brought back 22 people to Nendra from Andhra Pradesh, where they had fled after having been driven out by the forces of Salwa Judum. For three weeks, 20 volunteers had been living in Nendra, pledging to serve as “human shields” if the police returned to force the villagers to leave once again. Along with villagers who had been living in the nearby forest, the Ashram volunteers had started planting Nendra’s first rice crop in three years. See www.cgnet.in/FT/humanshield (http://www.cgnet.in/FT/humanshield) for updates on the Nendra resettlement initiative.
I had hoped that Kumar would be able to take me to one of the nearby camps, but he advised against it. He said the District Superintendent of Police was not in his office, and Kumar thought it would be necessary to get the District SP’s permission to visit a camp.
When I asked him what he thought was the result of this brutal counter-insurgency campaign, Kumar, who has publicly criticized “Maoist violence,” replied that it has been a victory for the Maoists. He pointed out that out of the 3 lakh (300,000) people forced out of their villages, less than 50,000 remained in the camps, and around 50,000 were living in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. This leaves around 200,000 people who fled into the surrounding forests. He estimated that, due to the reach and the brutality of Salwa Judum, the Maoists’ mass base in the area has grown to over 100,000 people.
III. Jharkhand

One of my hosts for three days in the state of Jharkhand was Father Stan Swamy, a Jesuit priest who heads Bagaicha, a training and study institute for Jharkhandi tribal activists. In its training, Bagaicha uses Marxist tools of analysis with the goal of introducing this form of social analysis into the struggles of the workers and villagers in the area. Activists from more than 30 people’s organizations come to Bagaicha for training that enables them to become more effective leaders. Bagaicha is entirely secular, but Swamy comments that “If religion means anything, it will stand with the oppressed.”
A major focus of the institute is forced displacement. Swamy has drawn up a fact sheet for me detailing the extent of displacement that has already taken place in Jharkhand and its effect on the tribal people. Jharkhand is rich in natural resources; it has 26% of the minerals in India. Out of a population of 27 million in the state, 6.6 million are tribals. In recent years, 1.5 million tribals have been displaced by industrial projects, mines, dams, road and rail lines. When you add the permanent migration of women into towns and cities and seasonal migration during the lean season (January to June) to work in construction, brick factories, rickshaw pulling, etc., nearly 30% of the tribal population in Jharkhand has already been displaced.
One of Bagaicha’s goals is to form “resistance groups” and help them develop strategies to tackle forced displacement of tribal people. I noticed a calendar on a wall in the room we were sitting in from the Jharkhand Organization for Human Rights. It reads, “They grabbed our fields, for mines and greed, in dumps we now breed, development…..indeed.”
Early the next morning, I joined a team of activists and researchers from the People’s Movement against Displacement and for Development to drive to the Karna Pura Valley, 100 kilometers outside the state capital of Ranchi. The National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), a branch of the Ministry of Energy, has set its sights on developing huge open pit coal mines that would eventually displace 186 villages and 250,000 out of the 300,000 people who now live in the valley.
We stopped in the village of Kerigahra, where 100 households grow rice, wheat, vegetables, sugar cane and maize. The land is fertile, supporting up to four crops per year. There is one agricultural caste in the village, the Koiry. Some of the villagers have already been displaced once.
I met with a group of 30 villagers. They have formed a “Save Motherland Committee” which has organized road blockades and people to people, village to village processions in order to bring neighboring villages into the struggle. They organized a rally of over 10,000 in November 2006, drawing on a number of villages in their coal block.
They are particularly proud of a militant action they took in October 2006. After NTPC built an office in their village to start the process of land acquisition, 3,000 villagers gathered and demolished the office, brick by brick, with their hands and feet. After this action, the police filed cases against 550 villagers, and 10 people are out on bail. The villagers said “the police are working as the right hand of NTPC.”
According to the villagers, people aged 10 to 80 are fighting displacement— “there is no retirement age here.” They have plans to organize a foot march to Ranchi to submit their demands to the state governor.
One of the innovative development strategies that the villagers are employing is to engage in small scale mining. They took me to see one of these small mines, which is 200 feet deep. They are using this coal to set up small thermal plants that do not require high technology. In May 2008 they established their first unit, which supplies 50 houses with electricity.
After I asked the villagers about their organizing, they asked me, “Do American companies displace people?”, “What kind of mining do you have?”, “What effect are companies like Wal-Mart having on small shopkeepers?” and “Is there unemployment in the U.S.?”
Our next stop was the village of Pakri Barwadih, where a group of about 50 villagers gathered to meet with us. By the time the meeting was over the group had grown to nearly 200, including many curious children. These villagers have also been struggling against NTPC. One villager explained that the company at first tried to work unilaterally in acquiring land without consulting the village leadership, but that people soon realized what was going on. “We opposed their office opening up in our village. NTPC joined hands with the police and launched cases against the villagers. I was arrested and spent 63 days in prison on charges of stealing materials, kidnapping and obstructing government work.”
At the meeting, two men advocated for NTPC. They had more land and stood to profit the most from selling their land. In response, a villager pointed out that landless laborers and people working in the villages doing odd jobs would get nothing from NTPC. Another villager spoke up, “We have a little amount of land. If NTPC takes our land and gives us some money, then how long can we live with that money? But we can live for a long time on that land with our families. We don’t need money; we want to keep living on our land. We have decided that we won’t give up our land at any cost.” The meeting resolved to continue the struggle with no one giving up their land.
On the second day, we drove through the city of Jamshedpur to Rangamatia village. In this area, Tata Steel’s Greenfield Project is planning to build a 12.5 million ton per year steel mill on 12,000 acres. It will displace 25 villages and 20-25,000 people. The people of this area are semi-tribal Mahato people; they are influenced by Hinduism but do not have a caste system.
They have organized multi-village committees with five representatives from each village. In 1995 they organized the Bhumi Raksha Gramin Ekta Manch (Land Protection Village Unity Forum). At various times, the BJP (the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party) and landlords who do not engage in any farming came to dominate the Forum, forcing the villagers to reorganize in a new committee.
The activists of this village have organized road blockades and demonstrations of more than 10,000 people. They have successfully kept Tata representatives out of their village. Villagers told me that they are aware of other major anti-displacement struggles at Singur and Nandigram in West Bengal, and Kalinganagar and Posco in Orissa, and they will bring these struggles together. “We will jointly fight our enemies and drag them out from our villages.”
When I asked them what they thought is the solution to the ills of the system, a villager spoke up, “The root cause is exploitation by the capitalists. If we want a better life, we have to develop agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries. We need irrigation. We should fight for this development. “Another villager added, “We have decided to resist. We will give our lives, but not our land. We need irrigation, not industry. We need food grain, not iron.”
That night, we visited a “relocation colony” from a 1960s Indian government project built by the Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC) with Soviet and Czech aid. Three plants and the Hatia dam completely displaced 13 villages and 2,650 families from 8,850 acres. In this case, new housing was built for 1,640 families in six colonies.
An agreement was reached between the central government, HEC and the state of Bihar (which Jharkhand was part of at the time) to give industrial training and at least one job per family to displaced families. However, these jobs have been temporary, paying the minimum state-declared wage of 100 rupees per day. As the workers have retired, they have not been replaced by HEC. In the colonies, schools and drinking facilities have not been completed. Moreover, neither the government nor HEC have provided facilities to meet the cultural and social needs of the tribal peoples.
According to the Section 48 of the Land Acquisition Act, lands acquired by the government that haven’t been used for 6 years are supposed to be returned to their original owners. HEC has not been using thousands of acres, and is selling off this land to the wealthy for business purposes. They have recently sold 38 acres of land to the International Cricket Association and 158 acres to the Central Industrial Security Force. There have been protests against both of these land sales.
The current price for this land is Rs. 5 million ($125,000) per acre; the Hatia residents who were displaced in the 1960s received only Rs. 3,200 ($80) per acre. There are still 500 families living on this land, and HEC and the state government are trying to remove them. The displaced residents are fighting in the courts for fair compensation for past land sales and to remain on the land they still occupy.
The following day, we visited Central Coalfields, a mining company under the Ministry of Energy. Here I got a chance to see what an open pit mine looks like: A huge gaping hole in the green countryside, with a handful of huge shovel machines pulling coal out of the ground, leaving a layer of black dust on the surrounding area.
Not far away, we met with 20 villagers under a tree in the middle of a maize field. Three villages had already been displaced by the coal mine, with more threatened. None of the company’s promises of compensation and jobs had been fulfilled. Their anti-displacement organization plans to keep up the struggle for adequate compensation for the lands they have already lost and to prevent the coal mine from expanding into more villages. They hope to use a law that states that if you have been living somewhere for more than 12 years without title, you can get legal possession.
As thunder rolled across the flat countryside to the south of us, we rode to the village of Sitrapur, where the Abijit Group is trying to grab land for a power plant as well as coal mining. Abijit has its sights set on a tract of 2,400 acres with a population of 1000 tribals who speak the Kurukh language.
Since 2006, their Committee against Displacement has organized rallies against any land acquisition, and held a demonstration that smashed the local Abijit office. A big drum is beaten to call for their rallies, bringing together hundreds with bows and arrows. One of the villagers asked me a striking question: “Do women in the U.S. fight with their traditional weapons against the exploiters?” Like the other groups of villagers we had met in Jharkhand, the Sitrapur tribals stated that they would give up their lives before they would give up the smallest portion of their land.
I came away very impressed by the Jharkhandi villagers I met. Due to their resistance and the strength of the anti-displacement movement, no new industrial projects have been built in Jharkhand in the past 5 years.
IV. West Bengal
During my stay in West Bengal I was based in Kolkata. My guides were members of the West Bengal branch of the Revolutionary Democratic Front.
On my first day in the state they took me to meet with several activists in the Platform for Campaign against SEZs, which was formed in early 2007. The Platform not only opposes the mass displacement of Special Economic Zones as loss of livelihood, but opposes the environmental destruction that SEZs bring.
They explained that after the U.S. and the European Union banned production of certain chemicals, the World Bank passed a resolution in 1996 stating that production of these toxic chemicals should be shifted to countries like India where environmental laws are weak. Due to vigilance on this issue, anti-displacement and environmental activists have already blocked one toxic chemical plant.
These activists told me that the Left Front government of West Bengal (led by the Communist Party of India [Marxist]), passed an SEZ Act in 2003, two years before the central government passed its version. In West Bengal, SEZ corporations pay no income tax for five years, and then 50% off thereafter. They pay no import duty tax and get subsidies for gas, electricity and water. They are treated as foreign territory in India.
After plans for SEZs have been announced, farmers have resisted by selling their land and villagers have refused to move. When bribery and bullying tactics have failed, the government in West Bengal and as well as other states have employed the 1894 Land Acquisition Act. This British colonial-era law allows the state to force farmers to sell their land for “public purposes” on the government’s terms.
The Platform has a close relationship with the Fisherman’s Forum, a militant nationwide organization that has taken up struggles against mass displacements on the coasts. The Fisherman’s Forum is focusing attention on the Coastal Zone Management Act, which has been recently introduced in New Delhi. This Act will essentially turn a 12 mile strip of coastline all around India into an SEZ, with the potential of displacing tens of millions of people who rely on the ocean for their livelihood.
They are also involved in the struggle against building a huge nuclear project in a coastal area at Haripur costing Rs. 60,000 crores ($15 billion).
A. Nandigram
Nandigram is a block of 38 villages located in a coastal area of East Medinipur district, 150 kilometers southwest of Kolkata. Most of the villages have no electricity. The 440,000 villagers living in Nandigram are mainly lower-caste Hindus and Muslims. The people of Nandigram are small farmers, garment workers, laborers, fishermen and shop owners. They have a proud history of struggle, going back to the anti-British Quit India Movement in 1942 when they liberated the area and set up their own government for 17 months.
In January and March 2007, tens of thousands of farmers and villagers at Nandigram rose up to defend their land. As a result of their determined struggle, the people of Nandigram stopped the plans of the Left Front government in West Bengal to build a giant chemical complex on their land, and they drove the police and the armed cadre of the CPI (Marxist) entirely out of the Nandigram area for 11 months. Even after two large-scale armed assaults by the police and CPI (Marxist) goons that killed 25 people, the people of Nandigram have continued to stand their ground.
This struggle has radically transformed the political terrain in the growing struggle against the hundreds of “Special Economic Zones” and other industrial and mining projects that are being planned and built all over India.
In West Bengal, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPM, is the dominant force in the Left Front government. The CPM rode the tide of militant struggle in the West Bengal countryside and Kolkata to power in the 1970s. Today the CPM leadership is mostly composed of upper-caste urban elite. It has been able to stay in power through instituting a land reform program in the 1980s (which it has abandoned), and through setting up a system of strong-armed patronage which reaches down into every village in West Bengal. Any who dare oppose local CPM bosses are socially boycotted, harassed over rations, fired from jobs, and thrashed or worse. In spite of the CPM’s self-proclaimed progressive credentials, workers’ wages, peasants’ incomes, health services and primary education in West Bengal (over 900,000 children are officially out of the school system and 40% of the schools have no toilets) are just as bad as in the rest of India.
The CPM has been trying to sell the SEZs as vehicles for “pro-people industrialization” that will allegedly create the material conditions for “socialism.” The document on economic policy passed at the 18th Congress of the CPM in 2005 welcomes foreign capital because it brings more advanced technology and generates employment. In fact, the industries being set up in the SEZs are extremely capital intensive and will create few jobs, none of which will be for the farmers and landless peasants dispossessed from their ancestral lands. According to a peasant who once worked on the land now occupied by an SEZ near Nandigram, “all those who left their land are selling cucumber and cleaning shit.”
On December 28, 2006, the CPM representative for the Nandigram area announced that 14,000 acres of land would be acquired for a “mega chemical hub” and a ship building center. One of the investors was to be Dow Chemical, which now owns Union Carbide, a company responsible for 25,000 deaths in Bhopal, India since a deadly accident in 1984. The developer chosen by the CPM was, ironically, the Salim group of Indonesia, whose founder was a close supporter of the Suharto military dictatorship that came to power in 1965 after massacring over one million members and supporters of the Communist Party of Indonesia.
This SEZ would have displaced 95,000 people in Nandigram. A total of 130 schools, 112 temples, and 42 mosques were to be razed. Thousands of people organized themselves under the banner of Bhumi Uchhed Protirodh Committee (Committee against Eviction from the Land). The BUPC initially included representatives from Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind, various leftist groups, the Trinamul Congress (a bourgeois opposition political party) and even some local CPM cadre who were opposed to giving up their land.
On January 3, as over 3,000 villagers gathered at a meeting to discuss the land acquisition, police opened fire, wounding four people. The people retaliated, beating up a number of policemen. The villagers knew that more police would be coming, so they worked through the night barricading the roads to prevent the entry of police jeeps. For the next few days, the people came under attack from CPM cadre from nearby Khejuri and harmads (goons) hired by the CPM. After three members of the BUPC were murdered, the people’s resistance stiffened. Several attackers were killed and the offices of the CPM were destroyed. On January 7, the people succeeded in driving the CPM cadre and harmads out of Nandigram.
From early January until March 13, Nandigram was in the hands of the people themselves. They formed resistance groups to protect themselves from the police and the armed CPM cadre. This situation was unacceptable to the Left Front government, particularly its Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. In mid-March, the state and local authorities planned a massive military operation to take back Nandigram. The force consisted of Eastern Frontier Rifles, Central Reserve Battalions and more than 20,000 police armed with tear gas and high-powered weapons.
A massacre ensued on March 14, 2007 in Nandigram. 10,000 unarmed villagers underestimated the ferocity with which they would be attacked. The first line of women– Hindus who were praying to a goddess to save their homes, and Muslims who were reading from the Quran–were fired at without warning with tear gas and live ammunition. The initial attack of the paramilitary and police forces was followed by CPM cadre dressed in police uniforms, who proceeded to brutalize the villagers and rape dozens of women. Leaders and members of the BUPC were particular targets. Afterwards, the authorities claimed that 14 villagers were killed on March 14th, but eyewitnesses saw more bodies of people being dragged onto trucks and driven away.
In the CPM’s version of these events, “the mob started hurling bombs followed by opening of fire…. Ultimately the police had to open fire in self-defense causing dispersal of the mob…. However, a number of people were injured in the police firing and it is believed that some of the agitators were also injured by the bombs they were hurling.” (from Bhattacharjee’s speech at the West Bengal Assembly on March 15th) In contrast, even the Central Bureau of Investigation team sent by the High Court in Kolkata concluded that the police firing was “unprovoked.”
Stories of police brutality, rape and murder were consistently reported by survivors at Nandigram Block Hospital, Tamluk Hospital, and the SSKM Hospital in Kolkata. One 35 year old woman said she was pinned between two sticks and gang-raped. Her husband was forced to watch as the cadres threatened to dash their six-month old baby to the ground and stamp it underfoot. A physician reported treating a woman whose uterus had been ruptured after a metal rod had been thrust into her vagina. CPM cadre barged into the hospitals and ordered doctors to falsify medical reports (eliminating reference to gunshot wounds) and to discharge those who urgently needed medical care.
In the 48 hours following the events of March 14, the people of Nandigram regrouped and fought back. On March 16, more than 20,000 villagers, armed with sticks and iron rods, chased the CPM cadre and goons out of the area. The police and paramilitary forces were restrained because of the public outcry that the March 14 carnage caused. A state-wide bandh (strike) was called by opposition groups. Intellectuals, teachers, youth and students, Muslim groups, artists, singers and many others demonstrated and demanded the resignation of “Butcher Buddha.” Several noted intellectuals returned their Rabindra prizes (West Bengal’s highest literary award) and donated the Rs. 75,000 cash award to the Nandigram relief fund.
Faced with defeat on the ground, the State government announced that the SEZ at Nandigram would be cancelled, though they are actively considering another site in the district.
From March 16 through early November 2007, Nandigram was back in the hands of the people. Fact finding delegations from all over India arrived to investigate. Relief supplies were brought in by caravan. Beginning in April, hundreds of college students organized “go-to-the-village” campaigns to Nandigram in order to get a firsthand experience of village life and to understand what impelled the peasants to wage such a powerful struggle to defend their land.
A new phase in the struggle began in July when women and girls, including many who had been molested and raped, came forward and organized the Matangini Mahila Samiti (MMS). This women’s organization drew its name from that of Matangini Hazra, who led a procession during the 1942 Quit India Movement and was shot dead. The MMS raised its voice against the SEZ, the CPM and patriarchal customs.
According to Professor Amit Bhattacharyya from Jadavpur University in Calcutta, who interviewed some of its members, the MMS organized large processions of women who stopped the CPM from firing from Khejuri on many occasions. It also organized people’s courts to deal with cases of theft or the beatings of wives by their husbands. The MMS successfully supported women against husbands, including some in the BUPC, who didn’t want their wives to move about freely. Another success of the women’s organization was the destruction of the liquor shops which they correctly identified as a destructive influence on the men.
Throughout the summer, the CPM cadres continuously attacked the villages. Tens of thousands of villagers spent sleepless nights resisting these attacks with arms when necessary. The CPM also tried to isolate Nandigram by cutting off food, consumer goods, power and water supplies. Ferry services to nearby Haldia which 10,000 people from Nandigram ride daily were suspended. With local elections coming up in the spring of 2008, and worried that the people of Nandigram could become an example for the rest of rural Bengal, the CPM decided that it had to recapture Nandigram and crush the people’s struggle.
In the summer of 2007, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) sent cadres to Nandigram. Since then, they have joined in the resistance, conducting political work, and arming the people in self-defense. Based on the experience of confronting the violence of the state and CPM goons, the BUPC has adopted the slogan, “To carry out the movement of Nandigram we must have the right to carry arms for resistance.”
In the fall of 2007, the CPM gathered a force of 2,000-3,000 party cadres from all over West Bengal, backed up by hundreds of hired mercenaries from Bihar and Jharkhand states. This force was armed and trained with AK-47s and Insas rifles. According to The Statesman on November 1, CPM member of Parliament Lakshman Seth told his troops, “The only option now is to kill or get killed. We have to fight till the last drop of blood in our bodies.”
On the morning of November 5, they attacked. The rationale given was that they were merely trying to bring back the several hundred CPM cadres who had been driven out of Nandigram in March. (The BUPC had stated repeatedly that other than 35 CPM cadre who had been involved in murders and rapes in March, all others were welcome to return to Nandigram.)
Over the next week, this attacking force killed at least 11 people. Many women were dragged off and raped. The Bengali daily Dainik Statesmen ran a description of these events by Sibani Mondal, a resident of Gokulnagar village:
“She was literally trembling with fear while relating the experience of 10 November. She was one of those who joined the procession led by the BUPC at 12 noon [which was] greeted by hundreds of bullets. Many people standing in the front row dropped down on the ground….There were six rickshaw-vans on which dead bodies lying on the streets were placed and taken towards Tekhali. Sibani along with about 600 others were taken to Amratola primary school in a procession with both hands placed on their heads…. There were about 100 women in that group. Some goondas with their faces covered with cloth came to us to identify those who were young. They picked up about 12 girls from them as the meat-seller picks up chicken from the basket and then vanished into the darkness. Soon afterwards, wails and cries of women were heard.”
Over 500 people, including members of the BUPC, were taken hostage and used as human shields by the attackers. Much of Sonachura and Gokulnagar villages, the epicenter of the Nandigram resistance, was looted and burned down. Over 10,000 villagers were driven out of Nandigram. No members of the media, medical personnel or human rights activists were allowed inside the area by CPM cadres. All mobile towers in a radius of 36 sq. kms were jammed so that news of the massacre could not get out.
Throughout several days of attacks on the people of Nandigram, the police were confined to their barracks. Several units of CRPF paramilitary police were sent by the central government and conveniently arrived after the CPM cadre and harmads had “recaptured” Nandigram. CPM Polit Bureau Member and Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee stated chillingly at a press conference that the people of Nandigram had been “paid back in the same coin.”
As news of this new massacre reached Kolkata, 200,000 people from all walks of life took to the streets on November 14 for three hours of protest. Marchers wore black badges and held placards reading “Shame on the West Bengal Government” and “Down with Killers of Innocent Villagers.” In early December, the charred bone and skull remains of people killed and burned in November were discovered. After a fact-finding visit to Nandigram, India’s chapters of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International called for an independent judicial investigation and underlined the seriousness of the attacks on women activists by CPM cadre.
This exposure has led many previous supporters of the CPM to turn against it, which was reflected in the local elections in the spring of 2008. In Nandigram, the CPM lost the elections to the Trinamul Congress.
In January 2008, the 10,000 plus people who had been driven out of Nandigram in November began to return from neighboring villages and Kolkata. New demands for irrigation, roads and schools have been raised by the BUPC.
While I was in Kolkata in the first week of August, there was intense fighting going on between members of the BUPC and the CPM, which made it impossible to travel to the Nandigram area. CPM cadre in the village of Sonachura were on a rampage, beating up BUPC members, stealing their possessions, and forcing them to leave their homes.
At the same time, two CPM leaders were killed on successive days. According to The Telegraph on August 8, the second killing seemed to have been precipitated by two events. A 60 year old man had been kidnapped and badly beaten by CPM cadre. Also, the deceased CPM leader had been seen identifying houses of BUPC members and supporters to be burned down.
My guides told me that even though the Nandigram SEZ was withdrawn, they believe that the Left Front government will “jump on Nandigram again.” The latest proposal is to build a chemical complex just across from Nandigram on a shallow island in the middle of the Haldia River on land that is not suitable for industrial development.
B. Singur

In West Bengal, the CPM-led government has moved to acquire 200,000 acres of land for SEZs, which threatens to uproot a total of 2.5 million people.
The first big test of this policy came at Singur in 2006, where the government sought to acquire 997 acres of fertile multi-crop land for an auto plant for the Tatas, the largest capitalist conglomerate in India. This project threatened to displace 11,000 families or 50,000 people. In addition, landless peasants from neighboring villages and from Bihar and Jharkhand who come to Singur for the harvest stood to lose their livelihood. Tata promised jobs for local people in the plant, which would employ more than 5,000, but no training centers have been set up.
Faced with pressure from the Tatas and the state government, some farmers sold their land; many farm owners who did not work on the land themselves gladly sold their land to the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation, which signed a 99 year lease with Tata.
On the other hand, farmers and villagers opposed to the land acquisition organized themselves in the Singur Krishi Jami Rakhsha Samiti (Committee for Protection of Agricultural Land). In early June 2006 over 2,000 villagers staged a demonstration at a government office with bullocks and agricultural implements. Many women carried brooms in their hands, which became the symbol of protest in Singur. In July, villagers blockaded one of the main express roads in the area. On the night of September 25 as local people gheraoed the government office in charge of the land grab, they were attacked by the police and CPM cadre. Dozens were injured, including many women, and one youth was beaten to death.
As opposition mounted, the government imposed a law which prevented more than four people from moving together in Singur. When 15,000 people demonstrated on December 2, over 5,000 police and para-military forces met them with lathis (long batons), rubber bullets and tear gas. On December 18, an 18 year old community activist was raped and burned in the project area; her body was left in the fields as a warning to those who opposed the project. Eight farmers committed suicide after they lost their lands. This overwhelming show of force made it possible for the Tatas to start construction of the plant for the “Nano” car, slated to be the world’s cheapest at 100,000 rupees, or about $2,500.
While construction of the $350 million auto plant proceeded in 2007, the farmers and villagers of Singur closely watched the resistance to the SEZ at Nandigram and drew new inspiration and strength to continue their struggle.
By 2008, it had become clear that Tata had grabbed much more land than it needed for the auto plant. The Singur Krishi Jami Rakhsha Samiti (SKJRS) raised the demand for Tata to return half of the 997 acres to the cultivators.
On August 9, I traveled north from Kolkata to Singur to join a procession (a long, winding march) of around 1,500 people through four villages adjoining the Tata plant. Shortly before the procession took off, I interviewed one of the leaders of the SKJRS. Though he is a member of the Trinamul Congress, he stressed that the SKJRS is a non-party organization consisting of several political forces.
On this day, they were honoring the 10 martyrs who had given their lives in the struggle. The SKJRS leader said that “even if we have to face a firing squad, we will fight on to victory. We need a new independence struggle from imperialism that unites all of the cultivators.” He described the various forms of struggle the SKJRS has used, including processions, giving demands to government bodies, filing a petition in the Kolkata High Court, and a hunger strike.
As the marchers chanted “Tata Must Go” and “We Want Our Land Back,” my guide commented to me that “Your government subsidizes your farmers, our government ruins our farmers.”
Since my visit to Singur, the anti-displacement movement has taken a new leap forward. In the first week of September 2008, tens of thousands of protestors surrounded the plant, blocking roads and preventing Tata workers from reaching the plant—effectively shutting down the final stages of construction of the plant. In the months that followed, Tata finally gave in and announced that it was shutting down the plant in Singur and moving production to Gujurat.

C. Save Traders Committee in Barrackpur
Our next stop was Barrackpur, 23 kilometers outside Kolkata. A market of 500 farmers and traders was torn down in December 2006 by the CPM municipal administration. When the traders and farmers resisted the demolition, 50 of them were injured and nine arrested. Almost twenty years earlier, the traders had paid 25% of the cost of the market when the administration bought it. Now the government wanted to make room for a multi-story shopping mall.
I met with about 50 members of the Save Traders Committee. According to Sunil Ghosh, secretary of the committee, they are demanding that the bottom floor of the shopping mall be given to the displaced farmers and traders. They have staged road blockades, written letters to the Civil Administration and marched to the Chief Minister’s office. They plan to step up the level of resistance in the months ahead, including re-entering the empty market, overgrown with vegetation, to press their demand for a new space to sell their goods.
V. Orissa
The last state I visited was Orissa in the eastern part of central India. After getting off a sleeper train from Kolkata, I checked into a hotel in the state capital, Bhubaneswar. From here, my guide and I traveled to a meeting hall for a People’s Tribunal against Displacement. This tribunal attracted around 150 people representing anti-displacement struggles all across Orissa. The attendance would have been higher but some contingents had been prevented from attending by the police. One of the posters on the stage was a picture of villagers choking on air from coal-burning plants, with the Vietnam War-era phrase, “It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it.”
One of the featured speakers was Sini Soy, the mother of one of the tribal youth, Bhagban Soy (25), killed protesting the plans of Tata to build a steel plant in the Kalinganagar area. Previously an illiterate agricultural laborer, Sini Soy is now a recognized leader of the struggle.
While the program continued in Oriya, a member of the Orissa PUCL, a nationwide civil liberties organization, sketched out some of the main sites of struggle against big industries, mines and dams in Orissa. She described the struggle against Utkal Aluminum’s bauxite plant at Kashipur, where tribals and dalits (some of whom came to the tribunal) have stopped work on the plant for the past two months. In the Niyamgiri Hills, Vedanta, a British-owned multinational, has built a bauxite processing plant. The Kondh tribal people have opposed bauxite mining in the area, and their case is at the Supreme Court of India. At Tata Mines in Sukinda and National Aluminum in Koraput, there are also struggles against displacement.
The longest running anti-displacement struggle is against the Rourkela Steel plant and dam, owned by the state and central governments. Built in 1955 with German and Italian engineering, the complex displaced 64 villages on more than 20,000 acres of land. 32 of these villages are represented by the Rourkela Local Displaced Persons Association, which is demanding compensation for the land they lost (most still haven’t received any compensation), the return of unutilized land, and employment in the plant.
There has also been a sharp struggle around the Hirakud Dam, Orissa’s oldest and largest dam that was built for irrigation, flood control and electricity. Several thousand people have still not been compensated for their land. In November 2007, the government started building a pipeline to divert much of the water to local steel plants, which was stopped by protests of up to 30,000 people.
A. Anti- POSCO Struggle
In June 2005, the Orissa government and POSCO, a South Korean and US-owned steel company, signed a Memorandum of Understanding for POSCO to build a 12 million ton steel plant at Jagatsinghpur. This project will include a captive port nearby and 600 million tons of iron ore from mines several hundred kilometers away. 30% of the steel produced will be exported.
Seven villages and 22,000 people will be displaced from 4,000 acres of land. In addition to the displaced farmers, thousands of fisherman and villagers in the port area will lose their livelihood. All 7 villages are multi-crop, including the profitable betel vine. Irrigation is provided with “sweet water” drawn from wells, which will be polluted by the steel plant. The villages have a lot of sandy, forest land where they grow cashew nuts and other cash crops.
For three years, POSCO has been trying, unsuccessfully, to acquire the farmers’ land. Farmers organized by the Posco Resistance Struggle Committee have kept the company from establishing offices in the villages, and have set up “check gates” at the entrances to the villages to check on the identification of outsiders and to prevent POSCO from starting to survey and demarcate the land.
Blocked in its land acquisition efforts, POSCO has hired outside goons to destabilize the situation and provide a pretext to bring in police and paramilitaries. According to Abhaya Sahoo, head of the Resistance Struggle Committee (and a member of the Communist Party of India), these goons have set up bombs on 10 different occasions.
On November 29, 2007, POSCO goons attacked a dharna (a peaceful sit-down), injuring hundreds of people and setting fire to a tent of the anti-POSCO activists. On June 20, 2008, while people from Govindapur village were joining a demonstration of several thousand at the projected POSCO port site, 60 goons entered the village and occupied a two-story school. When the people returned that night, these “anti-socials” threw hand-made bombs on them, killing one villager and seriously injuring two.
After that murder, anti-POSCO fighters started a gherao, surrounding the school for an indefinite period of time. The next evening the district magistrate and police superintendent appeared, and the villagers handed over the anti-social elements to them for prosecution.
Of the 4,000 acres that POSCO wants to grab, almost 3,000 is forest land. 437 acres is privately owned agri-land and the rest is state owned. POSCO has not been able to acquire any of the private land. The main bone of contention at present is the forest land.
In the first week of August 2008, the Supreme Court of India handed down a judgment that the state government could transfer the forest land to POSCO without consulting with the villagers. On the other hand, the Forest Rights Act gives those who have been getting their livelihood from the forest the right to become the rightful owners of the land. Based on this law, the villagers have started a Forest Rights Committee to apply for ownership of the forest land. Irrespective of the outcome of this legal battle, Sahoo told me that the struggle against the POSCO plant and port will continue with mass resistance.
B. Anti-Tata Struggle at Kalinganagar
In the Kalinganagar area, Tata Steel has been trying to build a large steel plant on 2,500 acres of land. This project will displace 15 villages and 15,000 people, who are tribals (Mohanto, Gopar), dalits and agricultural castes. During 2004 and 2005, the Anti-Displacement Movement was organized to oppose the project.
My guide, translator and I stopped to talk with one of the leaders of the Anti-Displacement Movement in Chandia village. Rabindra Jarika is the secretary of the Movement’s 15 person committee and a member of the Congress Party. He told me about the events of January 2, 2006, when 15 villagers were killed by the Orissa police.
Early in the morning of January 2, five or six bulldozers started leveling the land where Tata wanted to begin construction. The state government sent a contingent of 2,000 police to the area; 1,500 were assigned to protect the bulldozers. As word spread through the villages, 400-500 people gathered to protest by 9 a.m. Eight representatives were sent to speak with the police superintendent, but before they reached his position, the police started firing tear gas and live ammunition at them. The villagers started running toward the police and the police opened fire again, killing 6 at the spot and wounding 50. Nine villagers died afterwards from their wounds. Some of those killed had their hands cut off, supposedly to identify them. My guides took me to see the field where the massacre took place, and where a plaque has been erected to commemorate the 15 martyrs.
After January 2, the Anti-Displacement Movement grew stronger in the Kalinganagar area and in Orissa as a whole. Jarika told me that for the next 14 months, they constantly stopped traffic on National Highway 215. “People came from different areas of Orissa and other states, including POSCO, Nandigram and Kashipur, to support us. Only 5-10% of the local farmers have sold their land to Tata.”
Because of this movement, Tata Steel’s construction work has stopped. This is a major blow to the efforts of the Orissa state government to make the Kalinganagar area into “the second most important steel city of the world.”
Another Anti-Displacement Movement committee member, Chakradhar Haibru, Jr., left his rice field to talk to me. He described how several gangs of pro-Tata people and goondas imported from Jharkhand have begun to terrorize the local villagers. In November 2007, they broke people’s arms. In early 2008, they killed one villager and the killer wasn’t arrested. Haibru explained that the villagers unite and face the Tata goondas with lathi sticks. At night, they watch over their villages.
Later that day I visited the families of two of the villagers killed in January 2006. One was a boy of 12 years. The other was a woman with four children.
C. Stop at a Police Station

On the night of August 12, as we were returning from Kalinganagar, the car transporting us was pulled over by local police for a traffic-related reason. My translator Protima Das, my guide Pradeep, our driver and I were taken to a police station for questioning. For the next eight hours, all of us were interrogated, first by the local police, and then by the one of the top police officials of the state of Orissa. The latter was particularly hostile, accusing me of being an “anti-government agitator.” When I insisted that I was a teacher researching the issue of forced displacement in India, he insisted that only “communists” would be interested in speaking with villagers.
After a night of harassment by the Orissa police, I was dropped off at my hotel at 4 a.m. and told to stay there while they “verified” my story with U.S. Homeland Security and Interpol. I was questioned once more in my hotel room the following day. Whether due to the efforts of my local friends, or the police leaking the story to the press, or both, I was interviewed by two TV stations and a local newspaper in my hotel room.
A press release issued by the People’s Movement against Displacement and for Development (VVJVA) produced many phone calls and emails to government officials in Orissa and New Delhi. In addition, supporters of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle called Indian embassies and consulates in their countries. These calls undoubtedly made it more difficult for the Indian authorities to detain me any longer.
Shortly before I left Bhubaneswar, I heard that Protima and Pradeep had been arrested and charged with serious political crimes that can keep them behind bars for many years. This is an outrage which has to be vigorously protested. Protima and Pradeep are guilty only of being anti-displacement activists and introducing a foreign friend to the realities of India’s villages and the devastating impact that capitalist “development” will have on tens of millions of people in India in the coming years.
On the same night, Devendar Das and Amin Maharana, both members of the Central Council of VVJVA, were picked up by the Orissa police. For five days Amin was tortured and held incommunicado, raising fears for his life.
Like Protima and Pradeep, they were charged with being “suspected Maoists.” This trumped-up charge is being used in Orissa, Chhattisgarh (Dr. Binayak Sen) and elsewhere in India to hold anti-displacement activists in prison for long periods of time. Later, Amin and Pradeep were released on bail, though Protima and Devender Das are being kept in prison.
There is an urgent need for all democratic and freedom loving organisations and individuals to demand that the Orissa police immediately withdraw the trumped up cases against Amin, Protima, Devendar Das and Pradeep, and that the Orissa authorities should issue a public apology for unjustified harassment of anti-displacement activists.
I had planned an additional trip to go to an area in Orissa where farmers are agitating against the diversion of dam water to industry. As it turned out, this unfriendly treatment from the Orissa police forced me to cut my trip short by one day.
VI. Final Comments
I ended this trip impressed by several things. First, I had no idea how vast the SEZs and other industrial and mining projects are in India. In the next decade, it is no exaggeration to say that tens of millions of people will be threatened with displacement. This has taken center stage in Indian politics, and is beginning to make international news, as the recent coverage of the struggle in Singur against the Tata car plant demonstrates.
Second, I did not know how widespread the Indian people’s resistance to displacement is and how it has grown exponentially over the past few years.
Everywhere I went, I encountered the determination of villagers to hold onto their land, even if it costs them their lives. I saw that Indian women, rooted in the land, are at the forefront of many anti-displacement struggles. And in numerous talks, I was struck by the high level of political consciousness of the villagers and anti-displacement activists, and their efforts to lend assistance to each other’s struggle.
Third, I learned how seriously the Indian state—the state and central governments alike—take the anti-displacement movement, and are moving to destroy it with lies about it being opposed to all forms of development and by the use of armed force.
Finally, I came away convinced that international solidarity with India’s anti-displacement movement is essential. The world needs to know about this powerful movement directly from those affected by displacement.

(http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/26/fact-finding-report-on-the-anti-displacement-movement-in-india/leoHighlightsIFrameClose%28%29;)

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August 26, 2010 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/26/) - Posted by Ka Frank (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/author/dpugh/) | Chhattisgarh (http://en.wordpress.com/tag/chhattisgarh/), Forced Displacement (http://en.wordpress.com/tag/forced-displacement/), India (http://en.wordpress.com/tag/india/), Jharkhand (http://en.wordpress.com/tag/jharkhand/), Maharastra (http://en.wordpress.com/tag/maharastra/), Orissa (http://en.wordpress.com/tag/orissa/), West Bengal (http://en.wordpress.com/tag/west-bengal/) | POSCO (http://en.wordpress.com/tag/posco/), forced displacement (http://en.wordpress.com/tag/forced-displacement-2/), Kalinganagar (http://en.wordpress.com/tag/kalinganagar/), Singur (http://en.wordpress.com/tag/singur/), [/URL][URL="http://en.wordpress.com/tag/nandigram/"]Nandigram (http://en.wordpress.com/tag/nandigram/)


Read it, if you want to know India.

[pranabjyoti]

Azad Encounter: “Death By An Inch… Lies By The Mile” (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/28/azad-encounter-death-by-an-inch-lies-by-the-mile/)

["Fake encounters" have become a famous Indian government/army/police method of eliminating opposition leaders and activists, by staging the appearance of a gunfight--planting a weapon on the body of an assassinated victim. This has been the method of elimination so many times that there is widespread suspicion of government claims of encounters when the only casualties are non-governmental and non-military. The reference in the following article to Sohrabuddin Sheikh is to a notorious case (from 2005) of another victim of government assassination. This article spells out the detailed investigation of the 2 July 2010 murder of Azad, the spokesperson of the Communist Party of India (Maoist).-ed]

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/20100906cov.jpg?w=100&h=140 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/20100906cov.jpg)September 6, 2010

OutlookIndia.com
Will Azad become Congress’s Sohrabuddin? His post-mortem suggests he was killed in cold blood.
Saikat Datta (http://www.outlookindia.com/peoplefnl.aspx?pid=3939&author=Saikat+Datta)
Dead men tell no tales. But when the deceased is Chemkuri Azad Rajkumar, the manner of death can speak volumes. The Maoist leader’s post-mortem report, which Outlook has now accessed, categorically establishes that he died in a fake encounter. Read along with the FIR and inquest reports, it exposes the elaborate set of lies drawn by the Andhra Pradesh police to explain his death. The claimed encounter, a much-touted “gain” in the UPA government’s war against India’s “gravest internal security threat”, was in fact a cold-blooded execution by the state. Azad, a key player in the planned negotiations with the government, was picked up and shot with a handgun from a distance barely more than the size of an outstretched palm. The official version, that the Maoists were atop a hill and fired at the police party and Azad died when the cops retaliated from down below, just doesn’t add up.The post-mortem on Azad’s body, conducted by doctors at the Adilabad district hospital on July 3, two days after the killing, records a 1-cm oval-shaped wound just a few inches above the left nipple where the bullet entered, tore through his heart and exited from the back just between the ninth and the tenth vertebrae. The wound’s entry point, the doctor conducting the post-mortem records, had “darkening (and) burned edge” at the “left second intercostal space (the space between two ribs)”.
In forensic medicine, which also deals with decoding fatal bullet wounds, the words “darkening, blackening and burning” are revealing. Experts with hundreds of autopsies behind them all say that when there is “burning” associated with a “darkening or blackening” of an entry wound, it can only mean that the victim has been shot from a distance less than 7.5 cm or less—practically point-blank range.
‘Near-Shot. Close-Range. Fired From Less Than 7.5 cm.’ Outlook invited three experts to analyse Azad’s post-mortem report, without revealing his
identity. All three say Azad was shot from a distance equal to, or less than 7.5 cm


http://cms.outlookindia.com/Uploads/outlookindia/2010/20100830/dr_sudhir_gupta_thumb.jpg“If there is darkening, blackening and burning around a bullet entry wound, it is caused by the flame, smoke and gunpowder emerging from the firearm. The flame and the gunpowder, due to low mass, cannot travel very far. These residual marks, therefore, strongly suggest a near shot.” —Dr Sudhir Gupta, Associate Professor of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology at AIIMS, New Delhi. Has conducted nearly 30 autopsies of police encounter deaths.

http://cms.outlookindia.com/Uploads/outlookindia/2010/20100830/dr_b_umadethan_thumb.jpg“While the report mentions burning, there is no tattooing. But if the deceased was wearing a shirt, then the tattooing could be on the shirt and only the burning is visible. The presence of burning in an entry wound accompanied by tattooing clearly indicates a shot fired from less than 7.5 cm.” —Dr B. Umadethan, Former head of the department of forensic medicine, and police surgeon, Thiruvananthapuram Medical College. Author, Principles and Practice of Forensic Medicine.

http://cms.outlookindia.com/Uploads/outlookindia/2010/20100830/expert_thumb.jpgThe oval-shaped wound shows that the bullet was fired at an angle. It is almost certain that the bullet was fired at extremely close range. The weapon used was a handgun and not a rifle like AK-47. My guess is that the bullet that killed this person was fired from a .38” (9 mm) pistol.” — Retired Director of the Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory, Chandigarh, an expert on wound ballistics and the author of several books on ballistics who requested anonymity.
To get a better interpretation and assessment of the observations in the post-mortem report, Outlook gave a copy of it to three of the country’s top forensic medicine and wound ballistic experts in three different cities. To ensure an unbiased and objective assessment, only the contents of the report were made available to them, the victim’s name was not revealed. All three agreed that the probability of a close-range shot, perhaps even less than 7.5 cm, was very, very high. Dr Sudhir Gupta, a gold medallist in medicine and currently an associate professor of forensic medicine and toxicology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, is considered an authority in his field. He is also an expert on encounter deaths, having handled 30 such cases. After going through the Azad post-mortem, Gupta summarised that a very “near shot” had killed the victim.
http://photo.outlookindia.com/images/gallery/20100825/chemkuri_rajkumar_funeral_20100906.jpg
Silent knight: Gadar singing at Azad’s funeral at Punjagutta (Photograph by P. Anil Kumar)




“No way can firing from below go down a person’s chest and exit like that,” says Azad’s doctor brother.



He explains: “When there is darkening, blackening and burning around a firearm bullet entry wound, then it is caused by the flame and smoke of gunpowder emerging from the gun. These residual marks strongly suggest a near (close-range) shot. The burning is caused by a flame that has no mass. So, it travels a very short distance from the gun and therefore can only cause a burn if the shot is fired from close range. The gunpowder residue which hits the body at near range penetrates the skin and causes the darkening. Please note that the flame and the gunpowder, due to low mass, cannot travel very large distances.” However, exercising the customary caution of a professional, Gupta advocates “test-firing of the gun with the type of ammunition that was used in the original shooting for an accurate assessment of the range of fire”.The second expert Outlook approached is a name students of forensic medicine are all too familiar with. Dr B. Umadethan is the former head of the department of forensic medicine and a police surgeon at the Medical College of Thiruvananthapuram. His book, Principles and Practice of Forensic Medicine, is a standard text for forensic students. A cautious man, Umadethan makes it very clear that it is difficult and even dangerous to form an opinion from the available data. But he finds the “darkening and burned edges” intriguing. “Usually, a very close-range shot, less than 7.5 cm, leaves behind three telltale marks: the entry wound is burnt; it has a halo tattoo from the unburned gunpowder and blackening created by the smoke. If the deceased is wearing a cotton shirt, then the gunpowder tattoo can be left behind on the cloth. But a burn along with these other indications definitely indicates a very close-range shot.”




“If they kill the very man sent to talk with the Maoist leadership, who do we talk with?” asks Swami Agnivesh.



A third expert who comes with formidable qualifications requested anonymity. A former director of the Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory in Chandigarh, he is an expert on wound ballistics and has authored several books on the subject. “The darkening of the wound’s edge could be due to dirt and deposit of power residues and contusion, but when accompanied by burnt edges, it’s almost certain that the bullet was fired at extremely close range and the weapon used was a handgun, not a rifle like the AK-47. It causes a wound of almost similar dimension but inflicts much more damage to the tissue. My guess is that the bullet was fired from a .38” (9 mm) pistol,” he says.If the post-mortem report exposes the police claims, then the FIR, lodged on a complaint filed by Circle Inspector Raghunandan Rao on July 2, is an even greater exercise in self-contradiction. It states that the police received a tip-off from the state intelligence police about a 20-25-strong Maoist squad infiltrating into the Wankedi forests from the Maharashtra side. Rao’s team, equipped with night vision devices, found the squad in the midst of hundreds of acres of forests in the dead of the night on July 1. The police claim they challenged the squad, but came under intense fire. The cops too retaliated; the exchange of fire lasted 30 minutes. When the firing stopped, Rao led his team towards the hilltop to halt and rest for the night. Early next day, he resumed his search and stumbled upon two unidentified bodies, each with their individual kit bags, an AK-47 and a 9-mm pistol. One body was Azad’s; the other victim was a freelance journalist, Hemchandra Pandey.
http://cms.outlookindia.com/Uploads/outlookindia/2010/20100830/page26_graph_20100906.jpg (http://cms.outlookindia.com/Uploads/outlookindia/2010/20100830/page26_graph_20100906.jpg)
Not only do the first series of contradictions emerge here (see Holes in the Dark (http://outlookindia.com/article.aspx?266866)), the FIR and inquest report are unable to answer two more key questions:


Even if they abandoned Azad’s body, why didn’t the Maoists carry the AK-47 and the 9-mm pistol back with them after the firing had stopped? To the Maoists, an AK-47 and a 9-mm pistol are precious and never left behind.
If the police were firing at long range, how did Azad die from a short-range 9-mm pistol bullet?

Swami Agnivesh, who had been asked by Union home minister P. Chidambaram to initiate talks with the Maoists in search for peace, is a perplexed man. “If they kill the very man who was carrying my message to the Maoist leadership in Dandakaranya to begin talks and offer a substantive gesture to show their sincerity, then who do we talk with? Are we keen to end this conflict or are we getting ready for a perpetual war in the heartland of India? When such disturbing facts emerge from the death of such a man, doesn’t it merit a decent inquiry?” For a nation at war with itself, the truth is the least it owes itself.
Else, Azad will become the Congress’s Sohrabuddin. Like their counterparts in Gujarat (who did not budge till the Supreme Court stepped in), the Centre and the state are in denial about Azad and attempting to bury uncomfortable facts. Like in the Sohrabuddin encounter, there is trickery involved in Azad’s death too. The Maoist ideologue, from all credible accounts, had been drawn out for peace talks. Only, instead of allowing him to speak, the government silenced him forever.
http://www.outlookindia.com/printarticle.aspx?266865
Postmortem details of Azad.

[scarletghoul]

A lot of incidents have occured in the past day or so, including two large battles.

6 paramilitaries dead in Bihar battle (http://redviolence.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/6-paramilitaries-dead-in-orissa-battle/)

At least six Indian state paramilitaries have been killed and ten injured by Maoist guerillas in Lakhisarai district, Bihar state. The Bihar Military Police were engaged by the Maoist army in a gun battle in the Ghoghraghat Kanimoh forests. Maoists seem to have won, as there are no reported Maoist casualties and they took 30 rifles.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/279662/Maoist-ambush-kills-six-jawan-in-Bihar.html
http://sify.com/news/10-security-men-hurt-in-encounter-with-maoist-bdo-kidnapped-news-national-ki4akcgjcib.html



Congress politician killed in Orissa (http://redviolence.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/congress-politician-killed-in-orissa/)

Maoists have killed a Congress party politician in Koraput district, Orissa. Anand Kirsani was the president of anti-Maoist anti-tribal Shanti Sena. Maoists took him aside as he was overseeing construction of his house in Dhusuri village of Semiliguda block, and shot him.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Maoists-kill-Cong-leader-in-Orissa/674265



3 dead in inter-Maoist fighting (http://redviolence.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/3-dead-in-inter-maoist-fighting/)

CPI (Maoist) cadres killed 2 members of Trititya Prastuti Committee (TPC), a Maoist splinter group, as rivalry flares up between the different Maoist groups operating in the area. The incident started in Sohban village, Chatra district, in Jharkhand, when CPI(M) members killed TPC area commander Mohan Ganju and his associate Ramdeo Ganju and blew up their house. In retaliation, TPC members killed the brother of a Maoist commander Charleji in Latehar district.
Though CPI(M) is by far the largest Naxalite organisation in India, smaller groups like the TPC have a lot of influence in some areas.
http://sify.com/news/three-killed-as-rival-maoist-groups-clash-news-national-ki3tudhhjbb.html
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Maoists-kill-two-rivals-blow-up-house-in-Chatra/Article1-593358.aspx



5 police, 3 Maoists killed in Chhatisgarh (http://redviolence.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/5-police-3-maoists-killed-in-chhatisgarh/)

Maoists ambushed state forces including Border Security Force, police and special police officers near Buski village, Kanker district, in Bastar region, Chhatisgarh. In the attack and the ensuing gunfight, 5 state personnel were killed and 3 Maoists. The Maoist numbers attacking are said to be over 100.
Bastar is a stronghold of the Maoists, where they have more power than anywhere else. In all war-affected areas of India, the police forces are effectively used as paramilitaries.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Five-security-men-killed-in-Maoist-clash/articleshow/6458938.cms
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Maoist-ambush-kills-five-jawans-in-Chhattisgarh/Article1-593565.aspx
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iwi5CW7M1IkRExpAP81ale2FsYOQ




http://redviolence.wordpress.com/

[pranabjyoti]

The Revolutionary Work of a Political Prisoner: Maoist classes in Tihar Jail, India (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/the-revolutionary-work-of-a-political-prisoner-maoist-classes-in-tihar-jail-india/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/29kobad.jpg?w=170&h=252 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/29kobad.jpg)Cops mull changing Khobad ward every two months
IMRAN AHMED SIDDIQUI
New Delhi, Aug. 28:
The battle to control Maoism has reached the Tihar jail’s barracks.
Exasperated prison authorities are thinking of changing Maoist ideologue Khobad Ghandy’s ward after every two months because he has been propagating ultra-Left ideology among fellow inmates.
Ghandy, 63, has built a captive audience inside Jail No. 3 at Tihar, his home for the past 11 months. He meets fellow inmates, who revere him, every day during his morning and evening walks and often holds “interactive sessions”.
He tells them he had fought for the poor throughout his life and that the government had failed to do anything for the people. The prisoners salute him after every session.
“He is a very good man. He is fighting for the poor and we respect him a lot,” said a 35-year-old inmate of Jail No. 3, a Class X dropout who is facing trial for attempted murder.
Another prisoner, arrested in a blast case in Uttar Pradesh, said: “He (Ghandy) is a very well-read man. He talks of revolution and makes us feel we too should do something for the country.”
Ghandy, a CPI (Maoist) politburo member, was arrested in September 2009 and booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
An inmate of Jail No. 1, who met Ghandy three days ago at a basketball match in the prison, said: “We address him as ‘Sir’ and salute him whenever we see him. We can’t understand why the government is holding him in jail as though he is a terrorist.”
The convict, serving a life term for murdering a relative, added: “I am paying for what I did, but people like Sir should not be treated this way. We are fans of his. He speaks from the heart about the injustices suffered by the poor. We support him for his movement against the government.”
Ghandy’s rising popularity among fellow prisoners is worrying Tihar authorities. A jail official said around 1,500 prisoners — 100 convicts and 1,400 undertrials — were lodged in the 12 wards in Jail No. 3. Ghandy shares his ward with many other prisoners.
“He loves mixing with people and has made several friends inside the jail. But of late his conversation has acquired revolutionary overtones,” the official said. “We are thinking of changing his ward every two months and keeping a watch on his morning and evening walks.”
The official, however, agreed that Ghandy, who is from an upper class background and went to the best educational institutions, was a thorough gentleman.
“He is very enthusiastic and agile for his age. During the basketball match, he was joking with jail officials about many things,” said jail superintendent Vijay Kumar Sharma.
Ghandy had studied at Doon School and St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, before travelling to London to become a chartered accountant. A few years later, he joined the Maoists. He is now believed to be writing a book on his life.
Oh God! What a dangerous man!

[pranabjyoti]

India: Peace Talks mediator exits peace process, says govt is not serious (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/29/india-peace-talks-mediator-exits-peace-process-says-govt-is-not-serious/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/agnivesh-line-drawing.jpg?w=192&h=262 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/agnivesh-line-drawing.jpg)Sun Aug 29 2010
Kolkata : Swami Agnivesh had been assigned to act as a mediator between the government and the Maoists and bring them to the talks table, has decided to stay out of the peace process as according to him the UPA government lacks the seriousness to start negotiations with the Maoists.
“I have decided to stay out of the process until Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Home Minister P Chidambaram show any positive response to the initiative. I have tried to communicate some information and messages, which I received from the central committee of the CPI-Maoists. I had asked the Prime Minister’s office to arrange an appointment with the PM, but even after a month I have not received any response from the PMO,” an irate Agnivesh told The Indian Express.
Earlier, Agnivesh had been requested to act as a mediator by Chidambaram.
“From July 20 onwards, I have gone to the PMO and approached the officers on phone more than 15 times. But I was not given any satisfactory reply. If the Prime Minister does not have time for a serious discussion, which is very important for the future of the country, they why should I bother about it? It is not my domestic work. So, I have decided to stay aloof from the peace process till I receive any positive response from the Centre,” he said.
Asked about any response from the Maoists’ side after Kishenji’s press statement mentioning their willingness to join the peace process, Agnivesh said: “After I explained my points to the central committee members of the CPI-Maoists, they agreed to join the peace process if the government orders a judicial probe into Azad’s death. They are also ready to give specific dialogue dates. But, I also do not want to proceed if there is no inquiry into Azad’s death as I am already bearing the moral responsibility of Azad’s death,” said Agnivesh.
“I am surprised to see that the Prime Minister keeps on telling in his speech that the Maoists should come forward to join the peace process and abjure violence. But when they are willing to join the process – if only one condition is fulfilled – then why the government is not taking the matter seriously?” asked Agnivesh.
This kind of "play" doomed to be flop from the very beginning.

[scarletghoul]

DNA reports that the People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA), a Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist (http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/terroristoutfits/CPI_M.htm)) frontal organisation, announced its decision to contest the 2011 West Bengal assembly elections on August 30. PCPA will be fielding candidates in the three Maoist strongholds of West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia Districts. Most of the PCPA candidates will be fielded from West Midnapore. PCPA will officially submit an application to the Election Commission seeking “bow and arrow” as their party symbol. “If the commission does not approve of our symbol, we will contest as independent candidates,” PCPA General Secretary Manoj Mahato said. Mahato did not comment on whether PCPA would contest independently as a party or as an ally of a bigger Political Party. He also refused to identify the PCPA candidates who will contest. State intelligence branch sources said that they had information about PCPA’s intention to contest the State Assembly polls. “As per our information besides Manoj Mahato, former PCPA chief Chhatradhar Mahato might also file nominations from jail,” a senior intelligence official said.



CPI-Maoist's growing links with Northeast militantsThe growing links between the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist (http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/terroristoutfits/CPI_M.htm)) and some of the militant outfits of the Northeast region was discussed in greater detail in the conference of the Directors General of Police (DGPs) and Inspectors General of Police (IGPs) of all the States held in New Delhi on August 25, according to Assam Tribune. Official sources said that though the CPI-Maoist is yet to have strong presence in the Northeast States, the group is trying to maintain close links with some of the militant outfits of the region. Sources said that it is now an established fact that the CPI-Maoist has established strong links with Manipur based People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and leaders of the PLA had meetings with CPI-Maoists in Jharkhand. Sources said that senior Maoist leaders also visited Manipur in 2009 and it is believed that both the groups would be benefited from mutual understanding and the PLA cadres are in a position to provide training to the Maoist cadres.
The security agencies have come across links between the CPI-Maoist and the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSC-IM) which is under cease-fire agreement with the Union Government. Sources said that the security agencies have definite information of NSCN-IM leaders attending a meeting of the Maoist groups in Dandakaryana in Chattisgarh and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has taken serious note of the situation and the matter was taken up with the NSCN-IM leaders. Sources said that the CPI-Maoist has openly supported all the “nationality struggles” including the struggle of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA). The report adds that Maoists have started issuing statements supporting the cause of the ULFA and CPI-Maoist leader Koteshwar Rao alias Kishenji recently openly extended support to the ULFA in an interview.


from http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/detailed_news.asp?date1=8/31/2010

[pranabjyoti]

India: An Appeal from Lalgarh to a Member of Parliament (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/india-an-appeal-from-lalgarh-to-a-member-of-parliament/)

Lalgarh – Letter from Nari Ijjat Bnachao Committee to Kabir Suman (http://indianvanguard.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/lalgarh-letter-from-nari-ijjat-bnachao-committee-to-kabir-suman/)

Sanhati (http://sanhati.com/articles/2708/)
August 3, 2010
To
Mr. Kabir Suman
Member of Parliament, Government of India
Date: 03.08.10
Respected sir,
The inhuman incident of housewives of Sonamukhi village (http://sanhati.com/articles/2602/) having been molested and raped by the joint forces of the Congress and CPI(M) must have reached you. You may have watched it on TV also. The story does not end here. The victims spoke to the media and went to the SDO of Jhargram for grievance redressal. Yet no offender was brought to the book and we were compelled to launch a movement. From Sonamukhi to Jhargram to Binpur: women of all these areas wiped the tears, with clenched fist marched to Jhargram. The SDO did not respond. But on July 16 and 17 the police beat up and drove us away, we were not told what was our fault. The story was not over. It had just begun.
We demanded justice but did not get it. Therefore we chose not to remain silent. As a consequence, the administration and CPI(M) attempted to attack us more. There is a village named Gnosaidanga near Dahijuri of Binpur. In solidarity with us, as a mark of protest the residents of the village wanted to block the road. The joint forces beat them up and injured 20-25 of them. The wounded tribals of village went to the Jhargram government hospital for treatment. Government doctors and other babus told us no adivasi or mahatos could be treated there. We are poor people, we were at a loss as to where to go. We do not have money or courage to go to private hospitals. So, we congregated a big mass and once more went to the hospital. There were thousands of us. We asked the administration and police bosses, if you would not treat us why are you bashing us up? They did not heed. But all of us, the housewives, daughters, daughter-in-laws, sisters, grand mothers rallied around. We did not keep mum just because there was no one to protect our ijjat (honour). We stood up. From sub-division to the parliament, we knocked at each door. We wanted to go to the world under the banner of ‘Nari ijjat bnachao committee’ (Committee to protect the honour of women).
There is something important we must tell you. The leader of youth Congress, Usha Naidu, visited Sonamukhi village. She sobbed as she talked to us. She is a woman, she wiped our tears, she herself shed some. But she did not demand immediate punishment of those responsible. She assured that she would send a report to Rahul babu, we don’t know if it was done. But she did not raise her voice for the oppressed, which was much needed. We also heard she was harrassed by the workers of Ms. Mamata on the Khejuri road. We hoped Sonia-sister, Mamata-sister would speak up. But it appears they could not find time. Armed forces had entered our village in large numbers, they raped, murdered, molested us. Yet the leaders would not speak up and demand withdrawal of soldiers. Is this really social justice? Does this reflect thoughts of high civil society? We reflected and we were sad. Would merely healing our wounds tantamount to supporting us?
We committed no crime. We have never gone to any police station or courts. We did not beat up anybody, or looted. We keep indoors in general. We wanted to protect the mores and honour of the mahato community. Excesses of the joint forces, harmad bahini, patwari bahini (mercenaries of the sponge iron factory owners) continue in our villages day and night and we have kept quiet. At mid night, not one or two, scores of them entered our houses, molested and raped us. Our old grand mother Sarabala Mahato (75) asked, “Why do you do such barbaric acts?” After this the animals danced over her body with guns in hand. There was nothing which they did not do. Mother Sarabala died after this. The government was reluctant to hand over her dead body. The inspector and other police officers of Jhargram police station were forcing us to put signature on the declaration that she died after she accidentally fell inside the house. We did not agree.
We paid respect to her after retrieving the body in whichever way we could. It is impossible to recount our pain; tears stop the pen. We want to meet you. To save the honour of victimised women you may choose to protest by stripping in front of the parliament. Or putting clothes over our dishonoured, pained bodies you may choose to stand with us. It is your decision. We hope you would feel our pain and speak up in the parliament to protect our honour.
Please bear with us and listen to us Sumanbabu, we are not finished yet. The tears have not dried, no one came to wipe them. We could not do our daily chores as we were emotionally hurt. We decided launch a campaign, spread the word around. We marched once again to Jhargram. We entered Jhargram on July 20 from one side. Some reported there were 35 thousand women, some said 40, some 50. We have no idea how many we were. We are not that educated. Probably you have seen us on the TV. Yet, we did not get any justice. They attacked, beat and chased us away. But we are not defeated. We have campaigned to more distant areas. We called more women to join the battle for saving your honour. It was the month of Shraban, a busy season in the fields. But what option did we have? The crops are growing in the field, but the field is bereft of water. Yet we went to the field to save what we could. We got down on the road too. Our dear school going children joined the rally to protect the respect of their mothers and sisters. The whole of Jhargram reverberated. Many processions ran through the town. On July 21 Mamata-didi announced in Dharmatala that she would visit Lalgarh. Although she did not shed any tears, we hope she would speak up against the bestial torture inflicted on us by the forces of the state and central government. We are the Manush of Jangalmahal’s Maa and Maati. Did she not see our protest in Jhargarm on July 20? The pain, demands, demonstrations, resistance on the Jangalmahal women must have caught her attention? Nowadays Buddhbabu declares us as Maoists. Perhaps didimoni may have heard this too. We are helpless if such allegations are made. Buddhababu announced in the assembly that no proof of rape was found. None present there protested against this remark. When we watched the TV we were convinced that our honour or respect is not a matter of concern to them. They would keep quiet if housewives in villages are attacked. We saw the photo of Manasbabu’s meeting in Khejuri (July 24) in protest against the beating up of Usha Naidu on Khejuri road. We saw his protest and the Rail Roko. We heard his speech. He says, the CPI(M) elements which have entered TMC are creating trouble. We have nothing to say on this. Who would take the responsibility of the dirty jobs perpetrated by the CPI(M)-turned-TMC? We don’t have anything to say on the Congress-TMC politics over Khejuri. Our point is, Manasbabu’s men can obstruct the trains and roads all over West Bengal on July 25; when we the housewives of peasant families stop the trains in the name of Nari ijjat bnachao committee the government dubs it as Maoist rail obstruction. None has protested this duplicity either in Kolkata or in Delhi. We are not educated, urban, with aristocratic background. We are not the bhadralok. We simply toil and earn our living. When Congress-CPI(M) forces rape us and we seek to protest we are attacked. Sarkari babus add insult to the injury by spreading lies about us. The ministers, leaders, MPs of different parties, local administration – all are locked in a silent conspiracy. As long as this goes on, what options are we left with but to sit and demonstrate on the roads, Kabirbabu?
We like to draw your attention to another machination of the government. The residents of Radhanagar of Jhargram have not allowed us take out a procession. The harmads of the village instigated the police. The students of Sebayatan school took out a procession, the head master ran to report this to the police. If the head master has mother, sisters, wife they are well protected in the hands of harmads, gano-protirodh committee [militia of CPI(M)] or the police. The head master is not therefore concerned about our safety. He stands with the CPI(M) and the police. The Radhanagar procession of July 24 was engineered by the CPI(M). Everyone in the area knows that, yet the truth never gets publicised. We therefore reiterate. As long as the government protects those who raped us we shall go on fighting.
Kabirbabu, join us in our fight. It’s not only you, we are writing letters to every MP. Please translate this letter and read it out in the parliament. Send this letter to each MP, artiste, writer, littérateur, poet, intellectual of the country. Be our voice in the parliament. Spread the saga of our tears and pain from Kolkata to Delhi and save our honour. Please tell the parliament that like everyone else we also have the right to life. Just as the mothers and sisters of the honourable people sitting in the parliament have honour, though we are poor we too have it. The soldiers that you have sent from the parliament to our villages and fields have not come to bestow peace and protection on us. They are the very people to attack us. Please withdraw them. And never send them to anywhere else. Please send this message of ours to the parliament and everywhere. Do accept our respect and love.
With revolutionary greetings,
Nari Ijjat Bnachao Committee
Jangalmahal
Letter from Women of Jangalmahal.

[pranabjyoti]

Convention Against Operation Green Hunt at Chandigarh (http://naxalrevolution.blogspot.com/2010/09/convention-against-operation-green-hunt.html)

Email This (http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=29380678&postID=8416323955994537597&target=email) BlogThis! (http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=29380678&postID=8416323955994537597&target=blog) Share to Twitter (http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=29380678&postID=8416323955994537597&target=twitter) Share to Facebook (http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=29380678&postID=8416323955994537597&target=facebook) Share to Google Buzz (http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=29380678&postID=8416323955994537597&target=buzz)





http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7wGcCVu59EU/TGK0fQ0DjfI/AAAAAAAAAJo/BUVdaa8ysGM/s400/34893_113158625398855_100001141551683_83799_504694 0_n.jpg (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7wGcCVu59EU/TGK0fQ0DjfI/AAAAAAAAAJo/BUVdaa8ysGM/s1600/34893_113158625398855_100001141551683_83799_504694 0_n.jpg)Himanshu Kumar on his Cycle Yatra to Punjab


http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_7wGcCVu59EU/TGK0XjVJCcI/AAAAAAAAAJg/DwwCqIox-oI/s400/15.jpg (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_7wGcCVu59EU/TGK0XjVJCcI/AAAAAAAAAJg/DwwCqIox-oI/s1600/15.jpg)Himanshu Kumar Addressing Chandigarh Convention


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7wGcCVu59EU/TGK0RaGDCPI/AAAAAAAAAJY/dgH5lcCriF8/s400/11.jpg (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7wGcCVu59EU/TGK0RaGDCPI/AAAAAAAAAJY/dgH5lcCriF8/s1600/11.jpg)Sh. Gursharan Singh (noted peoples Dramatist), Convener, Democratic Front Against Operation Green Hunt, Punjab, addressing the Convention


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7wGcCVu59EU/TGK0HkdmdBI/AAAAAAAAAJQ/jz2fRqaNIFE/s400/19.jpg (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7wGcCVu59EU/TGK0HkdmdBI/AAAAAAAAAJQ/jz2fRqaNIFE/s1600/19.jpg)A section of the Audience


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7wGcCVu59EU/TGKz_LX5EMI/AAAAAAAAAJI/aRek5-h3mBg/s400/16.jpg (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7wGcCVu59EU/TGKz_LX5EMI/AAAAAAAAAJI/aRek5-h3mBg/s1600/16.jpg)A section of the Audience


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7wGcCVu59EU/TGKzZLaG6bI/AAAAAAAAAJA/8XymRsbT39k/s400/8.jpg (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7wGcCVu59EU/TGKzZLaG6bI/AAAAAAAAAJA/8XymRsbT39k/s1600/8.jpg)Sh Gursharan Singh in wheel chair, blessing the Cycle Yatra


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7wGcCVu59EU/TGKzSKzO7CI/AAAAAAAAAI4/o_-PxWTzoYw/s400/7.jpg (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7wGcCVu59EU/TGKzSKzO7CI/AAAAAAAAAI4/o_-PxWTzoYw/s1600/7.jpg)Beginning of Cycle Yatra


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7wGcCVu59EU/TGKzMPT9OVI/AAAAAAAAAIw/HEz6HLRdq6s/s400/5.jpg (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7wGcCVu59EU/TGKzMPT9OVI/AAAAAAAAAIw/HEz6HLRdq6s/s1600/5.jpg)Sh. Gursharan Singh coming to Convention venue at Chandigarh


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7wGcCVu59EU/TGKzGktPsvI/AAAAAAAAAIo/Je1DJmgcbWQ/s400/2.jpg (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7wGcCVu59EU/TGKzGktPsvI/AAAAAAAAAIo/Je1DJmgcbWQ/s1600/2.jpg)Sh. Gursharan Singh, Prof Ajmer Aulakh, Prof A.K.Maleri presenting the poster issued to commemorate the beginning of the Democratic Front's compaign against Operation Green Hunt


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7wGcCVu59EU/TGKy-SMF9qI/AAAAAAAAAIg/xVZDkseg5qw/s400/1.jpg (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7wGcCVu59EU/TGKy-SMF9qI/AAAAAAAAAIg/xVZDkseg5qw/s1600/1.jpg)



Source - Lok Morcha (http://lokmorcha.blogspot.com/)
Report on Convention against operation Green Hunt in Chandigar.

[pranabjyoti]

CPI(Marxist) sets up Bunkers and Harmad Camps in Junglemahal (http://naxalrevolution.blogspot.com/2010/09/cpimarxist-sets-up-bunkers-and-harmad.html)

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CPI(Marxist) has started importing mercenaries from neighboring states to crush the adivasi rebellion in junglemahal. Thousands of arms have been distributed and bunkers setup under the direct supervision of the senior party leaders.

Harmad Camps in Junglemahal

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_oeBSFSdyKWU/TH_hTwB5vbI/AAAAAAAAAPQ/E4V22AvxUSM/s400/List+of+Harmad+Camps.jpgThe word "harmad" has been incorporated recently in Bengali vocabulary, thanks to CPM. It means armed forces of CPM constituted by hired goons. Icore Ekdin (2 Sept 10), a Bengali daily reported that in Junglemahal CPM runs 52 harmed camps with 1620 goons hired from Bihar, Jharkhand, Arambag, Keshpur etc.


After establishing its domination over a locality CPM shifts their harmad camps to another area. The schools, CPM party offices and houses of CPM leaders are used as camps. According to the daily, central intelligence branch has also mentioned these harmad camps in their report.

Source: Icore Ekdin 2 Sept, 2010.


Why no UAPA against them?

[pranabjyoti]

Fire in the Hole - Article about Indian Maoists in Foreign Policy Magazine (http://naxalrevolution.blogspot.com/2010/09/fire-in-hole-article-about-indian.html)

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How India's economic rise turned an obscure communist revolt into a raging resource war.


BY JASON MIKLIAN (Jason Miklian is a researcher at Peace Research Institute Oslo (http://www.prio.no/) - [email protected] ([email protected]) ) & SCOTT CARNEY (Scott Carney is an investigative journalist and contributing editor for Wired.- http://www.scottcarney.com/ )

SEPT. / OCT. 2010

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_spYZcV2TRZs/TIM2wKHF4OI/AAAAAAAAADU/gDDvcEjgNxY/s400/miner.jpg (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_spYZcV2TRZs/TIM2wKHF4OI/AAAAAAAAADU/gDDvcEjgNxY/s1600/miner.jpg)

View a photo essay (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/08/16/indias_hidden_war) on India's hidden war

The richest iron mine in India was guarded by 16 men, armed with Army-issued, self-loading rifles and dressed in camouflage fatigues. Only eight survived the night of Feb. 9, 2006, when a crack team of Maoist insurgents cut the power to the Bailadila mining complex and slipped out of the jungle cover in the moonlight. The guerrillas opened fire on the guards with automatic weapons, overrunning them before they had time to take up defensive positions. They didn't have a chance: The remote outpost was an hour's drive from the nearest major city, and the firefight to defend it only lasted a few minutes.

The guards were protecting not only $80 billion-plus worth of mineral deposits, but also the mine's explosives magazine, which held the ammonium nitrate the miners used to pulverize mountainsides and loosen the iron ore. When the fighting was over and the surviving guards rounded up and gagged, about 2,000 villagers who had been hiding behind the commando vanguard clambered over the fence into the compound and began emptying the magazine. Altogether they carried out 20 tons of explosives on their backs -- enough firepower to fuel a covert insurgency for a decade.

Four and a half years after the attack in the remote Indian state of Chhattisgarh, the blasting materials have spread across the country, repackaged as 10-pound coffee-can bombs stuffed with ball bearings, screws, and chopped-up rebar. In May, one villager's haul vaporized a bus filled with civilians and police. Another destroyed a section of railway later that month, sending a passenger train careening off the tracks into a ravine. Smaller ambushes of police forces on booby-trapped roads happen pretty much every week. Almost all of it, local police told us, can be traced back to that February night.

The Bailadila mine raid was one of India's most profound strategic losses in the country's protracted battle against its Maoist movement, a militant guerrilla force that has been fighting in one incarnation or another in India's rural backwaters for more than 40 years. Over the course of the half-dozen visits we've made to the region during the past several years, we've come to consider the attack on the mine not just one defeat in the long-running war, but a symbolic shift in the conflict: For years, the Maoists had lived in the shadow of India's breakneck modernization. Now they were thriving off it.

Only a decade ago, the rebels -- often, though somewhat inaccurately, called Naxalites after their guerrilla predecessors who first launched the rebellion in the West Bengal village of Naxalbari in 1967 -- seemed to have all but vanished. Their cause of communist revolution looked hopelessly outdated, their ranks depleted. In the years since, however, the Maoists have made an improbable comeback, rooted in the gritty mining country on which India's economic boom relies. A new generation of fighters has retooled the Naxalites' mishmash of Marx, Lenin, and Mao for the 21st century, rebranding their group as the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and railing against what the rebels' spokesman described to us as the "evil consequences by the policies of liberalization, privatization, and globalization."

Although it has gotten little attention outside South Asia, for India this is no longer an isolated outbreak of rural unrest, but a full-fledged guerrilla war. Over the past 10 years, some 10,000 people have died and 150,000 more have been driven permanently from their homes by the fighting. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told a high-level meeting of state ministers not long after the Bailadila raid that the Maoists are "the single greatest threat to the country's internal security," and in 2009 he launched a military surge dubbed "Operation Green Hunt": a deployment of almost 100,000 new paramilitary troops and police to contain the estimated 7,000 rebels and their 20,000-plus -- according to our research -- part-time supporters. Newspapers run stories almost daily about "successful operations" in which police string up the bodies of suspected militants on bamboo poles and lay out their captured caches of arms and ammunition. Many of the dead are civilians, and the harsh tactics have polarized the country.

It wasn't supposed to be this way -- not in 21st-century India, a country 20 years into an experiment in rapid, technology-driven development, one of globalization's most celebrated success stories. In 1991, with India on the brink of bankruptcy, Singh -- then the country's finance minister -- pursued an ambitious slate of economic reforms, opening up the country to foreign investment, ending public monopolies, and encouraging India's bloated state-run firms to behave like real commercial ventures. Today, India's GDP is more than five times what it was in 1991. Its major cities are now home to an affluent professional class that commutes in new cars on freshly paved four-lane highways to jobs that didn't exist not so long ago.

But plenty of Indians have missed out. Economic liberalization has not even nudged the lives of the country's bottom 200 million people. India is now one of the most economically stratified societies on the planet; its judicial system remains byzantine, its political institutions corrupt, its public education and health-care infrastructure anemic. The percentage of people going hungry in India hasn't budged in 20 years, according to this year's U.N. Millennium Development Goals report. New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore now boast gleaming glass-and-steel IT centers and huge engineering projects. But India's vast hinterland remains dirt poor -- nowhere more so than the mining region of India's eastern interior, the part of the country that produces the iron for the buildings and cars, the coal that keeps the lights on in faraway metropolises, and the exotic minerals that go into everything from wind turbines to electric cars to iPads.

If you were to lay a map of today's Maoist insurgency over a map of the mining activity powering India's boom, the two would line up almost perfectly. Ground zero for the rebellion lies in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, a pair of neighboring, mostly rural states some 750 miles southeast of New Delhi that are home to 46 million people spread out over an area a little smaller than Kansas. Urban elites in India envision them as something akin to Appalachia, with a landscape of rolling forested hills, coal mines, and crushing poverty; their undereducated residents are the frequent butt of jokes told in more fortunate corners of the country.

Revenues from mineral extraction in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand topped $20 billion in 2008, and more than $1 trillion in proven reserves still sit in the ground. But this geological inheritance has been managed so disastrously that many locals -- uprooted, unemployed, and living in a toxic and dangerous environment, due to the mining operations -- have thrown in their lot with the Maoists. "It is better to die here fighting on our own land than merely survive on someone else's," Phul Kumari Devi told us when we visited her dusty mining village of Agarbi Basti in June. "If the Maoists come here, then we would ask their help to resist."

The mines are also cash registers for the Maoist war chest. Through extortion, covert attacks, and plain old theft, insurgents have tapped a steady stream of mining money to pay their foot soldiers and buy arms and ammunition, sometimes from treasonous cops themselves. The result is the kind of perpetual-motion machine of armed conflict that is grimly familiar in places like the oil-soaked Niger Delta, but seems extraordinary in the world's largest democracy.

This isn't just an Indian story -- it's a global one. In the wake of Singh's economic reforms, foreign investment in the country has grown to 150 times what it was in 1991. Among other things, India has opened up its vast mineral reserves to private and international players, and now major global companies like Toyota and Coca-Cola rely on mining operations in the heart of the Maoist war zone. Investors in the region claim that the fighting is taking a toll on their businesses, and Bloomberg News recently estimated that some $80 billion worth of projects are stalled at least in part by the guerrilla war, enough to double India's steel output.

But in our visits to the region and dozens of interviews there -- with miners and politicians, refugees and paramilitary leaders, cops and go-betweens for the guerrillas -- we found a far more complex reality. Mining companies have managed to double their production in the two states in the past decade, even as the conflict has escalated; the most unscrupulous among them have used the fog of war as a pretext for land grabs, leveling villages whose residents have fled the fighting. At the same time, the Maoists, for all their communist rhetoric, have become as much a business as anything else, one that will remain profitable as long as the country's mines continue to churn out the riches on which the Indian economy depends.

The first sign you see as you leave the airport in Jharkhand's capital city of Ranchi welcomes you to the "Land of Coal," and indeed, mining underlies every aspect of life here. Seams of coal are visible in the earth alongside the rutted roads that connect the jungle hamlets. Travelers learn to anticipate mines not by any road signs, but by the processions of men pushing bicycles heaped with burlap sacks full of coal: day laborers who pay for the opportunity to scrape the stuff out of thousands of off-the-books mines and sell it door to door as heating fuel, for perhaps a few more dollars a day than they would make as farmers trying to eke out a living from Jharkhand's depleted soil.

India's coal country was mostly passed over by British colonists until they discovered its mineral wealth in the late 19th century and built the obligatory handful of dusty frontier towns and roads necessary to take advantage of it. Today the region bears the obvious scars of a hundred-odd years of heavy industry. The damage is most visible at road marker 221 of Jharkhand's main north-south highway, about 40 miles outside Ranchi, where a freshly paved patch of asphalt veers sharply west and snakes up a smoky hill through the village of Loha Gate and into an ecological disaster zone. Shimmering waves of heat, thick with carbon monoxide and selenium, waft through jagged cracks in the pavement large enough to swallow a soccer ball. A hundred feet below, a massive subterranean coal fire, started in an abandoned mine, burns so hot that it melts the soles of one's shoes. The only vestiges of plant life are the scattered hulks of desiccated trees. Like the legendary coal fire that destroyed Centralia, Pennsylvania, this blaze could easily smolder for another 200 years before the coal seam is finally burned through.

There are at least 80 coal fires like this burning in Jharkhand, turning much of the state's ground into a giant combustible honeycomb. A fire ignited in 1916 by neglectful miners near the city of Jharia has grown so large that it now threatens to burn away the land beneath the entire community, plunging the 400,000 residents into an underground inferno. One mine just outside Jharia collapsed in 2006, killing 54 people.

Coal mining and armed rebellion have long gone hand in hand in what is now Jharkhand, both dating back to the mid-1890s, when the British began extracting coal from the area and Birsa Munda, today a local folk hero, launched a tribal revolt to regain local control of resources. The British quelled the uprising with a massive deployment of troops, but the resentment festered. India's government after independence proved a poor landlord as well, with decades of mining disasters -- more than 700 people were killed in them between 1965 and 1975 alone -- and a corrupt, nearly feudal government that made what was then the state of Bihar notorious in India as the country's most poorly run, backward region.

By the 1990s, fed-up residents campaigned to carve Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh into their own jurisdictions. The politicians behind the movement argued that the people who lived in the shadow of the mines were the least likely to benefit from them, the spoils instead accruing to large out-of-state corporations and venal government officials in distant capitals. In 2000, India's Parliament acquiesced, forming new states that then-Home Minister L.K. Advani declared would "fulfill the aspirations of the people."

But statehood only enabled the rise of a new cast of villains. Absentee political landlords were replaced with home-grown thugs who exploited the new state government's lax oversight to build their own fiefdoms. Madhu Koda, one of Jharkhand's former chief ministers, is awaiting trial on allegations he siphoned $1 billion from state coffers -- an astonishing 20 percent of the state's revenues -- during his two-year tenure. Mining operations, fast-tracked without regard for environmental or safety concerns, expanded at an alarming rate and are now projected to displace at least half a million people in Jharkhand by 2015.

The blighted landscape has proved to be fertile ground for the Maoist insurgency's renaissance. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Maoists' predecessors in the Naxalite movement had waged a bloody revolutionary campaign across rural India, only to mostly fade away by the early 1990s. The Maoists who have picked up the Naxalites' banner in recent years are different, and the contours of their rebellion are hard to pin down.

These fighters claim to be led in battle by an elusive figure called Kishenji, who depending on whom you ask is either a one-legged, battle-hardened Brahmin, a 1960s-era radical with a Ph.D. from New Delhi, or simply a moniker used by anyone within the organization who wishes to sound authoritative or confuse the police. The guerrillas shun email and mobile phones and rarely communicate with the world beyond the jungle, mostly via letters ferried back and forth by foot soldiers. Over several years of attempted correspondence, we received only a few missives in return. All were written in an opaque style full of the sort of arcane Marxist jargon that the rest of the world forgot in the 1970s.

Today's Maoists maintain the radical leftist politics of their predecessors and draw their civilian support from the same rural grievances -- poverty, lack of justice, political disenfranchisement. But they are less an organized ideological movement than a loose confederation of militias, and many of their local commanders appear to be in it for the money alone. They wage war sporadically across a 1,000-mile swath of India, operating without a permanent base, relying on the tacit support of villagers to evade the police and paramilitary forces that hunt them, and periodically raiding remote police stations for resupplies of arms and ammunition.

But the rebels' primary revenue comes from the region's mines. Where the Naxalites used to congregate in areas with longstanding conflicts between landowners and laborers, Maoist strongholds now tend to pop up within striking distance of large-scale extractive operations. Such mines cover vast areas and are difficult to secure, making them sitting ducks for well-armed insurgents. "Most of the mines in this state are in the forests, so we are easy targets," says Deepak Kumar, the owner of several such mines in Jharkhand. "The only way to stop the attacks is to negotiate."

Kumar comes from a long line of Jharkhandi robber barons. In the 1980s, he used his mining camps as staging grounds for stalking the region's near-extinct Bengal tigers. Today he owns a series of profitable but (by his own admission) illegal coal mines, hidden in the palm forests. Legal mines extract ore with giant machines that carve craters to the horizon; Kumar's are more like secret caves, the coal dug out of deep tunnels with pickaxes by day laborers working for $2 to $3 a day. He told us his revenues run about $4 million a year, typical for off-the-books operations in a state where less than half of raw materials are extracted legitimately.

On July 4, 2004, Kumar was closing out the day's accounts in his makeshift office at one of his mines when seven female guerrillas carrying automatic rifles broke down his door, forcing him into the forest at gunpoint. They marched him to a riverbed, where they stopped and held a gun to his head. "I thought I was going to die," he recalls. Instead they demanded $2.5 million for his ransom.

Through the night, the Maoists marched him barefoot over crisscrossing trails, until they happened across a police patrol that was searching for him. Kumar escaped in the ensuing gun battle. But after he returned to work several weeks later, Maoist negotiators knocked on his door and let him know he was still a target. So, Kumar told us, he quickly hashed out a business arrangement with the rebels: In exchange for their leaving his operation alone, he would pay them 5 percent of his revenues.

The protection money, like the small bribes Kumar says he pays to the police to avoid troublesome safety and environmental regulations, has simply become another operating cost. Kumar says that every mine owner he knows pays up, too. By his back-of-the-envelope approximation, if the other estimated 2,500 illegal mines in the state are doling out comparable kickbacks to the rebels, the Maoists' annual take would come to $500 million -- enough to keep a militant movement alive indefinitely. "It works like a tax," he says with a Cheshire grin, "just another business expense and now everything runs smoothly."

Calls by politicians to clamp down on the Maoists' extortion racket ring hollow as long as the politicians themselves are running the same sort of scheme -- and in Jharkhand, they often are. Shibu Soren, a former national minister for coal and chief minister of Jharkhand until he was removed from office in May, has been tried for murder three times, though he was ultimately acquitted. (The crimes' witnesses had a habit of disappearing, or turning up dead.) Last year, local newspapers exposed a case in which two henchmen of another local politician assassinated a children's development aid worker, reportedly because he refused to pay the obligatory 10 percent kickback of his dairy goods after receiving a government contract. What they would have done with 3,000 gallons of milk is anyone's guess.

"If you want to be somebody in Jharkhand, just kill an aid worker," T.P. Singh, a Jharkhand correspondent for the Sahara Samay cable network, told us. A large man with a thick mustache, a TV-ready cocksure grin, and a penetrating stare, Singh is the network's crime and corruption exposé king, and a celebrity in the region. He plays the role of the TV cowboy to the hilt, right down to the ubiquitous ten-gallon hat he was wearing when we met him at the local press club in the Jharkhandi mining city of Hazaribagh to ask about the dangers of reporting on powerful people in a land with no effective laws.

"You know how I get those boys to respect me?" Singh replied. "With this." He reached into the waistband underneath his knee-length kurta and pulled out a Dirty Harry six-shooter, loaded and ready for action. A former Maoist turned politician, sitting on a couch across from Singh awaiting an interview, nodded his solemn approval.

The act is part bluster, but also part necessity. Many of Singh's media compatriots in Jharkhand have been killed, kidnapped, or threatened with death by the Maoists, miners, politicians, or all three at some point in their careers. In some areas, local law enforcement has simply ceded authority to government-sanctioned civilian militias, which are often accused by locals of pillaging even more rapaciously than the Maoists -- and contributing to the fighting by arming poor villagers. The most feared among them is Salwa Judum, secretly assembled by the Chhattisgarh government in 2005 to fight the Maoists; its 5,000-odd members patrol the state armed with everything from AK-47s to axes. Some roam the forest with bows and arrows.

"The Maoists have been killing locals for years," Mahendra Karma, the founder of Salwa Judum, told us. "But when [Salwa Judum members] kill Maoists or Maoist supporters, all of a sudden people shout the word 'human rights.' There should be no double standard. If we kill a Maoist, then how is that a violation of human rights?"

Karma has the thick frame and round face of a heavyweight boxer a decade past his prime. When we met him in his office, far from the fighting, in Chhattisgarh's capital of Raipur, he was flanked by armed guards. Above his desk was a life-size portrait of Mahatma Gandhi.

Karma founded the militia in 2005, when he was opposition leader in the state parliament. In the years since, he has presided over his district's descent into a war zone, as the Maoists and Salwa Judum have taken turns torching villages and raping and killing hundreds of people each year in a spiral of revenge attacks. Some villages have been attacked more than 15 times by one side or the other. Salwa Judum members are also accused of extracurricular killing to settle personal scores, even dressing the bodies in Maoist uniforms to cover up their crimes.

When we met, Karma was happy at first to talk about the militia. But when our questions turned probing, his mood soured. Finally, rising to his feet and jabbing his finger into our chests, he shouted, "These questions you ask have come from the Naxalites -- you are the men of the Naxalites!" In Chhattisgarh, Karma's rage could easily amount to an extrajudicial death sentence. We were on the first flight back to Delhi.

It was just as well because by that point our attempts to contact anyone in the Maoist rebel camps had yielded next to nothing. After leftist author Arundhati Roy paid a visit to the Maoists this year, the Indian government reinterpreted its anti-terrorism laws to make speaking favorably about the rebels or their ideological aims -- including opposition to corporate mining -- punishable by up to 10 years in prison. This has made the Maoists' civilian allies cagey about dealing with outsiders, and the already reclusive fighters even more difficult to reach. After months of sporadic contact with the Maoists' liaisons, exchanging handwritten notes with couriers who arrived at our Ranchi hotel in the middle of the night, we made a breakthrough: Finally, a rebel spokesman by the nom de guerre of Gopal offered the prospect of visiting a Maoist camp. It would involve being whisked deep into the jungle on the back of a motor scooter and then camping out there for several days, waiting for the rebels to make contact, blindfold us, and take us the rest of the way to their outpost. We were ready to do it, but monsoon rains and a Green Hunt military offensive eventually scotched the plan.

Since then, the Maoists have kept busy. In addition to the May bus explosion near Bailadila that killed 35 people, the passenger-train derailment that same month killed almost 150 people, bringing total casualties to more than 800 so far in 2010 alone. The central government has responded by dispatching even more military resources to the area.

In a sense, however, India has already lost this war. It has lost it gradually, over the last 20 years, by mistaking industrialization for development -- by thinking that it could launch its economy into the 21st century without modernizing its political structures and justice system along with it, or preventing the corruption that worsens the inequality that development aid from New Delhi is supposed to rectify. The government is sending in Army advisors and equipment -- for now, the war is being fought by the Indian equivalent of a national guard, not the Army proper -- and spending billions of dollars on infrastructure projects in the districts where the Maoists are strongest. But it hasn't addressed the concerns that drove the residents of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand into the guerrillas' arms in the first place -- concerns that are often shockingly basic.

In the town of Jamshedpur we visited Naveen Kumar Singh, a superintendent of police who can boast of a string of hard-won victories over the Maoists, which include demolishing training camps, confiscating weapons, and racking up a double-digit body count. But Singh is also responsible for winning his district's hearts and minds. When we stopped by his office, 10 petitioners were lined up in front of his desk. They were mostly poor men and women from rural areas, their clothes dusty from long bus rides. One woman in a purple sari arrived with a limp, leaning heavily on her son's shoulders. She asked Singh for help moving forward a police investigation into the car that hit her. Everyone in the room knew that without his signature on her crumpled forms, nothing would happen.

But Singh looked bored and sifted idly through the woman's handwritten papers. Finally, he waved his hand in the air and told her to go find more documents, ushering her back into the endless bureaucratic loop that is India's legal system. Most of the others received similar treatment.

Later, we asked him what the police were doing to combat the Maoists. When the police go on missions now, he told us, they pass out literature to the mostly illiterate peasantry and staple on every tree slogans warning people away from Maoism. "We don't only go into the forest to kill people," he bragged. "We also hang posters."

Source - Foreign Policy (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/08/16/fire_in_the_hole?page=0,0)
An article on Maoist insurrection in India.

[pranabjyoti]

The Indian State has a history of suppressing non-violent protests: Lessons from the Narmada Valley struggle (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/05/the-indian-state-has-a-history-of-suppressing-non-violent-protests-lessons-from-the-narmada-valley-struggle/)


http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/14_th_medha_big_dam_144433f.jpg?w=445&h=295 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/14_th_medha_big_dam_144433f.jpg)Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar with the leader of Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti Akhil Gogoi at a protest rally on the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border in Guwahati. Photo: Ritu Raj Konwar

Today in the jungles of Dantewada, it is paying the price for its follies, says Ashish Chadha.
It was during the Manibeli satyagraha of August 1991 that I met People’s War Group (PWG) activists in the Narmada Valley for the first time. The river was flowing above the danger mark thanks to incessant rain. Manibeli, a small tribal hamlet on the Maharashtra side of the river, was threatened with imminent submergence – the first victim of the Sardar Sarovar Project. But it was not going to go down with a whimper. The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) had announced a jal-samarpan, a radical form of Gandhian non-violent protest that captured the imagination of the nation.
Medha Patkar along with a motley group of driven NBA activists and adivasis had decided to ‘sacrifice’ themselves in the sacred river. The largest non-violent movements in India after Mahatma Gandhi was challenging the might of the nation by sacrificing itself at the altar of development. Not a mere symbolic gesture or waive defiance, but a visceral end to a peaceful struggle.
The NBA feared that the State would violently suppress the protest. Many grassroots activists, intellectuals, journalists and students from all across India had come to show solidarity with this group of satyagrahis as they fought a battle of survival and ideology. We were camping next to the medieval Shoolpanewsar temple, secretly hoping that the Narmada River would not rise further.
Other than waiting for police action to happen, attending strategy meetings, and singing Andolan songs, we would usually sit in the ancient corridors of the eroded temple chatting about the state of the world. It was during one of these engrossing conversations that one of the PWG activists, in his halting, Telugu-accented Hindi, informed us: “We told Medha-tai to let us lead the moment for just one day. We will see to it that this dam is never made. Gandhian non-violence will not do you any good. You don’t know this government. it will trample you. It will mercilessly crush you.” I remember vigorously justifying the non-violent ideological basis of NBA. Today, nearly 20 years later, sitting in an American university campus, reading daily about the growing crisis in Dantewara, I am forced to eat my words.
“This is different from the Naxalite violence of the 60s and the 70s,” I was explaining to a Pakistani friend – a card-carrying communist who fled Pakistan 30 years ago when Zia ul-Haq’s regime brutally crushed trade unions and the communist party there. “This is not our battle, it is theirs. It is actually a people’s movement. It is a movement of the oppressed people, by the oppressed people, for the oppressed people.” On a long-distance telephone conversation, from the East coast of the West coast of America, I was explaining to him the recent slaughter of security personnel in Dantewada by the Maoists. “this is different because this time there is no Brahmin, no intellectual, no middle-class activists leading them. This time there is no one from Calcutta, Bombay or Jawaharlal Nehru University. This is their war of survival. And they are fighting their way. The rage is inevitable.” He was troubled. We are all troubled by the ferocity of the violence.
The core issue for the Maoist movement resonates with that of the NBA. Today’s Maoist movement in central india is unique. For the first time in the history of the communist movement in India, it’s not just the foundational questions of class and agrarian relations that are being raised, but also those of key issues of development, environmental destruction, post-colonial ideology of progress – problems the NBA fought for 20 years. Ours was an on-violent struggle, and today the movement is finished, the dam is complete, waters have not reached the most needy in Kutch and the displaced are devastated. A movement in shambles, its people lost, tired and hopeless. It is in the anguish of the NBA’s collapse that the Maoists have emerged.
The Indian government mocked the NBA’s quest. It humiliated it. It suppressed it. Today in the jungles of Dantewada, it is paying the price for its follies. The Maoist movement is not a law and order problem as Home Minister P. Chidambaram would want us to believe. It is not a political problem. It is a social problem. It is an ethical problem. It is a moral problem. The Indian State has to own up the responsibility of its systemic failure – the failure to govern.
In an early morning sweep of August 3, 1991, a few hundred policemen form Dhule district raided Manibeli and arrested Medha Patkar and the satyagrahis along with 63 people. The PWG activists and I evaded arrest and escaped to Baroda. As the rickety Gujarat State Transport bus navigated the potholed highway lined with babul trees, one of the PWG activists ponderously whispered in my ear, almost like a solemn dialogue from a Hindi fild: “This Gandhi-wadi will not get you anywhere. Government ko baandook ki gunje sonaye deti hai(the government only recognizes the sound of the gun)”.
(Ashish Chadha teaches anthropology at Yale University.)
People’s March, August-September 2010,

http://www.bannedthought.net/India/PeoplesMarch/index.htm
That's the worlds biggest democracy in reality.

[pranabjyoti]

Indian Journalist: Government can’t intimidate me from covering Operation Green Hunt (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/05/indian-journalist-government-cant-intimidate-me-from-covering-operation-green-hunt/)

Dear Chhattisgarh police,
In response to your accusations about me being a Maoist Agent, I’d like to tell you about something called a ‘conscience’. It’s quite a fragile thing, it’s not an absolute. It doesn’t really control the world nor win anyone any fame or success. In my young naive head, it has no politics, it has no religion, but it says one small thing – that in no way, will I be responsible for the harm of any human being. Every time I leave for the war zone, I’ve had all but one futile prayer:
“A prayer before leaving I pray that nothing I do makes anything any worse,
I pray that nothing I do makes life miserable for anyone I leave behind
I pray that I know what the hell I’m doing, and I pray that I don’t lose my soul.’
And you, the police, think I will accompany the Maoists while they shoot dead sleeping men and fill a child’s leg full of shrapnel? And I will be video graphing it? Do you really think so?
That crazy silly little thing called conscience is really that crazy and silly that it ceased to exist? Of course, I’m not stupid enough to believe that what I write, document, or photograph, isn’t being used in a propaganda war by others. And I know, at times, I am being used to document your atrocities on the adivasis by people who don’t believe in human rights themselves.
But do you remember these words – ‘does keeping quiet make anything any better? If I don’t report a single killing, does it cease to exist? If I don’t take pictures of a burnt village, does it cease to exist? If I don’t report a disappeared 12 year old girl, does she cease to exist?’
I wrote that to you the last time you had attacked me for documenting your crimes.
And of course, you wish to use me too in your mad war. You call me up and ask me what Ramanna looks like. Why do you think I was left perturbed? As it is, I have never met him, and had no idea of what he looks like. And you ask me to manipulate another colleague of mine to gather information for you, so you can kill him? Why would I do that? Even though this man is a Maoist and is responsible for the deaths of countless CRPF jawans, I would in no point feel comfortable about his death because of some stupid information about how tall he is, or how big his nose is. To me, that’s as bad as pulling the trigger myself. And I’d rather go to hell than compromise my conscience. And thanks to you and your kind, I probably will find it on earth.
If I ever had a chance to even sit down with Ramanna with a revolver to point to his head, or a pen, I’d pick the pen and I’d do what I do. Which is write. Which is to speak up? Which is to appeal to them? Which is to tell them that killing CRPF Jawans isn’t going to make the world a better place.
They probably won’t listen to me. But they don’t listen to you either. You can kill all of them. History will not change anything. You will find a thousand more Ramannas.
We’re cogs in a machine, you do your job, and I’ll do mine, and if you think you’re going to tell me how to do mine(by intimidating me), I’ll return the courtesy. Although, I don’t think the words ‘human rights’, or ‘the constitution’ or the ‘rule of law’ are ever going to frighten you. I have two better ones, ‘police reform.’
Yours truly, Javed Iqbal
People’s March, August-September 2010,
http://www.bannedthought.net/India/PeoplesMarch/index.htm


That's the reality behind the "free press":lol: behind the worlds biggest democracy.

[t.shonku]

Exposed ill-treatment of Low caste people in India “Dalits” life: world needs to see this video


You Tube Link to this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIS2FAzbw34

See this is true face of India’s “Democracy”

Comrades! this is a must watch video,don’t miss it.It will show you reality of India.

[pranabjyoti]

CPI(Maoist) on the imperialist-dictated and new democratic models of development (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/cpimaoist-on-the-imperialist-dictated-and-new-democratic-models-of-development/)

Let us sweep away the pests ruling our country by unleashing a high tide of people’s struggles! Let us dismantle the imperialist-dictated development model and establish the new democratic model of development!!
-Central Propaganda Department, CPI (Maoist)
Today a civil war is raging in the vast stretches of the Indian countryside and in the entire country between the oppressed people of the country led by the CPI (Maoist) and the Indian State representing a tiny, parasitic, and elite of comprador financial-military- industrial complex ruling the country with the active aid and assistance of the imperialists, particularly the US imperialists.
The media, owned and controlled by the corporate sharks, has become the chief instrument for manufacturing consent for the unjust brutal counter-revolutionary war waged by the reactionary rulers, for providing it with ideological justification and legitimacy, for adding fuel to the flames of counter-revolution, and for driving the reactionaries towards further militarization and fascisation of the Indian State. The media has also become the chief instrument for carrying out a vicious, despicable campaign of disinformation, lies and slander against the Maoists, Maoist ideology, the new democratic and socialist state, Maoist strategy and tactics.
The methods adopted by the rulers and the media to justify their unjust war range from the crudest to the most sophisticated: from openly justifying their brutal murders and catalogue of crimes with the slogan of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”, “wiping out the Maoist terrorists to save democracy” etc to the subtle slogan of “establishing the rule of law”, “protecting the civilians”, “ensuring the development of the backward regions by reclaiming these from Maoist control”, and so on. Some leaders from within the ruling class parties like Digvijay Singh and Manishankar Aiyer have openly opposed the strategy pursued by Chidambaram and are advocating the strategy of combining police action with development into a holistic package.
Whether it is the crude advocacy of brute force by the State at the cost of suspension of even the nominal legal democratic rights for the citizens, OR a bit more sophisticated rhetoric of ensuring justice for the poor through the “two-pronged strategy of development and calibrated police action”, there is no difference in essence in practical terms. In fact, one transforms into the other depending on the exigencies or compulsions imposed by the specific situation. For instance, everyone knows how the Union Home Minister has been advocating the strategy of “police action first followed by development”, his policy of “reclaiming territories from the Maoists and establishing civil authority” or his formula popularly known as the “clear- hold-develop” policy.
For almost a year Chidambaram has been asserting that the foremost and most crucial task before the government is wresting control over the territories held by the Maoists without which it is impossible to undertake any development. With all the deftness or crudity of a corporate lawyer that he was all his life, he has been arguing, ever since he became the Union Home Minster, that the Maoists have become an obstacle to the development initiatives of the government, that they will not allow any development to take place in the areas controlled by them since they fear that development would wean away their adivasi mass base. He cited statistics and sponsored a series of advertisements to show how the Maoists are a bunch of anarchists and mindless terrorists who blast schools, panchayat buildings, hospitals, roads, bridges, railway lines, telephone towers and so on. He cooked up the theory that the Maoists are hell-bent on keeping the adivasis in a state of perpetual backwardness since development would drive them out of their fold.
Hence the only way to ensure peace and development in adivasi-inhabited regions is to suppress the Maoists and all those who had risen up against the State by using all means at the disposal of the State, including the Indian Army and the Air Force. Such has been the consistent approach of the Union Home Minister all the while until the daring Maoist attack in Dantewada of April 6. He has quite a few supporters among the so-called intellectuals such as Shekhar Gupta, Arnab Goswamy, PV Ramana, Kanchan Gupta, Chandan Mitra and other hawks in whose company a Hitler or a George Bush would have been quite comfortable.
The April 6 attack shook the fascist rulers as never before. The entire strategy of Chidambaram and the ruling UPA came under heavy criticism. Calls for a reorientation of the anti-Maoist strategy grew louder. Under such compelling conditions, it did not take long for Chidambaram to make some changes in his approach, at least outwardly, to satisfy his detractors. He began to propagate that he was not against the strategy of pursuing development and police action simultaneously. He continued his oft- repeated proposal to the Maoists to abjure violence for 72 hours to be followed by talks. At the same time he also continued to send central paramilitary forces to the seven states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh on a massive scale. He undertook hectic tours to various states, held meetings with chief ministers, top bureaucrats and police chiefs of these states, tried desperately to bring unity of thought among the various parties ruling these states and to drive them into coordinated joint operations against the Maoists.
At least outwardly, Chidambaram’s drift from the policy of “police action followed by development” to the two- pronged policy of simultaneous police action and development was perceivable. One should clearly understand that the difference between these two approaches is not really of great significance though one must take the difference into account for tactical and propaganda purposes. Both are equally dangerous but the two approaches entail some differences as far as the tactics of the revolutionaries goes.
Those who advocate massive military action in all the Maoist- influenced areas as a pre-requisite for undertaking any development activity, and who insist on using all means at their disposal to brutally suppress the revolutionary movement, end up in isolating themselves from the population at large. They end up making more enemies for themselves. And this has been the experience of Chidambaram who had been advocating this strategy all through.
The approach of these war- mongering hawks can be summed up in the utterances of people like Chidambaram, Man Mohan Singh, and various BJP spokespersons besides the hawks in the military establishment. For instance, Swapandas Gupta of the Pioneer, a saffron apologist himself says: “To make Maoism unattractive to frightened villagers, force will have to be met with force. Siddharth Ray showed the way in West Bengal in the 1970s.” This hawk knows that the frightened villagers will gravitate towards the Maoists at least out of compulsion if not by choice. And to prevent it from happening he wants the use of more force to deter the villagers from going towards the Maoists. And for hawks like him there is only the language of a George Bush, “either you are with us or them.” There can be no middle ground. Hence he says:
“Unlike separatist movements that can be coerced into compromise, there is no halfway house in confronting Communist insurgencies. In the war for state power, it’s either us or them. One side has to yield. The choice is stark: it’s either Maoism or the democratic way of life.” And this has been the language used by the entire BJP leadership, most of the Congress leadership, the social fascist leadership of the CPI (M), and most of the retired police and intelligence chiefs and so-called military analysts like Prakash Singh, Kumawat, Doval, Maroof Raza, and others. So-called media intellectuals like Arnab Goswamy, Chandan Mitra, Shekhar Gupta, Pravin Swamy, Kanchan Gupta, Barkha Dutt, and a host of others who din into our ears cock-and- bull stories of how a shining India and a robust democracy is being wrecked from within by the “Maoist anarchists, terrorists, nihilists” and so on.
This high-pitch cacophony for a bloody suppression of the just resistance of the people has only back-fired by further strengthening the Maoist revolutionary ranks. Instead of eroding the mass base of the Maoists this policy had only expanded and deepened it. It is due to this massive ever-increasing support enjoyed by the Maoist revolutionaries that several big counter- offensives against the enemy forces by Maoist guerrillas could be carried out successfully in recent months.
In fact, Chidambaram’s policy over the past one year had pushed more ordinary people to the side of the revolution than during normal times. By unleashing a reign of terror on the common people through the central and state forces, the people were compelled to take up arms in their own self-defence thereby swelling the ranks of the revolutionaries. The revolutionaries too had successfully pursued the Maoist tactics of guerrilla warfare by luring the enemy deep into their territory, harassing the enemy and hitting out at the enemy at his weakest point by concentrating the guerrilla
forces to inflict the maximum casualties while preserving their own forces. The revolutionaries had also tried to rally the democratic and progressive forces who are opposed to a military solution to the issue of Naxalism. Thus, we can say, the overall gains have been greater than the losses during this period in spite of the massive deployment of the enemy forces and the brutal reign of terror unleashed by them.
Now when someone says both development and police action must go together it means that besides massive police action, massive amounts will be allocated for building infrastructure like roads and schools for facilitating the movement and camping of the paramilitary and anti-Naxal police forces. It means establishing and further strengthening the existing human intelligence network of the enemy by recruiting, training and deploying a huge force of informers from the poverty-stricken masses. It means buying off people through so-called development works and government reforms that can benefit a small section of the people who, in turn, will act as the new support base for the enemy class. A combination of the two can prove to be deadlier than the purely militaristic approach of Chidambaram or the BJP. It would mean the creation of a servile class of people from within the oppressed masses through sheer bribery and incentives of various kinds. It would mean speedier movement of the enemy forces with better infrastructure in the remote countryside.
It is worthwhile to recall in this context some experience from British India. The British colonialists had initially tried the purely military option to keep India under their subjugation. But after a series of people’s rebellions culminating in the country-wide rebellion of 1857, these cunning exploiters chose the two-pronged strategy of granting some minor concessions to a section of the people while suppressing the vast majority of the population. Thus they succeeded to an extent in creating a buffer between themselves and the rebellious oppressed people in the form of an elite educated class which was absorbed into their administration and became an effective instrument to reproduce British colonial values, culture, ethos. These included the Indian National Congress which was sought to be used as a safety valve; the feudal class of zamindars who served as a social pillar of British colonial rule; and the class of English-educated intellectuals who propagated the British mission with a missionary zeal. Thus the colonial oppressors created their own social base from the native soil of their colony. Whether it was the purely military policy of outright massacres and plunder of the pre-1857 phase or the two-pronged approach of the latter period, history has proved that the aim of the oppressors was one and the same.
Besides the advocates of a purely military approach and the development-cum-military approach towards the Maoist movement, there are some others like Swami Agnivesh, Professor Yashpal, Himanshu Kumar and others who have been advocating development of the Maoist-controlled areas first through massive allocation of funds, improving governance, eradicating poverty and social discrimination, putting an end to state atrocities and violation of human rights all of which, they believe, would automatically erode the mass base of the Maoists and reduce the levels of violence. These, along with other well- wishers of revolution and civil society members, staunchly oppose military action against the Maoists and the adivasis in the remote hinterland, and vehemently advocate for a dialogue route to achieve peace.
Among these forces that put forth the path of development and dialogue between the Maoists and the Indian State to resolve the civil war, the opinions are divided and very much varied. One needs to go deeper to understand where their proposals would lead us to. Some of them simply do not understand what development implies. They imagine that development in the form of big projects, roads, railways, communications, along with hospitals, schools etc would fulfill the aspirations of the hitherto neglected sections of the Indian society residing in the vast countryside and bring them out of the influence of the Maoists through such concerted efforts by the Governments and NGOs. They imagine that by pouring huge funds into so-called development schemes in Maoist-influenced districts the youth can be won over from the path of revolution. Some of these advocates of development are now part of the National Advisory Council (NAC) set up by Sonia Gandhi. They advocate the path of development with the argument that it would ‘win the hearts and minds’ of the marginalized and deprived sections and wean them away from the Naxals.
Then there are some who desire a deep and extensive debate on the model of development in our country: whether the model should be the one envisaged by the Liberalisation- Privatisation-Globalisation dispensation promoted by the imperialists through their instruments like the World Bank, IMF, and WTO and so on? Or it should be a model that is people-oriented, need-based, indigenous, independent, self-reliant, environment-friendly i.e. a model that is seen in its embryonic form in some areas under the control of the CPI (Maoist) in the remote countryside of central and eastern India?
The so-called inclusive growth, trickle-down theory, or globalization with a human face and so on are all sheer empty rhetoric that is meant to serve as an eye-wash and cover up the hidden agenda of redistributing the country’s wealth in favour of the rich. The statistics of wealth are mind- boggling. The combined net worth of the hundred richest individuals in India doubled to $276 billion or Rs. 12, 89,000 crore according to the Forbes’ India Rich List released recently. This amounts to a quarter of India’s GDP. Against 27 billionaires in India in 2008 there are 52 billionaires in 2009.
At the same time the number of poor has increased drastically with the number of the poor surviving on less than Rs. 20 a day touching 77 per cent of the Indian population or 83 crore 63 lakh people, and those surviving on less than Rs. 10 a day comprise 23 crore 90 lakh people, according to the Arjunsen Gupta Committee report. This is the fruit of the development model being practiced by Man Mohan Singh, Chidambaram, Pranab Mukherji and other imperialist agents ruling our country.
The development model being practiced in our country upon the dictates of the imperialists and the comprador bureaucratic bourgeoisie is a model to be rejected lock, stock and barrel, and replaced with a model that is not dependent on the blind (but in reality manipulative) forces of the market, not dependent on the needs and dictates of the imperialist forces and the greed of the corporate houses but one that is based on people’s needs, indigenous resources and capital. In a word, a model that is anti- imperialist and anti-feudal in essence. Without such a model of development, to imagine that by setting up a few ration shops which usually do not supply the much-needed essentials in most parts of even urban areas, not to speak of the countryside, building schools without adequate teachers or facilities, or primary health centres without doctors and medicines, and industrial, mining, and other projects that displace more people (overwhelming majority of them poor) than they bring benefit to (the beneficiaries being mostly well-to-do and the parasitic ruling classes), would improve the lives of the people would mean living in a fool’s paradise.
It will indeed do much good if a debate on the model of development is conducted throughout the country and people from all walks of life especially the people from the grass- roots level, participate in this debate. It is very clear to the CPI (Maoist) that the advocates of the present imperialist- dictated model of development implemented in India—the likes of Man Mohan Singh, Chidambaram, Pranab Mukherji and other anti-people imperialist agents—will never agree to participate in such a debate with Maoists or other like-minded intellectuals. That would expose the rulers’ servility to the imperialists and the corporate vultures. That would also bring out the skeletons in their cupboards. Their entire edifice that stands on inequalities, corruption, black money etc will collapse like a pack of cards when confronted with the genuine democratic model of development proposed by the Maoists. Hence, the reactionary rulers will never dare to enter into talks on the issue notwithstanding all their rhetoric which is only meant to dupe the people.
In this context we, as the vanguard Party of the Indian proletariat, wish to address the apprehensions of some well-wishers of revolutionary struggles and anti-imperialist resistance movements like Arundhati Roy who had quite rightly asked the question referring to the bauxite in Niyamgiri Hills: “Can we have the bauxite in the mountain?” Our one-liner answer is: Of course, we should! Without such an approach and vision one cannot save the planet from total destruction, and humanity from complete extinction. When Maoists oppose the bauxite mining in Niyamgiri it is not only because of outright plunder of our country’s resources by the imperialist Vedanta but also because of the social and environmental problems the mining is giving rise to.
Which resources should be exploited for the benefit of the entire society and which should be left untouched, what should be the model of development in future post- revolutionary society, and how should the future state after the overthrow of imperialism, comprador bureaucrat capitalism and feudalism deal with the complex problems related to the development of the entire country without upsetting the fragile ecological balance, are all questions that should be settled in the course of democratic discussions among the various sections of the society.
Maoists represent the interests of the entire oppressed people and hence whatever is good for the people at large will necessarily be adopted by the Maoists. Therefore, even if some people have apprehensions that the Maoist movement may lack the vision for a state which allows our mountains and rivers to be, it has to be kept in mind that as the vanguard party the Maoist party would inevitably assimilate all that is revolutionary, progressive and democratic in the society, and advance towards a classless society equipped with a vision that is in the best interests of the people at large.
Today, the Maoists are trying to implement the new model of development in the forest tracts of Dandakaranya, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa and some other regions. We appeal to all those who are genuinely interested in self-reliant, mass-oriented, need-based balanced development of our country to come forward to extend their helping hand to the oppressed people who are striving to establish such a model in the limited areas at a modest level.
It is this model of development that has become the gravest threat to the reactionary rulers of our country and their imperialist masters. Hence it is all the more urgent and most important task before the people of our country to resist the fascist armed onslaught unleashed by the Indian reactionary rulers on the Maoist movement and the new model of development, new culture, new values which it represents. With the support of the people of India the Maoists will certainly emerge victorious in this cruel war unleashed by the Central and state governments with the active assistance of the imperialists.
Let us defeat the brutal country- wide co-ordinated counter- revolutionary armed offensive by the reactionary Indian rulers with the close guidance and assistance of the imperialists!
Let us defend and expand the new democratic people’s power! Let us defend and expand the new model of development that is flowering in the most backward regions of our country and throw out the present imperialist- dictated model of development that is destroying the entire country and depriving the future generations of earth’s resources!
Let us defeat the brutal war waged by the rulers in order to save our country, our people, our resources and our future generations!
People’s March, August-September 2010 www.bannedthought.net/India
Please go through this document.

[pranabjyoti]

Vedanta’s illegal expansion of alumina refinery under scrutiny (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/07/clampdown-on-vedantas-illegal-expansion-of-alumina-refinery/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/niyamgiri-vedanta-plant.jpg?w=450&h=267 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/niyamgiri-vedanta-plant.jpg)Vedanta Alumina plant in Lanjigarh, Orissa

by Latha Jishnu
Sep 15, 2010
FOR months there has been speculation in Delhi about an imminent clampdown on metals giant Vedanta’s bauxite mining operations in Orissa.
However, when the final forest clearance for Vedanta’s proposal to mine bauxite in the Niyamgiri Hills was rejected by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) on August 23, there was surprise at the speed at which matters had moved the preceding week.
The ministry’s stop-order came in the wake of a flurry of committee meetings as officials compiled a detailed dossier on the environmental and forest rights violations by the London Stock Exchange-listed metals firm. The ministry’s decision was based on the findings of the N C Saxena Committee set up to examine the mining proposal. The N C Saxena committee submitted its report on August 16. Four days later, its recommendations were accepted by the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of MoEF.
Minister of state for environment Jairam Ramesh also had to double check the legal implication of his order on Vedanta with the Ministry of Law and Justice and the Attorney General of India since FAC had given in-principle clearance to Vedanta for diverting 660.74 hectares of forestland for mining to the state-owned Orissa Mining Corporation (OMC) in 2007. The Supreme Court had also cleared the proposal in August 2008.
Gearing for six-fold expansion
The illegality of the expansion of Vedanta’s alumina refinery in Lanjigarh has turned into a core concern for the ministry, 20 months after the violation was first brought to its notice.
Vedanta Alumina Ltd (VAL) in Lanjigarh has an authorised capacity of one million tonnes per annum but has been ramping it up for a six-fold expansion without the necessary clearances. Ramesh is now asking Vedanta to explain why the terms of reference (ToR) fixed for the environmental impact assessment report on its expansion proposal should not be withdrawn.
Of more concern, perhaps, for Vedanta is another show cause notice that asks why permission for the existing facility should not be revoked. This appears to have been prompted by concerns that VAL “is sourcing bauxite from a large number of mines in Jharkhand” that have not obtained environmental clearance.
A report submitted in May this year by V P Upadhyay, director of the ministry’s eastern regional office, said one of the 14 mines from which bauxite is being sourced is licensed.
A VAL spokesperson denied that the company was using illegally mined bauxite and pointed out MoEF had not named any of the illegal mines. “Most of our bauxite comes from Chhattisgarh,” he claimed. Ramesh’s announcement rejecting Stage II forest clearance for mining in Niyamgiri is thus a triple whammy for Vedanta. Along with this rejection, the environmental clearance accorded to the mining project—it is a joint venture of Sterlite Industries, a sister concern of Vedanta, and OMC—also becomes inoperable.
The mining clearance for Vedanta was rejected on three major grounds: violation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), “the blatant disregard” to the rights of the tribal groups dependent on the area for their livelihood, violation of the Forest Conservation Act and the Environment Protection Act (EPA). Ramesh said the evidence gathered by the Saxena committee “is compelling” and the violations of the various laws “appear too egregious to be glossed over.”
Turning point for forest rights
Civil rights activists are celebrating the stop-order but they would like the ministry to go further and seek compensation from Vedanta for the damage it has caused to the tribal population and to the environment.
The Saxena committee had found Vedanta guilty of “illegally enclosing and occupying at least 26.123 hectares of village forestland within its refinery site”, said Prafulla Samantara , who has been leading the campaign against Vedanta, says there should be compensation for this. Samantara is president of the Orissa chapter of Lok Shakti Abhiyan and a convenor of National Alliance of People’s Movements. “It’s good that the government has realised that rich natural resources like Niyamgiri which gives sustenance and livelihood to large numbers of tribal folk must be preserved,” he said.
Another leading light of the campaign, forest rights activist Madhu Sarin sees the MoEF decision as a historic development—the first time that the legal empowerment provided to forest dwelling communities has been recognised.
“Its implications for future forest diversions, which till now have been granted without any consideration of people’s rights, are stupendous,” said Sarin.
Civil society organisations are equally relieved that the illegal expansion of the refinery, they first brought to the notice of MoEF a little over a year ago, has been halted. In a submission made to the Reconstituted Expert Appraisal Committee (industry) on August 14, 2009, Samantara and lawyeractivist Sidharth Nayak, had pointed out that “expansion work is proceeding without environmental clearance” and that people in the region had estimated 60 per cent of the expansion had been completed. “Granting post-facto environmental clearance for such blatant violation of the law will amount to rewarding a law breaker…”
The violations were first discovered by the Orissa State Pollution Control Board. In its inspection report of December 3-5, 2008, the board found that “civil work and fabrication work of expansion of alumina processing unit and power plant is going on full swing without obtaining consent to establish and environmental clearance.” Samantara’s submission had drawn the expert committee’s attention to the report.
It is only in 2010 that the expert committee thought it fit to respond to Samatara’s submission. In May it asked the MoEF regional office in Orissa to probe the matter. The Upadhyay report confirmed the transgressions. It also found that meters for monitoring the groundwater quality around the red mud and ash disposal ponds had not been installed, thereby violating specific conditions of the environment clearance given to the refinery.
Sarin said the fact that no action was taken for so long “only reflects the impunity which Vedanta has enjoyed”. Some reports from the field suggest that the company demolished some of the illegal structures before the planned visit of an inspection team of the expert committee.
But Pavan Kaushik, spokesperson for Vedanta, claims all this shows “a lack of understanding of the processes in such an industry”. His contention is that refineries have the inbuilt facility for expansion and such work is an ongoing process.
‘Orissa bound to give bauxite’
But can such a gigantic expansion take place without the requisite clearances since the resource requirements are tremendous? The company has no answer for this.
As to the FAC’s observation that Niyamgiri has “limited relevance to the Lanjigarh refinery” because the bauxite reserves of 72 million tonnes would last four to five years on account of its sixfold expansion, Kaushik points out the expansion has now been rejected. “In any case, OMC has signed an agreement assuring us 150 million tonnes of bauxite. So, the problem is theirs,” he said.
Vedanta says it has invested about Rs 12,500 crore in Lanjigarh and is committed to the project. What this entails for Orissa will become clear in coming days.
Do you think it's possible without Maoist insurrection?

[pranabjyoti]

India: Vedanta’s violence on workers in Orissa (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/07/india-vedantas-violence-on-workers-in-orissa/)

[This article describes how Vedanta Mining has not only acted against the interests of tribal people, but in utter disregard of the interests of Vedanta employees. Nonetheless, the corporation has created and organized open antagonisms between the workers and the tribals, and even gotten sections of the workers to demand that the government in Orissa give a green light to Vedanta's mining and refinery operations on adivasi (tribal) lands.--ed]
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/vedanta-workers.jpg?w=460&h=276 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/vedanta-workers.jpg)Vedanta workers

Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Following the government order on scrapping of the Niyamgiri mining project and indictment of Vedanta for carrying out expansion work of its refinery at Lanjigarh without permission, more than 5000 workers were suddenly retrenched yesterday by L&T, the contractor for carrying out Vedanta’s construction work.
On being served the retrenchment notice – verbally – the workers demanded their backlog payments’ and compensation to which the company did not heed. Workers then went on to stage a strike. It is reported that demands and downright denials led to a violent situation, in which there was some damage to the plant properties. Then the police accompanied by vedanta goons attacked the demonstrators and beat them up mercilessly… More than hundred workers are injured with bleeding heads, broken limbs, and internal injuries. Hundreds of workers have been arrested and, as reports coming from Lanjigarh this morning suggests, are being further beaten up in the police station.
Some backgrounder and facts:
1. I had interviewed more than two dozens of workers on camera last February and they had said that not a single worker is given an identity card; even many of them did not possess any entry slip (roll card).
2. The original address of most workers was distorted on record so that in case of any accident or retrenchment or any other such thing, the company could prove that such person did not exist at all, and that they could not be challenged legally.
3. Most workers complained the payment was much less than promised/stipulated besides being very erratic.
4. Workers felt trapped as their backlog payments were huge and could not even leave the job even if they wanted to.
5. Safety measures were almost non-existent and the workers always did their job taking great risks.
6. There had been many deaths inside the plant in accidents, which were not reported outside.
… and so on.
The present situation calls for intervention by the media and legal experts. Since the company cannot go on with the expansion work now after being slammed officially and publicly, there has to be ways for the workers to get their rights… and not such a raw deal as being dumped, then beaten up and arrested.
in solidarity,
subrat
It's a rule, not exception.

[pranabjyoti]

West Bengal, India: CPM sets up military camps to suppress adivasis (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/07/west-bengal-india-cpm-sets-up-military-camps-to-suppress-adivasis/)

(The CPM–Communist Party of India (Marxist)–is a bourgeois party that is the leading force in the so-called Left Front which rules West Bengal. It has been the target of determined and sustained resistance by the adivasis (tribal peoples) in the Lalgarh region of the state.-ed.]
Party offices, schools and panchayats are stacked with arms. The CPM is gearing up for a bloody election in 2011.
TUSHA MITTAL

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/local_harmad.jpg?w=250&h=193 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/local_harmad.jpg)CPM harmads (goons) in West Bengal

West Bengal: DRIVING INTO Delgunda village in West Bengal’s West Midnapore district, you could almost be fooled into thinking that this is a CPM [Communist Party of India(Marxist)] bastion. Dug into the thatched roofs of teashops, the gates of a primary school and barks of trees, red flags are everywhere. Everyone you meet on the frontlines of Delgunda will tell you that they fled in fear after the Maoists captured this village,that they have returned only with help from the CPM, which now protects them from the rebels.
It is only when you walk to the end of the village to find the poorest family and the shabbiest hut, that some semblance of reality emerges. It is only when you meet a frail tribal lady called Shanti Bai that you realise this is a captured village, but one where everyone is being held hostage by their own state government, where everyone has surrendered to the CPM.
It is not easy for Shanti Bai to speak up. Everytime she tries, her husband, a rice farmer, shushes her up, begging you to go away. “Why can’t we tell them the truth? Why should we be afraid? Even if we are killed, it is better than living with this fear,” Shanti cries. She wants to tell her story, and if you stay long enough, the tiny wooden doors firmly closed, the horror emerges in hushed whispers.
Surrender or face the consequences — that has become the dominant theme in West Bengal’s countryside as the state gears up for the 2011 Assembly polls. What is playing out on the ground is a bitter turf war that promises to make 2011 one of West Bengal’s bloodiest elections. Yet, ironically, it has to be seen in the context of the state’s current battle with Naxalism. Sources say there has been a strategic decision within the CPM to take the Maoist battle head-on. This new strategy consists of propping up Harmad camps across the Maoistaffected district of West Midnapore.
“The public is fed up with the Maoists. They are with us. We have decided that this has to be fought two ways — ideologically and by mass mobilisation,” a CPM source in the party’s Alimuddin Street headquarters, told TEHELKA on the condition of anonymity. “If we go to the people and campaign against the Maoists, the people will raise their voice. We are mobilising people through daily rallies across villages.”
What is unsaid is that this mobilisation is taking place at gunpoint, and the targets have become not the Maoists, but anyone opposing the CPM. Political killings by the CPM and Trinamool Congress (TMC) have always been apart of West Bengal’s charged electoral landscape. Nandigram remains etched in Bengal’s history as one of those flashpoints that showed how both parties are armed and capable of brutal violence. The reason why the spread of Harmad camps must be seen outside that old narrative is because they are taking place in the guise of tackling Maoism.
IB TRACKS HARMAD CAMPS
The main source of arms and ammunition is Munger (Bihar) via Asansol. TapanGhosh, son of NirmalGhosh (brother of a West Bengal minister), and Sukur Ali of Garbetta are training cadres camping at various places in West Midnapore
In Parliament, the Left parties have traditionally been opposed to the SalwaJudum — a state-sponsored militia in Chhattisgarh disguised as local resistance against the Maoists. Yet, what CPM cadres are unleashing on the ground could be the beginning of Bengal’s own SalwaJudum. IB documents, exclusively available with TEHELKA, show the Centre is aware and actively tracking these developments.
Dated April 2010, the IB papers track the location of camps across West Midnapore, the number of cadres, the kind of arms, and the leaders of each camp. They show how state buildings — panchayat offices, government primary schools, party offices — have all been turned into armouries, storing caches of arms and ammunition.
It was the morning of 25 July in Satpati village. From 6 am to 10 am, the security forces had marched across the village, conducting regular search operations and patrolling the area. Suddenly, at 11 am, the villagers saw a procession of 400 men barging into the area, some on foot, some on motorcycles. Some wore black masks, some brandished guns and rifles, firing shots in the air. All waved CPM flags. Villagers who could not run away were picked up and beaten. TapanSahu, a doctor, was one of them. He shows you his leg injury, but won’t let himself be photographed. “Then there will be nothing left of the leg,” he says.
Locals allege that the Harmad assist paramilitary forces during search operations, donning the role that Special Police Officers (SPOs) play in other conflict areas. But, the police deny this. “No civilian is allowed to accompany us,” West MidnaporeSPManojVerma told TEHELKA. However, what is significant is that the Harmad rallies take place immediately after the police and paramilitary have completed regular search operations.
“The forces had finished their patrol and were waiting outside their camp, watching silently,” says SwapanDey*, a farmer in Satpati. The CRPF camp is barely a kilometre from the village. The Harmad camps are at a distance of 2 km on either side. Since the first Harmad rally, all TMC supporters, including Satpati’s elected panchayatpradhanTapan Manish, have fled. “Support us. Leave the TMC. We will return tomorrow to make sure you surrender,” the Harmad had warned.
For the past three months, Satpati primary school had been home to about 400 villagers who had fled from neighbouring villages in West Midnapore. When TEHELKA visited Satpati in the last week of July, the villagers had returned home, having surrendered to the CPM. Bhursa is one such village. TEHELKA tried to enter the village, but the Harmad had already set up guard outside. “Thousands of Maoists are inside. It is dangerous for you. We will not let you enter,” a belligerent cadre screamed, beating a villager who showed us the way. “Call our leader Amulya Singh. You need his permission,” he added. Singh is the CPM pradhan of Kasijora gram panchayat, overseeing 56 villages.
Caught on camera The local Harmad on a search operation with the joint forces near Jhargram.
‘It is dangerous. Thousands of Maoists are inside the village. We will not let you enter,’ Harmad cadres told Tehelka
WHAT THE IB documents reveal is significant because they show how the CPM is slowly laying siege, ripping away the very fabric of a free India.
These are highlights of the IB report:
• Kasijoira gram panchayat office building No. 9 at Pathorjuri village: About 60-70 cadres are there with very sophisticated arms and ammunition like SLRs, rifles, and other small arms like sten guns, revolvers, pistols and 12- bore guns. The camp is being maintained by NishakarChakraborty, MukeshChakraborty, ShyamPandey (brother of CPM leader AnujPandey)
• Camp at Bhadutala party office building: under gram panchayat office No. 10, about a distance of 19 km from the Salboni railway station. About 30-40 cadres are there round the clock with arms and ammunition. The camp is controlled by Shanti Bhuin (local committee secretary), Pasupati Singh and JogyanathMahato.
• Camp at Goaltore Zonal Party office. About 70-80 cadres are reportedly there with sophisticated arms like SLRs, rifles, sten guns, carbines, pistols, revolvers and hand grenades. The leadership could not be ascertained yet.
• Camp at Kasiya primary school building and Kasiya branch party office building. About 70-80 cadres are there in both camps around village Tetuldanga and Nishintapur. They are equipped with SLRs, rifles, carbines, sten guns, pistols, revolvers, crude bombs etc. Information reveals that some AK-47s and hand grenades are also with the above cadres. The camps are controlled by AjitPatar, son of TrilochanPatar and NirmalMukhya, son of SubalMukhya.
• The main source of arms and ammunition is Munger (Bihar) via Asansol. One TapanGhosh, son of NirmalGhosh (brother of a West Bengal minister), and Sukur Ali of Garbetta are training the cadres camping at various places of West Midnapore. (The IB report does not name the minister.)
• Intelligence inputs reveal that a large quantity of arms and ammunition has been moved recently to camps in Garbetta and Keshpur area and handed over to the cadres with active connivance and support of the police. Three ambulances and two cars have been used to transport the arms. Efforts are being made to ascertain their registration numbers.
• Arms and ammunition are also being transported through trains from Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal inside gunny bags in connivance with local police and GRP of the concerned areas. The main trains are 314 (Gomo- Kharagpur) 466 (Adra-Kharagpur) and 434 (Asansol- Kharagpur). Surveillance is being kept on these trains.
• Some country-made arms are being manufactured by cadres in a forest near Benechapra village, West Midnapore.
The CPMWestMidnapore secretary denies this is happening. “This a scandal to defame the mass upsurge,” Deepak Sarkar told TEHELKA when confronted. At the Bhadutalla party office, leader Shanti Bhuin bragged about how the CPM had “reclaimed” 50 villages. “Villagers are rallying under CPM leadership showing the Maoists they are with us,” he said, citing the example of Jara village where the gram panchayat office was closed for nine months after the elected CPM pradhan fled, fearing the Maoists. Last month, the pradhan was able to return.
As the electoral war heats up in West Bengal, democracy has begun to collapse. According to TMC numbers, more than 1,000 leaders have fled their elected posts. “Open the door or we’ll burn your house,” CPM cadres warned during a visit to AshishMandal’s house. Mandal, a TMC candidate, was elected sarpanch (village name withheld) in a surprise victory in the 2008 municipal elections. They told his family that he had one week to surrender. Mandal has now fled to a TMC-run relief camp in Midnapore town.
“The police said ‘We don’t have enough forces. We can’t do anything.’ My wife and children continue to stay in the village,” Mandal said. “What is the worst that can happen? Let them kill my wife and children. Then, I will become a Maoist.”
*SOME NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED
www.indianvanguard.wordpress.com
There aren't murderers or preaching "politics of murder".

[pranabjyoti]

India: “Chhattisgarh may sack cops dodging Maoist area postings” (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/07/india-chhattisgarh-may-sack-cops-dodging-maoist-area-postings/)

[The repressive state has a problem with reluctant cops.-ed.]
http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/chhattisgarh_police_feared.jpg?w=379&h=255 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/chhattisgarh_police_feared.jpg)Sify News
2010-09-08
Chhattisgarh, one of the states worst hit by Maoist insurgency, is thinking of suspending or dismissing from service 31 policemen who are declining new postings, mostly in Maoist hotbeds, an official said here Tuesday.
‘The police headquarters has taken a stern view over deliberate delay by 31 policemen — 15 inspectors and 16 sub-inspectors — to join in new postings after they were transferred several weeks ago. Now they have been issued one-sided relieve orders,’ Inspector General of Police Pawan Deo told IANS.
“The police department is mulling over a decision to suspend or dismiss them (from service) if they continue to lobby to get their posting orders in Maoists areas reversed,’ a senior police officer said.
”These days it is becoming a trend in the state that every policeman uses all his contacts, even lobby through politicians, to get his transfer order in Maoist belt revoked,’ he added.
He said that the 40,000 sq km mineral rich Bastar region, which has been considered the nerve centre of Maoist activities for three decades, faces shortage of thousands of policemen of all ranks.
According to him, the police officials prefer getting sacked rather than getting posted in the five districts — Kanker, Narayanpur, Bastar, Bijapur and Dantewada — considered as the `killing zone’ due to Maoists’ dominance of the area.
http://sify.com/news/chhattisgarh-may-sack-cops-dodging-maoist-area-postings-news-national-kjhnEfjjfie.html
It's best for them to take the posting and indirectly assist the Maoists.:D

[pranabjyoti]

In Shining India, Over 5000 Children Die Every Day From Hunger And Malnutrition (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/09/in-shining-india-over-5000-children-die-every-day-from-hunger-and-malnutrition/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/infant-mortality-orissa.jpg?w=300&h=291 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/infant-mortality-orissa.jpg)Kandhamal district of Orissa has the highest Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) i.e. 121 out of one thousand live births among the 593 districts of India.

By Devinder Sharma
09 September, 2010
Ground Reality
The startling figure still resonates in my memory. Some 25 years back, I remember reading a report in one of the major dailies which said that some 5,000 children die every day in India. Today morning, my attention therefore was automatically drawn to a news report: 1.83 million children die before fifth bithday every year: Report (Indian Express, Sept 8, 2010).
I immediately took out a pen and paper to find out the per day child mortality rate. I wanted to know whether the child mortality rate has come down, and by how much, in the last 25 years or so. My disappointment has grown. The calculations shows that every day 5,013 children are succumbing to malnutrition. Given that a half of all children in India are under-nourished as per the National Family Health Survey III (2005-06), of which over 5,000 die every day I think every Indian needs to hang his/her head in shame.
Globally, 14,600 children die every day. This means that India alone has the dubious distinction of having more than a third of the world’s child mortality. This is ironically happening at a time when food is rotting in the godowns.
Yes, India is surely an emerging economic superpower, but building an Empire over hungry stomachs! Mera Bharat Mahaan!!
A new global report “A fair Chance at Life” by the international child rights organisation Save the Children is not only a damming indictment of the supplementary nutrition programmes that have been running for several decades now, but also is an eye-opener in many ways. While it tells us how hollow the global claims under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are, nationally it shows us the stark hidden realities. A country which doesn’t get tired of patting itself in the back for creating an impressive list of 50 billionaires, and off and on does bask under the fictitious glow of Shining India, the dark underbelly remains deliberately hidden from the media glare.
Let us look at what the report says: “Of the 26 million children born in India every year, approximately 1.83 million died before their fifth birthday. “What these aggregate figures do not reveal are the huge inequities in mortality rates across the country, within States and between them, as well as between children in urban and rural areas.”
Half of these children actually die within a month of being born. In other words, nearly 2,500 children of those who die have not even survived for more than a month. This is an indication of not only the inability of the parents to provide adequate nutrition to their new born, but more than that is a reflection of the impoverished condition of the especially the mother. Does it not tell us to what extent poverty and hunger prevails in this country? Do we need to still work out more effective parameters to measure hunger and malnutrition? Do we really need to find a new estimate of people living below the poverty line (BPL)?
Madhya Pradesh tops the list, followed closely by Uttar Pradesh. The under-5 mortality rate in Kerala was 14 deaths per 1000 live births. This stood at a sharp contrast to Madhya Pradesh at 92 per 1000 and 91 per 1000 for Uttar Pradesh.
I am reproducing below a news report from the pages of The Hindu (Sept 8, 2010):
‘Children from poorest section 3 times more likely to die before age of 5 than those from high income groups’
Children from the poorest communities are three times more likely to die before they reach the age of 5 than those from high income groups, Save the Children, a non-governmental organisation has said.
In a global report titled A Fair Chance at Life, the organisation said the policy to lower child mortality in India and elsewhere appeared to focus on children from better-off communities, leaving out those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.
“The 41 percentage decline in child mortality over the last two decades masks a dangerous expansion of the child mortality gap between the richest and poorest families in India,” Save the Children CEO Thomas Chandy said.
Child mortality is often described as the best barometer of social and economic progress. Despite being one of the fastest growing economies, there has been no visible pattern between per capita income growth and the rate of reduction of child mortality rates. In 2008, 5.3 lakh children under 5 died in the lowest income quintile in comparison to 1.78 lakh among the wealthy quintile. The rate of decline between 2005-06 and 1997-98 among the lowest income quintile is 22.69 per cent, compared to 34.37 per cent among the high income quintile for the same period.
Of the 26 million children born in India every year, approximately 1.83 million died before their fifth birthday. “What these aggregate figures do not reveal are the huge inequities in mortality rates across the country, within States and between them, as well as between children in urban and rural areas,” Mr. Chandy said.
The under-5 mortality rate in Kerala was 14 deaths per 1000 live births. This stood at a sharp contrast to Madhya Pradesh at 92 per 1000 and 91 per 1000 for Uttar Pradesh.
“Every child has the right to survive and the Indian government has an obligation to protect them. Save the Children’s research shows that prioritising marginalised and excluded communities, especially in the States lagging behind, is one of the surest ways that India can reduce the number of children dying from easily preventable causes. The National Rural Health Mission, for example, should have a clear focus on social inclusion of Dalits and adivasis in terms of access to healthcare,” he said.
Save the Children’s report comes two weeks before a high-level U.N. summit in New York from September 20-22 to assess progress against the Millennium Development Goals.
By demonstrating a political will and the right policies, MDG4 could be achieved in India. The good schemes in place needed to be matched by effective implementation. And there was enough experience in India proving that low-cost interventions can make the difference between life and death for a child, the report said.
Huge inequity in child mortality rates: Survey
http://www.thehindu.com/news/article617626.ece
http://www.countercurrents.org/dsharma090910.htm
The reality of the emerging superpower!

[pranabjyoti]

Maoists Target Big Indian Capitalists and Multinationals (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/11/indian-maoists-target-big-indian-capitalists-and%c2%a0multinationals/)


http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/india-karnataka-iron-mine.jpg?w=320&h=175 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/india-karnataka-iron-mine.jpg)Iron ore mine in Karnataka.

[This otherwise informative article from the business publicationBloomberg Markets (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-29/india-s-maoist-menace.html) repeats the false charge that a Maoist-allied organization of adivasis (tribal people) derailed a passenger train in West Bengal recently, killing over 100 passengers-ed.]
July 29, 2010
India’s Maoist Menace
by Mehul Srivastava

Armed rebels hold the Red Corridor, a region the size of Portugal, in their grip. The nation’s mineral wealth and 8.5% percent annual growth are at stake.
At the heart of the Bailadila Hills in central India lie 1.1 billion tons of raw ore so pure and so plentiful that half a century after miners first hacked at it with pickaxes, it remains the richest, and one of the largest, iron deposits on the planet. Essar Steel Ltd. built a plant near the hills in 2005 to turn the ore into a liquid. The Mumbai-based company, controlled by billionaire brothers Ravi and Shashi Ruia, added a 267-kilometer pipeline to pump the slurry to the east coast, where Essar makes steel.
Yet on this quiet June day , cobwebs hang on rusted pipes in the all-but-abandoned facility, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its September 2010 issue. Caretakers prepare to switch truck-size rock crushers out of their coma, rousing the machines for five minutes a month to ensure they still work.
Maoist rebels from the surrounding Dandakaranya forest armed with guns and explosives — and some wielding axes and bows and arrows — attacked the facility four times in little more than a year, officials at the now-mothballed plant say. They burned 54 trucks waiting at factory gates in April 2008 and damaged part of the slurry pipeline, the world’s second longest, in June 2009. Essar idled the plant that month.
‘Sucked Into the Conflict’ “‘The Maoists are gaining ground, and India’s resource crunch will only get deeper,” says Suhas Chakma, director of the New Delhi-based Asian Centre for Human Rights. “The entire economic development of the country is being sucked into the conflict. “
Half hidden even to Indians , some 10,000 Maoists fighting over stretches of mineral-laden land hold a Portugal-sized swath of India known as the Red Corridor in their grip. From an area they call the Dandakaranya Regional Zone and neighboring forests, the rebels run their own schools and clinics, print their own books, fly their own flags – and are stepping up their attacks.
Maoist-related violence killed a record 998 people last year as assaults on economic targets reached an all-time high, according to Ministry of Home Affairs data.
A Mumbia-bound train derailed in May, killing at least 146 people, after what police suspect was sabotage by a Maoist group. More than 200 security officers died in attacks in the first six months of 2010.
‘Long, Bloody War’ ” We do not have the forces to move into areas occupied by the rebels,” Home Secretary Gopal K. Pillai told India’s Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses in Maarch, according to media reports. “We have a long, bloody war ahead. It is going to be a long haul, and I see violence going to go up. Pillai declined to comment for this story.
Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram told chief ministers of Maoist-hit states on July 14 that the federal government will strengthen security forces and provide better roads, schools and health care in areas where Maoists operate. Maoists have some degree of influence in 220 of the nation’s 626 districts, the government estimates.
India’s failure to defuse the conflict is another setback as it struggles to become a Western-style power. The nation must spend $1.2 trillion to improve living standards and infrastructure from 2012 to 2017 for its $1.2 trillion economy to grow at close to 10 percent, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on March 23. Growth has averaged 8.5 percent a year in the past five years.
‘Further Behind’ Even with technology parks for International Business Machines, and Infosys Technologies Ltd.; brand-new airports in Bangalore, Hyderabad and New Delhi; and luxury malls for 300 million middle-class consumers , stretches of India remain mired in poverty. Thirty -seven percent of its 1.1 billion people live on less than $1.50 a day, the government says. Life-expectancy and child -malnourishment rates rival those of sub-Saharan Africa.
Violence in the Red Corridor has left local populations – many of them tribal people – even further behind.
Maoist activity in seven eastern and central states is threatening at least $78 billion in natural resource projects, brokerage CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets estimates. Beneath this region lies the ore in the Bailadila mines; 40 billion of India’s 46 billion tons of proven coal reserves; bauxite for aluminum; tin; and even diamonds. India’s expansion — and its attempt to catch up to China in industrial prowess — depends on unlocking this bounty.
“The growing Maoist insurgency over large swathes of the mineral-rich countryside could stall industrial-investment plans just when India needs to ramp up its industrial machine, just when foreign companies are joining the party,” a nine-person committee of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry said in November.
‘India’s Naxalites’ – India’s Maoists, called Naxalites, take their name from a group of villages known as Naxalbari in east India where farmers revolted to gain land ownership in 1967. China, then in the throes of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, praised the uprising in the ” People’s Daily”.
“The Indian revolution must take the road of relying on the peasants, establishing base areas in the countryside, persisting in protracted armed struggle and using the countryside to encircle and finally capture the cities,” the Communist mouthpiece said on July 5, 1967.
Armed with rifles stolen from police and explosives pilfered from mining companies, the Naxalites are following that advice as they plot a collective state run by farmers and landowners.
‘New Society’ – “Try and understand, sir: What we want is a total eradication of the Indian government,” a man who says he’s involved with the Naxalites’ political wing said in a May interview with Bloomberg Markets in Jharkhand state. “A total eradication of the multinationals ” continued the man, who declined to have his name printed because he says he’s wanted by the police. “Only then can we build a new society.”
Leaders of the now-banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) agreed on a time line and targets for their revolution at a February 2007 meeting in a Jharkhand teak and bamboo forest so dense that it has never been fully mapped, according to two officials in Indian foreign inelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing and the April 2007 Maoist newsletter “People’s March.”
Solar panels powered their laptops and a diesel generator fed a photocopier, dragged in on mules, according to the newsletter and photographs that intelligence officials reviewed from computers captured in later raids.
‘Targeting Steel’ – The Maoist leaders put top steelmakers on their hit list. Today, Essar, ArcelorMittal, run by billionaire Lakshmi Mittal: JSW Steel Ltd, and Tata Steel Ltd, both based in Mumbai; and Pohang, South Korea-based Posco have made little headway on planned projects in India’s mineral belt. Delays in acquiring land have hurt ventures that could help double the country’s steel production to 110 million tons a year,, Steel Minister Virbhadra Singh said on Dec. 10.
ArcelorMittai, based in Luxembourg, wants to build a $10 billion plant in Jharkhand and another in the east coast of Orissa. Local farmers, some of them coached by the Maoists, refuse to move to accommodate the world’s largest steelmaker. The company declined to comment for this story.
“Naxalism has emerged as the biggest single internal security challenge,” Prime Minister Singh said at a New Delhi press conference on the first anniversary of his second term in May. “Controlling Naxalism is very necessary for the country’s progress,” he added.
‘Deadly Train Sabotage’ – Singh’s warning played out with deadly consequences four days later. As the Gyaneshwari Express sped toward the financial capital of Mumbai on May 28, the train derailed after hitting track police suspect a Maoist-backed group called People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities had sabotaged. The Exptress rammed into a cargo train.
Almost 15 hours after the crash, workers were still using chain saws to reach survivors. A child’s red shirt lay strewn across engine controls. A red suitcase had burst open, leaving clothes spilled and chocolate cookies rotting in the heat. Authorities arrested four group members on July 1; a trial date hasn’t been set.
About 400 miles (644 kilometers) awa, Naxalites ambushed a 70-person security team as it cleared roads of improvised explosive devices, killing 26 on June 29. Rebels had assaulted a similar patrol in April, killing 76 soldiers in the worst such attack in the uprising’s almost 43 years.
‘Creating Fear’ – “The Maoists think the best way to create disorder, confusion, terror and discredit the government is to target civlians,” says Kalim Bahadur, former professor of South Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. “The objective is to create fear.
The Naxalites are winning the trust of some farmers as companies and states try to commandeer land for industry. From 2001 to 2007, 1.4 million residents were displaced in four states after their property was taken under India’s equivalent of eminent domain laws, the Ministry of Rural Development estimated in 2008. Ninety percent said they’d gotten too little compensation, according to the Indian Social Institute, which aids minorities. Naxalites argue that in the height of economic bounty, India is ignoring its neediest.
“There is no ready, quick fix,” says Walter Rossini, who helps manage $1.2 billion in emerging-market stocks, including Tato Steel, at Milan-based Aletti Gestielle SGR SpA . “The Tata Group knows the situation very well – and the risk — but the region is very rich in natural resources. If you wait, the opportunity may not last forever.”
‘Left-Wing Connections’ – Tata Steel plans plants in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa states. In Chhattisgarh, Tata says, 70 percent of the affected families have accepted the offer of up to $4,200 per acre – at least twice the market rate – a small plot for a house and the possibility that Tata would provide land elsewhere and a job with the company.
“There are a minuscule percentage of hard-core families having extreme left-wing connections who are delaying the process,” spokesman Sanjay Choudbury says.
In West Bengal state, JSW paid about $6,400an acre. It threw in another $6,400 in company shares. Near Delhi, Reliance Industries Ltd. paid as much as $46,000 an acre in 2007.
Posco, Asia’s most profitable steelmaker, has gotten nowhere with its proposed 26,000-acre (10,520-hectare) Orissa steel plant and port. Villagers have rejected all offers and erected barricades around their land, scuffling with police and Posco officials.
‘Living Like a Slave’ – ” Why should they move?” says Abhay Sahoo, a communist leader who has led protests against Posco. “The farmer may not be living like a king, but without his land, he will be living like a slave.”
The violence stretches back to the years after India’s independence from Britain in 1947. Communist parties pledged to distribute land to farmers , an initiative that stalled in the 1950′s.
After the 1967 revolt, the Maoists failed to spread into Kolkata, then called Calcutta. Leaders started local uprisings in Andhra Pradesh and Kerala states. By the late 1990′s, the Andhra Pradesh government had chased the fighters into the Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand forests, where they started fresh, says Aditya Swaroop, cabinet and principal secretary for Jharkhand.
The Maoists began re-emerging around 2003. The Chhattisgarh state government launched the Salwa Judum, or Purification Hunt, paying villagers $40 a month to fight the rebels and help force people off their land for companies, says Chakma of the Asian Centre for Human Rights.
‘Violent Raids’ – “With the active support of government security forces , Salwa Judum members conducted violent raids on hundreds of villages suspected of being pro-Naxalite,” a 2008 study by Human Rights Watch found.
The state evicted people from at least 640 villages to make way for proposed Essar and Tata factories, according to a March 2009 draft report by the Ministry of Rural Development. Abouit 350,000 villagers were displaced, ” their womenfolk raped , their daughters killed and their youth maimed,” the report said. Those who didn’t escape into the jungle were herded into refugee camps , where some 60,000 still live.
A later report, dated December 2009, drops references to forceable displacement and assaults as well as references to Essar and Tata. The ministry didn’t respond to requests to comment on either report. Essar says it had no connection to the Salwa Judum; Tata noted that the final report had removed the allegations.
‘Forest Meeting’ – Six-hundred Maoists rebels slipped out of the Dandakaranya forest and swarmed state-controlled National Mineral & Development Corp.’s iron ore facility . not far from Essar’s plant, in February 2006.
They hijacked a vehicle delivering food and killed nine poliiceman, according to a report by the Central Reserve Police Force, or CRPF, a paramilitary agency. They carried off 20 tons of ammonium nitrate explosives, loading boxes onto wooden stretchers for the trek back into the forest.
The next year, the CPI (Maoist) met for the first time in 30 years for the Ninth Congress, as members called the strategy session deep in the forest. Government helicopters buzzed overhead, too high to spot the gathering, while villagers and an indigenous population faithful to the rebels kept watch, the man who spoke to Bloomberg in Jharfkhand says.
‘Glorious Event’ – I call upon the people of India to come forward in large numbers and support this embryonic people’s war and protect India from the greed of the Mittals, Tatas, R uias and (unintelligibled),” Muppala Lakshana Rao , general secretary of the CPI (Maoist) told the crowd, according to a transcript created from a video of his speech. “‘Indians, rise up as a tide to smash imperialism.”
In Jharkhand, the man remembers the Ninth Congress and smiles.
“It was a glorious event in our history,” says the man, who recalls trekking three days into the forest to reach the gathering.
A four-hour drive from Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand, some villagers welcome today’s Maoists. The road ends before it reaches the home of Laxmi, a tribal beer brewer and, as such, among the lowest castes in India’s hierarchy. Laxmi, an emaciated man with yellowing teeth who asks to be identified by one name, says his 15-year-old son ran away to join the Naxalites, and he can’t blame him.
“The more my son read books, the angrier he got at how poor we were,” he says.
‘Laxmi’s Tale’ – Laxmi says he has seen a doctor once in his life, when the family loaded him onto a passing bus to get a cast on his broken arm. A dilapidated health clinic with a clipboard in a desk drawer lists the last nurse visit: October 19998. Today , young women use the building to defecate away from public view.
Prime Minister Singh says families like Lakmi’s make obvious targets for Naxal recruitment.
“These areas have lagged behind the rest of the country,” Singh told ministers of Naxal-affected states, according to a July 14 transcript. ” For far too long have our tribal brothers and sisters seen the administration in the form of a rapacious forest guard, a brutal policeman.”
Singh’s government has deployed about 47 CRPF battalions — some 50,000 troops — and 10 battalions of an elite force called Commando Battalion for Resolute Action to Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and 3 neighboring states.
Bansi Kumar Ponwar, a former army brigadier who fought insurgencies on India’s borders with China and Pakistan, is training security forces in Kanker, less than 100 kilometers from the Dandakaranya forest
‘Counter Terrorism College’ – Officers spend 45 days on jungle survival, speed marching and rappelling from helicopters at his Counter Terrorism aned Jungle Warfare College. Then they leave for their regular police or CRPF units.
Ponwar chose Kanker because its hilly,tree-covered terrain is like Maoist strongholds.
“Isn’t it funny that right in the heart of India, there’s an entire region where normal people like you and I just can’t walk in?” he says. “You will be killed, or kidnapped or questioned by some authority other than the Indian police. It’s become a kind of liberated zone.”
Such entirely rebel-run territories are key to Maoist plans, according to their training manuals. The CRPF estimates 1,500 to 2,000 guerillas come to the forests each year to learn modern weaponry , and children as young as 16 are trained in AK-47s and rocket launchers. In April 2005, November 2006 and March 2007, Maoists attacked two armories and a police station.
Many "left"s called Maoism an collaborationist ideology, a collaboration of different classes. I hope this can be a good answer to that.

[pranabjyoti]

maoism The Trickledown Revolution
The answer lies not in the excesses of capitalism or communism. It could well spring from our subaltern depths.
Arundhati Roy (http://www.outlookindia.com/peoplefnl.aspx?pid=4112&author=Arundhati+Roy)






The law locks up the hapless felon
who steals the goose from off the common,
but lets the greater felon loose
who steals the common from the goose.


—Anonymous, England, 1821



In the early morning hours of July 2, 2010, in the remote forests of Adilabad, the Andhra Pradesh state police fired a bullet into the chest of a man called Chemkuri Rajkumar, known to his comrades as Azad. Azad was a member of the politburo of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) and had been nominated by his party as its chief negotiator for the proposed peace talks with the Government of India. Why did the police fire at point-blank range and leave those tell-tale burn marks, when they could so easily have covered their tracks? Was it a mistake or was it a message?

They killed a second person that morning—Hemchandra Pandey, a young journalist who was travelling with Azad when he was apprehended. Why did they kill him? Was it to make sure no eyewitness remained alive to tell the tale? Or was it just whimsy?

In the course of a war, if, in the preliminary stages of a peace negotiation, one side executes the envoy of the other side, it’s reasonable to assume that the side that did the killing does not want peace. It looks very much as though Azad was killed because someone decided that the stakes were too high to allow him to remain alive. That decision could turn out to be a serious error of judgement. Not just because of who he was, but because of the political climate in India today.

***
Days after I said goodbye to the comrades (http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264738) and emerged from the Dandakaranya forest, I found myself charting a weary but familiar course to Jantar Mantar, on Parliament Street in New Delhi. Jantar Mantar is an old observatory built by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II of Jaipur in 1710. In those days it was a scientific marvel, used to tell the time, predict the weather and study the planets. Today, it’s a not-so-hot tourist attraction that doubles up as Delhi’s little showroom for democracy.




On the 64th anniversary of India’s Independence, Manmohan Singh climbed into his bulletproof soapbox in the Red Fort to deliver a speech that was bone-chillingly banal, passionless.



For some years now, protests—unless they are patronised by political parties or religious organisations—have been banned in Delhi. The Boat Club on Rajpath, which has in the past seen huge, historic rallies that sometimes lasted for days, is out of bounds for political activity now, and is only available for picnics, balloon-sellers and boat-rides. As for India Gate, candlelight vigils and boutique protests for middle-class causes, such as ‘Justice for Jessica’—the model who was killed in a Delhi bar by a thug with political connections—are allowed, but nothing more. Section 144, an old 19th-century law that bans the gathering of more than five people—who have “a common object which is unlawful”—in a public place has been clamped on parts of the city. The law was passed by the British in 1861 to prevent a repeat of the 1857 mutiny. It was meant to be an emergency measure, but has become a permanent fixture in many parts of India. Perhaps it was in gratitude for laws like these that our prime minister, while accepting an honorary degree from Oxford, thanked the British for bequeathing us such a rich legacy: “Our judiciary, our legal system, our bureaucracy and our police are all great institutions, derived from British-Indian administration, and they have served the country well.” Jantar Mantar is the only place in Delhi where Section 144 is not enforced. People from all over the country, fed up with being ignored by the political establishment and the media, converge there, desperately hoping for a hearing. Some take long train journeys. Some, like the victims of the Bhopal gas leak, have walked for weeks, all the way to Delhi. Though they had to fight each other for the best spot on the burning (or freezing) pavement, until recently protesters were allowed to camp in Jantar Mantar for as long as they liked—weeks, months, even years. Under the malevolent gaze of the police and the Special Branch, they would put up their faded shamianas and banners. From here they declared their faith in democracy by issuing their memorandums, announcing their protest plans and staging their indefinite hunger strikes. From here they tried (but never succeeded) to march on Parliament. From here they hoped.

Of late, though, Democracy’s timings have been changed. It’s strictly office hours now, nine to five. No overtime. No sleepovers. No matter from how far people have come, no matter if they have no shelter in the city—if they don’t leave by 6 pm, they are forcibly dispersed, by the police if necessary, with batons and water cannons if things get out of hand. The new timings were ostensibly instituted to make sure that the 2010 Commonwealth Games that New Delhi is hosting go smoothly. But nobody’s expecting the old timings back any time soon. Maybe it’s in the fitness of things that what’s left of our democracy should be traded in for an event that was created to celebrate the British empire. Perhaps it’s only right that 4,00,000 people should have had their homes demolished and been driven out of the city overnight. Or that hundreds of thousands of roadside vendors should have had their livelihoods snatched away by order of the Supreme Court so city malls could take over their share of business. And that tens of thousands of beggars should have been shipped out of the city while more than a hundred thousand galley slaves were shipped in to build the flyovers, metro tunnels, Olympic-size swimming pools, warm-up stadiums and luxury housing for athletes. The Old Empire may not exist. But obviously our tradition of servility has become too profitable an enterprise to dismantle.

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Site of hope A farmers’ protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi (Photograph by Sanjay Rawat)
I was at Jantar Mantar because a thousand pavement-dwellers from cities all over the country had come to demand a few fundamental rights: the right to shelter, to food (ration cards), to life (protection from police brutality, and criminal extortion by municipal officers).




Of late, Democracy’s timings here have changed: it’s strictly office hours, 9-5. No matter how far you’ve come from, have a place to stay or not, if you don’t leave by 6, you’re forcibly dispersed.



It was early spring, the sun was sharp, but still civilised. This is a terrible thing to have to say, but it’s true: you could smell the protest from a fair distance. It was the accumulated odour of a thousand human bodies that had been dehumanised, denied the basic necessities for human (or even animal) health and hygiene for years, if not a whole lifetime. Bodies that had been marinated in the refuse of our big cities, bodies that had no shelter from the harsh weather, no access to clean water, clean air, sanitation or medical care. No part of this great country, none of the supposedly progressive schemes, no single urban institution has been designed to accommodate them. Not the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, not any other slum development, employment guarantee or welfare scheme. Not even the sewage system—they shit on top of it. They are shadow people, who live in the cracks that run between schemes and institutions. They sleep on the streets, eat on the streets, make love on the streets, give birth on the streets, are raped on the streets, cut their vegetables, wash their clothes, raise their children, live and die on the streets. If the motion picture were an art form that involved the olfactory senses—in other words, if cinema smelled—then films like Slumdog Millionaire would not win Oscars. The stench of that kind of poverty wouldn’t blend with the aroma of warm popcorn.
The people at the protest in Jantar Mantar that day were not even slum dogs, they were pavement-dwellers. Who were they? Where had they come from? They were the refugees of India’s shining, the people who are being sloshed around like toxic effluent in a manufacturing process that has gone berserk. The representatives of the more than sixty million people who have been displaced, by rural destitution, by slow starvation, by floods and drought (many of them man-made), by mines, steel factories and aluminium smelters, by highways and expressways, by the 3,300 big dams built since Independence and now by Special Economic Zones. They’re part of the 830 million people of India who live on less than twenty rupees a day, the ones who starve while millions of tonnes of foodgrain is either eaten by rats in government warehouses or burnt in bulk (because it is cheaper to burn food than to distribute it to poor people). They are the parents of the tens of millions of malnourished children in our country, of the two million who die every year before they reach the age of five. They are the millions who make up the chain-gangs that are transported from city to city to build the New India. Is this what is known as enjoying the “fruits of modern development”?
What must they think, these people, about a government that sees fit to spend nine billion dollars of public money (2,000 per cent more than the initial estimate) for a two-week sports extravaganza which, for fear of terrorism, malaria, dengue and New Delhi’s new superbug, many international athletes have refused to attend? Which the Queen of England, titular head of the Commonwealth, would not consider presiding over, not even in her most irresponsible dreams. What must they think of the fact that most of those billions have been stolen and salted away by politicians and Games officials? Not much, I guess. Because for people who live on less than twenty rupees a day, money on that scale must seem like science fiction. It probably doesn’t occur to them that it’s their money. That’s why corrupt politicians in India never have a problem sweeping back into power, using the money they stole to buy elections. (Then, they feign outrage and ask, “Why don’t the Maoists stand for elections?”)




If the motion picture were an art form involving olfactory senses, Slumdog Millionaire would get no Oscars. The stench of that poverty wouldn’t blend with the aroma of warm popcorn.



Standing there, in that dim crowd on that bright day, I thought of all the struggles that are being waged by people in this country—against big dams in the Narmada Valley, Polavaram, Arunachal Pradesh; against mines in Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand; against the police by the adivasis of Lalgarh; against the grabbing of their lands for industries and special economic zones all over the country. How many years (and in how many ways) people have fought to avoid just such a fate. I thought of Maase, Narmada, Roopi, Nity, Mangtu, Madhav, Saroja, Raju, Gudsa Usendi and Comrade Kamala (my young bodyguard during the time I spent with the Maoists in the jungle) with their guns slung over their shoulders. I thought of the great dignity of the forest I had so recently walked in and the rhythm of the adivasi drums at the Bhumkal celebration in Bastar, like the soundtrack of the quickening pulse of a furious nation. I thought of Padma with whom I travelled to Warangal. She is only in her 30s but when she walks up stairs, she has to hold the banister and drag her body behind her. She was arrested just a week after she had had an appendix operation. She was beaten until she had an internal haemorrhage and had to have several organs removed. When they cracked her knees, the police explained helpfully that it was to make sure “she would never walk in the jungle again”. She was released after serving an eight-year sentence. Now she runs the ‘Amarula Bhadhu Mitrula Committee’, the Committee of Relatives and Friends of Martyrs. It retrieves the bodies of people killed in fake encounters. Padma spends her time criss-crossing northern Andhra Pradesh, in whatever transport she can find, usually a tractor, transporting the corpses of people whose parents or spouses are too poor to make the journey to retrieve the bodies of their loved ones.
The tenacity, the wisdom and the courage of those who have been fighting for years, for decades, to bring change, or even the whisper of justice to their lives, is something extraordinary. Whether people are fighting to overthrow the Indian State, or fighting against Big Dams, or only fighting a particular steel plant or mine or SEZ, the bottomline is that they are fighting for their dignity, for the right to live and smell like human beings. They are fighting because, as far as they are concerned, “the fruits of modern development” stink like dead cattle on the highway.

On the 64th anniversary of India’s Independence, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh climbed into his bullet-proof soapbox in the Red Fort to deliver a passionless, bone-chillingly banal speech (http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?266687) to the nation. Listening to him, who would have guessed that he was addressing a country that, despite having the second-highest economic growth rate in the world, has more poor people than 26 of Africa’s poorest countries put together? “All of you have contributed to India’s success,” he said, “the hard work of our workers, our artisans, our farmers has brought our country to where it stands today.... We are building a new India in which every citizen would have a stake, an India which would be prosperous and in which all citizens would be able to live a life of honour and dignity in an environment of peace and goodwill. An India in which all problems could be solved through democratic means. An India in which the basic rights of every citizen would be protected.” Some would call this graveyard humour. He might as well have been speaking to people in Finland, or Sweden.




Sonia Gandhi and son carry out the task of running the Department of Compassion and Charisma to win elections. Their decisions appear progressive, but are actually symbolic.



If our prime minister’s reputation for “personal integrity” extended to the text of his speeches, this is what he should have said: “Brothers and sisters, greetings to you on this day on which we remember our glorious past. Things are getting a little expensive I know, and you keep moaning about food prices, but look at it this way—more than six hundred and fifty million of you are engaged in and are living off agriculture as farmers and farm labour. But your combined efforts contribute less than 18 per cent of our GDP. So what’s the use of you? Look at our IT sector. It employs 0.2 per cent of the population and accounts for 5 per cent of our GDP. Can you match that? It is true that in our country employment hasn’t kept pace with growth, but fortunately 60 per cent of our workforce is self-employed. Ninety per cent of our labour force is employed by the unorganised sector. True, they manage to get work only for a few months in the year, but since we don’t have a category called “underemployed”, we just keep that part a little vague. It would not be right to enter them in our books as unemployed. Coming to the statistics that say we have the highest infant and maternal mortality in the world—we should unite as a nation and ignore bad news for the time being. We can address these problems later, after our Trickle-Down Revolution, when the health sector has been completely privatised. Meanwhile, I hope you are all buying medical insurance. As for the fact that the per capita foodgrain availability has actually decreased over the last 20 years—which happens to be the period of our most rapid economic growth—believe me, that’s just a coincidence.
“My fellow citizens, we are building a new India in which our 100 richest people, millionaires and billionaires, hold assets worth a full 25 per cent of our GDP. Wealth concentrated in fewer and fewer hands is always more efficient. You have all heard the saying that too many cooks spoil the broth. We want our beloved billionaires, our few hundred millionaires, their near and dear ones and their political and business associates, to be prosperous and to live a life of honour and dignity in an environment of peace and goodwill in which their basic rights are protected.

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Warrior for whom? Rahul with the Dongria Kondhs in Orissa


“I am aware that my dreams cannot come true by solely using democratic means. In fact, I have come to believe that real democracy flows through the barrel of a gun. This is why we have deployed the Army, the Police, the Central Reserve Police Force, the Border Security Force, the Central Industrial Security Force, the Pradeshik Armed Constabulary, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, the Eastern Frontier Rifles—as well as the Scorpions, Greyhounds and Cobras—to crush the misguided insurrections that are erupting in our mineral-rich areas.

“Our experiments with democracy began in Nagaland, Manipur and Kashmir. Kashmir, I need not reiterate, is an integral part of India. We have deployed more than half-a-million soldiers to bring democracy to the people there. The Kashmiri youth who have been risking their lives by defying curfew and throwing stones at the police for the last two months are Lashkar-e-Toiba militants who actually want employment, not azadi. Tragically, 60 of them have lost their lives before we could study their job applications. I have instructed the police from now on to shoot to maim rather than kill these misguided youths.”




At a rally organised after Vedanta’s licence was cancelled, Rahul Gandhi declared himself ‘a soldier of tribal people’, even if Congress policies hinge upon the displacement of tribals.



In his seven years in office, Manmohan Singh has allowed himself to be cast as Sonia Gandhi’s tentative, mild-mannered underling. It’s an excellent disguise for a man who, for the last 20 years, first as finance minister and then as prime minister, has powered through a regime of new economic policies that has brought India into the situation in which it finds itself now. This is not to suggest that Manmohan Singh is not an underling. Only that all his orders don’t come from Sonia Gandhi. In his autobiography (A Prattler’s Tale), Ashok Mitra, former finance minister of West Bengal, tells his story of how Manmohan Singh rose to power. In 1991, when India’s foreign exchange reserves were dangerously low, the Narasimha Rao government approached the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for an emergency loan. The IMF agreed on two conditions. The first was Structural Adjustment and Economic Reform. The second was the appointment of a finance minister of its choice. That man, says Mitra, was Manmohan Singh. Over the years, he has stacked his cabinet and the bureaucracy with people who are evangelically committed to the corporate takeover of everything—water, electricity, minerals, agriculture, land, telecommunications, education, health—no matter what the consequences.
Sonia Gandhi and her son play an important part in all of this. Their job is to run the Department of Compassion and Charisma and to win elections. They are allowed to make (and also to take credit for) decisions which appear progressive but are actually tactical and symbolic, meant to take the edge off popular anger and allow the big ship to keep on rolling. (The best example of this is the rally that was organised for Rahul Gandhi to claim victory for the cancellation of Vedanta’s permission to mine Niyamgiri for bauxite—a battle that the Dongria Kondh tribe and a coalition of activists, local as well as international, have been fighting for years. At the rally, Rahul Gandhi announced that he was “a soldier for the tribal people”. He didn’t mention that the economic policies of his party are predicated on the mass displacement of tribal people. Or that every other bauxite “giri”—hill—in the neighbourhood was having the hell mined out of it, while this “soldier for the tribal people” looked away. Rahul Gandhi may be a decent man. But for him to go around talking about the two Indias—the “Rich India” and the “Poor India”—as though the party he represents has nothing to do with it, is an insult to everybody’s intelligence, including his own.)




Manmohan’s appearance as Sonia’s tentative, mild-mannered underling is excellent disguise for a man who in 20 years has ushered in an economic regime which has brought us to this.



The division of labour between politicians who have a mass base and win elections, and those who actually run the country but either do not need to (judges and bureaucrats) or have been freed of the constraint of winning elections (like the prime minister) is a brilliant subversion of democratic practice. To imagine that Sonia and Rahul Gandhi are in charge of the government would be a mistake. The real power has passed into the hands of a coven of oligarchs—judges, bureaucrats and politicians. They in turn are run like prize race-horses by the few corporations who more or less own everything in the country. They may belong to different political parties and put up a great show of being political rivals, but that’s just subterfuge for public consumption. The only real rivalry is the business rivalry between corporations. A senior member of the coven is P. Chidambaram, who some say is so popular with the Opposition that he may continue to be home minister even if the Congress were to lose the next election. That’s probably just as well. He may need a few extra years in office to complete the task he has been assigned. But it doesn’t matter if he stays or goes. The die has been rolled.
In a lecture at Harvard, (http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?267025) his old university, in October 2007, Chidambaram outlined that task. The lecture was called ‘Poor Rich Countries: The Challenges of Development’. He called the three decades after Independence “the lost years” and exulted about the GDP growth rate which rose from 6.9 per cent in 2002 to 9.4 per cent by 2007. What he said is important enough for me to inflict a chunk of his charmless prose on you:

“One would have thought that the challenge of development—in a democracy—will become less formidable as the economy cruises on a high growth path. The reality is the opposite. Democracy—rather, the institutions of democracy—and the legacy of the socialist era have actually added to the challenge of development. Let me explain with some examples. India’s mineral resources include coal—the fourth-largest reserves in the world—iron ore, manganese, mica, bauxite, titanium ore, chromite, diamonds, natural gas, petroleum and limestone. Common sense tells us that we should mine these resources quickly and efficiently. That requires huge capital, efficient organisations and a policy environment that will allow market forces to operate. None of these factors is present today in the mining sector. The laws in this behalf are outdated and Parliament has been able to only tinker at the margins. Our efforts to attract private investment in prospecting and mining have, by and large, failed. Meanwhile, the sector remains virtually captive in the hands of the state governments. Opposing any change in the status quo are groups that espouse—quite legitimately—the cause of the forests or the environment or the tribal population. There are also political parties that regard mining as a natural monopoly of the State and have ideological objections to the entry of the private sector. They garner support from the established trade unions. Behind the unions—either known or unknown to them—stand the trading mafia. The result: actual investment is low, the mining sector grows at a tardy pace and it acts as a drag on the economy. I shall give you another example. Vast extent of land is required for locating industries. Mineral-based industries such as steel and aluminium require large tracts of land for mining, processing and production. Infrastructure projects like airports, seaports, dams and power stations need very large extents of land so that they can provide road and rail connectivity and the ancillary and support facilities. Hitherto, land was acquired by the governments in exercise of the power of eminent domain. The only issue was payment of adequate compensation. That situation has changed. There are new stakeholders in every project, and their claims have to be recognised. We are now obliged to address issues such as environmental impact assessment, justification for compulsory acquisition, right compensation, solatium, rehabilitation and resettlement of the displaced persons, alternative house sites and farmland, and one job for each affected family....”
Allowing “market forces” to mine resources “quickly and efficiently” is what colonisers did to their colonies, what Spain and North America did to South America, what Europe did (and continues to do) in Africa. It’s what the Apartheid regime did in South Africa. What puppet dictators in small countries do to bleed their people. It’s a formula for growth and development, but for someone else. It’s an old, old, old, old story—must we really go over that ground again?

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Homing in Chidambaram, arriving in Parliament (Photograph by Jitender Gupta)
Now that mining licences have been issued with the urgency you’d associate with a knockdown distress sale, and the scams that are emerging have run into billions of dollars, now that mining companies have polluted rivers, mined away state borders, wrecked ecosystems and unleashed civil war, the consequence of what the coven has set into motion is playing out. Like an ancient lament over ruined landscapes and the bodies of the poor.




The home secy’s promised 1,75,000 policemen over the next 5 years. It’s a good employment model: hire half the population to kill the other half (fool around with the ratios if you like).



Note the regret with which the minister in his lecture talks about democracy and the obligations it entails: “Democracy—rather, the institutions of democracy—and the legacy of the socialist era have actually added to the challenge of development.” He follows that up with the standard-issue clutch of lies about compensation, rehabilitation and jobs. What compensation? What solatium? What rehabilitation? And what “job for each family”? (Sixty years of industrialisation in India has created employment for 6 per cent of the workforce.) As for being “obliged” to provide “justification” for the “compulsory acquisition” of land, a cabinet minister surely knows that to compulsorily acquire tribal land (which is where most of the minerals are) and turn it over to private mining corporations is illegal and unconstitutional under the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act or PESA. Passed in 1996, PESA is an amendment that attempts to right some of the wrongs done to tribal people by the Indian Constitution when it was adopted by Parliament in 1950. It overrides all existing laws that may be in conflict with it. It is a law that acknowledges the deepening marginalisation of tribal communities and is meant to radically recast the balance of power. As a piece of legislation, it is unique because it makes the community—the collective—a legal entity and it confers on tribal societies who live in scheduled areas the right to self-governance. Under PESA, “compulsory acquisition” of tribal land cannot be justified on any count. So, ironically, those who are being called “Maoists” (which includes everyone who is resisting land acquisition) are actually fighting to uphold the Constitution. While the government is doing its best to vandalise it. Between 2008 and 2009, the ministry of panchayati raj (village administration) commissioned two researchers to write a chapter for a report on the progress of panchayati raj in the country. The chapter is called ‘PESA, Left-Wing Extremism and Governance: Concerns and Challenges in India’s Tribal Districts (http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?267052)’. Its authors are Ajay Dandekar and Chitrangada Choudhury. Here are some extracts:

“The Central Land Acquisition Act of 1894 has till date not been amended to bring it in line with the provisions of PESA.... At the moment, this colonial-era law is being widely misused on the ground to forcibly acquire individual and community land for private industry. In several cases, the practice of the state government is to sign high-profile MoUs with corporate houses and then proceed to deploy the Acquisition Act to ostensibly acquire the land for the state industrial corporation. This body then simply leases the land to the private corporation—a complete travesty of the term ‘acquisition for a public purpose’, as sanctioned by the act....
There are cases where the formal resolutions of gram sabhas expressing dissent have been destroyed and substituted by forged documents. What is worse, no action has been taken by the state against concerned officials even after the facts got established. The message is clear and ominous. There is collusion in these deals at numerous levels....
The sale of tribal lands to non-tribals in the Schedule Five areas is prohibited in all these states. However, transfers continue to take place and have become more perceptible in the post-liberalisation era. The principal reasons are—transfer through fraudulent means, unrecorded transfers on the basis of oral transactions, transfers by misrepresentation of facts and mis-stating the purpose, forcible occupation of tribal lands, transfer through illegal marriages, collusive title suits, incorrect recording at the time of the survey, land acquisition process, eviction of encroachments and in the name of exploitation of timber and forest produce and even on the pretext of development of welfarism.”
In their concluding section, they say:

“The Memorandums of Understanding signed by the state governments with industrial houses, including mining companies, should be re-examined in a public exercise, with gram sabhas at the centre of this inquiry.”
Here it is then—not troublesome activists, not the Maoists, but a government report calling for the mining MoUs to be re-examined. What does the government do with this document? How does it respond? On April 24, 2010, at a formal ceremony, the prime minster released the report. Brave of him, you would think. Except, this chapter wasn’t in it. It was dropped.




P. Chidambaram, some say, is so popular with the Opposition that he’ll still be home minister even if the Congress loses the next elections. It doesn’t matter. The die’s already cast.



Half a century ago, just a year before he was killed, Che Guevara wrote: “When the oppressive forces maintain themselves in power against laws they themselves established, peace must be considered already broken.” Indeed it must. In 2009, Manmohan Singh said in Parliament, “If left-wing extremism continues to flourish in parts which have natural resources of minerals, the climate for investment would certainly be affected.” It was a furtive declaration of war.
(Permit me a small digression here, a moment to tell a very short Tale of Two Sikhs. In his last petition to the Punjab governor, before he was hanged by the British government in 1931, Bhagat Singh, the celebrated Sikh revolutionary—and Marxist—said: “Let us declare that the state of war does exist and shall exist so long as India’s toiling masses and the natural resources are being exploited by a handful of parasites. They may be purely British Capitalist or mixed British and Indian or even purely Indian.... All these things make no difference.”)
If you pay attention to many of the struggles taking place in India, people are demanding no more than their constitutional rights. But the Government of India no longer feels the need to abide by the Indian Constitution, which is supposed to be the legal and moral framework on which our democracy rests. As constitutions go, it is an enlightened document, but its enlightenment is not used to protect people. Quite the opposite. It’s used as a spiked club to beat down those who are protesting against the growing tide of violence being perpetrated by a State on its people in the name of the “public good”. In a recent article in Outlook (May 3) (http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?265171), B.G. Verghese came out waving that club in defence of the State and big corporations: “The Maoists will fade away, democratic India and the Constitution will prevail, despite the time it takes and the pain involved.” To this, Azad replied.
It was the last piece he wrote before he was murdered (Outlook, July 19, 2010 (http://outlookindia.com/article.aspx?266164)).

“In which part of India is the Constitution prevailing, Mr Verghese? In Dantewada, Bijapur, Kanker, Narayanpur, Rajnandgaon? In Jharkhand, Orissa? In Lalgarh, Jangalmahal? In the Kashmir Valley? Manipur? Where was your Constitution hiding for 25 long years after thousands of Sikhs were massacred? When thousands of Muslims were decimated? When lakhs of peasants are compelled to commit suicide? When thousands of people are murdered by state-sponsored Salwa Judum gangs? When adivasi women are gangraped? When people are simply abducted by uniformed goons? Your Constitution is a piece of paper that does not even have the value of a toilet paper for the vast majority of the Indian people.”
After Azad was killed, several media commentators tried to paper over the crime by shamelessly inverting what he had said in that piece, accusing him of calling the Indian Constitution a piece of toilet paper.
If the government will not respect the Constitution, then perhaps we should push for an amendment to the Preamble itself. “We, the People of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic” could be substituted with “We, the upper castes and classes of India, having secretly resolved to constitute India into a Corporate, Hindu, Satellite State....”

The insurrection in the Indian countryside, in particular in the tribal heartland, poses a radical challenge not only to the Indian State, but to resistance movements too. It questions the accepted ideas of what constitutes progress, development and indeed civilisation itself. It questions the ethics as well as the effectiveness of different strategies of resistance. These questions have been asked before, yes. They have been asked persistently, peacefully, year after year, in a hundred different ways—by the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha, the Koel Karo and Gandhamardhan agitations—and hundreds of other people’s movements. It was asked most persuasively and perhaps most visibly by the Narmada Bachao Andolan, the anti-dam movement in the Narmada Valley. The Government of India’s only answer has been repression, deviousness and the kind of opacity that can only come from a pathological disrespect for ordinary people. Worse, it went ahead and accelerated the process of displacement and dispossession to a point where people’s anger has built up in ways that cannot be controlled. Today, the poorest people in the world have managed to stop some of the richest corporations in their tracks. It’s a huge victory.




When the government uses the ploy of peace talks to draw deep-swimming fish up to the surface and then kill them, do peace talks have a future? Does either side want peace or justice?



Those who have risen up are aware that their country is in a state of Emergency. They are aware that like the people of Kashmir, Manipur, Nagaland and Assam, they too have now been stripped of their civil rights by laws like the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act (CSPSA), which criminalise every kind of dissent—by word, deed and even intent. During the Emergency era, grim as it was, people still allowed themselves to dream of bettering their lot, to dream of justice. When Indira Gandhi declared the Emergency on the midnight of June 25, 1975, she did it to crush an incipient revolution. The Naxalite uprising in Bengal had been more or less decimated. But then millions of people were rallying to Jayaprakash Narayan’s call for ‘Sampoorna Kranti’ (Total Revolution). At the heart of all the unrest was the demand for Land to the Tiller. (Even back then, it was no different—you needed a revolution to implement land redistribution, which is one of the directive principles of the Constitution.)

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Hail Britannia Securitymen at CWG HQ (Photograph by Sanjay Rawat)




Perhaps our Preamble should read, “We, the upper castes and classes of India, having secretly resolved to constitute India into a Corporate, Hindu, Satellite State....”



Thirty-five years later, things have changed drastically. Justice, that grand, beautiful idea, has been whittled down to mean human rights. Equality is a utopian fantasy. The word has, more or less, been evicted from our vocabulary. The poor have been pushed to the wall. From fighting for land for the landless, revolutionary parties and resistance movements have had to lower their sights to fighting for people’s rights to hold on to what little land they have. The only kind of land redistribution that seems to be on the cards is land being grabbed from the poor and redistributed to the rich, for their landbanks which go by the name of SEZs. The landless (mostly Dalits), the jobless, the slum-dwellers and the urban working class are more or less out of the reckoning. In places like Lalgarh in West Bengal, people are only asking the police and the government to leave them alone. The adivasi organisation called the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (pcapa) began with one simple demand—that the Superintendent of Police visit Lalgarh and apologise to the people for the atrocities his men had committed on villagers. That was considered preposterous. (How could half-naked savages expect a government officer to apologise to them?) So people barricaded their villages and refused to let the police in. The police stepped up the violence. People responded with fury. Now, two years down the line, and many gruesome rapes, killings and fake encounters later, it’s all-out war. The pcapa has been banned and dubbed a Maoist outfit. Its leaders have been jailed or shot. (A similar fate has befallen the Chasi Mulya Adivasi Sangh in Narayanpatna in Orissa and the Visthappen Virodhi Ekta Manch in Potka in Jharkhand.) People who once dreamt of justice and equality, who dared to demand land to the tiller, have been reduced to demanding an apology from the police for being beaten and maimed—is this progress?

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Fine tooth Securitymen on a combing operation in Dantewada (Photograph by Tribhuvan Tiwari)
During the Emergency, the saying goes, when Mrs Gandhi asked the press to bend, it crawled. And yet, in those days, there were instances when national dailies defiantly published blank editorials to protest censorship. (Irony of ironies—one of those defiant editors was B.G. Verghese.)




What must they think, the people who live on less than Rs 20 a day, of nine billion dollars of public money on a two-week show? Not much. For them, this kind of money is science fiction.



This time around, in the undeclared emergency, there’s not much scope for defiance because the media is the government. Nobody, except the corporations which control them, can tell it what to do. Senior politicians, ministers and officers of the security establishment vie to appear on TV, feebly imploring Arnab Goswami or Barkha Dutt for permission to interrupt the day’s sermon. Several TV channels and newspapers are overtly manning Operation Green Hunt’s war room and its disinformation campaign. There was the identically worded story about the “1,500-crore Maoist industry” filed under the byline of different reporters in several different papers. Almost all newspapers and TV channels ran stories blaming the pcapa (used interchangeably with “Maoists”) for the horrific train derailment near Jhargram in West Bengal in May 2010 in which 140 people died. Two of the main suspects have been shot down by the police in “encounters”, even though the mystery around that train accident is still unravelling. The Press Trust of India put out several untruthful stories, faithfully showcased by the Indian Express, including one about Maoists mutilating the bodies of policemen they had killed. (The denial, which came from the police themselves, was published postage-stamp size hidden in the middle pages.) There are the several identical interviews, all of them billed as “exclusive”, with a female guerrilla about how she had been “raped and re-raped” by Maoist leaders. She was supposed to have recently escaped from the forests, and the clutches of the Maoists, to tell the world her tale. Now it turns out that she has been in police custody for months. The atrocity-based analyses shouted out at us from our TV screens is designed to smoke up the mirrors, and hustle us into thinking: “Yes, the tribals have been neglected and are having a very bad time; yes, they need development; yes, it’s the government’s fault, but right now there is a crisis. We need to get rid of the Maoists, secure the land and then we can help the tribals.”




Perhaps it’s in the fitness of things that what’s left of our democracy is traded in for an event to celebrate the British empire. The Old Empire may be dead, not the tradition of servility.



As war closes in, the armed forces have announced (in the way only they can), that they too are getting into the business of messing with our heads. In June 2010, they released two “operational doctrines”. One was a joint doctrine for air-land operations. The other was a doctrine on Military Psychological Operations which “constitutes a planned process of conveying a message to select target audience, to promote particular themes that result in desired attitudes and behaviour, which affect the achievement of political and military objectives of the country.... The Doctrine also provides guidelines for activities related to perception management in sub-conventional operations, specially in an internal environment wherein misguided population may have to be brought into the mainstream”. The press release went on to say that “the doctrine on Military Psychological Operations is a policy, planning and implementation document that aims to create a conducive environment for the armed forces to operate by using the media available with the Services to their advantage”. A month later, at a meeting of chief ministers of Naxalite-affected states, a decision was taken to escalate the war. Thirty-six battalions of the India Reserve Force were added to the existing 105 battalions, and 16,000 Special Police Officers (civilians armed and contracted to function as police) were added to the existing 30,000. The home secretary promised to hire 1,75,000 policemen over the next five years. (It’s a good model for an employment guarantee scheme: hire half the population to shoot the other half. You can fool around with the ratios if you like.)
Two days later, the army chief told his senior officers to be “mentally prepared to step into the fight against Naxalism.... It might be in six months or in a year or two, but if we have to maintain our relevance as a tool of the state, we will have to undertake things that the nation wants us to do”.
By August, newspapers were reporting that the on-again-off-again option of using the air force was on again. “The Indian air force can fire in self-defence in anti-Maoist operations,” the Hindustan Times said. “The permission has been granted but with strict conditionalities. We cannot use rockets or the integral guns of the helicopters and we can retaliate only if fired upon.... To this end, we have side-mounted machine-guns on our choppers that are operated by our Garuds (IAF commandos).” That’s a relief. No integral guns, only side-mounted machine-guns.




As war closes in, the armed forces have announced that they too are getting into the business of messing with our heads by using “media available to the Services”.



Maybe “six months or in a year or two” is about as long as it will take for the brigade headquarters in Bilaspur and the air base in Rajnandgaon to be ready. Maybe by then, in a great show of democratic spirit, the government will give in to popular anger and repeal AFSPA, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (which allows non-commissioned officers to kill on suspicion) in Manipur, Nagaland, Assam and Kashmir. Once the applause subsides and the celebration peters out, AFSPA will be recast, as the home minister has suggested, on the lines of the Jeevan Reddy report. (To sound more humane but to be more deadly.) Then it can be promulgated all over the country under a new name. Maybe that will give the armed forces the impunity they need to do what “the nation” wants them to do—to be deployed in the parts of India against the poorest of the poor who are fighting for their very survival. Maybe that’s how Comrade Kamala will die—while she’s trying to bring down a helicopter gunship or a military training jet with her pistol. Or maybe by then she will have graduated to an AK-47 or a Light Machine Gun looted from a government armoury or a murdered policeman. Maybe by then the media “available to the Services” will have “managed” the perceptions of those of us who still continue to be “misguided” to receive the news of her death with equanimity.

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Manipur on fire Another face of resistance
So here’s the Indian State, in all its democratic glory, willing to loot, starve, lay siege to, and now deploy the air force in “self-defence” against its poorest citizens.
Self-defence. Ah, yes. Operation Green Hunt is being waged in self-defence by a government that is trying to restore land to poor people whose land has been snatched away by Commie Corporations.




One favour Operation Green Hunt has done the people is that it has clarified to them that the police works for the Companies and that Green Hunt isn’t a war against Maoists, but the poor.



When the government uses the offer of peace talks to draw the deep-swimming fish up to the surface and then kill them, do peace talks have a future? Is either side genuinely interested in peace or justice? One question people have is, are the Maoists really interested in peace? Is there anything they can be offered within the existing system that will deflect the Maoists from their stated goal of overthrowing the Indian State? The answer to that is, of course not. The Maoists do not believe that the present system can deliver justice. The thing is that an increasing number of people are beginning to agree with them. If we lived in a society with a genuinely democratic impulse, one in which ordinary people felt they could at least hope for justice, then the Maoists would be only be a small, marginalised group of militants with very little popular appeal. The other contention is that Maoists want a ceasefire to take the heat off themselves for a while so that they can use the time to regroup and consolidate their position. Azad, in an interview (http://beta.thehindu.com/multimedia/archive/00103/Edited_text_of_12_2_103996a.pdf) to The Hindu (April 14, 2010), was surprisingly candid about this: “It doesn’t need much of a common sense to understand that both sides will utilise the situation of a ceasefire to strengthen their respective sides.” He then went on to explain that a ceasefire, even a temporary one, would give respite to ordinary people who are caught in a war zone.
The government, on the other hand, desperately needs this war. (Read the business papers to see how desperately.) The eyes of the international business community are boring holes into its back. It needs to deliver, and fast. To keep its mask from falling, it must continue to offer talks on the one hand, and undermine them on the other. The elimination of Azad was an important victory because it silenced a voice that had begun to sound dangerously reasonable. For the moment at least, peace talks have been successfully derailed.
There is plenty to be cynical about in the discussion around peace talks. The thing to remember is that for us ordinary folks no peace talks means an escalating war.
Over the last few months, the government has poured tens of thousands of heavily armed paramilitary troops into the forest. The Maoists responded with a series of aggressive attacks and ambushes. More than 200 policemen have been killed. The bodies keep coming out of the forest. Slain policemen wrapped in the national flag; slain Maoists, displayed like hunters’ trophies, their wrists and ankles lashed to bamboo poles; bullet-ridden bodies, bodies that don’t look human any more, mutilated in ambushes, beheadings and summary executions. Of the bodies being buried in the forest, we have no news. The theatre of war has been cordoned off, closed to activists and journalists. So there are no body counts.

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Brute force CRPF jawans killed in Dantewada (Photograph by Reuters, From Outlook, September 20, 2010)
On April 6, 2010 (http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264971), in its biggest strike ever, the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) ambushed a CRPF company in Dantewada and killed 76 policemen. The party issued a coldly triumphant statement. Television milked the tragedy for everything it was worth. The nation was called upon to condemn the killing. Many of us were not prepared to—not because we celebrate killing, nor because we are all Maoists, but because we have thorny, knotty views about Operation Green Hunt. For refusing to buy shares in the rapidly growing condemnation industry, we were branded “terrorist sympathisers” and had our photographs flashed repeatedly on TV like wanted criminals.
What was a CRPF contingent doing, patrolling tribal villages with 21 AK-47 rifles, 38 INSAS rifles, seven SLRs, six Light Machine Guns, one stengun and one 2-inch mortar? To ask that question almost amounted to an act of treason.




The uprising in the Indian countryside poses a challenge not only to the State but also to resistance movements. It questions accepted ideas of progress, development, of civilisation itself.



Days after the ambush, I ran into two paramilitary commandos chatting to a bunch of drivers in a Delhi car park. They were waiting for their VIP to emerge from some restaurant or health club or hotel. Their view on what is going on involved neither grief nor patriotism. It was simple accounting. A balance-sheet. They were talking about how many lakhs of rupees in bribes it takes for a man to get a job in the paramilitary forces and how most families incur huge debts to pay that bribe. That debt can never be repaid by the pathetic wages paid to a jawan. The only way to repay it is to do what policemen in India do—blackmail and threaten people, run protection rackets, demand payoffs, do dirty deals. (In the case of Dantewada, loot villagers, steal cash and jewellery.) But if the man dies an untimely death, it leaves the families hugely in debt. The anger of the men in the car park was directed at the government and senior police officers who make fortunes from bribes and then so casually send young men to their death. They knew that the handsome compensation that was announced for the dead in the April 6 attack was just to blunt the impact of the scandal. It was never going to be standard practice for every policeman who dies in this sordid war. Small wonder then that the news from the war zone is that CRPF men are increasingly reluctant to go on patrol. There are reports of them fudging their daily log-books, filling them with phantom patrols. Maybe they’re beginning to realise that they are only poor khaki trash, cannon fodder in a Rich Man’s War. And there are thousands waiting to replace each one of them when they are gone.
On May 17, 2010 (http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?265484), in another major attack, the Maoists blew up a bus in Dantewada and killed about 44 people. Of them, 16 were Special Police Officers (SPOs), in other words, members of the dreaded government-sponsored people’s militia, the Salwa Judum. The rest of the dead were, shockingly, ordinary people, mostly adivasis. The Maoists expressed perfunctory regret for having killed civilians, but they came that much closer to mimicking the State’s “collateral damage” defence.
Last month, the Maoists kidnapped four policemen in Bihar and demanded the release of some of their senior leaders. A few days into the hostage drama, they killed one of them, an adivasi policeman called Lucas Tete. Two days later, they released the other three (http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?267024). By killing a prisoner in custody, the Maoists once again harmed their own cause. It was another example of the Janus-faced morality of “revolutionary violence” that we can expect more of in a war zone, in which tactics trump rectitude and make the world a worse place.




From demanding land to the tiller 35 years ago, revolutionary parties and resistance movements now fight for people’s rights just to hold on to whatever little land they have.



Not many analysts and commentators who were pained by the Maoist killing of civilians in Dantewada noticed that at exactly the same time as the bus was blown up by the Maoists in Dantewada, the police had surrounded several villages in Kalinganagar in Orissa, and in Balitutha and Potko in Jharkhand, and had fired on thousands of protesters resisting the takeover of their lands by the Tatas, the Jindals and Posco. Even now, the siege continues. The wounded cannot be taken to hospital because of the police cordons. Videos uploaded on YouTube show armed riot police massing in the hundreds, confronted by ordinary villagers, some of whom are armed with bows and arrows. The one favour Operation Green Hunt has done ordinary people is that it has clarified things to them. Even the children in the villages know that the police works for the “companies” and that Operation Green Hunt isn’t a war against Maoists. It’s a war against the poor.
There’s nothing small about what’s going on. We are watching a democracy turning on itself, trying to eat its own limbs. We’re watching incredulously as those limbs refuse to be eaten.

Of all the various political formations involved in the current insurrection, none is more controversial than the CPI (Maoist). The most obvious reason is its unapologetic foregrounding of armed struggle as the only path to revolution. Sumanta Banerjee’s book In the Wake of Naxalbari is one of the most comprehensive accounts of the movement. It documents the early years, the almost harebrained manner in which the Naxalites tried to jumpstart the Indian Revolution by “annihilating the class enemy” and expecting the masses to rise up spontaneously. It describes the contortions it had to make in order to remain aligned with China’s foreign policy, how Naxalism spread from state to state and how it was mercilessly crushed.




The orthodox Communists do not believe that Maoism is an ‘ism’ at all. Maoists, in turn, call parliamentary Communists social fascists and accuse them of economism.



Buried deep inside the fury that is directed against them by the orthodox Left as well as by the liberal intelligentsia is an unease they seem to feel with themselves and a puzzling, almost mystical, protectiveness towards the Indian State. It’s as though, when they are faced with a situation that has genuine revolutionary potential, they blink. They find reasons to look away. Political parties—and individuals—who have not, in the last 25 years, ever lent their support to say, the Narmada Bachao Andolan, or marched in solidarity with any one of the many peaceful people’s movements in the country, have suddenly begun to extol the virtues of non-violence and Gandhian satyagraha. On the other hand, those who have been actively involved in these struggles may strongly disagree with the Maoists; they are wary, even exasperated, but they do see them as a part of the same resistance.
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Eyes left The Left biggies at a New Delhi rally (Photograph by AFP, From Outlook, September 20, 2010)
It’s hard to say who dislikes the Maoists more: the Indian State, its army of strategic experts and its instinctively right-wing middle class, or the Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India (Marxist), usually called the CPI(M), and the several splinter groups that were part of the original Marxist-Leninists, or the liberal left. The argument begins with nomenclature. The more orthodox Communists do not believe that “Maoism” is an “ism” at all. (The Maoists, in turn, call the mainstream parliamentary Communists “social fascists” and accuse them of “economism”—basically, of gradually bargaining away the prospect of revolution.)




Few would associate the word ‘revolutionary’ with CPI and CPI(M) any more. They have survived in the mainstream only because they have compromised their ideologies.



Each faction believes itself to be the only genuinely revolutionary Marxist party, or political formation. Each believes the other has misinterpreted Communist theory and misunderstood history. Anyone who isn’t a card-carrying member of one or the other group will be able to see that none of them is entirely wrong or entirely right about what it says. But bitter splits, not unlike those in religious sects, are the natural corollary of the rigid conformity to the party line demanded by all Communist parties. So they dip into a pool of insults that dates back to the Russian and Chinese revolutions, to the great debates between Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, to Chairman Mao’s red book, and hurl them at each other. They accuse each other of the “incorrect application” of “Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong Thought”, almost as though it’s an ointment that’s being rubbed in the wrong place. (My earlier essay Walking with the Comrades (http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264738) landed directly in the flight-path of this debate. It got its fair share of entertaining insults, which deserve a pamphlet of their own.) Other than the debate about whether or not to enter electoral politics, the major disagreement between the various strands of Communism in India centres around their reading of whether conditions in the country are ripe for revolution. Is the prairie ready for the fire, as Mao announced in China, or is it still too damp for the single spark to ignite it? The trouble is that India lives in several centuries simultaneously, so perhaps the “prairie”, that vast stretch of flat grassland, is the wrong analogy for India’s social and political landscape. Maybe a “warren” would be a better one. To arrive at a consensus about the timing of the revolution is probably impossible. So everybody marches to their own drumbeat. The CPI and the CPI(M) have more or less postponed the revolution to the afterlife. For Charu Majumdar (http://www.outlookindia.com/peoplehome3.aspx?pid=13073&author=Charu+Mazumdar&name=Charu+Mazumdar), founder of the Naxalite movement, it was meant to have happened 30 years ago. According to Ganapathi, current chief of the Maoists, it’s about 50 years away.

Today, 40 years after the Naxalbari uprising, the main charge against the Maoists by the parliamentary Left continues to be what it always was. They are accused of suffering from what Lenin called an “infantile disorder”, of substituting mass politics with militarism and of not having worked at building a genuinely revolutionary proletariat. They are seen as having contempt for the urban working class, of being an ideologically ossified force that can only function as a frog on the back of “innocent” (read primitive) jungle-dwelling tribal people who, according to orthodox Marxists, have no real revolutionary potential. (This is not the place perhaps to debate a vision that says people have to first become wage-earners, enslaved to a centralised industrial system, before they can be considered revolutionary.)




If we lived in a society with a genuinely democratic impulse, in which people could at least hope for justice, the Maoists would only be a small, marginalised group of militants.



The charge that the Maoists are irrelevant to urban working-class movements, to the Dalit movement, to the plight of farmers and agricultural workers outside the forests is true. There is no doubt that the Maoists’ militarised politics makes it almost impossible for it to function in places where there is no forest cover. However, it could equally be argued that the major Communist parties have managed to survive in the mainstream only by compromising their ideologies so drastically that it is impossible to tell the difference between them and other bourgeois political parties any more. It could be argued that the smaller factions that have remained relatively uncompromised have managed to do so because they do not pose a threat to anybody. Whatever their faults or achievements as bourgeois parties, few would associate the word “revolutionary” with the CPI or CPI(M) any more. (The CPI does play a role in some of the struggles against mining companies in Orissa.) But even in their chosen sphere of influence, they cannot claim to have done a great service to the proletariat they say they represent. Apart from their traditional bastions in Kerala and West Bengal, both of which they are losing their grip over, they have very little presence in any other part of the country, urban or rural, forest or plains. They have run their trade unions into the ground. They have not been able to stanch the massive job losses and the virtual disbanding of the formal workforce that mechanisation and the new economic policies have caused. They have not been able to prevent the systematic dismantling of workers’ rights. They have managed to alienate themselves almost completely from adivasi and Dalit communities. In Kerala, many would say they have done a better job than other political parties, but their 30-year “rule” in West Bengal has left that state in ruins. The repression they unleashed in Nandigram and Singur, and now against the adivasis of Jangalmahal, will probably drive them out of power for a few years. (Only for as long as it takes Mamata Banerjee to prove that she is not the vessel into which people should pour their hopes.)

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No lonely furrow Maoist cadre in Dantewada jungles
Still, while listing a litany of their sins, it must be said that the demise of the mainstream Communist parties is not something to be celebrated. At least not unless it makes way for a new, more vital and genuinely Left movement in India.




The Maoists have been completely unsuccessful in the centrepiece of their politics: redistribution of land. But they have managed to shine a light on the structural injustice of our society.



The Maoists (in their current as well as earlier avatars) have had a different political trajectory. The redistribution of land, by violent means if necessary, was always the centrepiece of their political activity. They have been completely unsuccessful in that endeavour. But their militant interventions, in which thousands of their cadre—as well as ordinary people—paid with their lives, shone a light on the deeply embedded structural injustice of Indian society. If nothing else, from the time of the Telangana movement, which in some ways was a precursor to the uprising in Naxalbari, the Naxalite movement, for all its faults, sparked an anger about being exploited and a desire for self-respect in some of the most oppressed communities. In West Bengal, it led to Operation Barga (a bargadar is a sharecropper), and to a far lesser extent in Andhra Pradesh, it shamed governments into carrying out some land reform. Even today, all the talk about “uneven development” and “exploitation” of tribal areas by the prime minister, the government’s plans to transfer Joint Forest Management funds from the forest department directly to the gram panchayats, the Planning Commission’s announcement that it will allocate Rs 14,000 crore for tribal development, has come as a strategy to defuse the Maoist “menace”. If those funds do end up benefiting the adivasi community, instead of being siphoned away by middlemen, then the “menace” surely ought to be given some credit. Though the Maoists have virtually no political presence outside forested areas, they do have a presence, an increasingly sympathetic one, in the popular imagination as a party that stands up for the poor against the intimidation and bullying of the State. If Operation Green Hunt eventually becomes an outright war instead of a “sub-conventional” one, if ordinary adivasis start dying in huge numbers, that sympathy could ignite in unexpected ways. Among the most serious charges levelled against the Maoists is that its leaders have a vested interest in keeping people poor and illiterate in order to retain their hold on them. Critics ask why, after working in areas like Dandakaranya for 30 years, they still do not run schools and clinics, why they don’t have check-dams and advanced agriculture, and why people were still dying of malaria and malnutrition. Good question. But it ignores the reality of what it means to be a banned organisation whose members—even if they are doctors or teachers—are liable to be shot on sight. It would be more useful to direct the same question to the Government of India that has none of these constraints. Why is it that in tribal areas that are not overrun by Maoists, there are no schools, no hospitals, no check-dams? Why do people in Chhattisgarh suffer from such acute malnutrition that doctors have begun to call it “nutritional aids” because of the effect it has on the human immune system?
In their censored chapter in the ministry of panchayati raj report, Ajay Dandekar and Chitrangada Choudhury (no fans of the Maoists—they call the party ideology “brutal and cynical”) write:

“So the Maoists today have a dual effect on the ground in PESA areas. By virtue of the gun they wield, they are able to evoke some fear in the administration at the village/block/district level. They consequently prevent the common villager’s powerlessness over the neglect or violation of protective laws like PESA, for example, warning a talati, who might be demanding bribes in return for fulfilling the duty mandated to him under the Forest Rights Act, a trader who might be paying an exploitative rate for forest produce, or a contractor who is violating the minimum wage. The party has also done an immense amount of rural development work, such as mobilising community labour for farm ponds, rainwater harvesting and land conservation works in the Dandakaranya region, which villagers testified had improved their crops and improved their food security situation.”
In their recently published empirical analysis of the working of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA) in 200 Maoist-affected districts in Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, which appeared in the Economic and Political Weekly, authors Kaustav Banerjee and Partha Saha say (http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/The%20NREGA.pdf):

“The field survey revealed that the charge that the Maoists have been blocking developmental schemes does not seem to hold much ground. In fact, Bastar seems to be doing much better in terms of NREGA than some other areas...on top of that, the wage struggles, the enforcement of minimum wages can be traced back to the wage struggles led by the Maoists in that area. A clear result that we came across is the doubling of the wage rates for tendu leaf collection in most Maoist areas.... Also, the Maoists have been encouraging the conduct [sic] of social audits since this helps in the creation of a new kind of democratic practice hitherto unseen in India.”




All the talk of ‘uneven development’ by the PM today, the plans to transfer joint forest management funds to gram panchayats, has come as a strategy to defuse the Maoist menace.



Implicit in a lot of the debate around Maoists is the old, patronising tendency to cast “the masses”, the adivasi people in this case, in the role of the dim-witted horde, completely controlled by a handful of wicked “outsiders”. One university professor, a well-known Maoist-baiter, accused the leaders of the party of being parasites preying on poor adivasis. To bolster his case, he compared the lack of development in Dandakaranya to the prosperity in Kerala. After suggesting that the non-adivasi leaders were all cowards “hiding safely in the forest”, he appealed to all adivasi Maoist guerrillas and village militia to surrender before a panel of middle-class Gandhian activists (handpicked by him). He called for the non-adivasi leadership to be tried for war crimes. Why non-adivasi Gandhians are acceptable, but not non-adivasi Maoists, he did not say. There is something very disturbing about this inability to credit ordinary people with being capable of weighing the odds and making their own decisions.

In Orissa, for instance, there are a number of diverse struggles being waged by unarmed resistance movements which often have sharp differences with each other. And yet between them all, they have managed to temporarily stop some major corporations from being able to proceed with their projects—the Tatas in Kalinganagar, Posco in Jagatsinghpur, Vedanta in Niyamgiri. Unlike in Bastar, where they control territory and are well-entrenched, the Maoists tend to use Orissa only as a corridor for their squads to pass through. As the security forces are closing in on people and ratcheting up the repression, they have to think very seriously about the pros and cons of involving the Maoists into their struggles. Will its armed squads stay and fight the State repression that will inevitably follow a Maoist “action”? Or will they retreat and leave unarmed people to deal with police terror? Activists and ordinary people, falsely accused of being Maoists, are already being jailed. Many have been killed in cold blood. But a tense uneasy dance continues between the unarmed resistance movements and the CPI (Maoist). On occasion, the party has done irresponsible things which have led to horrible consequences for ordinary people. In 2006, at the height of the tension between the Dalit and adivasi communities in Kandhamal district, the Maoists shot dead Laxmanananda Saraswati, leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a fascist outfit of proselytisers, working among adivasis to bring them “back into the Hindu fold”. After the murder, enraged Kandha tribals who had been recently converted to Hinduism were encouraged to go on a rampage. Almost 400 villages were convulsed with anti-Christian violence. Fifty-four Panna Dalit Christians were killed, more than 200 churches burnt, tens of thousands had to flee their homes. Many still live in camps unable to return. A somewhat different, but equally dangerous situation is brewing in Narayanpatna and Koraput, districts where the Chasi Mulya Adivasi Sangh (which the police say is a Maoist “front”) is fighting to restore land to adivasis that was illegally appropriated by local moneylenders and liquor dealers (many of them Dalit). These areas are reeling under police terror, with hundreds of adivasis thrown in Koraput jail and thousands living in the forests, afraid to go home.




Locals have to think very seriously about involving the Maoists in their struggles. Will its armed squads stay and fight state repression that inevitable follows Maoist “action”?



People who live in situations like this do not simply take instructions from a handful of ideologues who appear out of nowhere waving guns. Their decisions of what strategies to employ take into account a whole host of considerations: the history of the struggle, the nature of the repression, the urgency of the situation and the landscape in which their struggle is taking place. The decision of whether to be a Gandhian or a Maoist, militant or peaceful, or a bit of both (like in Nandigram), is not always a moral or ideological one. Quite often, it’s a tactical one. Gandhian satyagraha, for example, is a kind of political theatre. In order for it to be effective, it needs a sympathetic audience which villagers deep in the forest do not have. When a posse of 800 policemen lay a cordon around a forest village at night and begin to burn houses and shoot people, will a hunger strike help? (Can starving people go on a hunger strike? And do hunger strikes work when they are not on TV?) Equally, guerrilla warfare is a strategy that villages in the plains, with no cover for tactical retreat, cannot afford. Fortunately, people are capable of breaking through ideological categories, and of being Gandhian in Jantar Mantar, militant in the plains and guerrilla fighters in the forest without necessarily suffering from a crisis of identity. The strength of the insurrection in India is its diversity, not uniformity.

Since the government has expanded its definition of “Maoist” to include anybody who opposes it, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Maoists have moved to centrestage. However, their doctrinal inflexibility, their reputed inability to countenance dissent, to work with other political formations and, most of all, their single-minded, grim, military imagination makes them too small to fill the giant pair of boots that is currently on offer.



Implicit in a lot of debate around Maoism is the tendency to cast “the masses”, the adivasis in this case, as the dimwitted horde, incapable of taking decisions of their own.



(When I met Comrade Roopi in the forest, the first thing the techie-whiz did after greeting me was to ask about an interview with me published soon after the Maoists had attacked Rani Bodili, a girls’ school in Dantewada which had turned into a police camp. More than 50 policemen and SPOs were killed. “We were glad,” she said, “that you refused to condemn our Rani Bodili attack, but then in the same interview you said that if the Maoists ever come to power, the first person we would hang would probably be you. Why did you say that? Why do you think we’re like that?” I was settling into my long answer but we were distracted. I would probably have started with Stalin’s purges—in which millions of ordinary people and almost half of the 75,000 Red Army officers were either jailed or shot and 98 out of 139 Central Committee members were arrested, gone on to the huge price people paid for China’s Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and might have ended with the Pedamallapuram incident in Andhra Pradesh, when the Maoists, in its previous avatar as People’s War, killed the village sarpanch and assaulted women activists for refusing to obey their call to boycott elections.)
http://photo.outlookindia.com/images/gallery/20100908/mines_20100920.jpg
Who for? Is the aluminium for other nations’ arms industries?
Coming back to the question: Who can fill that giant pair of boots? Perhaps it cannot, and should not be, a single pair of feet. Sometimes it seems very much as though those who have a radical vision for a newer, better world do not have the steel it takes to resist the military onslaught, and those who have the steel do not have the vision.




People are capable of being Gandhian in Jantar Mantar, militant in the plains, guerrilla fighters in the forests. The strength of the insurrection in India is its diversity, not uniformity.



Right now, the Maoists are the most militant end of a bandwidth of resistance movements fighting an assault on adivasi homelands by a cartel of mining and infrastructure companies. To deduce from this that the CPI (Maoist) is in principle a party with a new way of thinking about “development” or the environment might be a little far-fetched. (The one reassuring sign is that it has cautiously said that it is against big dams. If it means what it says, that alone would automatically lead to a radically different development model.) For a political party that is widely seen as opposing the onslaught of corporate mining, the Maoists’ policy (and practice) on mining remains pretty woolly. In several places where people are fighting mining companies, there is a persistent view that the Maoists are not averse to allowing mining and mining-related infrastructure projects to go ahead as long as they are given protection money. From interviews and statements made by their senior leaders on the subject of mining, what emerges is just a sort of “we’ll do a better job” approach. They vaguely promise “environmentally sustainable” mining, higher royalties, better resettlement for the displaced and higher stakes for the “stakeholders”. (The present minister for mining and mineral resources too, thinking along the same lines, stood up in Parliament and promised that 26 per cent of the “profits” from mining would go into “tribal development”. What a feast that will be for the pigs at the trough!) But let’s take a brief look at the star attraction in the mining belt—the several trillion dollars worth of bauxite. There is no environmentally sustainable way of mining bauxite and processing it into aluminium. It’s a highly toxic process that has been exported out of their own environments by most western countries. To produce one tonne of aluminium, you need about six tonnes of bauxite, more than a thousand tonnes of water and a massive amount of electricity. For that amount of captive water and electricity, you need big dams, which, as we know, come with their own cycle of cataclysmic destruction. Last of all—the big question—what is the aluminium for? Where is it going? Aluminium is the principal ingredient in the weapons industry—for other countries’ weapons’ industries. Given this, what would a sane, “sustainable” mining policy be? Suppose, for the sake of argument, the CPI (Maoist) were given control of the so-called Red Corridor, the tribal homeland—with its riches of uranium, bauxite, limestone, dolomite, coal, tin, granite, marble—how would it go about the business of policymaking and governance? Would it mine minerals to put on the market in order to create revenue, build infrastructure and expand its operations? Or would it mine only enough to meet people’s basic needs? How would it define “basic needs”? For instance, would nuclear weapons be “a basic need” in a Maoist nation-state?




The day capitalism is forced to tolerate non-capitalist societies in its midst, the day it realises that its supply of raw material is not endless is the day when change will come.



Judging from what is happening in Russia and China and even Vietnam, eventually communist and capitalist societies have one thing in common—the dna of their dreams. After their revolutions, after building socialist societies that millions of workers and peasants paid for with their lives, both countries now have unbridled capitalist economies. For them too, the ability to consume has become the yardstick by which progress is measured. For this kind of “progress” you need industry. To feed the industry you need a steady supply of raw material. For that you need mines, dams, domination, colonies, war. Old powers are waning, new ones rising. Same story, different characters—rich countries plundering poor ones. Yesterday, it was Europe and America, today it’s India and China. Maybe tomorrow it’ll be Africa. Will there be a tomorrow? Perhaps it’s too late to ask, but hope has little to do with reason. Can we expect that an alternative to what looks like certain death for the planet will come from the imagination that has brought about this crisis in the first place? It seems unlikely. The alternative, if there is one, will emerge from the places and the people who have resisted the hegemonic impulse of capitalism and imperialism instead of being coopted by it.
Here in India, even in the midst of all the violence and greed, there is still immense hope. If anyone can do it, we can do it. We still have a population that has not yet been completely colonised by that consumerist dream. We have a living tradition of those who have struggled for Gandhi’s vision of sustainability and self-reliance, for socialist ideas of egalitarianism and social justice. We have Ambedkar’s vision, which challenges the Gandhians as well as the Socialists in serious ways. We have the most spectacular coalition of resistance movements with experience, understanding and vision.




If there is hope, it lives not in climate change conference rooms. It lives low down on the ground, its arms around the people who battle everyday to protect the forests, mountains, rivers.



Most important of all, India has a surviving adivasi population of almost 100 million. They are the ones who still know the secrets of sustainable living. If they disappear, they will take those secrets with them. Wars like Operation Green Hunt will make them disappear. So victory for the prosecutors of these wars will contain within itself the seeds of destruction, not just for adivasis, but eventually, for the human race. That’s why the war in Central India is so important. That’s why we need a real and urgent conversation between all those political formations that are resisting this war. The day capitalism is forced to tolerate non-capitalist societies in its midst and to acknowledge limits in its quest for domination, the day it is forced to recognise that its supply of raw material will not be endless is the day when change will come. If there is any hope for the world at all, it does not live in climate change conference rooms or in cities with tall buildings. It lives low down on the ground, with its arms around the people who go to battle every day to protect their forests, their mountains and their rivers because they know that the forests, the mountains and the rivers protect them.
The first step towards reimagining a world gone terribly wrong would be to stop the annihilation of those who have a different imagination—an imagination that is outside of capitalism as well as communism. An imagination which has an altogether different understanding of what constitutes happiness and fulfilment. To gain this philosophical space, it is necessary to concede some physical space for the survival of those who may look like the keepers of our past, but who may really be the guides to our future. To do this, we have to ask our rulers: Can you leave the water in the rivers? The trees in the forest? Can you leave the bauxite in the mountain?
If they say they cannot, then perhaps they should stop preaching morality to the victims of their wars.
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?267040
Arundhuti Roy again with her unique style of writing.

[pranabjyoti]

Maoist Leader Ganesh Uike dies from Malaria (http://naxalrevolution.blogspot.com/2010/09/maoist-leader-ganesh-uike-dies-from.html)

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A key Naxal leader, who had been hiding in Bastar forests in Chhattisgarh, is believed to have succumbed to malaria, a senior official said here.

Ganesh Uike, who headed the two Naxal "divisions" of west Bastar and Darbah areas and was wanted in several cases of killing of security personnel, died of malaria as he could not get any medical help.

"He was stuck in the middle of Bastar jungles and could not get any medical help as the area was cut off due to heavy floods," Chhattisgarh director general of police Vishwa Ranjan told PTI.

He said while his body was yet to be recovered, there were enough inputs that he had died. "But we are still waiting (to confirm his death)," he said.

Malaria has been a constant problem for Naxalites as well as security personnel in the Bastar area.

Earlier besides a Central Committee member, Anuradha Gandhi, wife of Kobad Gandhi, had died due to malaria.
They are on their way to immortality, giving their life for the future of Mankind. RED SALUTE TO THEM.

[t.shonku]

Red Salute to Comrade Ganesh Uike .Hero of the people.

[pranabjyoti]

India: The Politics of Dams, Displacement, Bridges, and Resistance in AP and Orissa (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/india-the-politics-of-dams-displacement-bridges-and-resistance-in-ap-and-orissa/)

www.news.outlookindia.com
Red fear: Ministers to Fly to Anti-Polavaram Rally Site

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/pov-mal-orissa-ap.jpg?w=170&h=296 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/pov-mal-orissa-ap.jpg)Bhubaneswar | Sep 11, 2010
With some of its senior leaders in the hit-list of Maoists, Orissa’s ruling Biju Janata Dal has decided that nine ministers who would to take part in anti-Polavaram project rally scheduled to be held at Maoist-hit Malkangiri district tomorrow would fly to the venue.
The proposed Polavaram irrigation project is in adjacent Andhra Pradesh which is being opposed by Orissa which argues the project would displace 20,000 people and inundate huge tracts of land in its territory.
Though Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik would skip the party meeting for unstated reasons, nine ministers, two MPs and a dozen of sitting MLAs besides senior leaders would address the rally, official sources said.
Senior BJD MLA and former minister Rabi Narayan Nanda, who is playing a major role in organising the rally, said two choppers have been requisitioned to fly the ministers and other senior leaders to tribal-dominated Malkangiri.
Malkangiri was considered as the worst Maoist-hit district in the state as the rebels are running a parallel administration there for over a decade, a senior Home department official admitted.
“The ministers have been asked to avoid road journey in view of the danger from red rebels on routes leading to the meeting venue at Malkangiri,” said a senior police officer.
Citing an instance, he said 11 security personnel were killed in a landmine blast on April 4 at Gobindpalli ghat linking Malkangiri and Koraput, hours after Energy minister Atanu S Nayak had crossed the road.
“Ministers are strictly advised not to make road journey though Govindpalli ghat road and other roads in Malkangiri, Koraput, Rayagada and Gajapti districts of southern region,” the police officer said.
The nine ministers scheduled to address the rally include Finance minister Prafulla Ghadai who has been receiving threat calls and letters from the out-lawed outfit. Names of other ministers and BJD leaders figure in the list of Maoists, said an intelligence report.
Besides pressing eight platoons (about 250 armed police) of state police in rally duty, the state government had also alerted the BSF jawans to keep a vigil on the movement of red radicals.
At least three battalions (about 1650 personnel) of BSF jawans were deployed in Malkangiri to take on challenges put by ultras.
The district police also fear that the maoists could create disturbance by putting road blockades.
The ruling party was organising the rally at Malkangiri district as it said the the Polavaram project in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh would “severely hit the tribal population there.”
“We fear that Polavaram project will displace about 20,000 tribal families besides inundating 10,000 acre of forest and several thousand acre of cultivable land,” said senior BJD MLA and former minister Rabi Narayan Nanda.
http://news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx?693188
—————————————————————————–
The Telegraph: “Maoists ensure bridge to nowhere”

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 11: Lack of development in backward areas is often cited as the reason for the rise of Left-wing extremism, but the presence of Maoists in the Malkangiri region has halted infrastructure activities for the last 10 years.
As the writ of the Maoists runs large in the border areas of Malkangiri, proposals to build four bridges in the Naxal-dominated region have been hanging fire for the past decade. If built, the bridges would link the region with Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. If built, the bridges would benefit 151 villages in the area and provide better inter-state connectivity in the otherwise inaccessible interiors of southern Orissa.
Of the four constructions, Gurupriya bridge at Janbai would connect the region to Chitrakonda in Orissa. The Sileru bridge at Motu would link it to Andhra Pradesh. Dumpal bridge at Podia and Chikabaku bridge at Mahupadar would ensure better connectivity with Chhattisgarh. Incidentally, all these projects fall within a 50-km radius of the proposed Polavaram project in western Godavari district that borders Malkangiri.
After the Centre asked the state to submit a detailed report as to why no progress had been made on these projects, the state government recently submitted a proposal to the Centre to construct the Gurupriya bridge at Janbai. “We have submitted a proposal to the Centre this week. The cost of the bridge has been estimated at Rs 70 crore. We are expecting money from the Left Wing Extremism scheme,” said Malkangiri executive engineer (road and buildings) Arun Kumar Sahu.
State works secretary Subhendu Ray said the state government had planned the 900-metre Gurupriya bridge with a project estimate of Rs 38 crore in 2002. “But the project cost has escalated as it has not been completed within the stipulated time. We are hopeful that the Centre would provide necessary assistance for the project,” Ray added.
Official sources said the government was not being able to go ahead with the projects as no agency was willing to undertake the job in view of Maoist threat. The Naxals were opposing the projects because they felt that these bridges would facilitate the movement of security forces in the area.
“Tenders have been floated several times. But no one has responded,” said an official.
Earlier, a major construction company, Gammon India Limited, had withdrawn from the Gurupriya bridge project after receiving threats from the Maoists.
“The state government had also approached the Border Road Organisation (BRO) to help the state in constructing the Gurupriya bridge, but the BRO had turned down the request. The state government is now planning to construct the bridge with the help of its own police force,” said Ray.
After the state government expressed helplessness in constructing these four bridges, the Centre asked Orissa to construct two bridges (Gurupriya and Chikabuka). Construction of the two other bridges will be entrusted to Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Official sources said now the bridge on Sileru river at Motu would be built by Andhra and the Dumpal bridge at Podia would be constructed by Chhattisgarh.


Dams built by bones and a reserver full of tears. Can you see?

[pranabjyoti]

Long will live the Naxalite movement - Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri (http://naxalrevolution.blogspot.com/2009/01/indias-crony-capitalism-which-is.html)

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http://movies.indiatimes.com/photo.cms?msid=1181684

Mark my words, the day is not far when they(Maoists) will rule a grand majority of India. These 200 districts will become 400 in no time, and inch towards more. No government in India will be able to stop their growth through police, Salva Judums or army. - Arindam Chaudhari (Management Guru and author of The Great Indian Dream (http://www.macmillanindia.com/book-details.asp?bookid=1524&from=gr&broadid=47&detailedid=93&broadsubject=General) )

The exact date of this article is not known...

Arindam Chaudhuri - IT’S NOT THEM, BUT INDIA’S CRONY CAPITALISM, WHICH IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CHHATTISGARH MASSACRE . . .

If you have been following popular media, then you must by now be of the viewpoint that Naxalites are India’s largest growing menace; and you must be pitying the 60 plus people left dead in the Chhattisgarh massacre, thanks to the Naxalites. The truth, however, is not that simple. The Naxalite movement in India is growing; that’s a truth. They are a menace to the Centre; that’s a truth. But Naxalites a menace to India? Well, perhaps this is farthest from the truth. In cities where we lead a cushy life, Naxalites are far from a menace. In the interiors where they rule, they aren’t really considered a menace either. They rule the Indian villages and backward areas – well, that’s an understatement – they are the emperors of a third of Indian districts today. Yes, 200 out of the 600 odd districts in India are today under Naxalite rule.

They rule there not because they are a menace. They rule there not just by force. They rule there because people in these places support them in a majority and believe in them; because the Naxalites are the brave armed revolutionaries in their lives who give them food, money and land snatched from the rich land owners and exploiters. Naxalites do kill when these rich protest; and at times are involved in atrocities as well . . . But on the whole, they are the only revolutionary group in this country at the centre of whose agenda are the poor and deprived. Their methods may involve violence, but then worldwide, all uprisings and revolutions have been violent. To the people against whom they fight, they are villains – terrorists if you may call them – but the people for whom they fight, they are the heroes. And these Naxalites in India are there to stay and grow. Mark my words, the day is not far when they will rule a grand majority of India. These 200 districts will become 400 in no time, and inch towards more. No government in India will be able to stop their growth through police, Salva Judums (the Chhattisgarh version of State-backed armed forces of villagers and common men) or army. The police in this country have no loyalty for the Central leadership, and would too willingly hand over their arms to the Naxalites; police station after police station, at every given opportunity. For the police, their life is too precious, and many actually believe in the Naxals. On the other hand, the army will march on the streets while the Naxals fight from the jungles and places inaccessible by road.


So even the army stands no chance as has been proven in the North-East. Yes, the army might succeed if it uses the aerial route to bomb and create an internal war throughout India. No government in India will ever be able to do so. That leaves us with the criminal experiment of forcing the common people to become SPOs – Special Police Officers – by giving them some pathetic basic training in arms, the way Salva Judum is doing. This method has failed miserably earlier in North-East and Kashmir and is sure to fail everywhere, including in Chhattisgarh.
More importantly, the method in itself is criminal in nature and leaves the people-soldiers with nowhere to go – like in Chhattisgarh where villages after villages have been emptied and people have been brought to camps where they are given one small windowless room per family to stay in. The connection is ironic! When the State finds its own police machinery ill-equipped and dying, they conjure up a scheme where, instead of the police officers, those are the villagers – very often child soldiers – who have to confront Naxalites during their attacks, and die. More pathetically, it’s a trap from which the villagers can’t come out. If they go back to their villages where they had their land etc., they will be alone and would be killed by Naxalites for having become members of Salva Judum.


And if they stay, they will die in any case in a confrontation, or out of hunger itself – since in the camps, the government doesn’t even provide them with proper meals, and keeps them in near destitute conditions. In Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh itself (where the recent massacre took place), there are 20 Salva Judum camps with about 60,000 occupants living in utterly inhuman conditions, where they get food for about five days in a week, and the rest two days, go hungry. The camps, of course, have no toilets or bathrooms. And worse, they have to share the facilities with CRPF jawans (Naga battalion) who, after evening hours, get drunk and start inhuman torture on these people, women mainly. Rapes and abortions galore and the people have absolutely no voice. And on 15 March 2007, the Naxalites, who were looking for their chance to get back, attacked and left about 60 dead – more than two-thirds were these helpless people forcibly made to vacate their land and join this inhuman camp with the legal approval of the Centre and State.


Were the police innocent? Well, it depends; if you call the bribe seeking, soul selling perpetrators of the State’s crime machinery ‘innocent’, that is. But yes, those members of Salva Judum were innocent victims of this criminal governance. And this is just one case, many more will follow soon while we condemn the Naxalites blindly.
Who then is to blame? Clearly our Prime Ministers and Finance Ministers of successive governments. Let’s take this year’s budget for example. For the ‘land loot schemes’ of the government – popularly known as the SEZs – there has been an allocation of Rs 90,000 crore. For various subsidies that have gone into the corporate kitty, there has been another Rs 2,35,000 crore (that is, a shamelessly gross Rs 3,25,000 crore for the minuscule top rich in India). Guess how much has been allocated then for unemployment eradication programmes that were to guarantee at least ‘100 days job’ per person if the government meant to remove unemployment seriously.

Well, against a most urgent requirement of about Rs 2,25,000 crore, the allocation is a meagre Rs 11,000 crore. If the poor in a country are left to die out of hunger, curable diseases and poverty, Naxalites will rule. The only way to defeat them is for our governments to believe in fact in what the Naxalites are fighting for – food, health and employment. Till our governments allocate enough for such causes, many more Chhattisgarh carnages will happen; and unfortunately, I won’t be able to blame the Naxalites, or even call them terrorists.
It’s the State that is monstrous, and those are our Prime Ministers and Finance Ministers who have to realise the importance of working for the poor for the real future of India. Right now, they are instead busy giving thrust to crony capitalism – helping a few industrial houses acquire more and more land and public property. Chhattisgarh is no exception – while villages are being emptied, people are being uprooted and shifted to their Salva Judum death camps, with their mineral and iron-ore rich lands left behind being handed over to the Tatas and Mittals. And as long as India’s crony capitalism and heartless journey towards being a slave of the rich continues, long will live the Naxalite movement in India. Fortunately or unfortunately . . .
Link.. (https://www.amazines.com/article_detail.cfm/726709?articleid=726709&title=IIPM%2CArindam%2CChaudhuri%2CManagement%2CGu ru%2CGuru%2CEconomist)
BELIEVE IT OR NOT. He is a management guru, not a left intellectual.

[RedScare]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11280110

I like how it spends more time in the article talking about the various attacks the Maoists have made rather than talking about the actual headline.

[pranabjyoti]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11280110

I like how it spends more time in the article talking about the various attacks the Maoists have made rather than talking about the actual headline.
Do you expect something else from them?

[pranabjyoti]

India is a Corporate Hindu State: Arundhati Roy (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/india-is-a-corporate-hindu-state-arundhati-roy/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/deviladvocate_arundhati630.jpg?w=441&h=294 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/deviladvocate_arundhati630.jpg)Karan Thapar , CNN-IBN
Sep 12, 2010
Hello and welcome to Devil’s Advocate. At the end of a week when the Maoists have been on the front pages practically every day, we present a completely different perspective to that of the government’s. My guest today is an author, essayist and Booker Prize winner, Arundhati Roy.
Karan Thapar: I want to talk to you about how you view the Maoists and how you think the government should respond, but first, how do you view the recent hostage taking in Bihar where four policemen were kidnapped and kept kidnapped for eight days, and one of them – Lukas Tete – murdered?
Arundhati Roy: I don’t think there is anything revolutionary about killing a person that is in custody. I have made a statement where I said it was as bad as the police killing Azad, as they did, in a fake encounter in Andhra. But, I actually shy away from this atrocity-based analysis that’s coming out of our TV screens these days because a part of it is meant for you to lose the big picture about what is this war about, who wants the war? Who needs the war?
Karan Thapar: I want very much to talk about the big picture. But, before I come to that, let me point out something else. In the last one year, the Maoists have beheaded Francis Induwar and Sanjoy Ghosh; they have killed Lokus Tete. They have kidnapped other policemen. There have been devastating attacks in Dantewada, there has been the sabotage of the Gyaneshwari Express. In your eyes, does it amount to legitimate strategy or tactics, or does it detract from the Maoist cause?
Arundhati Roy: You can’t bundle them all together. For example the train accident. I don’t think anybody knows who did it yet.
Karan Thapar: Everyone’s convinced that the Maoists…
Arundhati Roy: Everyone can be convinced. But it is not enough to be convinced. You got to have facts and the facts are unravelling every day.
Karan Thapar: What about the Dantewada, the beheadings, the kidnappings?
Arundhati Roy: This thing is that now what’s happening is that there is a situation of conflict, of war. So, you have set out a litany of the terrible acts of violence that have taken place inflicted by one side and left out the picture of what’s going on the other side, which is that you have two hundred thousand paramilitary forces closing in on these poorest villages, evicting people, burning people. Of course, all violence is terrible but if you want to get into what actually is going on, we will have to discuss it in slightly more detail.
Karan Thapar: So what you are suggesting is that we have a spiral of violence where what one side does to the other justifies the response and, in a sense, you don’t want to blame one or the other. You see them both as equally guilty?
Arundhati Roy: No I don’t. I don’t see both as equally guilty and I don’t want to justify anything. I see a government breaking every sort of law in the Constitution that it has about tribal people and assault on the homelands of millions of people and some, there is a resistance force that is resisting that. Now, that situation is becoming violent, becoming ugly. And if you start trying to extract morality out of it, you are going to be in a mess.
Karan Thapar: But one thing that is crystal clear from what you said is you see the government as the first person, the first party, at fault. The bigger fault, the first fault, is the government’s, you see the Maoists as just responding.
Arundhati Roy: I see the government absolutely, as the major aggressor. As far as the Maoists are concerned, of course, their ideology is an ideology of overthrowing the Indian state with violence. However, I don’t believe that if the Indian state was a just state, if ordinary people had some minor hope for justice, the Maoists would just be a marginal group of militants with no popular appeal.
Karan Thapar: So the Maoists get support and strength from the fact that you don’t believe that the Indian state is just.
Arundhati Roy: Let me tell you, forget the Maoists. Every resistance movement, armed or unarmed, and the Maoists today are fighting to implement the Constitution, and the government is vandalising it.
Karan Thapar: So the real constitutionalists are the Maoists and the real breakers of the Constitution is the government?
Arundhati Roy: Not only the Maoists, all resistance groups.
Karan Thapar: Let’s focus for the moment on the Maoists because they are the ones that have been in the news all this week. The prime minister sees the Maoists as the single biggest security threat to the country. I take it that your perception of them is completely different. How do you perceive the Maoists?
Arundhati Roy: I perceive them as a group of people who have at a most militant end in the bandwidth of resistance movements that exist in the cities, in the planes and in the forests.
Karan Thapar: But what are they seeking to do? What is their justification?
Arundhati Roy: Well, their ultimate goal, as they say quite clearly, is to overthrow the Indian state and institute the dictatorship of the proletariat. That is their ultimate goal but…
Karan Thapar: Do you, Arundhati Roy, support that goal?
Arundhati Roy: I don’t support that goal in the sense that I don’t believe the solution to the problem the world is in right now will come from an imagination either communist or capitalist because…
Karan Thapar: That I understand but do you support any attempt to overthrow the Indian state?
Arundhati Roy: Well, I can’t say I do because they will lead me from here, in chains.
Karan Thapar: That technicality apart, it sounds as if you do.
Arundhati Roy: However, I believe that the Indian state has abdicated its responsibility to the people. I believe that. I believe that when a state is no longer bound, neither legally nor morally by the Indian Constitution, either we should rephrase the preamble of the Indian Constitution which says…
Karan Thapar: Or?
Arundhati Roy: Which says we are a sovereign, democratic, secular republic. We should rephrase it and say we are a corporate, Hindu, satellite state.
Karan Thapar: Or?
Arundhati Roy: Or we have to have a government which respects the Constitution or we change the Constitution.
Karan Thapar: Let me be blunt. It sounds very much to the audience as if you are trying to find a clever, subtle way of saying that you do support the Maoists commitment to overthrow the state but you are scared to say it upfront because you are scared that you would be whisked away to jail.
Arundhati Roy: If I say that I support the Maoists’ desire to overthrow the Indian State, I would be saying that I am a Maoist. But I am not a Maoist.
Karan Thapar: But you sympathise with them.
Arundhati Roy: I do sympathise with all the movements. I am on this side of the line with a group of people who are saying that here is a State that is willing to bring out the Army against the poorest people not just in the country but in the world. I cannot support that.
Karan Thapar: Let me put this to you. You sympathise with the Maoist cause, but what about the tactics that the Maoists use? The problem is that the Maoists want to trade a new democratic order not by persuading people, not by winning legitimate elections but by armed liberation struggle. To many, that is tantamount to civil war. Do you go that far with them?
Arundhati Roy: There is already a civil war. I don’t believe that a resistance movement that believes only in violence will lead to a new democracy. I don’t believe that. Neither do I believe that if you doctrinally say you must only be non-violent, I believe that is a twisted way of supporting the status quo. I believe that has to be a bandwidth of resistance and I certainly believe that when your village is surrounded by 800 CRPF men who are raping and burning and looting, you can’t say I am going on a hunger strike. Then, I support people’s right to resist that.
Karan Thapar: But put this to me. If you support, no matter what qualifications you add, the right of the Maoists to resist with violence: whether you call it armed liberation struggle or whatever.
Arundhati Roy: You keep on going to these Maoists.
Karan Thapar: If you support that, no matter with what qualification, how then can you deny the State the right to resort to arms to defend itself?
Arundhati Roy: The State doesn’t have to defend itself. The State is supposed to represent the people and defend the people.
Karan Thapar: But if the State is under attack, it is the people that are under attack and…
Arundhati Roy: It is not under attack. The State is perpetrating the attack. That is what I am trying to say. The State is going in violation of its own Constitution and perpetrating an attack. If you look at the recent report, the censured chapter in a recent report by the Panchayati Raj, it says so clearly: the State is being completely illegal in its actions. What do you suggest people should do when an army, a police, a paramilitary, an air force is going to start making war on the poor? Do you suggest that they should leave and live in camps and allow the rich and the corporates and the mining sector to take over?
Karan Thapar: So you are saying that the Maoists and all the other resistance fighters are left with no option but to fight back?
Arundhati Roy: What I am saying is that if a State respects non-violent resistance as has been the case in years, but if you ignore non-violence, by default you privilege violence.
Karan Thapar: But are the Maoists actually pursuing their goal, which you share, non-violently, or are they pursuing it with violence? That’s the problem. There is a real issue here that the end seems to justify the means. The question is: do they?
Arundhati Roy: You are not listening to me. I am saying that there is a juggernaut of injustice that has been moving forward, displacing millions of people. Why do we have 836 million people living in on less than Rs 20 a day? Why do we have 60 million displaced people? Because the government refuses. For the last 25 years, it has refused to listen to non-violence.
Karan Thapar: So you see the Maoists as victims?
Arundhati Roy: I see the people as victims of something. If you look at the ideology of the Maoists, they don’t think of themselves as victims. But that ideology is getting purchased among people, in the popular imagination because of the incredible injustice that is being perpetrated by the Indian State.
Karan Thapar: In short, the fault is almost entirely on the government’s side?
Arundhati Roy: It is.
Karan Thapar: You say that boldly and bluntly?
Arundhati Roy: Absolutely.
Karan Thapar: I want very much to talk about the prospects of talks but first, let me ask you about Azad. In May, it emerged that the home minister had asked Swami Agnivesh to facilitate talks with the Maoist leadership, and in turn he established contacts with the Maoists leader Azad. But in July, in an unexplained police encounter, Azad suddenly died. Do you believe that was a deliberate ploy to bring Azad into the open and then murder him?
Arundhati Roy: Yes I do.
Karan Thapar: You really mean that? The government laid a trap to murder Azad?
Arundhati Roy: That’s what, from all the facts that are emerging, that’s what it seems to point to.
Karan Thapar: Why did they do this? Why would they kill the one man with whom they have rational expectations of talks?
Arundhati Roy: I have been saying this for few months now that you have to understand that the government needs this war. It needs this war to clear the land, to hand over, to actualise these MoUs that have been signed. If you read the business papers, they are very clear about that.
Karan Thapar: If the government wants war, how do you interpret the government’s attempt to have talks? One is contradictory to the other.
Arundhati Roy: Yeah. It needs the war but it needs to keep this smiling benign mask of democracy. So, it offers talks on the one hand and undermines it on the other.
Karan Thapar: But even if you accept this strange theory that the government is Janus-faced, two-faced, why would it destroy that mask by killing Azad? Why would it destroy itself?
Arundhati Roy: Because if you look at what was happening, Azad was beginning to sound dangerously reasonable.
Karan Thapar: To whom?
Arundhati Roy: To all of us.
Karan Thapar: On the basis of one interview to The Hindu, you have come to the conclusion about Azad sounding reasonable?
Arundhati Roy: Come on Karan, we all know about Azad. He has been around for years. He has written a lot.
Karan Thapar: You may but people surely don’t. To them, Azad is a mystery.
Arundhati Roy: No, not at all. For example, the piece that he wrote in Outlook, it was published after his death but it was sent around before.
Karan Thapar: But even if one accepts your theory that the government killed Azad because he was beginning to sound and look reasonable, that would only have made him a credible interlocutor and fit in better into their mask. Surely, that in a sense makes it even more ridiculously contradictory to kill him.
Arundhati Roy: Why would it be. Let’s say there are two sides at war, there are more than two but everyone wants to make it binary so, for the sake of argument, accept it. When one side sends an envoy and the other side kills them, what does it mean? That one side does not want peace. That’s what it means. That’s a reasonable assumption.
Karan Thapar: So this is a duplicitous government?
Arundhati Roy: Absolutely.
Karan Thapar: In which case, let me come to the critical issue which I want to discuss. What are the prospects of talks? The government has repeatedly said that it would be willing to talk provided the Maoists abjure violence, not even asking the Maoists to lay down arms, and many people believe that that’s a reasonable and perhaps, even a generous offer. How do you view the government’s position on talks?
Arundhati Roy: I think that if you were to go down to those forests and see what’s going on, when you have these two hundred thousand paramilitaries patrolling the tribal villages, the cordon and search operations are on, the killings are on, the siege is on, what do you mean to abjure violence? If you say that there should be a ceasefire, mutual ceasefire, which is I think the most reasonable thing, then we can be talking. But if you say you should abjure violence, what does that mean?
Karan Thapar: So one sided abjuring of violence is not what you think will be acceptable, but a mutual ceasefire on both sides?
Arundhati Roy: I think it’s absolutely urgent that there should be a ceasefire on both sides.
Karan Thapar: Simultaneous?
Arundhati Roy: Yes. The government reports have said that these MoUs should be re-examined. Chidambaram himself promised in an interview that he would freeze them. Why doesn’t he do that?
Karan Thapar: He is probably waiting for a sign from the Maoists that they will respond. He doesn’t want to do it unilaterally.
Arundhati Roy: They responded in writing now; Azad responded in writing.
Karan Thapar: Azad is no more. Let me put this to you. You are beginning to suggest in this interview steps, which if they were taken simultaneously by both sides, will actually in some way facilitate talks. Would you be prepared, since you know the Maoists and trusted by the Maoists, to act as a mediator?
Arundhati Roy: Look, if you studied the peace-talks process in Andhra, you see that this business of picking one person and announcing it on the media, both sides have done it. Chidambaram has picked arbitrarily Swami Agnivesh. Maoists arbitrarily announced on the radio that we want this one or that one. That’s not how it works. In Andhra, it took almost a year for this committee of citizens to form themselves as responsible people. It should not be one person.
Karan Thapar: Swami Agnivesh, who you say was arbitrarily picked, almost succeeded in bringing Azad to some talking point, except for the fact that as you say, he was killed. But he almost succeeded. So I come back, since you are trusted by the Maoists and since you speak a language, that at least in English, the government can understand, would you be prepared to act as a mediator?
Arundhati Roy: Look Karan, I don’t think it should be one person. I think there should be a group of people who are used to taking decisions collectively.
Karan Thapar: Will a committee?
Arundhati Roy: Absolutely. That’s what happened in Andhra. There was a committee of persons.
Karan Thapar: Isn’t that a mess?
Arundhati Roy: No, it is absolutely vital.
Karan Thapar: Would you be a part of it?
Arundhati Roy: I don’t think I am good at it. I am a maverick.
Karan Thapar: Would you be prepared to be one of that committee?
Arundhati Roy: Not really. I would not like to be because I don’t think I have those skills. But I think there are people who would be very good at it.
Karan Thapar: In June, writing in The Hindu, Justice Krishna Aiyar publicly called on the Maoists to unconditionally come forward for talks. Would you make a similar statement?
Arundhati Roy: No. Not when there are two hundred thousand paramilitary forces closing in on the villages. I say unconditionally both sides should say there should be a ceasefire. Then you can see.
Karan Thapar: But you are not prepared to facilitate that being a mediator or, even part of the committee.
Arundhati Roy: I’ll try.
Karan Thapar: Try! So suddenly you are changing your position.
Arundhati Roy: I don’t know how to think about this.
Karan Thapar: If pushed and persuaded, you could accept.
Arundhati Roy: Look, you talk to me like you talk to politicians – will you stand for elections?
Karan Thapar: No, I am simply trying to get you to give me a clear answer. What I sense is that you are tempted but you are uncertain.
Arundhati Roy: I feel that all of us should do what we can but certainly, I don’t feel that I’ll be very good at it. But, I think there should be a committee of people with experience in negotiating, with experienced people like BD Sharma, who has such a long experience.
Karan Thapar: Let’s come to a different issue. The government, particularly the home minister, often look upon people who are sympathetic to Maoists’ cause as collaborators, sections of the press even call them traitors. Number one in that category is bound to be Arundhati Roy. How do you respond to such branding?
Arundhati Roy: Well, this is an old game.
Karan Thapar: But it continues forcefully every time.
Arundhati Roy: I think the reason they were also unnerved, the government as well as most of the press, which is clearly on one side in this, is that from being people who are marooned in the jungle in one sense, when operation Green Hunt happened, a number of activists, a number of intellectuals came forward and said look, it is not acceptable to us. And that undermined the position of this open and shut case that was going on all this time.
Karan Thapar: So the certainty of the government’s position was weakened and undermined by the intellectuals who supported the government which is why the government branded them collaborators?
Arundhati Roy: Again you are saying the Maoists.
Karan Thapar: But that’s why the government called them collaborators?
Arundhati Roy: What has happened is that the government has expanded the definition of Maoists to mean everyone who is disagreeing with it. What people like myself have done is to complicate the scenario. Say it’s not that simple. Of course it doesn’t upset me because I like to say what I think very clearly. I am not worried about being called names.
Karan Thapar: And in a sense the government calling you a collaborator is proof that you actually made the government uncomfortable.
Arundhati Roy: I am proud if I made the government uncomfortable because it should be bloody uncomfortable with what it’s doing.
Karan Thapar: A pleasure talking to you.
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/india-is-a-corporate-hindu-state-arundhati/130817-3.html?from=tn
She speaks the truth again.

[t.shonku]

A.Roy is absolutely right,India is indeed a Corporate Hindu state where land is forcefully grabbed away from the Tribals,Dalits and Muslim for setting up factories for the big corporations.And these corporate industrialists in return give a fat amount to the "democratic" leaders and Hindu religious leaders "gurus".(For ex-Hindu religious institutions like Ramkrishna Mission gets loads of money from industrialists like Birla and from rich Indians living in US,Hindu gurus like Ramdev gets money from industrialists and spreads poison words against Maoist calling them enemy of "developement").I hope after Maoists come to power they will hang religious leaders.

[pranabjyoti]

Report on systemic human rights 
violations in Indian-occupied Kashmir released (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/report-on-systemic-human-rights-%e2%80%a8violations-in-indian-occupied-kashmir%c2%a0released/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/india-army-in-kashmir.jpg?w=450&h=265 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/india-army-in-kashmir.jpg)By Indian People’s Tribunal
13 September, 2010
, Countercurrents.org
New Delhi: Human Rights Law Network and ANHAD came together to offer a platform to the victims of gross human rights violations in the conflict-torn Kashmir Valley, which culminated in a comprehensive documentation of the anguish and grievances of a generation that has gone under the gun. The report of the two-day ‘Indian People’s Tribunal on Human Rights Violations in Kashmir’, organized in Srinagar in February 20-21, 2010, was released on September 8, 2010 in New Delhi.
The hon’ble Jury, headed by Justice H. Suresh, former Judge, Bombay High Court, heard the victims who showed unmatched courage and faith to depose before the tribunal despite the threats to themselves and their families, especially in the circumstances where people have lost faith in the remedial and retributive systems. In all, 37 testimonies came to be recorded.
Please find below the findings and recommendations of the Jury:
FINDINGS
It is true that we sat for two days for public hearings. The first day, there was a Bandh in Srinagar as someone had been killed by the police. The day after the 2nd day, again there was a Bandh, because a child had been killed in a stampede. Perhaps this is the kind of life for every Kashmiri citizen. No one knows when and for what time, and where curfew could be imposed, and every movement will be at a standstill. If we had been able to sit a little longer, we would have heard the same facts, and of course, more mothers and more Parents of Disappeared Persons would have told the same story – a story of illegal arrest, arbitrary detention and torture, custodial deaths and rape; all with no hope for justice.
Were Jammu and Kashmir to be called a ‘banana republic’ (as it often is), such a dubious distinction, though unfair in many ways, would be fairly apposite in many others. Some describe the socio-political upheaval of the past two decades as a civil war; others label it as a terrorist movement, with political and infrastructural backing from across the Line of Control: have it either way, there is no denying the fact that the people of the state have borne the brunt of the extreme violence of the past twenty years, all in the name of security, at the hands of armed forces.
I. Militarisation
In Kashmir, there is one soldier for every twenty people. There are 5,00,000 armed troops, 3,00,000 army men, 70,000 Rashtriya Rifle soldiers, 1,30,000 central police forces as against the total population of 1 crore [10 million]. In the past 20 years, a generation of Kashmiris has grown with soldiers at every street corner “often even in their living rooms” (Sunday Times of India, 13th June, 2010). The grievance of the people is that instead of confining the role of the military and security forces to that of external defence and as against militants, it is regularly and continuously used for domestic repression; and as Professor Hameeda Nayeem says : “that has transformed the Indian state into a source of deep insecurity for the citizens – as instruments of the persistent violator of human rights and converted the Indian military into an illegitimate agent of repression. Both in turn seriously undermine the democratic credential of the state.”
This excessive militarization has resulted in wiping out all space for the exercise of democratic rights by the people, the result being terrorization of the people at large. This has resulted in ruthless action on all dissent, and at the same time the military indulges in acts of violence against people with impunity.
We are of the view that all these acts of violence against innocent people are violations under the Geneva Convention, 1949, to which India is a party. The provisions of the Common Art.3 of the Four Conventions dealing with “armed conflicts not of an international character” occurring within a State require the parties to treat humanely all persons taking no part, or not being able to take active part in the hostilities….; and further the parties are prohibited from indulging in violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, and cruel treatment and torture.
There is a further Protocol II of June 1977 for Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts which further reiterates that all persons who do not take any direct part in hostilities are “entitled to respect for their person, honour and convictions and religious practices.” They shall “in all circumstances” be treated humanely without any adverse distinction. Art.13 says: “The civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against the dangers arising from military operations.” To give effect to this protection, the Protocol says: “The Civilian population as such as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence, the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.” It is unfortunate that the State, which has sponsored these armed forces who have indulged in killings, loot, arson and rape of innocent victims, has not kept these provisions of the Convention in mind.
II. Draconian Laws
Militarisation is invariably accompanied by Draconian laws. Together they have such a cascading effect that all human rights and democratic rights get washed away. This is what happened in Manipur, Assam, Kashmir and other places.
In Manipur, the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, has been in force for five decades. It was first enacted to contain Naga dissidence. It was introduced in Assam in 1980 and in Kashmir in 1987. Section 4 of the Act states that armed forces officers have only to form an “opinion” to consider what may be necessary, and then on the basis of such “opinion” they “can fire upon or otherwise use force, even to the causing death against any person” and they can “arrest, without warrant any person” and “enter and search without warrant any premises” at any time, and use force to achieve this objective. S.6 of the Act gives them full protection against any prosecution or legal proceedings in respect of anything done or “purported to be done” in exercise of the powers conferred by this Act. The result is that in all these States, and of course, in Kashmir, arbitrary arrests, detention, torture and custodial deaths, rape and midnight raids into homes and disappearances have become routine.
The other Act which is resorted to silence all protest and dissent is the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978. This law is especially draconian in nature, falling far short of meeting international human rights standards, and has become notorious for its rampant misuse at the hands of the armed forces. Under this Act, the maximum period of detention is two years, without trial, for “persons acting in any manner prejudicial to the security of the State.” What would constitute such an action is again left to the better judgement of the arresting agency or official, thereby giving sweeping powers to the security forces to arrest and detain at their pleasure. 

Prisons in Jammu and Kashmir and beyond are full of detainees booked under the infamous PSA, with reports suggesting that even minors have been arrested and detained under this law on a number of occasions. Furthermore, very often the PSA is slapped on a person again and again, at the end of successive periods of two years, thereby making the actual period of detention much longer. Farooq Ahmed Dar, one such detainee, had to spend sixteen years in prison before he was finally released in 2006. There have been various instances where political leaders and common people have been slapped with successive detention orders despite the fact that Courts keep on quashing them. This is done only with a purpose and intention not to release the detenue.
III. Disappearances
One other impact of militarization and arbitrary detention is large scale custodial deaths, extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances. We have the testimony of M/s Parveena Ahangar, who is the Chairperson of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), which clearly establishes that from about 1989, about 8-10,000 persons have just disappeared. Many of them were killed while in custody of the army or the security men. One Rashid Billa (SDPO) at Sowa is reported to have killed over 512 persons extra-judicially. Whenever and wherever the next of Kin went to the police stations or army camps to enquire, or to claim the bodies, they were either threatened or tortured. Some had to pay bribes to get information. What is important is that there has been no proper investigation to apprehend the culprits and to punish them.
 Mohd. Yasin Malik (Chairperson of J&K Liberation Front – JKLF) says that he took 150 victims of disappearances to Delhi; but they were abused and black ink was thrown over him. The fact remains that no serious investigation was done even by the Central Government.
He also pointed out that the worst sufferers were women and children. He said : “they cannot say whether they are widows or whether their husbands are just missing. Neither can the children call themselves orphans or say that their father is still alive…this is what I conveyed to the PM of India. This is the primary case…the Kashmiri women; the ones who can neither say they are wives or widows. Tell what you are! Are you a widow or are you still married?”
The UN General Assembly in 2006 has unanimously adopted the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearances. Earlier, there was the UN Declaration to the above effect (December 1992). Article 2 of the Declaration says that, “the prohibition” of “disappearances” is absolute and no state can find an excuse. Article 7 says, “no circumstances, whether a threat of war, internal political instability, or any other public emergency may be invoked to justify” these acts of violation. Hence, it is not open to the state to resort to enforced disappearances that would include all custodial deaths on the ground of any threat to internal security or external safety and stability. It is here the state’s liability becomes absolute, and we should have no hesitation in making these observations.
IV. Rape
Militarised environments expose women to serious forms of dehumanization. The masculinity cult that pervades military establishments are intrinsically anti-female and therefore create a hostile environment for women. Rape becomes a common feature in such a situation. In all such cases there have been no investigations. There are complaints pending from 1991. it appears that in 1991 about 100 women, including minors and the elderly (between 13 to 80 years), the pregnant and disabled were raped in Kunan Poshpara, Kupwara by the 4th Rajputana Rifles, during a search operation. However, till today no action has been taken against the culprits, despite several reports in the newspapers and journals, and also by various NGO groups, both national and international. 
Apart from such direct abuse, women had to suffer further humiliation. In the wor ds of Bakthi (a witness before us) : “At the time of the incident I was 30 years old. Within a year of the incident, four women from our village – Saja, Mehtaba, Zarifa and Jana, succumbed to death stemming from the mental trauma and disgrace they had to put up with. These women had also been struggling with physical ailments subsequent to the incident. The self-humiliation resulting from our traumatic experience didn’t allow us to visit any of our relatives from other villages, nor did they pay us a visit. We also had to take our children out from their schools, for fear of being apprehended and tortured by the army. “My son and many young men from the village grew up harboring vengeance in their hearts, for what had been done to the women in their families.”
 We must also say that quite a number of rape cases go unreported due to constant threats from the army men and also due to fear of social stigma and the futility of taking up an embarrassing legal battle.
Such abuses have taken place in places like Manipur where the army is placed above the civilian police, with the same result of utter indifference by the concerned authorities.
V. Plight of the Disabled
Throughout the conflict, people have been maimed and disabled due to the indiscriminate firing of security forces during even non-violent protests. People have also been disabled during interrogations where torture was used. We heard the testimonies from Bijbehara, where forces had indiscriminately opened fire on peaceful demonstrators in 1993. Many injured persons have been disabled for life and have suffered mentally, physically, and financially. Hardly any steps have been taken for their rehabilitation.
The testimonies we heard of disabled persons revealed that they were totally shocked and shattered. The disabled deposed before us to say that they could bear with the aftermath of physical injury, but not with the mental pain, agony, and trauma that make them feel that they die several deaths every day, rather than living even once.
VI. Failure of all Democratic Institutions and Redressal Mechanisms
Routine criminal investigations – a key function of the police – are among the first to deteriorate under militarization. All complaints against the army men just remain without any investigation. As we have seen above, under AFSPA, the army can shoot, kill, or do any heinous act, and they get protection; and the police become helpless. This also leads to a situation where the police acquire a taste for impunity, when they have to work within a military environment. This is exactly what has happened in Kashmir. Here, the rules do not operate as laid down in the statute books. For example, we heard testimonies from the victims, that FIRs filed by them were distorted by the police to accuse the victims themselves. In some cases, the police just refuse to record FIRs and the victims remain helpless. The police appear to be not bothered about the complaints from the victims, because they know that no one will question them.
This has also affected the Judiciary. No criminal court could be in a position to do proper justice, with impunity for the actions of the army, and with no investigation being possible by the police. It appears that in 1993 there were 7000 habeas corpus petitions pending in the Jammu & Kashmir High Court. Some of the petitions are still pending. In about 2001, there were 35,000 civilians under detention and quite a number of them still continue to be inside, while the Courts remain judicially paralytic. In quite a number of cases where the victim had been killed, the courts have not even awarded any compensation to the next of kin. We have also some cases where the complainants have been made to go from one court to the other for nearly two decades, with no relief whatsoever. Many of them feel that they would get no justice through the courts.
Even the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) are not in a position to do anything, inasmuch as they have no power to investigate or to take any action on any complaint of violation of human rights by the army. Even when complaints were made to the SHRC, it has failed to exercise its powers proactively to provide justice to the victims.
Needless to say that the Executive and the Legislature were more involved in playing power politics than in rescuing the people from gross human rights violations.
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Withdraw the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA) and the Jammu & Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978 (JKPSA)
It is necessary that these draconian laws should be withdrawn forthwith. These laws together with militarization emanate from the notion that the use of force is necessary for the effective ruling of a population. Similar is the belief that terrorism cannot be eliminated without a harsh law like TADA, POTA, etc. However, it is our universal experience that nowhere in the world have harsh laws ended terrorism, nor has any militarization succeeded in suppressing insurgency, unless taken to the extreme, developing into a situation of genocide, as in Sri Lanka.
It is true that all these laws have been upheld by the Supreme Court of India. That does not mean (as Justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy’s Committee for Review of AFSPA says) that the Supreme Court has pronounced “upon the wisdom or the necessity of such an enactment”. The Act has become “a symbol of oppression, an object of hate, and an instrument of discrimination and highhandedness”. Therefore (as the Committee has recommended) the Act should be withdrawn forthwith. 
It should be noted that India has been repeatedly criticized in the UN Human Rights Committee for the existence of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which violates crucially several articles of the ICCPR. Hereto annexed as Annexure I is the Concluding Observations of the U.N. Human Rights Committee on the Report of India (Extracts). 
The other Act – the JKPSA, which provides for arbitrary detention is equally violative of ICCPR. We wonder how such draconian laws could have been upheld after Maneka Gandhi’s(1978) case by any Constitutional Court.
2. Minimise the number of Army men
Keeping in view the large concentration of military and paramilitary forces in the state of Jammu & Kashmir, which is disproportionate to the civilian population and is also making civil administration ineffective in many matters, the Government of India should take immediate steps to minimize the number of these forces in order to bring relief to the civilian population.
3. The need for a Special Judicial Authority
We recommend the establishment of a special judicial authority making an independent and thorough inquiry into all allegations of human rights violations, including disappearances, custodial killings, rape, torture, including torture of prisoners, fake encounters, and all other cases related to excesses by security forces. In any case the NHRC and/or the SHRC be authorised to investigate all allegations of violence by the agents of the State, which includes the Army and the security forces (as recommended by the U.N. Human Rights Committee).
4. No licence to kill
Every case of killing by police and security forces in situations like protests, demonstrations, riots, etc. should be followed by a judicial inquiry into the police/security forces firing/actions, followed by proper, time-bound administrative action. It is made clear that the police have no license to kill anyone in any situation, unless they can justify this action under Section 100 of the IPC, which has to be done in a judicial procedure.
5. Need for rehabilitation
Provide proper rehabilitation to families of deceased, injured, and traumatized victims, especially the raped. Compensation as interim relief should be arranged promptly. Compensation should be adequate and purposeful. Compensation should be for both injury to person as well as for damage to property, i.e. houses, etc.
6. Establishment of Fast Track Courts
The State should immediately establish Fast Track Courts for the purpose of trying the large number of cases which are pending. The Courts should call for records from every police station and give suitable directions to investigate and file charge- sheets within a time bound framework.
7. Release all detenues
Both state as well as central governments should take immediate steps to address the sufferings of detainees who are languishing in various jails and interrogation centres in and outside the state of Jammu and Kashmir and have been complaining of torture and inhuman treatment inside the jails.
8. Scheme for Witness Protection
The State should provide witness protection since many of the witnesses are being threatened.
9. Establish ‘Grievance Cells’
As Justice Jeevan Reddy’s Committee says, “Over the years many people from the region have been complaining that among the most difficult issues is the problem faced by those who seek information about family members and friends who have been picked up and detained by armed forces or security forces. There have been a large number of cases where those taken away without warrants have “disappeared”, or ended up dead or badly injured. Suspicion and bitterness have grown as a result. There is need for a mechanism which is transparent, quick and involves authorities from concerned agencies as well as civil society groups to provide information on the whereabouts of missing persons within 24 hours.”
As recommended by the Committee, it is necessary that the Government should first establish a “Grievance Cell” in every town where armed forces are deployed. These cells will receive complaints regarding allegations of missing persons or abuse of law by security/armed forces, make prompt enquiries and furnish information to the complainants. The Cell should have the full authority to inspect and call for every record maintained by the security forces or by the local authorities. The Cell should have one or two senior members of the local administration and one or two independent senior citizens who do not belong to any political parties.
10. The need for dialogue with the people
From the evidence put before us, and other human rights reports on J&K it is clear that the rule of law does not operate as laid down in the statute books. Talks between Kashmiri leaders including the separatists and the Central Government have not led to any positive outcome. In fact it would appear that the real mass discourse is a reflection of the mass alienation in the Kashmir Valley. Demonstrations and street protests often resulting in clashes and stone throwing have regularly led to civilian deaths fuelling another cycle of protest. The Government’s focus is on containing the armed militants but not on having a sustained dialogue with the population and its leaders. The numbers of militants killed as indices of peace in the Valley is misleading. The crucial indicator of mass alienation is not the infiltration of militants but resistance by the people.
Any path for a solution of the J&K problem must squarely and frontally deal with this mass alienation of the people and directly confront its causes. As a confidence building measure, the Government should hold talks with the J&K representatives, organisations of men and women, in Srinagar. Currently talks on these matters are held in Delhi including talks with Pakistan. The Kashmiris find themselves out of the dialogue process as no talks are held in Srinagar.
Signed: 
 Justice H. Suresh, former Judge, Bombay High Court
n Justice Malay Sengupta, former Acting CJ, Sikkim High Court
n Professor Kamal Mitra Chenoy, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi
n Dr. Nusrat Andrabi, former principal, Government Women’s College, Srinagar
n Professor Anuradha Chenoy, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi
n Shujaat Bukhari, senior journalist, Srinagar

September 14, 2010 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/) - Posted by Ka Frank (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/author/dpugh/) | India (http://en.wordpress.com/tag/india/), Kashmir (http://en.wordpress.com/tag/kashmir/) | kashmir (http://en.wordpress.com/tag/kashmir-2/), Kashmir Public Safety Act of 1978 (http://en.wordpress.com/tag/kashmir-public-safety-act-of-1978/), Indian People's Tribunal (http://en.wordpress.com/tag/indian-peoples-tribunal/)

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Not only in Kashmir, this is a common picture of India.

[mosfeld]

India: Authorities should investigate torture, sexual assault and illegal detention of Adivasis in Chhattisgarth

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pugAklByimc/TJENC8FhEyI/AAAAAAAADyQ/ZXHPuL27XvQ/s320/amnesty-international1_0_0.jpg

The Indian authorities should order a prompt, impartial and independent investigation into reports of torture and ill-treatment, including rape and other sexual violence, against adivasis (indigenous people) illegally detained in Chhattisgarh, Amnesty International said today.

Adivasis from Pachangi and Aloor villages in Kanker district told Amnesty International that paramilitary Border Security Force (BSF) personnel and the Chhattisgarh state police rounded up 40 adivasi men from their villages on 5 and 6 September, stripped them and beat them with sticks. Five men – Narsingh Kumra, Sukram Netam, Premsingh Potayi, Raju Ram and Bidde Potayi were reportedly raped with sticks and are still being treated at the Kanker government hospital.

These violations followed the 29 August ambush of a BSF-police patrol by members of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in which three BSF personnel and two policemen were killed.

Seventeen people from the two villages were also detained– blindfolded, split into batches and taken to the BSF camp at Durgkondal in closed trucks. Amnesty International has been informed that at least two of those detained - Dhansu Khemra and Sarita Tulavi – were 16 year old girls while another four were women and girls between 16 and 20.

During their detention, security forces beat the detainees in an attempt to force them to confess that they were Maoists involved in the 29 August ambush. The interrogators gave electric shocks to at least 10 detainees and sexually assaulted two female detainees.

Villagers said that on the morning of 7 September the Kanker police released one female detainee Sunita, as she was suffering from malaria, and her father, Punnim Tulavi, a school-teacher, but then arrested two more men.

The five remaining female detainees were taken to a local court along with two of the adivasi men on 8 September, while the remaining ten male detainees were taken to court on 10 September. All of the adivasis were charged with involvement in the 29 August ambush by the banned Maoist armed group and are presently in Kanker and Jagdalpur prisons, after being denied bail.

Indian law requires that arrested persons be produced before a court within 24 hours of the arrest. In an attempt to circumvent this requirement, the police claimed the two groups of detainees were arrested only one day before their respective appearances in court.

Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including sexual violence, are prohibited in all circumstances, including war or other emergency under international law, and in particular the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Geneva Conventions. India is also a signatory to the United Nations’ Convention Against Torture and the Indian Parliament is currently engaged in passing a new law against torture in accordance with the provisions of the Convention before its ratification.

Amnesty International calls upon the Indian authorities to:


· ensure a prompt, impartial, independent and effective investigation into the allegations of torture and other ill-treatment, including sexual assault, and the illegal detention of adivasis. Those suspected of involvement in the violations, including persons bearing command responsibility, should immediately be suspended from positions where they may repeat such offences, and brought to justice;

· award the victims of torture and other ill-treatment full reparations. In particular, immediately ensure that all victims of torture and other ill-treatment, including sexual violence, are provided with proper medical care, both physical and psychological, by professionals trained and sensitised to treat such victims; and

· ensure that, if – as a measure of last resort – those under the age of 18 are kept in prison, they are held separately from adults and otherwise treated in accordance with India’s juvenile justice legislation and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which India is a state party.

Over the last five years, Chhattisgarh has witnessed an escalation of violence between the banned Maoists who claim to be fighting on behalf of the adivasis and India’s paramilitary forces. At least 600 people have been killed and some 30,000 adivasis continue to be displaced from their homes in the state

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.com/2010/09/india-authorities-should-investigate.html

[mosfeld]

Beaten back by Naxals, BSF men torture tribals

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/thumb.cms?msid=6534546&width=300&resizemode=4

KANKER: A hillock is strewn with empty bottles of whisky and sticks — remnants of what tribals allege was a 48-hour torture session by drunk BSF men. The enraged people of Panchangi village have accused the paramilitary force, along with Chhattisgarh police, of brutally beating nearly 40 men. Two teenage girls have also alleged that they were sexually molested.

One of them says she was stripped, while another provided a detailed account of both mental and physical harassment. "One of them grabbed me around the chest and said, 'you are a Naxal, haven't you been touched by a man before'," says the 16-year-old girl who lives and studies in a government residential school and had come home to recuperate from illness.

The village has filed a written complaint with the district collector and a magisterial inquiry has been ordered.

Panchangi village is 15km from the site where a Maoist attack left three BSF jawans and two policemen dead on August 29. Exactly a week later, in the early hours of Sunday morning, villagers say a 100-member team of security forces landed up in the village.

"They went from home to home, pulling people out. Everybody was made to gather near the panchayat building. They wanted to know where we were hiding the guns. We told them no one in our village kept guns but they refused to believe us," says Shidre Ram, the village sarpanch.

What began then, according to detailed testimonies of several people, is a cycle of horror. "I was pulled by the hair and dragged to the hillock. I was stripped and told to lie down on stones. Then, they began beating me with sticks," says Amal Singh, a young man.

Villagers say several men were beaten up in a similar fashion all through Sunday and Monday. Narsingh Kumar, one of the five men who was brought to the district hospital at Kanker, shows his bruised back and swollen feet. "They thrust a stick inside my anus," he said.

"The BSF has ordered a court of inquiry into the allegations and it will be completed shortly," said Ram Awtar, DIG BSF. Villagers say another girl, Dhansu, was picked up from Aalor, a nearby village. She is among the six schoolgirls arrested on Wednesday and charged with being involved in attack on BSF. "Some of them are Bal Sangham members," says Kanker SP Ajay Yadav. But the girl's family insists they are innocent.

Meanwhile, another round of arrests have taken place, with 10 men being produced in court on Friday. Four of them are from Panchangi village. The police claims the men were arrested with weapons. "They kept asking us for weapons as they beat us, and we kept telling them we didn't have any," says Sukram Netam, an old man, recovering in hospital. "The police is free to arrest Naxals, but what gives them the right to treat us like animals," asks the village sarpanch.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Beaten-back-by-Naxals-BSF-men-torture-tribals/articleshow/6533675.cms

[pranabjyoti]

India: Report of torture, sexual assault and illegal detention of adivasis in Chhattisgarh (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/india-report-of-torture-sexual-assault-and-illegal-detention-of-adivasis-in-chhattisgarh/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/india-cop-with-raised-lathi1.jpg?w=375&h=280 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/india-cop-with-raised-lathi1.jpg)Chhattisgarh Police with Lathi

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC STATEMENT
14 September 2010
The Indian authorities should order a prompt, impartial and independent investigation into reports of torture and ill-treatment, including rape and other sexual violence, against adivasis (indigenous people) illegally detained in Chhattisgarh, Amnesty International said today.
Adivasis from Pachangi and Aloor villages in Kanker district told Amnesty International that paramilitary Border Security Force (BSF) personnel and the Chhattisgarh state police rounded up 40 adivasi men from their villages on 5 and 6 September, stripped them and beat them with sticks. Five men – Narsingh Kumra, Sukram Netam, Premsingh Potayi, Raju Ram and Bidde Potayi were reportedly raped with sticks and are still being treated at the Kanker government hospital.
These violations followed the 29 August ambush of a BSF-police patrol by members of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in which three BSF personnel and two policemen were killed.
Seventeen people from the two villages were also detained– blindfolded, split into batches and taken to the BSF camp at Durgkondal in closed trucks. Amnesty International has been informed that at least two of those detained – Dhansu Khemra and Sarita Tulavi – were 16 year old girls while another four were women and girls between 16 and 20.
During their detention, security forces beat the detainees in an attempt to force them to confess that they were Maoists involved in the 29 August ambush. The interrogators gave electric shocks to at least 10 detainees and sexually assaulted two female detainees.
Villagers said that on the morning of 7 September the Kanker police released one female detainee Sunita, as she was suffering from malaria, and her father, Punnim Tulavi, a school-teacher, but then arrested two more men.
The five remaining female detainees were taken to a local court along with two of the adivasi men on 8 September, while the remaining ten male detainees were taken to court on 10 September. All of the adivasis were charged with involvement in the 29 August ambush by the banned Maoist armed group and are presently in Kanker and Jagdalpur prisons, after being denied bail.
Indian law requires that arrested persons be produced before a court within 24 hours of the arrest. In an attempt to circumvent this requirement, the police claimed the two groups of detainees were arrested only one day before their respective appearances in court.
Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including sexual violence, are prohibited in all circumstances, including war or other emergency under international law, and in particular the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Geneva Conventions. India is also a signatory to the United Nations’ Convention Against Torture and the Indian Parliament is currently engaged in passing a new law against torture in accordance with the provisions of the Convention before its ratification.
Amnesty International calls upon the Indian authorities to:
· ensure a prompt, impartial, independent and effective investigation into the allegations of torture and other ill-treatment, including sexual assault, and the illegal detention of adivasis. Those suspected of involvement in the violations, including persons bearing command responsibility, should immediately be suspended from positions where they may repeat such offences, and brought to justice;
· award the victims of torture and other ill-treatment full reparations. In particular, immediately ensure that all victims of torture and other ill-treatment, including sexual violence, are provided with proper medical care, both physical and psychological, by professionals trained and sensitised to treat such victims; and
· ensure that, if – as a measure of last resort – those under the age of 18 are kept in prison, they are held separately from adults and otherwise treated in accordance with India’s juvenile justice legislation and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which India is a state party.
Over the last five years, Chhattisgarh has witnessed an escalation of violence between the banned Maoists who claim to be fighting on behalf of the adivasis and India’s paramilitary forces. At least 600 people have been killed and some 30,000 adivasis continue to be displaced from their homes in the state.
Nothing new.

[pranabjyoti]

Revolution in India: A History with Deep Roots (http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/revolution-in-india-a-history-with-deep-roots/)

Posted by n3wday (http:///) on September 15, 2010
http://southasiarev.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/india-maoist-reading.jpg?w=350&h=239 (http://southasiarev.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/india-maoist-reading.jpg)This article was published in the Hindustan Times (http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/nm2/History-of-Naxalism/225549/Article1-6545.aspx).
History of Naxalism

Hindustan Times, PTI
January 01, 0001


Telangana Struggle: By July 1948, 2,500 villages in the south were organised into ‘communes’ as part of a peasant movement which came to be known as Telangana Struggle. Simultaneously the famous Andhra Thesis for the first time demanded that ‘Indian revolution’ follow the Chinese
path of protracted people’s war. In June 1948, a leftist ideological document ‘Andhra Letter’ laid down a revolutionary strategy based on Mao Tsetung’s New Democracy.
1964
CPM splits from united CPI and decides to participate in elections, postponing armed struggle over revolutionary policies to a day when revolutionary situation prevailed in the country.
1965-66
Communist leader Charu Majumdar wrote various articles based on Marx-Lenin-Mao thought during the period, which later came to be known as ‘Historic Eight Documents’ and formed the basis of naxalite movement.
· First civil liberties organisation was formed with Telugu poet Sri Sri as president following mass arrests of communists during Indo-China war.
1967
CPM participates in polls and forms a coalition United Front government in West Bengal with Bangla Congress. This leads to schism in the party with younger cadres, including the “visionary” Charu Majumdar, accusing CPM of betraying the revolution.
Naxalbari Uprising (25th May): The rebel cadres led by Charu Majumdar launch a peasants’ uprising at Naxalbari in Darjeeling district of West Bengal after a tribal youth, who had a judicial order to plough his land, was attacked by “goons” of local landlords on March 2. Tribals retaliated and started forcefully capturing back their lands. The CPI (M)-led United Front government cracked down on the uprising and in 72 days of the “rebellion” a police sub-inspector and nine tribals were killed. The Congress govt at the Centre supported the crackdown. The incident echoed throughout India and naxalism was born.
• The ideology of naxalism soon assumed larger dimension and entire state units of CPI (M) in Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir and some sections in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh joined the struggle.
July-Nov: Revolutionary communist organs ‘Liberation’and ‘Deshbrati’ (Bengali) besides ‘Lokyudh’ (Hindi) were started.
Nov 12-13: Comrades from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Orissa and West Bengal met and set up All India Coordination Committee of Revolutionaries (AICCR) in the CPI (M).
1968
May 14: AICCR renamed All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR) with Comrade S Roy Chowdhury as its convenor. The renamed body decides to boycott elections. Within AICCCR certain fundamental differences lead to the exclusion of a section of Andhra comrades led by Comrade T Nagi Reddy.
1969
April 22: As per the AICCCR’s February decision, a new party CPI (ML) was launched on the birth anniversary of Lenin. Charu Majumdar was elected as the Secretary of Central Organising Committee. AICCR dissolved itself.
May 1: Declaration of the party formation by Comrade Kanu Sanyal at a massive meeting on Shahid Minar ground, Calcutta. CPI (M) tries to disrupt the meeting resulting in armed clash between CPI (M) and CPI (ML) cadres for the first time.
• By this time primary guerrilla zone appear at Debra-gopiballavpur (WB), Musal in Bihar, Lakhimpur Kheri in UP and most importantly Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh.

May 26-27: Andhra police kill Comrade Panchadri Krishnamurty and six other revolutionaries during a crackdown on Srikakulam struggle in Andhra Pradesh sparking wide protests.
Oct 20: Maoist Communist Centre was formed under Kanhai Chatterjee’s leadership. It had supported Naxalbari struggle but did not join CPI (ML) because of some tactical difference and on the question of the method of party formation.
1970
April 27: Premises of Deshabrati Prakashan, which published Liberation and its sister journals, were raided. CPI (ML) goes underground.
http://southasiarev.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/charu-mazumdar.gif?w=350&h=518 (http://southasiarev.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/charu-mazumdar.gif)May 11: The first CPI (ML) congress is held in Calcutta under strict underground conditions. Comrade Charu Majumdar is elected the party general secretary.
July 10: Comrades Vempatapu Satyanarayana and Adibatla Kailasam, leaders of Srikakulam uprising are killed in police encounter during the crackdown. Comrade Appu, founder of the Party in Tamil Nadu was also killed around September-October. The Srikakulam movement in continued in Andhra Pradesh till 1975.
• Leading lights of literary world of Telugu like Sri Sri, R V Shastri, Khtuba Rao K V Ramana Reddy, Cherabanda Raju Varavara Rao, C Vijaylakshmi with others joined hands to form VIRASAM (Viplava Rachayithala Sangam) or Revolutionary Writers Association (RWA).
• Artistes from Hyderabad inspired by Srikakulam struggle and the songs of Subharao Panigrahi form a group — Art Lovers – comprising the famous film producer Narasinga Rao and the now legendary Gaddar.
1971
In the background of Bangladesh war, the Army tries to crush the ultra-left movement in West Bengal. Uprising in Birbhum marks the high point of this year.
• Art Lovers change its name to Jana Natya Mandali (JNM) late this year. It joins Communists and start propagating revolutionary ideas through its songs, dances and plays. It functioned legally till 1984.
1972
July: Charu Majumdar is arrested in Calcutta on July 16. He dies in Lal Bazar police lock-up on July 28. Revolutionary struggle suffers serious debacle. CPI (ML)’s central authority collapses.

August: ‘Pilupu’ (The Call), a political magazine was launched in Andhra Pradesh.
• Kondapalli Seetharamaiah reorganises the AP State Committee of Communist Revolutionaries following killing or arrest of the 12-member AP State Committee.
1973
Fresh guerrilla struggles backed by mass activism emerge in parts of central Bihar and Telangana, now a part of Andhra Pradesh.
1974
July 28: The Central Organising Committee of CPI (ML) was reconstituted at Durgapur meeting in West Bengal. Comrade Jauhar (Subrata Dutt) was elected general secretary. Jauhar reorganises CPI (ML) and renames it as CPI (ML) Liberation.

March: Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee (APCLP) was formed again with Sri Sri as president.

August: Andhra Pradesh state committee was reconstituted with Kondapalli Seetharamaiah representing Telangana region, Appalasuri (coastal AP) and Mahadevan (Rayalseema).

October 12: Radical students union was formed in Andhra Pradesh. It faced brutal suppression but surged again after emergency was lifted.
1975
Following declaration of emergency on June 25 and the following repression on ultra-leftists and others, the Central Organising Committee in its September meeting decided to withdraw a “common self-critical review” and instead produce a tactical line ‘Road to Revolution’. But it did not unity among the cadres. Armed struggles were reported from Bhojpur and Naxalbari.
1976
CPI (ML) holds its second Congress on February 26-27 in the countryside of Gaya, in Bihar. It resolves to continue with armed guerilla struggles and work for an anti-Congress United Front.
1977
Amidst an upsurge of ultra-leftists’ armed actions and mass activism, CPI (ML) decides to launch a rectification campaign. The party organisation spreads to AP and Kerala.

February: Revolutionaries organise Telangana Regional Conference in Andhra Pradesh and seeds of a peasant movement are sown in Karimnagar and Adilabad districts of the state. The conference decided to hold political classes to train new cadres and to send “squads” into forest for launching armed struggle. Eight districts of Telangana, excluding Hyderabad, were divided into two regions and two regional committees were elected.

May: Bihar and West Bengal representatives of Central Organising Committee resign at a meeting. Andhra Pradesh representative fails to attend the meet due to the arrest of Kondapalli Seetharamaiah. The Central Organising Committee is dissolved.
1978
Rectification movements (CPI ML and fragments) limits pure military viewpoint and stresses mass peasant struggles to Indianise the Marxism-Leninism and Mao thought.
• CPI (ML) (Unity Organisation) is formed in Bihar under N Prasad’s leadership (focusing on Jehanabad-Palamu of Bihar). A peasant organisation – the Mazdoor Kisan Sangram Samiti (MKSS) is formed.
• ‘Go To Village Campaigns’ are launched by Andhra Pradesh Party of revolutionaries to propagate politics of agrarian revolution and building of Radical Youth League units in Andhra Pradesh villages. It later helped in triggering historic peasant struggles of Karimnagar and Adilabad.

Sept 7: The famous Jagityal march is organised in Andhra Pradesh, in which thousands of people take part.

Oct 20: Andhra Government declares Sarcilla and Jagityal ‘disturbed areas’ giving police “draconian” powers.
1979
From April to June, Village Campaign was for the first time organised jointly by RSU and RYL in Andhra Pradesh. The two organisations also expressed solidarity with National Movement of Assam.
Between 1979 to 1988, MCC focused on Bihar. A Bihar-Bengal Special Area Committee was established. The Preparatory Committee for Revolutionary Peasant Struggles was formed and soon Revolutionary Peasant Councils emerged. Two founding members of MCC passed away-Amulya Sen in March 1981 and Kanhai Chatterjee in July 1982.
1980

April 22: Kondapalli Seetharamaiah forms the Peoples War Group in Andhra Pradesh. He discards total annihilation of “class enemies” as the only form of struggle and stresses on floating mass organisations.
• Mass peasant movement spreads in Central Bihar.
• CPI (ML) puts forward the idea of broad Democratic Front as the national alternative. It was part of a process to reorganise a centre for All-India revolution after it ceased to exist in 1972.
• The central committee was formed by merging AP and Tamil Nadu State Committees and Maharashtra group of the CPI (ML). Unity Organisation did not join. The tactical adopted by the committee upheld the legacy of Naxalbari while agreeing for rectifying the “left” errors.
• CPI (ML) Red Flag is formed led by K N Ramachandran.

1981
CPI (ML) organises a unity meet of 13 Marxist-Leninist factions in a bid to form a single formation to act as the leading core of the proposed Democratic Front. However, the unity moved failed. The M-L movement begins to polarise between the Marxist-Leninist line of CPI (ML) (Liberation) and the line of CPI (ML) (People’s War).
• First state level rally is held in Patna under the banner of Bihar Pradesh Kisan Sabha beginning a new phase of mass political activism in the state.
1982
Indian People’s Front (IPF) is launched in Delhi at a national conference of CPI (ML) (Liberation). At the end of the year the third Congress of CPI (ML) is organised at Giridih (Bihar), which decides to take part in elections.
1983
Peasant movement in Assam shows signs of revival after allegedly “forced” Assembly elections. IPF plays a crucial role in this regard.
• An all-India dalit conference is held in Amravati (Maharashtra) to facilitate interaction with Ambedkarite groups.
1984

CPI (ML) and other revolutionaries try to woo Sikhs towards joining peasant movement following Operation Bluestar in June and country-wide anti-Sikh riots after Indira Gandhi’s assassination in Oct 31 the same year.
1985
People’s Democratic Front is launched in Karbi Anglong district of Assam to provide a “revolutionary democratic orientation to the tribal people’s aspirations for autonomy”.
• PDF wins a seat in Assam Assembly elections bring about the first entry of CPI (ML) cadre in the legislative arena.
• Jan Sanskriti Manch is formed at a conference of cultural activists from Hindi belt at New Delhi.
1986
• Bihar govt bans PWG and MCC
http://southasiarev.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/lalgarh_uprising_india.jpg?w=350 (http://southasiarev.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/lalgarh_uprising_india.jpg)April 5-7: CPI (ML) organises a national women’s convention in Calcutta to promote cooperation and critical interaction between communist women’s organisations and upcoming feminist and autonomous women’s groups.
April 19: More than a dozen “landless labourers” are killed in police firing at Arwal in Jehanabad district of Bihar.
1987
PDF gets transformed into the Autonomous State Demand Committee.
1988
CPI (ML) holds its fourth Congress at Hazaribagh in Bihar from January 1 to 5. The Congress “rectifies” old errors of judgement in the party’s assessment of Soviet Union. It reiterates the basic principles of revolutionary communism – defence of Marxism, absolute political independence of the Communist Party and primacy of revolutionary peasant struggles in democratic revolution.
• CPI (ML) ND is formed in Bihar by Comrade Yatendra Kumar.
1989

May: The founding conference of All India Central Council of Trade Union (AICCTU) is held in Madras. Key resolutions are passed at this meet.
November: More than a dozen “left supporters” are shot dead by landlords in Ara Lok Sabha constituency of Bhojpur district in Bihar on the eve of polls.
• CPI (ML) (Liberation) records its first electoral victory under Indian People’s Front banner. Ara sends the first “Naxalite” member to Parliament.
1990
In February Assembly election, IPF wins seven seats and finishes second in another fourteen. In Assam too, a four-member ASDC legislators’ group enters the Assembly. Special all-India Conference is held in Delhi on July 22-24 to restructure the party.
August 9-11: All India Students Association (AISA) is launched at Allahabad. It opposes VP Singh’s implementation of Mandal Commission recommendations.
Oct 8: First all-India IPF rally is held in Delhi. CPI (ML) (Liberation) claims it to be the first-ever massive mobilisation of rural poor in the capital.
• CPI (ML) S R Bhaijee group and CPI (ML) Unity Initiative are formed in Bihar. The former is still active in east and west Champaran.
• Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chenna Reddy lifts all curbs on naxal groups. Naxalites operate freely for about a year but observers say it corrupted them and adversely affected the movement.
1991
In the May Lok Sabha elections, Indian People’s Front loses Ara seat but CPI (ML) retains its presence in Parliament through ASDC MP.
1992
• Andhra Pradesh bans People’s War Group
• CPI(ML) reorganises the erstwhile Janwadi Mazdoor Kisan Samiti in South Bihar as Jharkhand Mazdoor Kisan Samiti (Jhamkis).

May 21: Chief Minister N Janardhan Reddy bans PWG and its seven front organisations again in Andhra Pradesh.
Dec 20-26: CPI (ML) organises its fifth Congress at Calcutta from Dec 20 to 26. CPI (ML) comes out in the open and calls for a Left confederation.
1993
• AISA registers impressive victories in Allahabad, Varanasi and Nainital university elections in Uttar Pradesh besides in the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.
• CPI (ML) launches a new forum for Muslims called ‘Inquilabi Muslim Conference’ in Bihar.
1994
February: All India Progressive Women’s Association is launched at national women’s conference at New Delhi.
• Indian People’s Front is dissolved and fresh attempts are initiated to forge a united front of various sections of Leftists and Socialists with an anti-imperialist agenda.
• Interactions among various Communists and Left parties intensify in India and abroad to revive the movement drawing lessons from Soviet collapse.
1995
• A six-member CPI (ML) group is formed in Bihar Assembly. Two CPI (ML) nominees win from Siwan indicating the expansion of party’s influence in north Bihar.
May: N T Ramarao relaxes ban on Peoples War Group in Andhra Pradesh for three months. PWG goes in for massive recruitment drive in the state.
July: CPI (ML) organises All India Organisation Plenum at Diphu to streamline party’s organisational network.
• Revolutionary Youth Association (RYA) is launched as an all-India organisation of the radical youth.
1996
• Five members of ASDC make it to Assam assembly. An ASDC member is re-elected to Lok Sabha. Another ASDC member is elected to Rajya Sabha. ASDC retains its majority in Karbi Anglong District Council and also unseats the Congress in the neighbouring North Cachhar Hills district in Assam.
• CPI(ML) takes initiative to form a Tribal People’s Front and then Assam People’s Front
• CPI (ML) joins hands with CPI and Marxist Coordination Committee led by Comrade A Roy to strengthen Left movement.
• CPI (ML) initiates the Indian Institute of Marxist Studies. Armed clashes between ultra-leftists and upper caste private armies (like Ranvir Sena) escalate in Bihar.
• The Progressive Organisation of People, affiliated to revolutionary left movement, launches a temple entry movement for lower castes in Gudipadu near Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh. It emerges successful.
1997
CPI (ML) organises a massive ‘Halla Bol’ rally in Patna. A left supported Bihar bandh is organised as part of “Oust Laloo Campaign” in view of the Rs 950-crore fodder scam.
1999
http://southasiarev.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/pplwar.png?w=350 (http://southasiarev.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/pplwar.png)• CPI (ML) Party Unity merges with Peoples War.
• Naxalites launch major strikes. CPI (ML) PW kills six in Jehanabad on February 14. MCC kills 34 upper caste in Senai village of Jehanabad.
Dec 2: Three top PWG leaders killed in Andhra Pradesh leading to a large scale brutal naxalite attacks on state forces.
Dec 16: PWG hacks to death Madhya Pradesh Transport Minister Likhiram Kavre in his village in Blalaghat district to avenge the killing of three top PWG leaders in police encounter on Dec 2.
2000
• PWG continues with its revenge attacks. Blasts house of ruling Telugu Desam Party MP G Sukhender Reddy in Nalgonda district in Andhra Pradesh in January. In February it blows up a Madhya Pradesh police vehicle killing 23 cops, including an ASP. It destroys property worth Rs 5 crore besides killing 10 persons in AP in the same month.
Dec 2: PWG launches People’s Guerrilla Army (PGA) to counter security forces offensive.
2001
April: CPI (ML) celebrates 32nd anniversary of its foundation in Patna on April 22 and gives a call to rekindle ‘revolutionary spirit of naxalism’.
July: Naxalite groups all over South Asia form a Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organisations of South Asia (CCOMPOSA) which is said to be first such an international coalition. PWG and MCC are part of it.
• As per the Intelligence reports, MCC and PWG establish links with LTTE, Nepali Maoists and Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence to receive arms and training. Naxalites bid to carve out a corridor through some areas of Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh up to Nepal.
Nov: MCC organises a violent Jharkhand Bandh on Nov 26.
Dec: Naxalites, mainly in AP, Orissa and Bihar celebrate People’s Guerilla Week hailing the formation of PGA on Dec 2. The week unfolds major violence in the three states during which a plant of Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and the house of an Orissa minister is blown up.
Read this to understand the revolutionary present and past of India.

[mosfeld]

CPM leader shot at in Jhargram

JHARGRAM: In the first ever Maoist attack in Jhargram town, a Midnapore town local committee member of CPM and former councillor Gour Poichha was shot at by some masked Maoists who came on a motorbike on Friday morning. Poichha has been instrumental in setting up a people's resistance committee against Maoists that had been doing night patrols in the town.

The incident happened around 7am when Poichha was taking tea at a stall after a morning walk. The person riding pillion first fired at him from behind and missed. When Poichha started running, the Maoists on motorbike blocked his way from the front and pumped bullets to the right of his chest and another a little below his ear. He fell on the road, bleeding profusely.

His relatives and neighbours took him to Jhargram hospital from where he was shifted to SSKM Hospital.

Two months ago, Maoists attacked Poichha's house at Balaramdihi. He had managed to flee through the rear door.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata-/CPM-leader-shot-at-in-Jhargram-/articleshow/6575873.cms#ixzz0zprdJVBt

[pranabjyoti]

India: Bihar police in no mood to fight the Naxals (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/17/india-bihar-police-in-no-mood-to-fight-the%c2%a0naxals/)

Tehelka Magazine, Vol 7, Issue 37, September 18, 2010

Operation Green Hunt is in disarray. Bihar’s forces are in no mood to fight the Naxals

BY VK SHASHIKUMAR

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/bihar-cops-demoralized.jpg?w=320&h=239 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/bihar-cops-demoralized.jpg)Broken will -- Members of the Bihar Special Auxiliary Police look desolate while taking a break from Naxal ops

YOU DID nothing for me. The police and the government did nothing to rescue me. My family negotiated with the Naxals for my release. I am pleading with folded hands, please let me go home. I will not accompany you to the police station. I don’t want to be in the police.” –Sub-Inspector Abhay Yadav to Lakhisarai Superintendent of Police, Ranjit Kumar Mishra, after the Maoists released him on 6 September.
Eventually Lakhisarai’s new SP forced Abhay, Rupesh Sinha and Mohammad Ehsan Khan, the three surviving policemen from the abductors, to take a detour to the police station for a debrief session. These policemen survived an eight-day ordeal as captives of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) in Lakhisarai, Bihar. The PLGA is the armed wing of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), popularly known as Naxals.
It is unlikely that Abhay will give up his job. Employment in the government service, especially the police, is coveted because it brings in unaccounted wealth. “I want to leave my job. But my family will decide,” he says. “Dheeraj Rakhiye” (Please be patient). These words were used every time a police officer spoke to those in the lower ranks. But each expression brought despair and a sense of inadequacy to the policemen in Lakhisarai, Jamui, Munger and Banka.
In some areas of the dense hills connecting these districts, several teams of the Bihar Police and the CRPF staged short bursts of combing operations to trace the kidnapped policemen. Some, like Jawaharlal Singh, assistant sub-inspector, Jamui Police Station, berated curious villagers: “Your netas are responsible for Naxalism. They create the problem, they use Naxals for political one-upmanship and we have to face the brunt of it.”
Several policemen, overwhelmed by the killing of Lucas Tete, admitted that the writ of the government runs dry across a large swath of Lakhisarai. Tete was killed when the state government refused to release eight imprisoned Naxal commanders.
‘What am I doing here? I ask this question to myself. I feel like leaving the force. But what will I do if I leave?’ asks SI Prasad
“What am I doing here? I often ask this question to myself. I feel like leaving the force. But what will I do if I leave? How will I earn? My family wants me to quit police service. But when I am jobless and unable to provide for my family, will they treat me well?” asks SI Rajendra Prasad of Kajra Police Station. The post is barely 15 km from the spot where four policemen were kidnapped after a skirmish with the Naxals on 29 August. Seven policemen were killed and 10 injured.
With the state government failing to put a rescue plan in action, Abhay’s father, Indu Prasad Yadav, contacted his caste brethren linked to PLGA commander and self-styled spokesperson for Naxal operations in eastern Bihar, Avinash alias Arjun Yadav.
“The appeal made by all political parties, including Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Lalu Prasad and the pressure mounted by the Yadav community on caste leaders within the PLGA led to the release of Abhay, Rupesh and Ehsan. The government did nothing,” says Sambhu Yadav, Abhay’s uncle, who received the three captive policemen at 6 am in Simra Rari, a Naxalheld region of Lakhisarai.
POLICEMEN IN Bihar don’t want to fight the Naxals. They have AK-47 and INSAS rifles but aren’t trained for jungle warfare. They are not led by officers who lead from the front. They admit that the Naxal tactics are superior to theirs. “Why would a policeman want to die in the line of duty? I joined the police because it gives me power, influence and prestige. These villagers come to me because I am a bada babu. I joined for law and order duties, not engage Naxals in combat,” confesses Atul Kumar Mishra, the SHO of Chanan Police Station. He was waiting for the Banu Bagicha village chowkidar to return from the Morve Dam area, a stronghold of the Naxals, after they announced they would free the hostages.
Every rural police circle in Bihar has 23 village chowkidars who are paid Rs. 1,200 and used as informers and spotters. Mishra, camping at Banu Bagicha’s defunct Block Office, felt insecure in spite of 25 well-armed Special Auxiliary Police (SAP) accompanying him. “India can win the Kargil war but not this war, not this way,” he says.
http://www.tehelka.com/channels/News/2010/Sep/18/images/biharpolice.jpg No comfort The Kajra Police Station in its dilapidated glory
Policemen in Naxal-dominated areas have an informal standard operating procedure (SOP). First, stay out of areas that have Naxal presence. Second, after 6 pm, ensure that the station they are holed up in is well protected from a Naxal attack. The idea is not to fight back, but ensure that they don’t lose their lives. “I have trained 30 stray dogs. They don’t allow anyone inside the premises after dusk,” a policeman says. After 6 pm, any crime within a police station’s jurisdiction goes unattended till daybreak.
Meanwhile, Prasad can’t shake off his gloomy, introspective mood ever since 29 August. “We have no comforts. We don’t have a place to stay. Several police stations in Naxal-dominated areas are functioning from dilapidated, rented buildings. This police station used to be a Congress party office. We built our barrack by raising funds from local residents.
Our welfare must be taken care of for us to get mentally attuned to combat duty,” says Prasad.
Besides, they are trained for regular policing duties, not for combat operations. “I went through police training 25 years ago. Since then I haven’t had the chance to retrain and re-skill. I can aim and shoot, but don’t know what to do in a combat situation. I am not trained for jungle warfare. How can I survive an encounter with the Naxals in the jungles?” asks Prasad.
BIHAR POLICEMEN are seething with anger. “We will lose our jobs because service rules prohibit us from telling the truth,” says a policeman. There are a lot of uncertainties to be afraid of. “What if we are ordered into combat without planning? Death is certain.” The sight of their dead colleagues provoked the BMP personnel to thrash former Lakhisarai SP Ashok Singh for pushing them into a Naxal ambush. Senior officials, including IG (Operation) KS Dwivedi and ADG (Headquarters) PK Thakur denied that Singh was assaulted. Denials notwithstanding, he was transferred out of Lakhisarai three days after the incident.
“For 10 days prior to the 29 August encounter, we were alerted almost every day by intelligence reports of a Jehanabad- type attack in Lakhisarai. There are several Naxals imprisoned in the Lakhisarai jail. We were told that Naxals would attempt a jailbreak, attack the District Magistrate’s office and the CRPF camp at Kajra,” says Rajendra Prasad, a distressed sub-inspector of Kajra Police Station. This was corroborated by the commandant of CRPF’s 131 battalion, Bidhan Chandra Patra. “SP Ashok Singh told me that he received an intelligence input of 30 Naxals moving in the Lakhisarai forest. He said there was no specific input, just a generic alert and that he was putting together a team to conduct area domination exercise and get back. There was no intimation of the possibility of a gunbattle. So I passed instruction to assemble a team of 34 CRPF soldiers.”
Singh put together a force of 43 policemen, 20 from the SAP and 23 from the Bihar Military Police to launch combat operations. “Our intelligence input said that there were at least 500 Naxals in the hills. But the SP, in an unusually strange decision, put together a small combat force,” reveals Prasad. SI Bhulan Yadav, who was killed in the encounter, was inexperienced in counter-insurgency operations. Yet, he was deputed as the leader of the combat unit. Mishra, a close friend of Bhulan, was the last person to receive his call. “Bhulan called asking me to inform the SP to send reinforcements. Then his phone disconnected abruptly. I repeatedly called back but could not get through.”
Mishra and Prasad revealed that Singh did not follow the SOP laid down after the Dantewada massacre. “A detailed strategy is formulated, GPS coordinates are set before the force begins its movement. But Ashok Singh did not make a plan,” Mishra says. “He knew that we were operating in undulating, hilly forest terrain. He knew the topography. He should have been aware, going by the recent ambushes in Chhattisgarh that the Naxals will occupy higher ground and lure the policemen into a trap.” CRPF commandant Patra concurs. “The SOP was not followed. Once force is assembled the commanders discuss the terrain, topography and intelligence. This is explained to the troops using sand models and Survey of India maps,” he says.





Bhulan’s inexperience in combat operations resulted in splitting in the team splitting in two different directions. He asked the CRPF contingent to move towards the right and patrol the Ghaghar Ghati area and Morve Dam, while he moved in with his men towards Kanimai and Sitala Kodasi villages.
As the police party moved into the villages, they came under heavy fire from both sides. Bihar Police officers claim that when their men were ambushed, the CRPF troops withdrew instead of retaliating and providing cover fire to rescue the trapped men. “Our men regained higher ground to provide cover fire, which enabled 36 men to escape,” asserts Patra. That the Bihar Police surrendered is barely mentioned. “After we came under heavy fire, the Naxals kept announcing we should surrender or everyone would get killed. We surrendered because the CRPF withdrew,” says Abhay.
Bihar Police claim that when their men were ambushed, the CRPF troops withdrew instead of retaliating and providing cover
“They treated the injured personnel, bandaged those who were wounded, gave water to those who asked for it and asked them to leave. They collected all the weapons and asked four of us to accompany them into the jungle.” Later, the Naxals informed local journalists that they had seized 35 INSAS and AK-47 rifles.
The Bihar Police is facing a severe crisis of confidence. According to protocol, a deputy commandant of CRPF is equivalent to the rank of an SP. Yet, it is rare for a SP to go out for combat. “Officers don’t lead, they just pass orders. If senior officers can’t lead us on combat duty why should we put our lives in danger?” asks Yadav.
Naresh Kumar, who teaches at the Janta Mahavidyalaya, Surajgarha, emphasises his primary identity is that of a farmer. Surrounded by friends and villagers of Alinagar, Naresh, loses himself in a tirade against Bihar’s politicians. His list of complaints is long.
“Ration cards are not issued to people living below the poverty line in Alinagar; the widow pension scheme is on paper and not being implemented by the babus; those who can pay 60 percent commission to the gram sabha are availing subsidised housing loans through the Indira Awas Yojana; there are no free medicines either in public hospitals or primary health centres as promised by the government,” he says.
“If the bank manager is paid a bribe of Rs.5,000, he will process the land owner-ship certificate and promptly issue the Kisan Credit Card worth Rs 50,000; the Asha scheme for pregnant women with the objective of decreasing the Infant Mortality Rate and Maternal Mortality Rate is not being implemented as well,” he says.
‘Senior officers just pass orders. If seniors can’t lead us during combat, why should we put our lives in danger?’ asks Abhay
THE ALINAGAR locality in Lakhisarai is a microcosm of people’s sentiment in rural Bihar. They are sympathetic to the Naxalites. They don’t trust the State. The angry voices from the ground explain why the Maoist insurgency is expanding in Bihar. Nobody in Alinagar has benefited from the employment guarantee scheme, though it is officially under implementation. “All politicians work for those with money. The bureaucracy is always looking out to loot us. There is no equality. So why is everyone surprised by the growth of Naxals?” says Naresh.
Perhaps, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has sensed the mood of the people. “The pace of development has to be accelerated and corruption removed in execution of development schemes to uproot Naxalism,” he said at the Patna Medical College Hospital after meeting policemen injured in the 29 August encounter.
Perhaps, he should visit Banu Bagicha village, which is barely 5 km from the spot where captive policemen were released by the Naxals. The villagers have been waiting for eight years for the fully constructed Block Office to begin functioning. The district administration built an office complex but locked it up for “security” reasons.
In fact, four days before the 29 August skirmish, Lakhisarai DM Manish Kumar visited Banu Bagicha and told the villagers: “Hand over five Naxals and I will ensure the Block Office is made functional.” Banu Bagicha villagers walk 15 km to Mananpur Block Office for official documentation like land registration and securing caste certificates for jobs and educational purposes.
Phakira Yadav, a leading opinion maker of the village, quipped: “If the DM demands five Naxals to be handed over, isn’t it better if we join the Naxals? How can we hand over Naxals to the police? We are caught between the two gunwielding groups.”
PHOTOS: SHAILENDRA PANDEY
Feel a little (not more) for them.:D

[pranabjyoti]

Government Says It Will Break the “Maoist Grip on $80 Billion Investments in India by 2013″ (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/17/india-government-says-it-will-break-the-%e2%80%9cmaoist-grip-on-80-billion-investments-in-india-by%c2%a02013%e2%80%b3/)

[This report from Bloomberg, a financial and business news service, traces the prospects for capital investment in India against the Indian government promise of eliminating the people's resistance, especially that of the Maoists and those labelled as Maoists.--ed.]
Bloomberg
Pillai to Unlock Maoist Grip on $80 Billion Investments in India by 2013

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/pillai_jp_176678e.jpg?w=286&h=292 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/pillai_jp_176678e.jpg)Union Home Secretary Gopal Krishna Pillai


By Bibhudatta Pradhan and Santosh Kumar – Sep 17, 2010
Maoist insurgents blocking $80 billion of investments will be subdued within three years as India pours security forces into contested regions, builds roads and opens schools, Home Secretary Gopal Krishna Pillai said.
“The tactic of keeping a hold on areas is working,” Pillai said in an interview at his office in New Delhi’s British-era government buildings yesterday. Security forces have clawed back 10,000 square kilometers (3,860 square miles) of territory where rebels operated almost one year into a major offensive, he said.
Pillai, 60, and Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram last October started the campaign against leftist rebels who have attacked security forces, railways and mining infrastructure in a third of India’s 626 administrative districts. India needs to clear the so-called “Red Corridor” to access deposits of iron ore, coal, bauxite, and manganese that London-based Execution Noble Ltd. says may secure investments of $80 billion.
To maintain control, India needs to recruit as many as 30,000 security personnel each year, Pillai, the top bureaucrat in the home ministry, and security analysts say. Ambushes by rebels in the jungles of central and eastern India have claimed 211 police lives up to mid-July this year.
“We are nowhere near the required policing, training, and technology to check the Maoists’ growth,” said Ajai Sahni, executive director of the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management. “There’s no reason to believe that the situation will suddenly improve in the next three years.”
Uprising’s Epicenter
The epicenter of the attacks lies in the forests of the eastern state of Chhattisgarh, which has accounted for almost half of the 573 police and civilians killed in Maoist violence in the first half of this year.
NMDC Ltd., Asia’s third-largest iron-ore producer, operates its biggest mine in the region, and Essar Steel Ltd., India’s fourth ranked producer of the alloy, plans to build a $1.5 billion steel plant there. The Maoists last year blew up Essar’s pipeline built to transport iron ore from NMDC’s mine.
As the rebels have pursued their revolution, Indian governments “ignored the problem for a decade, thinking it will go away,” Pillai said yesterday, conceding Maoist guerrillas targeted by police may have regrouped elsewhere.
Pillai said he doesn’t expect the rebels to agree to put down the guns in the next two years. “If you are comfortable, you are expanding and you are making money, why should you come for talks?” he said.
‘Peal of Thunder’
The leftwing insurgents are known as Naxalites after the West Bengal village of Naxalbari where demands for land reform coalesced into a radical uprising in 1967 inspired by Mao Zedong. The Indian revolt was greeted as “a peal of spring thunder” by China’s People’s Daily.
The Maoists say they are fighting for the rights of poor villagers and tribal communities whose resources are, the rebels argue, being exploited to propel India’s $1.3 trillion economy with few benefits for local people.
Pointing to what he says are newly opened police stations on a map of Bijapur district in Chhattisgarh, Pillai highlights the expanding area colored yellow, in contrast to a shrinking red region still patrolled by the insurgents.
In these areas, roads have been built, schools have started functioning and markets have been opened for the first time in years, he said.
In April, 76 policemen were killed in Dantewada district, the neighboring region to that displayed on Pillai’s computer, in the biggest strike on security forces in four decades of conflict.
Districts Gained
“The government strategy of clear-hold-develop is gaining the upper hand in some patches, mainly in Chhattisgarh,” N. Manoharan, an analyst at the Center for Land Warfare Studies in New Delhi, said today. “But the overall spread of the Maoists is increasing” with 10 to 15 more districts coming under their influence in the last year, he said.
The government needs to improve intelligence gathering, protection for informers and build its forces, Manoharan said.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called the Maoists the greatest internal security threat to the world’s biggest democracy and its third fastest growing major economy.
India’s Insurgencies
None of the insurgencies at India’s margins — from a 21- year rebellion in Kashmir to even older separatist movements in the northeast — reach into the heart of the subcontinent.
Pillai, who as secretary in the Ministry of Commerce and Industries from Sept 2006 to June 2009 played a leading role in expounding India’s opposition to developed world farm subsidies at global trade talks, said four Maoist attacks that resulted in large numbers of police fatalities obscured the fact that overall deaths were just below those of a year ago.
In Dantewada, Pillai says, there are 1,500 police personnel, a fraction of the 45,000 based in the similarly sized northeastern state of Tripura, where a separatist insurgency is now largely dormant.
To contact the reporter on this story: Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi at [email protected]omberg.net
That's what they want.

[mosfeld]

Maoists kill Orissa village guard

2010-09-18 13:30:00
Bhubaneswar, Sep 18 (IANS) Maoists killed a village guard in Orissa's Malkangiri district early Saturday, accusing him of being a police informer, an official said.

More then 30 armed rebels dragged the guard, Lalit Hantal, from his home in Rajabandha village and killed him in a nearby area, a police officer said citing preliminary information from the region.

'Police personnel are on their way and details of the incident would be known once they reach,' he said.

Malkangiri district, some 640 km from state capital Bhubaneswar, is considered a Maoist stronghold.

http://sify.com/news/maoists-kill-orissa-village-guard-news-national-kjsn4cgcgeg.html

[mosfeld]

Folk singer arrested for being Maoist linkman

2010-09-18 20:30:00
Kolkata, Sep 18 (IANS) A folk singer, suspected of being a Maoist linkman, was arrested Saturday in West Bengal's West Midnapore district, police said.

'Ajit Mahato of Golbandi village near Manikpara in Jhargram sub-division of the district was arrested for acting as Maoist informer. He was detained by the joint forces during a search operation in Manikpara area Saturday morning and arrested after interrogation,' Jhargram Superintendent of Police Praveen Tripathi told IANS.

'Mahato, a folk singer by profession, used to pass on the information regarding the movement of the joint forces to the ultra Left leaders. He used to give shelter to them,' a senior police officer said.

Meanwhile, the joint forces conducted a search operation in Manikapara and its adjacent areas following incidence of Maoists menaces in Jhargarm in past few days.

Ultra Left rebels are active in three western districts of the state - West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia.

http://sify.com/news/folk-singer-arrested-for-being-maoist-linkman-news-national-kjsu4fcbcch.html

[mosfeld]

One Maoist killed, two held in Jharkhand

2010-09-17 18:20:00
Ranchi, Sep 17 (IANS) One Maoist rebel was killed and two others were arrested in Jharkhand Friday, police said.

A Maoist rebel was killed in firing between two groups of Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) in Duarseni village of Gumla district, around 140 km from here.

Meanwhile, two Maoist rebels of the Tritiya Prastuti Committee were arrested from Nauka village in Garwah district, around 130 km from Ranchi. Police seized four rifles and live cartridges from them.

http://sify.com/news/one-maoist-killed-two-held-in-jharkhand-news-national-kjrsucecaic.html

[pranabjyoti]

Indonesia: Solidarity Message to the Indian People’s Struggle! (http://www.icawpi.org/en/peoples-resistance/38-solidarity/529-indonesia-solidarity-message-to-india-people-struggle)
Thursday, 09 September 2010 22:07 www.icawpi.org (http://www.icawpi.org)
Stop Green Hunt Military Operation by the Government of India! Long live international solidarity!

Currently, military and police forces of the Indian state, supported by para-military organizations, have conducted a brutal offensive to crush the resistance of the poor native peasants (adivasis) who defend their land and wish to survive in their homeland under humane conditions.
We would like to assert our strong protest against Operation Green Hunt that is being conducted by the Government of India to escalate military intervention against the indigenous people in the forested regions of East-Central India. The Green Hunt military operation already endangers the lives and livelihoods of millions of the poorest people living in those areas, resulting in massive displacement, destitution and human rights violations of ordinary citizens, especially the indigenous people.
People all over the world are aware of the fact that the territory where the Green Hunt military offensive is taking place is very rich in natural resources like minerals, forest wealth and water, and has been the target of large scale appropriation by several Indian and foreign corporations. The resistance of the local indigenous people against their displacement and dispossession has in many cases prevented the government-backed corporations from making inroads into these areas and has thankfully impeded the setting-up of ecologically disastrous industries. We fear that the government's on-going military offensive is an attempt to crush such popular resistance in order to facilitate the entry and operation of these corporations and to pave the way for unbridled exploitation of the natural resources and the people of these regions.
The International League of People's Struggle (ILPS) Indonesia, an alliance of democratic, anti-imperialist mass organizations, supports the heroic and just struggle of the Indian people and condemns the reactionary and anti-people ruling classes in India that hand in hand with the imperialist powers are hell bent on using brute force to crush the people's resistance. We stand with the people's struggle in India. ILPS Indonesia demands:
1) Stop the Operation Green Hunt and withdraw all armed forces from East-Central India.
2) The Government of India should engage with the civil society mediated initiatives for peace negotiations with representatives of civil society organization in order to address the grievances of the common people.
3) Cancellation all Memoranda of Understanding (MoU-s) signed with different corporations, for the extraction of natural resources from the vast areas of East-Central India.
4) Repeal all of repressive laws like Unlawful Activity (Prevention) Act, Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, and Armed Forces Special Powers Act!
5) Release all political prisoners!
6) Disband all state-assisted vigilante groups like the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh and Harmad Bahini in West Bengal.
7) Uphold the law and democratic right of the people for humane treatment and better people's lives and livelihood!
Long live international solidarity!
Support the resistance of people in India!
Down with the imperialists and their puppets!
August, 2010
ILPS Indonesia
[email protected] from Indonesia.

[pranabjyoti]

The Case of Uttar Pradesh: Who Will Feed India in the Days to Come? (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/19/the-case-of-uttar-pradesh-who-will-feed-india-in-the-days-to-come/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/mudcakes1.jpg?w=203&h=304 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/mudcakes1.jpg) Survival instincts: Soni, 5, holding a lump of mud. Older children wait for the excavated moist mud to eat and the younger ones imitate them. Kamal Kishor/HT

[In April, the Wall Street Journal published an article, "With not enough food, children learn to eat mud" which revealed that "frail, malnourished children eating moist lumps of mud laced with silica—a raw material for glass sheets and soap—because they are not officially classified as poor and so ineligible for official help....in a village of eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP), under an unusually hot April sun, skinny, hungry children silently poked around on the dusty edges of a stone quarry in Ganne village...'It tastes like powdered gram, so we eat it,' said Soni, 5, a listless girl with a protruding belly.....With most families reduced to one or two daily meals of boiled rice and salt—with a watery vegetable on a lucky day—the mud is a free but deadly option at the 20 stone quarries sustaining the poorest villagers....Eating the mud worsens malnutrition and disease, but these families are not eligible for subsidized food and other state programmes." (see http://www.livemint.com/2010/04/04233240/With-not-enough-food-children.html). The system's structural crimes against the poor are further described below.--ed.]

By Devinder Sharma
18 September, 2010, Ground Reality (http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.com/2010/09/who-will-feed-uttar-pradesh-in-other.html)
Uttar Pradesh is the most populous State in the country, and is also the biggest producer of foodgrains. Land acquisitions will take away a third of the cultivable lands for non-farm use. Such huge diversion of farm lands will result in drastic cut in food production, and has threatening socio-political implications.
India is witnessing a thousand mutinies. Pitched battles are being fought across the country by poor farmers, who fear further marginalisation when their land is literally grabbed by the government and the industry. From Mangalore in Karnataka to Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh, from Singur in West Bengal to Mansa in Punjab, the rural countryside is literally on a boil. Large chunks of prime agricultural land are being diverted for non-agricultural purposes.
While the continuing struggle against land acquisition for instance by farmers in Aligarh, which took a violent turn, and became a political ploy is being projected as a battle by farmers for big money, the reality is that a majority of the farmers do not want to dispense with their ancestral land. They are being forced to do so. This has serious implications for food security.
Let us take the case of Uttar Pradesh. It is the most populous State in the country, and is also the biggest producer of foodgrains. Western parts of Uttar Pradesh, comprising the fertile Indo-Gangetic plains, have been considered part of the green revolution belt. According to the 2008 Statistical Abstracts of Uttar Pradesh, in addition to 41 million tonnes of foodgrains, the State produces 130 million tonnes of sugarcane and 10.5 million tonnes of potato.
Uttar Pradesh produces more foodgrains than Punjab but because of its huge population, it is hardly left with any surplus. What is however satisfying is that Uttar Pradesh has all these years been at least feeding its own population.
This is expected to change. And that is what I am worried about. The proposed eight Expressways and the townships planned along the route, along with land being gobbled by other industrial, real estate and investment projects are likely to eat away more than 23,000 villages, one fourth of the total number of villages. Although Mayawati government has dropped the townships along the Yamuna expressway, but the company that is investing in real estate claims that as per their pact with the State government, they have to be given land at an alternative location.
Former Agriculture Minister Ajit Singh has in a statement said that one-third of total cultivable land of Uttar Pradesh will be eventually acquired. The State government neither denies nor confirms this, but acknowledges that land diversion is ‘large’.
This means that out of the total area of 19.8 million hectares under foodgrain crops in Uttar Pradesh, one-third or roughly 6.6 million hectares will be shifted from agriculture to non-agriculture activity. Much of the fertile and productive lands of Western Uttar Pradesh will therefore disappear, to be replaced by concrete jungles. In addition to wheat and rice, sugarcane and potato would be the other two major crops whose production will be negatively impacted.
As per rough estimates, 6.6 million hectares that would be taken out of farming would mean a production loss of 14 million tonnes of foodgrains. In other words, Uttar Pradesh will be faced with a terrible food crisis in the years to come, the seeds for which are being sown now. Add to this the anticipated shortfall in potato and sugarcane production, since the area under these two crops will also go down drastically, the road ahead for Uttar Pradesh is not only dark but laced with social unrest.
Already a part of the BIMARU States, Uttar Pradesh will surely see surge in hunger, malnutrition and under-nourishment. I shudder to imagine the socio-economic and political fallout of the misadventure that the government is attempting with such a massive land takeover. If the State government’s can provide an incentive of Rs 20,000 per acre to those farmers whose lands are being taken away, I fail to understand why the same incentive cannot be provided to every farm family to protect agricultural land?
What is not being realised is that Uttar Pradesh alone will send all the estimates of the proposed National Food Security Act go topsy-turvy. At present, as per the buffer norms, the government keeps around 20 to 24 million tonnes as buffer stocks for distribution across the country through the Public Distribution System (PDS). In the last few years however the average foodgrain stocks with the government have been in the range of 45 to 50 million tonnes.
Even with such huge grain reserves, Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has expressed his inability to provide 35 kg of grain per month to every eligible family. Imagine, what will happen when Uttar Pradesh alone will put an additional demand of 14 million tonnes. Who will then feed Uttar Pradesh?
Policy makers say that with rapid industrialisation the average incomes will go up as a result of which people will have the money to buy food from the open market and also make for nutritious choices. But the bigger question is where will the addition quantity of food come from? Already, Punjab and Haryana, comprising the food bowl, are on fast track mode to acquire farm lands. Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhatisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab are building up ‘land banks’ for the industry and Rajasthan has allowed the industry to buy land directly from farmers setting aside the ceiling limit.
Internationally, the food situation is worsening ever since the 2008 food crisis when 37 countries were faced with food riots. Even now, food prices globally are on an upswing. As Russia extends the wheat export ban till the next year’s wheat harvest sending global prices on a hike, deadly food riots were witnessed last week in Mozambique killing at last seven people. According to news reports, anger is building up in Pakistan, Egypt and Serbia over rising prices.
Knowing that the world can witness a repeat of 2008 food crisis that resulted in food riots in 37 countries, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has called for a special meeting to discuss the implications.
Extended drought and resulting wildfires has caused a 20 per cent drop in wheat harvest in Russia sending the global wheat prices on a spiral. Wheat futures obviously would take advantage, and according to Financial Times wheat prices have gone up by 70 per cent since January. India may therefore find it difficult to purchase food from the global market if it thinks it can bank upon the international markets to bail it out. This is primarily the reason why several countries, mainly China and the countries of the oil rich Middle East are buying lands in Africa, Lain America and Asia to grow food to be shipped back home for domestic consumers.
Gone are the days when a worried Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, while addressing the nation on Aug 15, 1955 from the ramparts of the Red Fort in New Delhi said: “It is very humiliating for any country to import food. So everything else can wait, but not agriculture.” That was in 1955. Fifty-five years later, in 2010, UPA-II thinks that food security needs of the nation can be addressed by importing food. Land must be acquired for the industry, because the industrial sector alone will be the vehicle for higher growth. There can be nothing more dangerous than this flawed approach. Is India slipping back into the days of ‘ship-to-mouth’ existence?
It's the "shining" India that can send a probe to the Moon but UNABLE TO FEED ITS PEOPLE A SQUARE MEAL EVERYDAY.

[mosfeld]

Fire in the Hole - Article about Indian Maoists in Foreign Policy Magazine
How India's economic rise turned an obscure communist revolt into a raging resource war.

BY JASON MIKLIAN (Jason Miklian is a researcher at Peace Research Institute Oslo - [email protected] ) & SCOTT CARNEY (Scott Carney is an investigative journalist and contributing editor for Wired.- http://www.scottcarney.com/ )


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_spYZcV2TRZs/TIM2wKHF4OI/AAAAAAAAADU/gDDvcEjgNxY/s400/miner.jpg

The richest iron mine in India was guarded by 16 men, armed with Army-issued, self-loading rifles and dressed in camouflage fatigues. Only eight survived the night of Feb. 9, 2006, when a crack team of Maoist insurgents cut the power to the Bailadila mining complex and slipped out of the jungle cover in the moonlight. The guerrillas opened fire on the guards with automatic weapons, overrunning them before they had time to take up defensive positions. They didn't have a chance: The remote outpost was an hour's drive from the nearest major city, and the firefight to defend it only lasted a few minutes.

The guards were protecting not only $80 billion-plus worth of mineral deposits, but also the mine's explosives magazine, which held the ammonium nitrate the miners used to pulverize mountainsides and loosen the iron ore. When the fighting was over and the surviving guards rounded up and gagged, about 2,000 villagers who had been hiding behind the commando vanguard clambered over the fence into the compound and began emptying the magazine. Altogether they carried out 20 tons of explosives on their backs -- enough firepower to fuel a covert insurgency for a decade.

Four and a half years after the attack in the remote Indian state of Chhattisgarh, the blasting materials have spread across the country, repackaged as 10-pound coffee-can bombs stuffed with ball bearings, screws, and chopped-up rebar. In May, one villager's haul vaporized a bus filled with civilians and police. Another destroyed a section of railway later that month, sending a passenger train careening off the tracks into a ravine. Smaller ambushes of police forces on booby-trapped roads happen pretty much every week. Almost all of it, local police told us, can be traced back to that February night.

The Bailadila mine raid was one of India's most profound strategic losses in the country's protracted battle against its Maoist movement, a militant guerrilla force that has been fighting in one incarnation or another in India's rural backwaters for more than 40 years. Over the course of the half-dozen visits we've made to the region during the past several years, we've come to consider the attack on the mine not just one defeat in the long-running war, but a symbolic shift in the conflict: For years, the Maoists had lived in the shadow of India's breakneck modernization. Now they were thriving off it.

Only a decade ago, the rebels -- often, though somewhat inaccurately, called Naxalites after their guerrilla predecessors who first launched the rebellion in the West Bengal village of Naxalbari in 1967 -- seemed to have all but vanished. Their cause of communist revolution looked hopelessly outdated, their ranks depleted. In the years since, however, the Maoists have made an improbable comeback, rooted in the gritty mining country on which India's economic boom relies. A new generation of fighters has retooled the Naxalites' mishmash of Marx, Lenin, and Mao for the 21st century, rebranding their group as the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and railing against what the rebels' spokesman described to us as the "evil consequences by the policies of liberalization, privatization, and globalization."

Although it has gotten little attention outside South Asia, for India this is no longer an isolated outbreak of rural unrest, but a full-fledged guerrilla war. Over the past 10 years, some 10,000 people have died and 150,000 more have been driven permanently from their homes by the fighting. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told a high-level meeting of state ministers not long after the Bailadila raid that the Maoists are "the single greatest threat to the country's internal security," and in 2009 he launched a military surge dubbed "Operation Green Hunt": a deployment of almost 100,000 new paramilitary troops and police to contain the estimated 7,000 rebels and their 20,000-plus -- according to our research -- part-time supporters. Newspapers run stories almost daily about "successful operations" in which police string up the bodies of suspected militants on bamboo poles and lay out their captured caches of arms and ammunition. Many of the dead are civilians, and the harsh tactics have polarized the country.

It wasn't supposed to be this way -- not in 21st-century India, a country 20 years into an experiment in rapid, technology-driven development, one of globalization's most celebrated success stories. In 1991, with India on the brink of bankruptcy, Singh -- then the country's finance minister -- pursued an ambitious slate of economic reforms, opening up the country to foreign investment, ending public monopolies, and encouraging India's bloated state-run firms to behave like real commercial ventures. Today, India's GDP is more than five times what it was in 1991. Its major cities are now home to an affluent professional class that commutes in new cars on freshly paved four-lane highways to jobs that didn't exist not so long ago.

But plenty of Indians have missed out. Economic liberalization has not even nudged the lives of the country's bottom 200 million people. India is now one of the most economically stratified societies on the planet; its judicial system remains byzantine, its political institutions corrupt, its public education and health-care infrastructure anemic. The percentage of people going hungry in India hasn't budged in 20 years, according to this year's U.N. Millennium Development Goals report. New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore now boast gleaming glass-and-steel IT centers and huge engineering projects. But India's vast hinterland remains dirt poor -- nowhere more so than the mining region of India's eastern interior, the part of the country that produces the iron for the buildings and cars, the coal that keeps the lights on in faraway metropolises, and the exotic minerals that go into everything from wind turbines to electric cars to iPads.

If you were to lay a map of today's Maoist insurgency over a map of the mining activity powering India's boom, the two would line up almost perfectly. Ground zero for the rebellion lies in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, a pair of neighboring, mostly rural states some 750 miles southeast of New Delhi that are home to 46 million people spread out over an area a little smaller than Kansas. Urban elites in India envision them as something akin to Appalachia, with a landscape of rolling forested hills, coal mines, and crushing poverty; their undereducated residents are the frequent butt of jokes told in more fortunate corners of the country.

Revenues from mineral extraction in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand topped $20 billion in 2008, and more than $1 trillion in proven reserves still sit in the ground. But this geological inheritance has been managed so disastrously that many locals -- uprooted, unemployed, and living in a toxic and dangerous environment, due to the mining operations -- have thrown in their lot with the Maoists. "It is better to die here fighting on our own land than merely survive on someone else's," Phul Kumari Devi told us when we visited her dusty mining village of Agarbi Basti in June. "If the Maoists come here, then we would ask their help to resist."

The mines are also cash registers for the Maoist war chest. Through extortion, covert attacks, and plain old theft, insurgents have tapped a steady stream of mining money to pay their foot soldiers and buy arms and ammunition, sometimes from treasonous cops themselves. The result is the kind of perpetual-motion machine of armed conflict that is grimly familiar in places like the oil-soaked Niger Delta, but seems extraordinary in the world's largest democracy.

This isn't just an Indian story -- it's a global one. In the wake of Singh's economic reforms, foreign investment in the country has grown to 150 times what it was in 1991. Among other things, India has opened up its vast mineral reserves to private and international players, and now major global companies like Toyota and Coca-Cola rely on mining operations in the heart of the Maoist war zone. Investors in the region claim that the fighting is taking a toll on their businesses, and Bloomberg News recently estimated that some $80 billion worth of projects are stalled at least in part by the guerrilla war, enough to double India's steel output.

But in our visits to the region and dozens of interviews there -- with miners and politicians, refugees and paramilitary leaders, cops and go-betweens for the guerrillas -- we found a far more complex reality. Mining companies have managed to double their production in the two states in the past decade, even as the conflict has escalated; the most unscrupulous among them have used the fog of war as a pretext for land grabs, leveling villages whose residents have fled the fighting. At the same time, the Maoists, for all their communist rhetoric, have become as much a business as anything else, one that will remain profitable as long as the country's mines continue to churn out the riches on which the Indian economy depends.

The first sign you see as you leave the airport in Jharkhand's capital city of Ranchi welcomes you to the "Land of Coal," and indeed, mining underlies every aspect of life here. Seams of coal are visible in the earth alongside the rutted roads that connect the jungle hamlets. Travelers learn to anticipate mines not by any road signs, but by the processions of men pushing bicycles heaped with burlap sacks full of coal: day laborers who pay for the opportunity to scrape the stuff out of thousands of off-the-books mines and sell it door to door as heating fuel, for perhaps a few more dollars a day than they would make as farmers trying to eke out a living from Jharkhand's depleted soil.

India's coal country was mostly passed over by British colonists until they discovered its mineral wealth in the late 19th century and built the obligatory handful of dusty frontier towns and roads necessary to take advantage of it. Today the region bears the obvious scars of a hundred-odd years of heavy industry. The damage is most visible at road marker 221 of Jharkhand's main north-south highway, about 40 miles outside Ranchi, where a freshly paved patch of asphalt veers sharply west and snakes up a smoky hill through the village of Loha Gate and into an ecological disaster zone. Shimmering waves of heat, thick with carbon monoxide and selenium, waft through jagged cracks in the pavement large enough to swallow a soccer ball. A hundred feet below, a massive subterranean coal fire, started in an abandoned mine, burns so hot that it melts the soles of one's shoes. The only vestiges of plant life are the scattered hulks of desiccated trees. Like the legendary coal fire that destroyed Centralia, Pennsylvania, this blaze could easily smolder for another 200 years before the coal seam is finally burned through.

There are at least 80 coal fires like this burning in Jharkhand, turning much of the state's ground into a giant combustible honeycomb. A fire ignited in 1916 by neglectful miners near the city of Jharia has grown so large that it now threatens to burn away the land beneath the entire community, plunging the 400,000 residents into an underground inferno. One mine just outside Jharia collapsed in 2006, killing 54 people.

Coal mining and armed rebellion have long gone hand in hand in what is now Jharkhand, both dating back to the mid-1890s, when the British began extracting coal from the area and Birsa Munda, today a local folk hero, launched a tribal revolt to regain local control of resources. The British quelled the uprising with a massive deployment of troops, but the resentment festered. India's government after independence proved a poor landlord as well, with decades of mining disasters -- more than 700 people were killed in them between 1965 and 1975 alone -- and a corrupt, nearly feudal government that made what was then the state of Bihar notorious in India as the country's most poorly run, backward region.

By the 1990s, fed-up residents campaigned to carve Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh into their own jurisdictions. The politicians behind the movement argued that the people who lived in the shadow of the mines were the least likely to benefit from them, the spoils instead accruing to large out-of-state corporations and venal government officials in distant capitals. In 2000, India's Parliament acquiesced, forming new states that then-Home Minister L.K. Advani declared would "fulfill the aspirations of the people."

But statehood only enabled the rise of a new cast of villains. Absentee political landlords were replaced with home-grown thugs who exploited the new state government's lax oversight to build their own fiefdoms. Madhu Koda, one of Jharkhand's former chief ministers, is awaiting trial on allegations he siphoned $1 billion from state coffers -- an astonishing 20 percent of the state's revenues -- during his two-year tenure. Mining operations, fast-tracked without regard for environmental or safety concerns, expanded at an alarming rate and are now projected to displace at least half a million people in Jharkhand by 2015.

The blighted landscape has proved to be fertile ground for the Maoist insurgency's renaissance. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Maoists' predecessors in the Naxalite movement had waged a bloody revolutionary campaign across rural India, only to mostly fade away by the early 1990s. The Maoists who have picked up the Naxalites' banner in recent years are different, and the contours of their rebellion are hard to pin down.

These fighters claim to be led in battle by an elusive figure called Kishenji, who depending on whom you ask is either a one-legged, battle-hardened Brahmin, a 1960s-era radical with a Ph.D. from New Delhi, or simply a moniker used by anyone within the organization who wishes to sound authoritative or confuse the police. The guerrillas shun email and mobile phones and rarely communicate with the world beyond the jungle, mostly via letters ferried back and forth by foot soldiers. Over several years of attempted correspondence, we received only a few missives in return. All were written in an opaque style full of the sort of arcane Marxist jargon that the rest of the world forgot in the 1970s.

Today's Maoists maintain the radical leftist politics of their predecessors and draw their civilian support from the same rural grievances -- poverty, lack of justice, political disenfranchisement. But they are less an organized ideological movement than a loose confederation of militias, and many of their local commanders appear to be in it for the money alone. They wage war sporadically across a 1,000-mile swath of India, operating without a permanent base, relying on the tacit support of villagers to evade the police and paramilitary forces that hunt them, and periodically raiding remote police stations for resupplies of arms and ammunition.

But the rebels' primary revenue comes from the region's mines. Where the Naxalites used to congregate in areas with longstanding conflicts between landowners and laborers, Maoist strongholds now tend to pop up within striking distance of large-scale extractive operations. Such mines cover vast areas and are difficult to secure, making them sitting ducks for well-armed insurgents. "Most of the mines in this state are in the forests, so we are easy targets," says Deepak Kumar, the owner of several such mines in Jharkhand. "The only way to stop the attacks is to negotiate."

Kumar comes from a long line of Jharkhandi robber barons. In the 1980s, he used his mining camps as staging grounds for stalking the region's near-extinct Bengal tigers. Today he owns a series of profitable but (by his own admission) illegal coal mines, hidden in the palm forests. Legal mines extract ore with giant machines that carve craters to the horizon; Kumar's are more like secret caves, the coal dug out of deep tunnels with pickaxes by day laborers working for $2 to $3 a day. He told us his revenues run about $4 million a year, typical for off-the-books operations in a state where less than half of raw materials are extracted legitimately.

On July 4, 2004, Kumar was closing out the day's accounts in his makeshift office at one of his mines when seven female guerrillas carrying automatic rifles broke down his door, forcing him into the forest at gunpoint. They marched him to a riverbed, where they stopped and held a gun to his head. "I thought I was going to die," he recalls. Instead they demanded $2.5 million for his ransom.

Through the night, the Maoists marched him barefoot over crisscrossing trails, until they happened across a police patrol that was searching for him. Kumar escaped in the ensuing gun battle. But after he returned to work several weeks later, Maoist negotiators knocked on his door and let him know he was still a target. So, Kumar told us, he quickly hashed out a business arrangement with the rebels: In exchange for their leaving his operation alone, he would pay them 5 percent of his revenues.

The protection money, like the small bribes Kumar says he pays to the police to avoid troublesome safety and environmental regulations, has simply become another operating cost. Kumar says that every mine owner he knows pays up, too. By his back-of-the-envelope approximation, if the other estimated 2,500 illegal mines in the state are doling out comparable kickbacks to the rebels, the Maoists' annual take would come to $500 million -- enough to keep a militant movement alive indefinitely. "It works like a tax," he says with a Cheshire grin, "just another business expense and now everything runs smoothly."

Calls by politicians to clamp down on the Maoists' extortion racket ring hollow as long as the politicians themselves are running the same sort of scheme -- and in Jharkhand, they often are. Shibu Soren, a former national minister for coal and chief minister of Jharkhand until he was removed from office in May, has been tried for murder three times, though he was ultimately acquitted. (The crimes' witnesses had a habit of disappearing, or turning up dead.) Last year, local newspapers exposed a case in which two henchmen of another local politician assassinated a children's development aid worker, reportedly because he refused to pay the obligatory 10 percent kickback of his dairy goods after receiving a government contract. What they would have done with 3,000 gallons of milk is anyone's guess.

"If you want to be somebody in Jharkhand, just kill an aid worker," T.P. Singh, a Jharkhand correspondent for the Sahara Samay cable network, told us. A large man with a thick mustache, a TV-ready cocksure grin, and a penetrating stare, Singh is the network's crime and corruption exposé king, and a celebrity in the region. He plays the role of the TV cowboy to the hilt, right down to the ubiquitous ten-gallon hat he was wearing when we met him at the local press club in the Jharkhandi mining city of Hazaribagh to ask about the dangers of reporting on powerful people in a land with no effective laws.

"You know how I get those boys to respect me?" Singh replied. "With this." He reached into the waistband underneath his knee-length kurta and pulled out a Dirty Harry six-shooter, loaded and ready for action. A former Maoist turned politician, sitting on a couch across from Singh awaiting an interview, nodded his solemn approval.

The act is part bluster, but also part necessity. Many of Singh's media compatriots in Jharkhand have been killed, kidnapped, or threatened with death by the Maoists, miners, politicians, or all three at some point in their careers. In some areas, local law enforcement has simply ceded authority to government-sanctioned civilian militias, which are often accused by locals of pillaging even more rapaciously than the Maoists -- and contributing to the fighting by arming poor villagers. The most feared among them is Salwa Judum, secretly assembled by the Chhattisgarh government in 2005 to fight the Maoists; its 5,000-odd members patrol the state armed with everything from AK-47s to axes. Some roam the forest with bows and arrows.

"The Maoists have been killing locals for years," Mahendra Karma, the founder of Salwa Judum, told us. "But when [Salwa Judum members] kill Maoists or Maoist supporters, all of a sudden people shout the word 'human rights.' There should be no double standard. If we kill a Maoist, then how is that a violation of human rights?"

Karma has the thick frame and round face of a heavyweight boxer a decade past his prime. When we met him in his office, far from the fighting, in Chhattisgarh's capital of Raipur, he was flanked by armed guards. Above his desk was a life-size portrait of Mahatma Gandhi.

Karma founded the militia in 2005, when he was opposition leader in the state parliament. In the years since, he has presided over his district's descent into a war zone, as the Maoists and Salwa Judum have taken turns torching villages and raping and killing hundreds of people each year in a spiral of revenge attacks. Some villages have been attacked more than 15 times by one side or the other. Salwa Judum members are also accused of extracurricular killing to settle personal scores, even dressing the bodies in Maoist uniforms to cover up their crimes.

When we met, Karma was happy at first to talk about the militia. But when our questions turned probing, his mood soured. Finally, rising to his feet and jabbing his finger into our chests, he shouted, "These questions you ask have come from the Naxalites -- you are the men of the Naxalites!" In Chhattisgarh, Karma's rage could easily amount to an extrajudicial death sentence. We were on the first flight back to Delhi.

It was just as well because by that point our attempts to contact anyone in the Maoist rebel camps had yielded next to nothing. After leftist author Arundhati Roy paid a visit to the Maoists this year, the Indian government reinterpreted its anti-terrorism laws to make speaking favorably about the rebels or their ideological aims -- including opposition to corporate mining -- punishable by up to 10 years in prison. This has made the Maoists' civilian allies cagey about dealing with outsiders, and the already reclusive fighters even more difficult to reach. After months of sporadic contact with the Maoists' liaisons, exchanging handwritten notes with couriers who arrived at our Ranchi hotel in the middle of the night, we made a breakthrough: Finally, a rebel spokesman by the nom de guerre of Gopal offered the prospect of visiting a Maoist camp. It would involve being whisked deep into the jungle on the back of a motor scooter and then camping out there for several days, waiting for the rebels to make contact, blindfold us, and take us the rest of the way to their outpost. We were ready to do it, but monsoon rains and a Green Hunt military offensive eventually scotched the plan.

Since then, the Maoists have kept busy. In addition to the May bus explosion near Bailadila that killed 35 people, the passenger-train derailment that same month killed almost 150 people, bringing total casualties to more than 800 so far in 2010 alone. The central government has responded by dispatching even more military resources to the area.

In a sense, however, India has already lost this war. It has lost it gradually, over the last 20 years, by mistaking industrialization for development -- by thinking that it could launch its economy into the 21st century without modernizing its political structures and justice system along with it, or preventing the corruption that worsens the inequality that development aid from New Delhi is supposed to rectify. The government is sending in Army advisors and equipment -- for now, the war is being fought by the Indian equivalent of a national guard, not the Army proper -- and spending billions of dollars on infrastructure projects in the districts where the Maoists are strongest. But it hasn't addressed the concerns that drove the residents of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand into the guerrillas' arms in the first place -- concerns that are often shockingly basic.

In the town of Jamshedpur we visited Naveen Kumar Singh, a superintendent of police who can boast of a string of hard-won victories over the Maoists, which include demolishing training camps, confiscating weapons, and racking up a double-digit body count. But Singh is also responsible for winning his district's hearts and minds. When we stopped by his office, 10 petitioners were lined up in front of his desk. They were mostly poor men and women from rural areas, their clothes dusty from long bus rides. One woman in a purple sari arrived with a limp, leaning heavily on her son's shoulders. She asked Singh for help moving forward a police investigation into the car that hit her. Everyone in the room knew that without his signature on her crumpled forms, nothing would happen.

But Singh looked bored and sifted idly through the woman's handwritten papers. Finally, he waved his hand in the air and told her to go find more documents, ushering her back into the endless bureaucratic loop that is India's legal system. Most of the others received similar treatment.

Later, we asked him what the police were doing to combat the Maoists. When the police go on missions now, he told us, they pass out literature to the mostly illiterate peasantry and staple on every tree slogans warning people away from Maoism. "We don't only go into the forest to kill people," he bragged. "We also hang posters."

http://naxalrevolution.blogspot.com/2010/09/fire-in-hole-article-about-indian.html

[A Revolutionary Tool]

^Was already posted a while ago.

[mosfeld]

Maoists and villagers gunfight in Bihar

BHABHUA: An encounter between the armed Maoist cadre and the members of village peace militia has been taking place in the forests between Dugha and Bandha villages in Bihar's Kaimur district since this afternoon, a top police officer said.

About 150 armed Maoists surrounded the residents of Dugha and Bandha villages located on the hillocks and fired upon them even as the villagers, armed under the banner 'Shanti Sena' returned the fire, Superintendent of Police (SP) P K Srivastava said.

Maoists and the villagers were still battling, he said, adding that no casualty has been reported so far from either side.

The district police authorities heard about the encounter later in the day and no police enforcement has been sent to assist the villagers, Srivastava said.

Meanwhile, the expelled BSP MLA Ram Chandra Singh Yadav claimed that 26 villagers have been surrounded by the Maoists.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Maoists-and-villagers-gunfight-in-Bihar/articleshow/6587668.cms#ixzz0zzxragUP

Im assuming "village peace militia" is bourgeois language for CRPF, or the military, or police informants or Salwa Judum or other counter-revolutionary paramilitaries.

[mosfeld]

Maoists kill four men in Chhattisgarh

Rajnandgaon/ Raipur/ Durg, Sep 21 : Maoists killed a village head and three police personnel at various places in Chhattisgarh.

The Maoists killed Kondu Ram, the village headman of Madanwada village under Manpur Police Station in Rajnandgaon District.

The Maoists had kidnapped him on Friday. His dead body was found near a stream on Monday.

"They killed him brutally and threw him in the village. The villagers found his body yesterday morning, after which his body was brought and has been sent for the post mortem," said Jeetendra Meeda, Sub Divisional Officer, Rajnandgaon.

Meanwhile in Durg, suspected Maoists kidnapped six policemen out f whom three bodies were recovered,

Rajesh Mishra, Superintendent of Police Bijapur, said the news about the death the policemen was received from the villagers.

"Today police official of Bijapur has informed that six police officials, out of which four were constables, one head constable, one is ASI who were heading towards Bhadrakali and Tarlaguda police station from Bhopalpatnam y haven't reached yet. In connection with the same a villager has given information that dead bodies of three police personnel have been recovered," said Mishra.

Meanwhile police officials in Durg district arrested a Maoist who played the role of a messenger in Maoist camp.

"Radheshyam Giri who is a resident of Sambandhpur and for the last five years he has been living in Raipur. He has been involved in Maoist activities, from Sambalpur. He was shifted to Raipur in which he was in charge of getting the injured treated and deliver the couriers and to commute the cadres who came there. We had suspected him for the same and as per a tip off he was arrested near Pulgaon Police Station," said Amit Agarwal, Superintendent of Police, Durg.

Maoist attacks have become more frequent this year, especially after the central government launched Operation Green Hunt, a coordinated security offensive involving tens of thousands of police and paramilitary personnel to flush out the rebels from their jungle hideouts.

http://www.dailyindia.com/show/398113.php

[mosfeld]

Maoists in school uniform gun down Silda CPM leader

MIDNAPORE: On the eve of the seventh foundation day of the merged CPI(Maoist), the Red rebels gunned down an influential CPM leader near Jhargram in broad daylight on Monday. They also blew up a CPM office in Jhargram town in the wee hours of the day.

The Maoist-led People's Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA) also announced the name of their new secretary on Monday.

Around 1 pm, six youths in school uniform arrived at Silda High School, yards away from the Silda market near Jhargram.

Local CPM leader Ananta Mukherjee, a non-teaching staff member of the institute and a resident of Silda, was present in the school. Mukherjee was a member of CPM's Silda local committee and Belpahari zonal committee.

One of his armed security guards, Amarendra Mondal was posted in front of his office. Another security guard had gone out to have lunch.

Eyewitnesses said when some bike-borne youths in uniform entered the school premises, nobody suspected anything wrong. They went straight to the office and sprayed bullets, targeting Mondal without giving him a chance to put up a resistance. He collapsed on the spot and the armed group stormed inside the office.

They dragged Mukherjee out of the school building and pumped six bullets into him. Mukherjee died on the spot. The group then fled towards Bankura.

Mondal was taken to the Jhargram hospital and later shifted to Kolkata with critical bullet injuries. In the afternoon, Mukesh Kumar, Additional SP of Jhargram, reached the spot where some CPM supporters staged a demonstration against "police inaction".

The CPM supporters set fire to a motorcycle, which belonged to a teacher, parked inside the school. CPM wanted to know why the police guards of Mukherjee did not keep the main gate of the school closed when they were aware that he was on the Maoist hit list.

Meanwhile, in the wee hours of Monday, suspected Maoists blew up a CPM office at Dakshinsole in Jhargram town. They triggered two powerful IED explosions. The rebels claimed that CPM was planning to set up an armed camp at the party office. So, they blew it up.

Meanwhile, PCPA spokesperson Asit Mahato announced the name of the outfit's new secretary. The post had been lying vacant since the arrest of Manoj Mahato on September 4. Said Asit: "The central committee of PCPA has selected Ajit Mahato as the new secretary."

Sources said Ajit was close to slain PCPA secretary Sidho Soren; he hailed from the Goaltore area. His selection was aimed at strengthening the organization in the Goaltore-Sarenga area.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata-/Maoists-in-school-uniform-gun-down-Silda-CPM-leader/articleshow/6595740.cms#ixzz10BYVucJD

[mosfeld]

Orissa: Maoists strike again in Koraput, kill two

A day after killing a father-son duo, Maoists struck again today killing two persons and leaving another injured in the tribal dominated Koraput district, the police said.

Dubbing them as police informers, the ultras shot at them at Dhadipadar village in Damanjodi police station when the victims were moving on a motor bike.

While Puri Sirika and Rabi Khora died on the spot, Suresh Sirika was taken to Koraput district headquarter hospital in a critical condition, the sources said.

A Maoist note confiscated from the spot claimed that the duo was killed as they were supplying information against Maoists to the police.

On Saturday night the Maoists had eliminated a man and his son at Lachmani village in the district.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Orissa--Maoists-strike-again-in-Koraput--kill-two/684756

[mosfeld]

West Bengal: Maoists kill second CPM activist in three days

Midnapore(West Bengal): In continuing attacks on CPI-M activists, suspected Maoists on Wednesday shot dead a school employee in Jhargram in West Midnapore district, two days after they killed a school clerk at Silda in the same district.

Srikanta Mondol, an employee of the Sebayatan Girl's High School at Radhanagar village in Jhargram, and his parents who accompanied him were shot at in front of the school gate,
Jhargram's SP Pravin Tripathi said.

All three were taken to the Jhargram Sub-Divisional Hospital. While Srikanta was declared brought dead, his father Felu Mondol and mother were being treated for injuries.

Tripathy said the manner of the killing pointed to a Maoist hand.

Srikanta, a resident of Radhanagar village, was responsible for building up an anti-Maoist resistance movement in the area which has kept the ultras at bay.

After the news of Srikanta's killing reached the village, residents came out in droves and set up a road blockade and broke windscreens of passing vehicles.

Last Monday, the suspected ultras in their calculated move to eliminate CPI-M workers engaged in building a resistance movement killed Ananta Mukherjee, a CPI-M zonal committee member and clerk of the Silda High School.

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/west-bengal-maoists-kill-second-cpm-activist-in-three-days-54032?cp

[mosfeld]

Maoist backers in Lalgarh take to stone throwing

Maoist backers in Lalgarh of West Midnapore district have taken a leaf out of the book of Kashmir agitators by taking to stone throwing at the security forces as a form of protest. The People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA), a Maoist-backed outfit, announced this on

“The people of Kashmir have shown great bravery and mental strength in combating the security forces by just throwing stones at them. The people here are inspired by their courage and we’ll follow this model of protest in the coming days,” Asit Mahato, spokesperson of the PCAPA, told Hindustan Times.

Mahato said organisation members already had a bout of stone-throwing in West Midnapore, 160 km west of Kolkata, on Friday.

“The people of Buripalan village under the Goaltore police station tried to prevent the advancing armed CPI(M) men and the combined forces by throwing stones. An elderly women died when the forces fired at the locals,” Mahato said.

The ultras are active in three districts of West Midnapore, Purulia and Bankura.

Superintendent of Police (West Midnapore) Manoj Varma said: “They have tried to attack the security forces in every possible way. If the forces come under attack in this manner, we'll have to take appropriate action.”

In the West Bank in West Asia, protestors used to throw stones at the Israeli forces in the 1980s and 1990s.

Mahato carries an award of R 2 lakh on his head for his alleged involvement in a train accident that killed 148 people in May.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Maoist-backers-in-Lalgarh-take-to-stone-throwing/Article1-603102.aspx

[mosfeld]

Maoists blow up building in West Bengal

Kolkata, Sep 24 (IANS) Maoists blew up the office of a Krishak Sabha (farmers' association), affiliated to the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), and torched a community hall in West Bengal's West Midnapore district early Friday, police said.

'A group of ultra Left rebels attacked and damaged the community hall in Jhargram town of the district and later set it on fire. The Maoists also triggered a landmine blast in the Bandhgora Krishak Sabha office,' said superintendent of Jhargram Police district Praveen Tripathi.

'No one was injured in the incidents, as no one was present in the building at that time,' said the police chief.

'We have also recovered some Maoist posters from the area claiming responsibility for the incidents,' added Tripathi.

A senior police officer said: 'In a desperate move to make people aware of their presence in the area, the Maoists are carrying out such heinous activities.'

'After the killing of CPI-M activist Srikanto Mondal, an employee of the Sebayatan Girls' High School, near Radhanagar by the Maoists, the CPI-M cadres set ablaze several houses of the members of the Peoples' Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA). To take revenge, the Maoists carried out the attacks,' said another police officer.

Radhanagar is the first area in the Junglemahal (forested Maoist-dominated areas of West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia) where some villagers protested against the Maoists and ignored their diktat of attending their meetings and rallies.

The CPI-M cadres have already regained their lost ground and put up a stiff challenge against the Maoists, so the guerrillas are frequently attacking in the villages and forcibly trying to reclaim their support base in the area, said the officer.

The Maoists are active in three western district of the state - West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia.

http://sify.com/news/maoists-blow-up-building-in-west-bengal-news-national-kjyq4dgcdii.html

[scarletghoul]

SATP is a great website for finding daily news on the insurgencies of South Asia.
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/detailed_news.asp?date1=9/24/2010
(just change the date at the end)

[pranabjyoti]

Hindustan Times, September 25, 2010
Communist Party of India (CPI-Maoist) has come out openly in support of the Kashmiri population fighting for ‘freedom’, even as it offered to give up the gun and engage in political war with the ruling Marxists in West Bengal provided their cadres end violence.
“We appeal to the Indian masses to respect the Kashmiris demand for an independent country,” the Maoists spokesperson, Koteshwar Rao, alias Kishanji told HT on Friday. He said for the last three months, Kashmiris have been fighting their war for independence sans guns or support from any terrorist groups.
“The Abdullahs — Sheikh, Farooq and Omar Abdullah—have failed to win the Kashmiris hearts in the last 65 years,” he said, strongly justifying repeal of the Special Forces Arms Act, and appealing to end killing of the young ‘freedom fighters.’ “No country has succeeded in suppressing the voices of nationalist forces with guns,” he said from an undisclosed location in West Bengal, adding, the valley is described at international forums as either India or Pakistan occupied Kashmir.
The 53–year-old politburo member, the most vocal among all top leaders, said that they support a political and ideological war with the Marxists in Bengal, but the armed Marxists cadres were playing spoilsport. “The ruling CPM runs at least 100 camps of armed cadres in West Midnapore district who are killing innocent villagers. Bandh or no bandh, killings will continue until the Marxists do not shut the camps and go for a ideological war,” he said.
Kishaji declined any association with the Trinamool noting: “For us both CPM and Trinamool are alike.” Suspecting a silent pact between Congress and BJP over the Ayodhya issue, Kishanji said, RSS and BJP have plans to disturb the nation’s peace by targeting Muslims after the verdict.
Freedom to the people of Kashmir.

[pranabjyoti]

India: 78 Chhattisgarh cops evade duty in Maoist areas (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/india-78-chhattisgarh-cops-evade-duty-in%c2%a0maoist%c2%a0areas/)

http://timeslog.indiatimes.com/timeslog.dll/topcnt?CHUR=timesofindia.indiatimes.com&randomno=0.9829965802576753 http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/chattisgarh_police_camp_20060515.jpg?w=370&h=251 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/chattisgarh_police_camp_20060515.jpg)Chhattisgarh Police Camp, 2006

IANS, Sep 25, 2010
RAIPUR: As many as 78 policemen in Chhattisgarh have been sent show cause notices for refusing to join postings in Maoist-hit areas of the state, a senior police official said Saturday.
The police headquarters here served notices to 33 inspector-rank officers and other police officers who refused to take postings citing health reasons, mostly diabetes and high blood pressure.
“The police department can’t afford such kind of gross indiscipline among jawans. The 78 policemen, who have been evading new postings, have been asked to explain within three days, otherwise we will take stern action,” Inspector General of Police (administration) Pawan Deo said.
The problem of state policemen refusing to take postings in the seven Maoist-infested districts has been rising every month, an official said, adding that new recruits were not joining their duties in such areas.
The worst-hit districts are Rajnandgaon and Surguja, besides five districts in the sprawling 40,000 sq km mineral-rich Bastar region – made up of Bijapur, Bastar, Narayanpur, Kanker and Dantewaa. The region is known as the nerve centre of Maoist militancy.
Nearly 40,000 forces, including roughly half of them from paramilitary troopers, have been put in Bastar region to take on Maoists armed with rocket launchers, mortars and AK-47s.
THE TIMES OF INDIA
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/6625169.cms?prtpage=1#ixzz10apRFVMQ
It's not the fact they certainly become aware that they themselves are a part of Indian common people. They just fearing for their own lives, NOTHING MORE.

[pranabjyoti]

West Bengal: Stories of Unjust Arrests under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/west-bengal-stories-of-unjust-arrests-under-unlawful-activities-prevention%c2%a0act/)

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/india-c-mahato-jailed-under-uapa1-e1285460851340.jpg?w=400&h=216 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/india-c-mahato-jailed-under-uapa1.jpg)Chharadhar Mahato, leader of People's Committee against Police Atrocities in Lalgarh, arrested under UAPA

Satyarupa Jana: Prize Catch under UAPA

by Nisha Biswas
Indian Vanguard, September 25, 2010

On July 9, 2009 Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, the Chief Minister of West Bengal assured his colleagues in State Assembly that the government would see that Unlawful Activity Prevention Act (UAPA) is not misused.
He also informed the assembly that from the day of banning of Communist Party of India (Maoist) by the Centre and the imposition of UAPA in West Bengal (June 22, 2009) till that date, only 39 persons have been arrested by invoking this Act, out of which thirty were from West Midnapore, five from Bankura and four from Purulia. However, as his habit is, he did forget (intentionally?) to mention the first arrest of Gour Chakroborty, spokesperson of CPI(Maoist) on the day the Maoist party was banned by the Government of India, without giving him a chance to clarify his stand.
The exact number of persons arrested so far under this Act is not known but the estimate is that it is not less than a couple of hundreds. However, an RTI inquiry by APDR reveals that, till March 2010, only 30 persons have been arrested from West Midnapore under UAPA. The list begins with unbanned CPI(Maoist) party Spokesperson Gaur Chakroborty, activists Raja Sorkhel, Prasun Chatterjee, Bangla People’s March editor Swapan Dasgupta (who died in custody), PCPA spokesperson Chhtaradhar Mahato, treasurer Sukhashanti Baskey, and other high profile persons, including activists of democratic movement to people like Satyarupa Jana of Pankhai, Khejuri of East Medinipur.
Satyarupa belongs to the region, which happened to be the ruling party stronghold during Nandigram protest. She is such a politically naïve person that she never bothered to find out what is happening on the other side of Taikhali Bridge. Even today, she is at loss in explaining why so many from Nandigram were murdered. Her life of 48 years has been a struggle to make both ends meet – she has tried to educate her three sons and is proud of the fact that they are doing well and that one of her daughter-in-law is a para-teacher and the other one is doing her graduation. Hers is a normal conventional life of a little ambitious and industrious person who has taken risks and has almost never missed any opportunity of an extra earning. Satyarupa says that she did hear gun shots and the noise of bomb hurling, but has always tried to keep her family and self away from all these political chaos.
Today the same Satyarupa Jana is languishing in Midnapore Central jail since 24th May of this year and is accused of various offenses including waging and conspiring war against the state, collecting and keeping arms, sedition. Her “seizure list” includes a bag of arms used for killing the Trinamool Congrss Panchayat leader Nishikanta Mondal at Nandigram on September 22, 2009. She is booked under Sections 121/121A/122/123/124A/120B of Indian Penal Code, Sec 25/27 of Arms Act and also under section 20 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. In Khejuri PS Case no. 65/10 dtd 14.05.2010 she is termed as a hard core Maoist; such a hard core Maoist who before her arrests had not heard the name of Mao or his ism.
Satyarupa is a perfect example of the misuse of a draconian Act to meet the agendas of political parties and their associates. So who is Satyarupa? Satyarupa is one who has never missed any chance of earning money for a better life. She has vended vegetables, fish, sold sarees in the weekly bazars. But she has always treaded the lawful and truthful ways and was never ever lured by illegal means. It was four or five years back when she first heard the name of Self – Help Groups and how it can improve one’s economic status. Being industrious, she was among the first few who took the training and made her own group naming it Ma Durga Self Help Group. Among the few groups that she formed one was named after revolutionary freedom fighter Matangini Hazra, who had been assassinated in front of Tamluk Police Station. Her group includes ex-panchayat President of CPI(M) and wife of ex-panchayat member belonging of Trinmool Congress. Including all colours, she had skillfully tried to avoid any political confrontation.
Problem started with the government instruction that the Supervisor of NREGA work will be amongst the presidents of the Self-Help Groups functioning in the locality. And there too we find that Satyarupa has already taken seven-day training in BDO office around March end. Therefore the work of renovation of B M School pond at Pankhai, Khejuri costing more than two Lakhs goes to her. Satyarupa, even today in Midnapore jail believes that truth prevails and that as long as her accounts are clear and that she is honest and sincere, she has nothing to be afraid off. She never felt the need to give any commission to any political group or person. This raised a huge discontent amongst the local leaders and their accomplices. They, therefore, tried to stop her work under NREGA and instructed local village people not to work in her projects. But, who can stop Satyarupa? She was growing big to bigger without any political patron. She recruited people from Bartala, a neighbouring village. Work started at 11am of May13, 2010 and the commotion started within three hours, i.e. around 2pm while she was going home for lunch. She was beaten up by the vested interests and was brought to Khejuri PS. She was interrogated there and when in the night, Lutfar Rehman and Somen Mondal of the same village, on the instruction of OC Atanu Santra went to the PS for her release, they too were arrested.
She and the other two were produced in Court on 15th May and police took them in custody for further investigation for ten days. In these ten days Satyarupa witnessed severe beating of Lutfar and Somen and was taken to Nandigram once. According to police in these ten days she helped them in locating a bag of arms used for killing Nishikant Mondal. She denies knowledge of any such bag and remembers the threat of OC Atanu Santra of Khejuri PS that they are going to put her in jail to rot for the rest of her life.
I met her in the only Female Ward of Midnapore Central Jail, where I too had to spend 43 days for waging and conspiring war against the State and sedition. Bengali writer Manik Mondal, school teacher Sri Kanishka Chowdhury and myself were arrested from Rameswarpur of Lalgarh on June15, 2010. All through the 43 days of my stay with her, I did not find her interested in politics, she never read newspaper and always asked me who are Maoists and who am I. She does not understand an iota of politics and her only worry is when will she be back with her family and the losses that she is incurring because of her detention. In Jail we were termed Maoists, I used to enjoy the special status and privileges associated with this word, whereas Satyarupa used to get very angry and had repeatedly complained to jail authorities and warned other inmates that if they do not stop calling her Maoist, she too will start calling them by their crimes for which they are arrested or convicted.
It seems a cliche to most, but still this is the world's biggest demo(no)cracy.

[pranabjyoti]

CPI(Maoist): Awaiting court decision concerning the demolition of the Babri Masjid (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/cpimaoist-awaiting-court-decision-concerning-the-demolition-of%c2%a0the%c2%a0babri%c2%a0masjid/)


http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/india-babri-masjid-demolition.jpg?w=370&h=250 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/india-babri-masjid-demolition.jpg)Right wing Hindus at Babri Masjid in 1992

COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST) CENTRAL COMMITTEE
September 21, 2010
Stay alert to the heinous attempts of the ruling classes to divide us in the name of religion and stop killing each other in their interests !
Court judgment on the demolition of Babri Masjid is awaited on September 24, 2010. Even before the judgment is delivered the air is reeking with apprehension and trepidation. The uneasy memories of that fateful day (December 6, 1992) are giving fear to all democratic sections in the country and needless to say, especially to the Muslims all over the sub-continent. Any sane person who wants to learn history in order not to repeat it is waking up with a start from the nightmare of our history of communal flare ups.
The unprecedented deployment of police and paramilitary forces in all the states and Union Territories on the eve of the judgment is creating doubts as to what is to be awaited from the court which is but an organ of the Hindu religion and upper caste-biased state that is the Indian government. The callous, cold-hearted, pro-imperialist, anti-Indian people, traitorous judgment in the Bhopal gas leak case is sending alarm chills down the spines of concerned citizens and is issuing warning calls. There is not much in our whole history of court judgments which could reassure the people.
We, the CPI (Maoist) appeal to all the people of India to stay alert to the possibilities of a flare up of communal tensions with the instigation of the ruling classes, especially by the saffron fascist brigades in the wake of this judgment. Whatever may be the judgment, what they would like to do is to divert the people from their problems, struggles and political and economic crises.
Since the days of the Partition, many a time lakhs of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and people of other religions and minorities in the sub-continent had fallen victim to the vicious propaganda of the ruling classes and massacred each other. In the context of India, the main perpetrators had been the Hindu chauvinist fascist gangs and the main victims had been Muslims and other religious minorities. The state is not an accomplice; in fact it is the main actor in all these massacres. The main culprits among the political parties are the Congress and the BJP.
We appeal to the people that it is high time we realize the conspiracies of the ruling classes in dividing us. Let us say a big NO to their scheming. Let us stand united against their devious plans to massacre us, especially the Muslims. However hard they may try to make us raise swords against each other, let us stand united and turn those swords against those who are trying to drive this wedge of communalism between us.
CPI (Maoist) has been the most consistent among all the political parties of this country in unequivocally condemning the demolition of the Babri Masjid and demanding its reconstruction at the same place. It has stood firmly in support of the minorities, especially of Muslims and Christians and had put up a bitter struggle against the Hindu chauvinist Sangh Parivar and the pseudo secularism of the Congress. We once again firmly reiterate that reconstruction of the ancient, historical monument at the same place is the only solution to this issue.
We appeal to all the Hindus of the country not to believe the divide and rule policy of Congress and Hindu chauvinist fascist propaganda of BJP and Sangh Parivar. We appeal that as the majority community in the country more responsibility lies in their hands as massacres are perpetrated only through their known and unknown collaboration. It is the duty of every concerned citizen of our country to stand in support of the victims of communal pogroms and do everything possible to stop genocide of innocent people, whatever may be their religion. We appeal to the people of Muslim community to stay alert to the opportunistic attempts by some fundamentalists to stoke the fires instead of taking up a united resistance of all peoples against the common enemy. Our party stands with people and would do everything possible to stop massacres of innocent people.
« Stand united against the malicious attempts of the ruling classes to divide us in the name of religion and community !
« Fight back the communal pogroms on minorities, especially Muslims which may be perpetrated in the wake of the judgment on demolition of Babri Masjid !
« No more killing of our own brothers and sisters, no more innocence in being at the receiving end of the false propaganda of all hues of communalism, particularly Hindu communalism, Indian state and the US imperialists !
(Abhay) Spokesperson
Central Committee,, CPI (Maoist)
Comrades, stop any kind communal division between common people and mark them and punish them who try to do so.

[pranabjyoti]

“A Song for Azad” by Kabir Suman (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/a-song-for-azad-by-kabir-suman/)

September 10, 2010
Kabir Suman, popularly known as the Bob Dylan of West Bengal, has been one of the strongest voices against the Indian government’s crackdown on anyone who speaks up. If poverty and malnutrition disturbs you, and you voice your discontent loudly, the govt. terms you a Maoist. Speak up against the millions of tribals whose houses are burnt or women are gangraped – because those tribals wouldn’t let the corporates grab their only possession, their land – then the govt. calls you a Maoist.
And so was Maoist leader Azad killed. In this video, Kabir Suman sings out the irony of lies floated by the govt., with regards to Azad’s “encounter” death. Really, how many more encounters will it take before we realise what a farce democracy, what a rotten government, and most importantly, what a silent voyeuristic populace we are?
Please download the song before it is deleted from this site by a paranoid govt. This home-made video is not of the best quality, but those of you who would want a better quality audio (mp3 format) of this song, write to me at [email protected]
He is an MP (Member of Parliament), but he just don't care about that. Salute to him.

[pranabjyoti]

Reporter visits Maoist territory in Chhattisgarh (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/reporter-visits-maoist-territory-in-chhattisgarh/)




http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/india-orissa-maoist-poster-e1285723736626.jpg?w=321&h=241 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/india-orissa-maoist-poster.jpg)Maoist poster

Soundings from Maoist territory: a field-based inquiry
Paper presentation made by Kunal Majumder at Institute of South Asia Studies, National University of Singapore on September 20, 2010
On April 6 earlier this year, Maoists ambushed a heavily armed Central Rapid Police Force (CRPF) battalion in the jungles of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh, and blew up an armoured vehicle. Within hours, 76 soldiers were dead.

Four days later we received an anonymous call. It was an invite from the Naxals. My photographer and I flew down to Raipur, capital of Chhattisgarh and took a bus as instructed by the caller. At no point along the 400 km stretch that links Raipur with Dantewada did we sight a single major blockade or armed guards.
Though Bastar is a backward area, the road was pleasantly broad and level – no doubt to service the large number of mining multinationals that operate in this iron ore-rich region of Chhattisgarh. In the bus I was really surprised to find no talk of the recent carnage – other than a stray comment from the driver towards the journey’s end when we were about to reach Dantweada of how not the Maoists, but the CRPF men were in hiding due to fear that it could be their turn next time. After an eight hours journey, we got another call telling us where to get down and which guest house to put up in. From there next morning we would again be picked up by an escort, who took us to the edge of a forest.

Our guide Geeta, in her late twenties, clad in a faded sari and armed with a single-barrel gun spoke hardly a word despite all my tries. She was also an expert in the art of delaying. Each time one of us asked her how much further we are going, she would dodge us with half-liners like, “Let’s cross this hillock first,” or “Just across the field.”

(Women form a major chunk of the Maoist cadres and many of them at among the top commanders. Even during my visit, I found an equal proportion of men and women in the party cadre. Apart from women participation, quick tribunal justice has been a key attraction for the tribal. A poor tribal is petrified to go to a police station when his hen is stolen or his cycle goes missing. The corrupt policeman asks him for bribe and harasses him. The Maoist gives him instant justice)

As we went up and down the hillocks, groups of 8 to 15 year-old tribal kids would stop to greet us with their customary lal salaams. They could have been mistaken for your neighbourhood children; only their bows and arrows gave them away. It was much later, during our interface with the Maoist leaders, that we learnt they were actually members of the party’s Balak Sangathan – a large roving network of young members who are involved in healthcare, education, and cultural activities – and, most importantly, in “identifying enemies”.

After eight hours of walking, which included a lunch-cum-tea break, we reached a village – wooden huts with thatched roof, a few coconut and mango trees, and idle cattle ambling all around: the usual Chhattisgarh pastoral scene. Geeta pointed to the hut in which we would be spending the night and said we are going to start again tomorrow morning. Saying that, she disappeared into the hut. Minutes later, she emerges dressed up in battle fatigues.

It was stifling hot when we had started, but by around 7pm, it started getting cooler. As we chatted and sipped the tea made by the tribal women – our hosts of the moment – the Maoists “guarding” us sprang up and ran towards one of the huts. It was already quite dark and had started drizzling.

In a few more minutes two men, both in their mid-forties, dressed in civvies, AK-47 rifles swinging from their shoulders appeared. After the customary lal salaams, one of them introduced himself as Ramanna alias Ravula Srinivas the 44-year-old chief planner of the Dantewada attack. Accompanying him was 48-year-old Ganesh Ueike, the party’s political strategist.
Both Ramanna and Ganesh were from Andhra Pradesh. They come to Chhattisgarh some 30 years back. Since then they have never gone back. Not once even once did they revisit their village or kept contact with their parents or relatives. During the 15-hour interaction that followed we were told in great detail of how the attack was planned and executed. Ramanna, secretary of the south Bastar regional committee of the CPI (Maoist), at times became ecstatic as he told us about the “highest casualties our cadre has ever inflicted on the Indian anti-Naxalite security forces in a single day.” Ramanna’s father was a farmhand; he had been only to school and spoke in Telegu-accented Hindi. But Ueike, a BSc from Osmania University, was quite fluent in English. In the last few years, there has been an increase of Gondi-speaking leaders in the party hierarchy in Chhattisgarh. All the second rank leaders are locals.

(Even though the Maoist movement in post Independent India began in Bengal, most of the key leaders in the movement today are Telegu. After the crackdown by Siddhartha Shankar Ray in late 1960s and 1970s, many leading Naxal leaders including Kanu Sanyal moved to Andhra Pradesh. Top leaders like Ganapati, Krishenji and Azad (now dead) are Telegu. I must also mention that the number of incidence in Chhattisgarh increased only after 2004 crackdown on Naxals in Andhra. We will get to the Andhra incident later in the later)

After the usual pleasantries, even before we could start questioning them on the attack, they had their own set of questions. They wanted to know where did we worked before, where is our home? How many members in family? Which university we went to? How much we are paid?

And then finally, we began. First natural question: Why did you kill 76 CPRF jawans? Ramanna took the lead and started complaining that media always thinks Maoists are a military organisation but the fact is they are a political party. So for the next two hours both of them explained us about the CPI (Maoist) party structure and hierarchy.

Finally Ramanna returned to our first question: What exactly happened on April 6? I will not go into the details of what Maoist version of the attack is. Information on it has already appeared in The Hindu and even I have written about it in my piece “Amongst the Believers”. However I would like to share with you in details the reasons given by Maoists for the attack and my observations.

• Operation Green Hunt: Killing of 115 innocent Adivasis, who are not naxals

• Maoist leaders had been arrested in vicious countrywide crackdowns and killed in ‘fake encounters’. Azad was still alive then.
• Raman Singh government had signed 96 MoUs with various multinational mining firms in just the Beladila hill region.
Ganesh asked me: “Tell me, are these companies going to give proper jobs to the poor Adivasis?” I really didn’t have an answer. When I looked around at ordinary villagers, the only luxury they had was a radio. There wasn’t even a cycle in the scores of villages that I walked in my 30 km journey to meet Ramanna and Ganesh. The reason for violence is the standard one: “We have taken up arms to safeguard the rights of the hapless tribals.”

I could actually see the pride in Ramanna’s eyes for having planned and implemented such a big attack. He even went on to call one of his comrades and made him display how they plant pressure bombs by using a syringe and camera flash.

At this point I would like to stop and point out a few things. First of all, it’s important to differentiate between Maoists and tribals. Following the typical Marxist-Leninist-Maoist (MLM) strategy, the movement adopted causes of the downtrodden. The Maoist movement in Chhattisgarh grew only after a systematic and consistence work done by Maoist leaders like Ramanna and Ganesh for the last 30 years. We very conveniently say Maoism is growing in tribal areas because the Indian state has failed to bring in development. But the story is somewhat different. If you look at the lifestyle of tribals in India, you will realise the definition of development is very different for tribals compared to the western model we in urban India have adopted. A tribal’s needs are very simple. Usually he depends on his tarri (an alcoholic drink) and simple produce from the forest. Now the government banned manufacturing of alcohol and stopped tribals from using forest good, some claim tribals move out the tribals from the forest. The tribal is not going to destroy the forest. He has been living there for generations. What has now happened is tribals who have been self sustained has moved to money lenders and vicious circle of poverty.

In the last few years, there has been a struggle to acquire the mineral rich land here for mining. Ramanna is not wrong when he mentions about the number of MoUs signed between the Raman Singh government and the private companies. Recently in an interview, Singh proudly announced Chhattisgarh has a GDP of 10 percent. But the question is 10 percent of growth among whom? Tribals still continue to be the most impoverished and neglected. And now they are caught in a battle between the state and the Maoist. Neither of two, they can escape.

The mine factor as a cause of unrest has been acknowledged to me by none other than the last Union Mines Secretary Santha Sheela Nair. She retired in August. But in May, she told me how the central government realizes that mines have become an issue of contention and is a possible reason for the Maoist conflicts. A new Mines and Minerals Bill, vigorously opposed by the mining lobby, will, if enacted, make it mandatory for 26 percent of the profits to be shared with the locals. Under it, licenses can only be given to companies that make a full disclosure of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities even before they start mining. The bill is still pending, I don’t know if it ever going to see the light of the day.

Now, two days before Azad’s killings on June 29, Ramanna calls me up early morning and starts complaining how the CRPF has been raping and torturing young girls. Ramanna goes on to issue a threat against the security forces and tells me that they will conduct a similar ambush like the one they did on April 6. Within hours of the call, Maoist cadres ambushed 63 security personnel, killing 26, just three kilometres from the CRPF camp in Narayanpur district.

Once again, there is some truth in Ramanna’s complaint. Just a few weeks back, my senior colleague Tush Mittal has visited the village of Mukram, just a few kilometres from where the April massacre of 76 CRPF jawans took place and found the whole village deserted. Facing a blacklash from the troops, most of the 115 families had fled to neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. Villagers told her three girls were raped and five people including the Sarpanch picked up. That day in the evening, I called up Vijay Raman, the Special Director General of CRPF. He was furious. Since January 2010, more than 450 lives — including around 150 security personnel — had been lost in anti-Naxal operations. He completely rubbishes the rape allegations against the security forces.
Of course two days later on July 1, prominent Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad was killed by the Andhra Police. Azad was the person negotiating on behalf of Maoists with Swami Agnivesh, a social activist, on a peace process. Agnivesh just couldn’t get over his guilt. He told me it is possible that Azad let his guard down because of his last letter and Azad was a key person and most favourably disposed to the peace process. However the Home Ministry has completely rubbished this claim. Chidambaram has repeatedly said Maoist have not shown any inclination for talks.

Now I have my own views on the whole issues of talks. Let me first take you to 2004.
There were two events that year that left a mark on the Maoist movement in India.

• Unification of Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) and People’s War Group (PWG) come together and form CPI (Maoist)
• The Andhra talks between PWG and the Government

The third event, as alleged by the Maoist, was the betrayal of YSR Reddy government. Then state home minister Jana Reddy and Chief Minister YSR pushed for a talk with PWG. The Andhra Police kept opposing the initiative. The ban on PWG was removed. Weeks before the talks, police mysteriously dropped its entire objection. Around 160 Maoist leaders led by State PWG secretary Ramakrishna landed in Hyderabad. In the second round of talks, Ramakrishna threw a document at the face of the government negotiators that listed excessive land possessed by ministers in YSR Reddy government. The government put the talks on hold and instituted a commission of enquiry. The commission agreed that there was truth in Ramakrishna’s claim but the extent wasn’t as much. So it was decided a joint exercise between Maoist and government would be conducted to find out the extent of excessive land holding. And then suddenly the talks broke down. Why? The police didn’t want the squad leaders who were taking part in the exercise to carry guns. Maoists were adamant that they would need guns for security and the Andhra Police refused to allow it. (To me this sounds a really silly reason to break a talk.)
Now before the third round, PWG decided go back to jungles. The Andhra Greyhound Commandos followed them back into the forest, tracked them down and killed most of the top leadership of PWG in Andhra. The police say PWG agreed to ceasefire in order to regroup and reorganize as this was the same time when the Unity conference between both PWG and MCC took place.
With such an experience in hand, whether Maoists would want to negotiate with the government is questionable. Even if Azad was at the verge of negotiating, his killing has put a full stop to any peace process for the time being. There is another school of thought among the Maoists observers who donot believe that they are genuinely willingly to negotiate or start a peace process. Primarily because it is not in the Maoist philosophy to negotiate from a position of weakness. The Maoist movement in India may have created some impact but it is still not strong.

Meanwhile focus has shifted to Bengal. With the Assembly election next year, it’s a battle of might. Azad’s death played out in Mamata Banerjee’s Lalgarh rally. Stung by the heavy defeat in the 2009 Lok Sabha election, it is crucial for the CPM to recapture Jangalmahal area, which has 41 Assembly seats. If the party can maintain status quo in the region, Mamata’s dreams of toppling the CPM in the 2011 Assembly election may not come true. This is why Mamata held the Lalgarh rally. Her Nandigram general Shubhendu Adhikary is leading the battle of Lalgarh. However, winning Lalgarh without the PCAPA’s support will remain a pipedream for Mamata. Though PCAPA supported the rally, it is not particularly happy with Mamata. But in order to get rid of CPM, it probably would side with her. Already more than 40 people have been killed in the last two weeks, since my colleague Partha Dasgupta first reported about the struggle there. Coming weeks are going to be bloodier.

Coming to what happened in Lakhisarai in Bihar recently. Maoists are a divided lot on this issue. Bihar Maoists have always been a castist in nature since MCC days when it was fighting against Ranvir Sena, the upper caste militia. The killing of Constable Lucas Tete has been condemned across Maoist ranks in Delhi to Chhattisgarh.

Maoist supporter GN Saibaba wrote a piece in last week’s Tehelka raising key issues

• Why did the Maoists demand the swap when they knew that ordinary policemen have no importance for the government?
• Why did they kill Lucas Tete, a Jharkhandi Adivasi, and not the Yadav, Sinha or Khan among the four abducted men?
One of my journalist friends was in jungles of Chhattisgarh when this incident happened. A senior leader Comrade Narmada was shocked to hear about the whole incident and said its not in Maoist philosophy to kill innocent hostages. Infact there has been numerous in Chhattisgarh when CRPF and policemen would move around Maoist areas unarmed so that the Maoist would spare them. And they do. This is acknowledged by CRPF personnel themselves.

There is essentially some difference between the Maoists who are from MCC background and those from PWG. MCC has always been very aggressive. They believe in class annihilation before setting up their base while PWG believes once must set up the base support and then annihilate the class. Probably that could explain the incident of hostage killing.
Let me conclude by saying this: Maoism is an ideological war, fought on the fodder of the poor and downtrodden. It cannot be seen as just a law and order or merely a development issue. Already areas like North Assam are seeing emergence of similar ideology. If Maoism is breeding in India, the only way out according to me, is to take away the fodder. You cannot take away the ideology.
Please note: All the opinions in this paper are entirely personal and does not reflect my publication’s editorial stand
Report from Maoist area.

[pranabjyoti]

CPI(Maoist) calls bandh in six states to protest Indian repression in Kashmir (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/india-cpimaoist-calls-bandh-strike-in-six-states-protesting-indian-repression-in-kashmir/)

[Wikipedia: "Bandh (Hindi: बंद), originally a Hindi word meaning 'closed', is a form of protest used by political activists in some countries like India and Nepal. During a Bandh, a political party or a community declares a general strike. Often Bandh means that the community or political party declaring a Bandh expect the general public to stay in their homes and strike work. The main affected are shopkeepers who are expected to keep their shops closed and the public transport operators of buses and cabs are supposed to stay off the road and not carry any passengers. There have been instances of large metro cities coming to a standstill. Bandhs are powerful means for civil disobedience. Because of the huge impact that a Bandh has on the local community, it is much feared as a tool of protest."]
Maoists support Kashmiris, call strike


Times of India, September 27, 2010
NEW DELHI: In an attempt to show solidarity with protesting Kashmiris who have been demanding “azadi” and attacking security forces, Maoists (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Maoists) have called for a 24-hour bandh in six states on September 30.
In a statement dated September 23, the CPI (Maoist) said September 30 will be observed as a bandh in six states — Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa — and also in Gadchiroli, Gondia and Chandrapur districts of Maharashtra and Balaghat in Madhya Pradesh in protest “against the killing of Kashmiri youth by security forces since June 11″.
The statement was issued by Abhay, spokesperson of the central committee, and Anand, central regional bureau spokesperson. The party said there would be a “closedown of all rail and road traffic, banks, government and private offices, industries, educational institutions and business establishments”. “We are excluding essential services like hospitals and other services from this bandh call,” the statement said.

The statement justified the stone-pelting in Kashmir and called it democratic. It has been a Maoist strategy to join forces with all manner of protests, particularly if they are directed against the state.
In their attempt to gain support from Kashmiris, the party demanded “immediate end to massacres by Indian armed forces in Kashmir, withdrawal of military and paramilitary forces, repeal of AFSPA, plebiscite for Kashmiris and release of all political prisoners”.






Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (R) welcomes CPI(Maoist) measure

Rising Kashmir News — http://www.risingkashmir.com/news/jklfr-welcomes-cpim-measure-1882.aspx
Srinagar, Sept 28: Chairman, JKLF(R), Farooq Ahmad Dar welcomed the CPI (Maoist) initiative to observe a strike in six Indian states to mark solidarity with Kashmiris against the killings and human rights violation. This was stated in a press statement issued here by the Front on Tuesday.
Dar denounced the “false” reports of government which claimed 80% attendance in schools and colleges as a method to divert the attention from the real dispute. “Government has failed to suppress the ongoing freedom movement and now is using students as weapon to counter the ongoing struggle,” Dar said.
—————————————————————–
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article797402.ece
CPI (Maoist) calls bandh in six States

Jagdalpur, September 26, 2010
Aman Sethi
The Communist Party of India (Maoist) has called a 24-hour lockdown on September 30 in Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal and Jharkhand to protest the death of more than 100 civilians in Jammu and Kashmir since June.
The lockdown shall also be enforced in the districts of Gadchiroli, Gondia and Chandrapur in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh’s Balaghat district.
Even as Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram unveiled an eight-point initiative to defuse the unrest in the Kashmir valley, a statement issued by Anand, secretary, central regional bureau of the CPI (Maoist) and Abhay, spokesperson for the CPI (Maoist) central committee expressed support for, what he called, “the just struggle in Kashmir.”
The last three months have witnessed increasing violence in Kashmir as stone-pelting youth clashed with security forces and local police who retaliated with live ammunition.
In a telephonic conversation with this correspondent, Dandakaranya special zonal committee spokesperson Gudsa Usendi said, “The Centre should stop the massacre of innocent civilians in Kashmir.”
“The CPI (Maoist) also calls for withdrawal of the paramilitary forces from Kashmir and a repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.”
The Maoists demanded that a plebiscite be held in Kashmir and all political prisoners released. “The Kashmiris should be allowed to decide their own future,” said Usendi.
Mr. Chidambaram on Saturday said the Centre had advised Jammu and Kashmir to release all students detained for pelting stones at security forces and to review the deployment of security forces in Kashmir, but said the repeal of the AFSPA had not been discussed.
"Bandh" is actually General Strike.

[pranabjyoti]

The Lady Naxals - Open Magazine (http://naxalrevolution.blogspot.com/2010/09/lady-naxals-open-magazine.html)

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Slightly built they may be, but you’d be a fool to take them lightly. Battle-hardened, fiercely committed to their cause and proud of the identity the movement gives them, the woman Maoists here are every bit as fierce as their male comrades.

DANDAKARANYA: In a largish clearing of forest along a flooded river, somewhere on the Maharashtra-Chhattisgarh border, Maoist commander Tarakka sits on a large boulder, wearing a shirt and bottle-green pyjamas. She is cleaning her AK-47 assault rifle with a toothbrush dipped in kerosene oil. The roar of the river is deafening, with the incessant nocturnal buzz of insects giving the air an eerie edge. The Maoist camp is also home to poisonous snakes, deadly looking spiders, wild pigs, even bears. An hour ago, they killed a huge snake with another snake in its mouth. “The police doesn’t come here,” Tarakka says with a smile, “They know they will be slaughtered.”

“By the way, did you try that karela [bitter gourd] chutney? I made it,” she adds, as she fits the magazine to her gun. It goes in with a distinct click.

Around her, a platoon of Maoist guerillas—mostly young men and women—goes about the daily grind with surgical precision. Men help cook while women go around with axes to chop firewood. Water is boiled to make it safe for drinking. In one corner, a few guerillas have returned after sentry duty at night and are fast asleep on a jhilli (thin plastic sheet). Some girls are reading to each other, while two comb their hair, listening to Gondi songs on a small tape recorder. In another tent, a class is being held on military strategy. In a corner, a bunch of guerillas from the Maoists’ cultural troupe are rehearsing for a performance. No matter what you are doing, the gun always stays next to you, always less than an arm away.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_spYZcV2TRZs/TKAeeefDrDI/AAAAAAAAADY/BSgl2mvQI5Q/s400/6776.guerillas1.jpg (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_spYZcV2TRZs/TKAeeefDrDI/AAAAAAAAADY/BSgl2mvQI5Q/s1600/6776.guerillas1.jpg)

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In the monsoons, life becomes quite tough here. We have arrived at the camp after walking for days through dense forests, wading through rivers and nallahs overflowing with rainwater. It is lush green no matter where you look, and with continuous rains, it feels like Vietnam. For the night, we stay in tents or in small isolated huts of Adivasis on the outskirts of some village. We just sigh in the darkness; somebody lets out a cough, and somebody else takes out a tube of mosquito repellent and rubs yet another coat all over his body.

A night before arriving at the camp, we have halted at an Adivasi hut along with the Maoist squad. Under the influence of mahua, or maybe in spite of the intoxicant, the Adivasi begins to cry after some time as he forces a few morsels of rice down his throat.

“Why are you crying?” Maoist squad leader Samayya asks him in Gondi.

“I feel like crying,” he replies.



IN THE WILDERNESS
The next afternoon, we reach the Maoist camp. This is to be our home for the next few days—till further orders. The orders, they keep coming all the time, from all over. Suddenly, anytime of the day or night, a squad of armed guerillas appears and Comrade Narmada, 48, a veteran who has spent 30 years in these jungles, breaks away politely from us to receive news or instructions. Maoist squads are always on the move, and in their area of influence, they move almost freely, without worrying about falling into a police ambush. The last time the police came around to a village neighbouring the camp was about two years ago, we are told.

Whenever Maoists establish a camp, it’s a spectacle for villagers around the area; they keep their necks craned for a look. Here too, a few Adivasis have assembled on the border of the camp area. My friend Vanessa, a French journalist with us, tries speaking to them in broken Hindi that Narmada translates into Gondi. Vanessa is keen to know if there is any school around and if a teacher ever takes classes there.

Narmada translates her question. There is silence for a few seconds. Then one of them, Dolu, starts laughing. He can’t stop. And when he finally does, he does abruptly, almost as if he has clenched his throat. “Guruji!” he speaks with the same wonder with which he utters “Dilli”. “Guruji, he comes every year on 15 August, Jhanda phehraate hein (unfurls the flag) and that is it. We never see him again,” he says, almost astonished at why anybody should ask him about the school teacher, as if this is what school teachers are supposed to do anyway.

A young woman—a child suckles her breast—walks over and kicks a mongrel. It runs away, whimpering, taking refuge beside two Maoists who sit on their haunches on one side.

It makes me wonder: is there a difference between the treatment meted out to mongrels and Adivasis around here? Kicked by the woman, the mongrel ran to the Maoists. Kicked by the State, do these Adivasis have a choice?

TARAKKA’S REBELLION
Ageing villagers across Gadchiroli recount their experiences. This is the district in Maharashtra that Maoist rebels entered back in 1980. At that time, the exploitation of Adivasis was at its peak. Forest officers, big-town businessmen and contractors would fleece them as a matter of routine. Wily traders introduced their diets to salt, and in exchange for 1 kg of it, they would take a kilogram of dry fruits from them. A social activist who works in this area recalls how a forest officer had collected1 lakh in three months from Adivasis living in crushing poverty in lieu of letting them stay in the jungle or collect firewood and other free resources of the forest. In connivance with tendu leaf and bamboo contractors, these officers would make them work on plantations for a pittance. To top it all, there was also sexual exploitation of Adivasi girls.

This injustice was what prompted Tarakka not to heed her parents’ warning and go to the riverside in her village in Gadchiroli where Maoist rebels had put up a camp in the early 1980s. Initially, the villagers had feared that the rebels were dacoits and would loot them of their belongings. Finally, when no one would approach them, the rebels caught hold of a village boy and explained their aim and agenda to him. The word spread

Tarakka says that forest officers would come to her house every year for rice and jowar. “‘Why are we giving them this?’ I would ask my father,” she recalls, “but he would just ask me to keep quiet.” Ultimately, she went secretly to the riverside and met a senior Maoist leader she calls Shankar anna. She was 15 then. By 1986, a few years later, she had joined the rebels full-time. Her first military action was in 1993 when her squad attacked a police post. The last time she saw action, she says, was in 2008 when their camp came under police fire.

But Tarakka’s name figures prominently in the October 2009 attack on police personnel in Gadchiroli’s Laheri area in which 17 policemen lost their lives. A news report in a prominent newspaper refers to Tarakka as the leader of the attack, calling her ‘a woman known not just for her commitment to the ‘Naxalite cause’ but also her beauty’. When the report is cited, she smiles with an almost girlish delight. “No, I was not in the group that attacked policemen in Laheri,” she says, fiddling with her gun.

While Tarakka feels free to talk about her reasons for entering the Maoist fold, most of the younger lot shy away from discussing it, often citing constraints of language. Even when leaders who can speak Gondi and then translate it into Hindi or English offer to play interpreters, not much can be heard from the younger guerillas, especially the girls.

It is futile asking them why they joined, just as it is futile asking Adivasis what they would want in terms of a

better life. The younger lot have no specific answer on why they joined the Naxal rebellion.

After a few years of political instruction by higher-ups, they might bring themselves to utter phrases such as “class struggle” or “peasant insurrection”, or raise their fists in a defiant ‘red salute’, but mostly it is because of the lure of battle fatigues. It offers them a sense of group bonding, a sense of who they are, and some purpose in life.

SEARCH FOR IDENTITY
As for a better life, over years and years of such jungle visits, I have come to realise that the typical Adivasi has no reference point for such an aspiration. Having been left in the lurch like this by the rest of India, filling their bellies is the main idea. Two villagers died of diarrhoea just a week before our arrival at the village next to the Maoist camp. The villagers grow paddy, but in the absence of proper knowledge, the crop often falls victim to disease. To avoid this, Adivasis use the services of a vadde—local witch doctor—to perform a dev puja. The paddy they grow is not enough to feed them. So their staple diet is rice gruel. The nearest ration shop is about 20 km away. “But by the time we come to know that rations have come, it is already over,” says a villager. Many have run away to work as labourers in Bombay and Pune.

The villagers also have ties with Maoists. In the absence of the State, it is the guerillas who they rely on for help in small ways. Villagers often dine with them at the camp. Maoist medical teams also distribute medicines, including anti-malaria and anti-venom vaccines, among villagers. Unsurprisingly, some end up joining them. Like 14-year-old Suresh, who is now part of Chetna Natya Manch, the CPI (Maoist) cultural troupe. “We dissuaded him from joining us at such a young age, but he followed us for weeks,” says his team leader Raju.

Suresh used to attend a local paathshala (school) run by the Tribal Affairs Ministry. “But the food there was so bad and erratic, I ran away,” he says. Suresh has returned to his village after months, since he travels with the troupe from one village to another. His mother has come to meet him. “I ask him to come back,” she says, “but he refuses.”

The Maoist cause gives Suresh a sense of identity. The work and guns of his senior comrades give him a purpose in life.

It is the same sense of identity that stops another young boy from taking off his cap. It is olive green with a star. On its tip, he has scribbled the name given to him by the party: Viju. “Some comrades who knew his original name would call him by that, and he would get upset,” says another guerilla. “That is why he wrote ‘Viju’ over that cap.”

In the camp, Viju has fallen asleep. Narmada, who is the political head of the Gadchiroli division, looks at Viju lovingly and asks her bodyguard to pull a sheet over him for warmth. “From wearing saris to donning military fatigues like men, we women comrades have come a long way,” she says. In a check shirt and loose trousers, with short hair, Narmada is hardly distinguishable from the rest of the platoon. She has just arrived at the camp five days ago after crossing a dirty nallah. This has led to a severe allergy all over her body.

Narmada comes from Andhra Pradesh and joined the Maoist movement when she was 18. “My father was a Communist, and in those times, a Communist was like a pariah. My father would talk about Naxals and say that they have broken away from the shackles of domesticity,” she says. It was then, she says, that she made up her mind to join the Naxals. Today, she frames all policies for the female cadre of Maoists. Inside the camp, Narmada pops pills silently, as she goes about writing and discussing military strategy with Commander Eiatu, the military head of the Gadchiroli division.

When the whistle blows, both of them take out their steel plates and go to get food from the kitchen—mostly rice and dal. When guests arrive (in this case us), there might be eggs or an occasional chicken cooked without wasting any body part, not even the intestines.

Narmada’s bodyguard is a young girl, Sunita, who, with her cropped hair, looks like an LTTE militant. She hardly smiles, and even while she eats, her AK-47 rests against her knee. In contrast, her friend Rummy, who likes to sing revolutionary songs about fallen comrades, smiles easily. All of them can read and write—and assemble a gun in seconds. During patrols, they move about stealthily and reputedly attack with ferocity.

The CPI (Maoist) has an open policy about relationships. A man can marry a woman comrade with mutual consent. There have been stories of a Maoist squad coming under fire and a husband-wife duo staying behind together to engage the police, sacrificing their lives jointly to let others flee to safety. Another girl, Surekha, shows us her kit which includes a hand grenade. Has she ever taken part in action? We ask. She doesn’t say anything. Later, a senior Maoist confirms that she indeed has, and in some of the most deadly encounters.

THE WAR OUT THERE
Commander Eiatu’s brother, a senior leader, was allegedly killed in a fake encounter along with his partner in 2008; another brother is also a Maoist commander. Eiatu’s partner works with the Maoists’ doctor brigade. “We meet sometimes,” he says.

Later that night, Eiatu offers us glimpses of the military planning that went into the Laheri attack he had led. “Just before the Assembly election, the police had created fear in village after village to coerce people into submission,” he says. One day, their platoon of Maoists got information that a team of police commandos, led by their leader Rama, was moving in the area. For two days, the guerillas followed them, without as much as stopping for food. Finally, hostilities broke out at Laheri in Bhamragarh taluka, just 750 yards away from the Laheri police station. Some 42 policemen and 18 Maoist guerillas (who’d reached before their other exhausted comrades) found themselves locked in a fierce gunbattle. “The police have a lot of ammunition,” generalises Eiatu, “and they just lay on the ground, firing thousands of rounds all over. But since we have limited ammunition, we fire at specific targets.”

The policemen, Eiatu says, kept shouting that the guerillas would be mowed down since police enforcements were coming, but they held their ground—and upped the ante. For the first 30 minutes, nobody was injured on either side. Then, in the next ten minutes, six policemen were killed. After this, Eiatu claims, most policemen fled, including their leader. Eight policemen who had taken positions at one particular spot were asked to surrender. “But they let out another volley of bullets in which our senior comrade was killed,” says Eiatu. After this, the guerillas let their guns blaze—killing eight of them and three others. In all, 19 weapons were seized in that encounter. That also explains the extraordinary extent of modern weaponry I saw in the platoon’s possession. In five major engagements over the past 18 months, Maoists have been able to snatch as many as 77 guns—mostly AK-47 and Insas rifles—from security forces in Gadchiroli district alone.

It’s message time again. Everyone looks up. We cannot move further, it seems—all the rivers are in spate. (Later when we return, we learn of the death of senior Maoist leader Ganesh Uike who had malaria and could not be taken to a hospital in Bastar because of floods.) It is just too tough to embark on our return now. Roads are cut off. We are left stranded in a small village for three days. On the last day, we finally gather the courage to take a small boat across an angry river.

On the last night in the jungle, a writer who is with us, and has left his ailing mother behind, wakes up suddenly and cries: “Mother, I am coming.” I tell Samayya this and we smile. “Yes, mothers can do that to you,” he says. “Ho,” he nods his head. Ho means yes. Yes.
Half of the sky fighting for the future.

[t.shonku]

1.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ4MZRHOJDw&feature=related








2.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mxteeMCY_Q&feature=related








3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqMbCb2PdKM&feature=related








4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1whPTzbnvE&feature=related








5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpAmk3wA7cA&feature=related






6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgCN22y1pX8&feature=related













Please watch the following videos

[t.shonku]

This is video of a press conference organized by sociologist Nandini Sundar,here she speaks about Indian government sponsored goons called Salwa Judum .It contains lot of pictures,must watch.



Video link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhxoYmDINlE

[pranabjyoti]

India: Maoists told freed Chhattisgarh policemen to quit their jobs (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/10/03/india-maoists-told-freed-chhattisgarh-policemen-to-quit-their-jobs/)

After twelve nerve-wracking days, the Chhattisgarh police held a press conference in Raipur to confirm the safe return of Sukluram Bhagat, Narendra Khosle, Subhash Patra and B. Toppo who were abducted by the Maoists.
On September 19, seven policemen were captured by the Maoists as they travelled between Bhopalpatnam and Bhadrakali in the forests of Bijapur district.
While the corpses of three policemen were found the next day, the fate of the remaining four remained uncertain till late on Thursday night when they arrived at a police camp in Dantewada district.
A pregnant woman, Kursam Jyoti who was travelling with her brother Krishna Erpa, was also reported missing. Police said Ms. Jyoti was freed a few days ago and she had returned to her village.
Police sources said one of the conditions set for the release was that all the four men would resign from the police service. It is understood that four local television journalists escorted the men back to safety.
At his press conference, Director General of Police Vishwarajan sought to dispel some of the confusion surrounding the hostage crisis.
Clarifying that the freed policemen were yet to be debriefed after their ordeal, Mr. Vishwaranjan said the Maoist demands suggested that the men had been abducted by lower-level cadres, thereby complicating hostage negotiations. Maoist posters recovered in Bijapur demanded that the police call off Operation Green Hunt, withdraw Central paramilitary forces from Chhattisgarh, release unnamed Maoist leaders and stop police atrocities on villagers in Bijapur. The police said the lack of specificity made it impossible to meet these demands.
Mr. Vishwarajan’s observations were supported by information gleaned from Maoist sources.
In a telephone conversation on September 26, CPI (Maoist) spokesperson Gudsa Usendi told this correspondent that he had not received any information regarding the kidnapping, implying that top Maoist leadership was also struggling to ascertain the events surrounding the kidnapping.
Mr. Usendi said that the monsoon and poor cellular connectivity had made it difficult to keep track of the events in Bijapur, but felt that the men would be released soon.
The men were finally released after nearly two weeks of search operations, background conversations between the police and Maoists using the local press as mediators and public appeals by the families of the abducted policemen, Chief Minister Raman Singh, Maoist ideologue Varavara Rao, the Chhattisgarh chapter of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties and social activist Swami Agnivesh.
I suggest another option, be Maoist informers inside the Police. BY THIS WAY THEY CAN SERVE THEIR COUNTRY BETTER.

[pranabjyoti]

Activists demand judicial probe into Azad’s death – India News – IBNLive (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/activists-demand-judicial-probe-into-azads-death-india-news-ibnlive/)


Activists demand judicial probe into Azad’s dea… (http://vodpod.com/watch/4652044-activists-demand-judicial-probe-into-azads-death-india-news-ibnlive?pod=), posted with vodpod (http://vodpod.com/?r=wp)
Ed. note: the above Indian news story refers to the following Report:
Final Report of the All India Fact Finding Team on the Killing of Azad and H. C Pandey


Faking An Ecounter: Killing the Peace Process
Report of the All India Fact Finding Team on the Killing of Azad and H. C Pandey
CDRO put together a team of concerned citizens consisting of Prof. Emeritus Amit Bahaduri, J.N.U., Delhi, Senior Counsel of Supreme Court Mr. Prashant Bhushan, Kavita Srivatsava, Human Rights worker from Rajasthan, Gautam Navlakha writer & from PUDR, Delhi, Kranthi Chaitanya, Advocate and General Secretary of APCLC, D. Suresh Kumar, Advocate, APCLC, Ch. Sudhakar Rao, President of OPDR, D. Venkateswarlu, OPDR. The team visited Wankadi Mandal, Adilabad District on 20th & 21st of August, 2010 where the alleged encounter of Mr. Azad @ Cherukuri Rajkumar who was spokesperson of CPI Maoist Central Committee Member and Journalist Hemachandra Pandey took place on the intervening night of 1st and 2nd July, 2010. Three fact findings had earlier already carried out spot investigations. The team met the local villagers, local police, and local media personal and perused FIR, inquest and postmortem reports. The FIR No.(Crime ) 40/2010 registered at the Wankadi P.S. of Adilabad District by the Station House Officer, Mr. Mansoor Ahmed at 9.30 am of 2nd July, 2010 in the English Language mentions the deceased as unidentified Maoists and gives the following account:-
“This is to inform you that on the Information provided by Special Intelligence Police that a squad of CPI ( Maoist) terrorists numbering about 20-25 had crossed into the forest of Wankedi area of Adilabad Distrcit from the neighbouring Maharastra and moving into the forest as per the information of the SP Adilabad. I along with Sub Inspector of (SI), Thandur PS, RSI ( Reserve Sub Inspector) Mohan. Civil an AR ( Armed Reserve) special party men came ot the forest area located near Velgi and Sarkepally villages on 1-7-10 at about 9 pm. While we were conducting a search of the area on the hill at about 11 pm we noticed some commotion in the area close to us. Then we observed the place through night vision device and noticed a group of 20 persons in the forest. Immediately, we questioned their identity, they opened fire with Arms on us. Then we took Safety position and warned them to stop firing at us and to reveal their identity. However, they didnot stop firing at us and we noticed them advancing towards us by firing indiscriminately with a view to kill us. Then with a view to save myself, I opened fire towards them in self defence.
Likewise, our party members also opened fire in self defense. The exchange of fire continued for 30 minutes. When the firing stopped from the other side, we advanced towards the hill top side and halted. Early in the morning we searched the area and found two persons dead with bullet injuries at the place of exchange of fire.”
This story raises several questions.
a. How were the police able to pin point the location of the Maoists in a forest several hundred square kms along with the boarder of A.P. and Maharastra? This is all the more surprising, as the villagers repeatedly told us that there has been no Maoist activity in that region in recent years.


b. Despite 30 minutes of firing from 11 pm to 11.30 pm, not a single police personal suffered any injury, whereas only Azad and Hemachandra Pandey were killed.

c. If there were twenty Maoists as stated in the FIR, why did the police find only 2 kit bags and two weapons? In any escapade there would be more belongings left behind.

d. If Azad was traveling with a dhalam of 20 Maoists then surely he too would have been in Olive Green dress rather than in civilian dress?

e. If the police were unaware of the identities of the two deceased upto 9.30am at the time of filing the FIR, then how did the inquest report claim that at 6.00am on 2nd July Azad was the person who had been killed in the encounter. The inquest report says: “On 02-07-2010 at about 06-00 A.M at Sarkepally Village Forest area above the hills, the Azad dead body found with Bullet injuries mentioned in Column No.1(B) with witness No.1 and his Police Party Identified the deceased.”. Several electronic media channels had also announced his death. This shows clearly that the police knew who they had killed.

f. Overwhelming doubt about the police version is raised by the postmortem reports of Azad and Hem Chandra Pandey. The Post Mortem report of Azad says that the fatal bullet entry wound from the chest “at the left 2nd intercestal space” had “darkening burnt edges”. The burnt mark at the entry wound are a clear indication of the flame from the gun which indicates that the bullet was fired from a very close range (no more than a foot). The corresponding exit wound is at the 9th & 10th inter vertebral space and depth is 9 inches. That means the bullet entered from upper chest and traveled downwards. This questions the police version that Maoist were on the top of the hill and they were below.

g. The Post Mortem report of Hem Pandey shows that all the 3 bullet wounds had blackening present around the entry wounds, which is also a clear sign of shooting from very close range. The clear sharp round or oval shaped entry wounds in the cases of both Azad and Pandey, and the route of travel of the bullets indicates that the bullets were fired at almost 90 degrees to the body, indicating firing at close range.

It was widely known and reported that the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, through Swami Agnivesh was engaged in exploring the possibility of a dialogue with C.P.I. Maoist and the person with whom Swami Agnivesh was talking with CPI Maoists was Cherukuri Rajkumar @ Azad.

The alleged encounter in these circumstances and such a time raises several important questions.

a) How could the Spl. Branch of A.P. Police dedicated to combating Maoists, murder Azad in this manner without the knowledge of the Union Home Minister as well as the State Government, particularly when the Union Home Ministry is said to be leading the joint offensive against the Maoists.

b) Why has the Union Home Ministry not shown any interest in seeking an independent investigation/enquiry into the encounter,despite so many demands for it from different quarters, the disruption it caused to the peace process initiated by the Home Minister himself?

c) If the Union Government was sincere in seeking a peace dialogue, it would have been natural for the Home Minister Mr. Chidambaram to express concern about the execution of the key actor from the Maoist side with whom he was supposed to be exploring the peace dialogue. His explanation on the floor of the Parliament was that the enquiry is a State subject. This is untenable because the A.P. State Government is run by Congress Party and had the Union Home Minister requested an enquiry they could not have refused. And if they did, at least the position of the Home Minister would have been more understandable. This is particularly important because the Central Government is empowered in any case to constitute an enquiry under the Commission of Enquiries Act,1952.

DEMANDS:

1. In the light of the significance of the assassination, which has scuttled the peace process, it is imperative that the Government institute a high level independent enquiry headed by a Sitting/Retired Judge of the Supreme Court of India, nominated by the Chief Justice of India.

2. Register an FIR against the police personnel who killed Mr. Azad and Hem Chandra Pandey and the case needs to be investigated independently in accordance with the NHRC guidelines.



1. Amit Bahaduri, Prof. Emeritus, JNU
2. Mr. Prashant Bhushan, Advocate, Campaign for Judicial Acountability.
3. Kavita Srivatsava, General Secretary of PUCL Rajasthan,
4. Gautam Navlakha, writer & PUDR, Delhi,
5. Kranthi Chaitanya, Advocate, General Secretary of APCLC,
6. Ch. Sudhakar Rao, President of OPDR,
7. D. Venkateswarlu, OPDR
8. D. Suresh Kumar, Advocate, APCLC,

Enclosures:
1. Post Mortem reports of Azad and Hem Chandra Pandey

Members Organizations:

PCHR (J&K)
AFDR(Punjab)
PUCL (Rajasthan)
PUCL (Jharkhand)
PUCL(Chhattisgarh)
PUCL(Nagpur)
COHR (Manipur)
MASS(Assam)
NPMHR (Naga Areas)
APDR(West Bengal)
Bandhi Mukti Morcha
(West Bengal)
LHS (Maharastra)
APCLC (Andhra Pradesh)
HRF (Andhra Pradesh)
PUDR(Delhi)
PDF (Karnataka)
OPDR (Andhra Pradesh)
Campaign for peace and
Democracy in Manipur
from http://icawpi.org/en/india-news/534-final-report-of-the-all-india-fact-finding-team-on-the-killing-of-azad-and-h-c-pandey

New demand regarding the killing of Azad.

[pranabjyoti]

Please watch the following videos
Can this videos be put into some kind of downloadable form.

[t.shonku]

Can this videos be put into some kind of downloadable form.


To download those videos you will need a special software called "You Tube Downloader"(It's a free software and is downloadable from You Tube).After you have downloaded and installed that software you will be able to download those videos from You Tube.By the way you might even have to sign up for you tube.To play the video I suggest GOM player.


For some unknown reason if You Tube does block some video from downloading, in that case use “DVD Studio Soft” software

[pranabjyoti]

Maoists’ new tactics to counter Operation Green Hunt (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/maoists-new-tactics-to-counter-operation-green-hunt/)

Times of India, October 10, 2010
Naxals’ new ploy: first blast, then bullets
NAGPUR: The lull in the Naxal-affected Gadchiroli (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Naxal-affected%20Gadchiroli) district, ever since 17 cops were killed in Laheri in October 2009, was left shattered by the recent incidents of blasts in which seven security personnel were killed, nine others were left injured and four civilians, including three students of Sawargaon ashramshala (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Sawargaon%20ashramshala), died in a blast on Friday morning.
Though guns rattled in a few exchanges in the jungle and the elimination of police informers by the rebels kept the security personnel busy so far, this year witnessed the first major jolt being delivered by the Naxals at Perimili on Monday, when they killed four cops in a blast. They followed up by injuring eight C60 commandos on the following day at Mirkal around 13 km away from Perimili.
The recent incidents are leaving clear indications that the rebels seem to be more inclined to first trigger the blast and then fire upon the panicked cops. This ploy was adopted by the rebels after sensing that security forces can now be difficult to tame in gun battles, especially after the reinforcement provided by the central government in the form of paramilitary forces.
Shifting from the preference of intense gunfight, as manifested by the rebels in 2009, the Naxals seem to have made a deviation in their strategy in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh to counter central government’s so-called Operation Green Hunt launched to flush out the rebels from the hinterlands.
Even the security agencies were aware of the paradigm shift in the rebel strategy. Intelligence agencies, it is learnt, had also alerted the cops about the new strategy.
The Naxals wanted to curtail the movements of the security deployment in the affected regions. They started planting mines under roads and waiting in ambush. Generally a large posse of cops wanted to attack the Naxals after the debacles of 2009. The rebels switched to landmines to cripple the movements of the cops in the jungles.
“They aim to take the security forces by surprise with altered techniques of attacks. Their guerrilla warfare is so unpredictable that the paramilitary forces falling easy preys to the Naxals,” said source from intelligence agency.
The year 2009 had witnessed unprecedented violence as Naxals, killing more than 51 cops. They had merged their several dalams to form a consolidated military dalam, often bringing reinforcement of fighter guerrillas from Chhattisgarh and Abujhmarh to ensure that cops were outnumbered by many in such encounters.
Changing tactics after the launch of Operation Green Hunt, rebels have started planting landmines this year. “The aim is to trigger more casualties with lesser manpower. Once the blast takes the cops by surprise and leaves them injured, rebels fire on the victims to increase the toll and also to curtail the chances of launching the counter,” said an experienced official.
Which dam can prevent the revolutionary flood?

[pranabjyoti]

West Bengal: Maoists teaching lessons, recruiting in schools (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/10/16/west-bengal-maoists-teaching-lessons-recruiting-in-schools/)


http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/india-binpur-students-locked-up-police-personnel-in-school-_10072009.jpg?w=280&h=184 (http://revolutionaryfrontlines.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/india-binpur-students-locked-up-police-personnel-in-school-_10072009.jpg)Students protest police occupation of West Bengal schools.


Express India, October 16, 2010

Maoists Bring Red Practical and Theory to Schools

Kolkata: To influence the young minds, Maoists have started teaching lessons on Maoism in government schools that are located in the remote areas of Junglemahal. In last week of September, the headmaster of Bagmundi Higher Secondary School in Purulia had received a letter from the Maoists asking him to send all the students of classes X, XI and XII to a training camp in the area.
Nibaran Chandra Mahato then showed the letter to the members of the school committee who decided not to disobey the Maoist diktat and allowed the students of class XI to take part in the training, said a senior police officer.
“We have information that a Maoist came and taught lessons on Maoism to more than 300 students in the school,” said the officer. With reports about more and more schools becoming centres of Maoist indoctrination classes, the administration in the three LWE-affected districts — West Midnapore, Purulia and Bankura — are grappling over how to tackle the serious problem.
“Our team have gone to Bagmundi and spoke with the management of the school. We are investigating the matter,” said Rajesh Yadav, SP of Purulia. Bagmundi lies in the vicinity of Ayodhya hills, an area where the Maoists have been gaining strength. Reports from state and central intelligence agencies indicate that most of the training camps run by Maoists are located in Bagmundi and Narayanpur police station areas. These include Batdanga, Asanboni, Kumardanga, Barodanga, Dumuria, Choto Rajera, Simulbera, Dhadka, Chingora and Kalabera.
Besides Purulia, schools in Sarenga-Goaltore border have become cadre recruitment centres, say the police. Baro Garrah school in Khayerpahari under Sarenga police station tops the list. This school has produced Maoists cadres like Bikash, the area commander, Sobha Mandi and Sushil Mandi. Though Sobha surrendered before the police a few days ago, the trio held significant posts in the Maoist squad.
Raju Hansda, a Maoist squad member who was arrested a couple of months ago from Lalgarh, has admitted to visiting several colleges in the district with the aim of recruiting cadres. “Raju was assigned to pick up ‘like-minded’ students from several colleges. He visited colleges in Bankura, Silda, Jhargram and a famous college in Hooghly district as well as a prominent college in Kolkata from where he brought cadres to the Junglemahal,” said a police officer.
Significantly, the school in Lalgarh where Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee held his first public meeting has produced Maoists like Sasadhar Mahato, a state committee member and PCAPA chief Chhatradhar Mahato.
According to the interrogation report of Telegu Deepak, a close associate of Kishenji, senior Maoists leaders used to take classes in the schools of Lalgarh, Sarenga and Binpur for indoctrination purpose. There are reports that students (class VIII, IX and X) of Rana Rani school in Belatikri area and Ranibandh School in Bankura are often given training by the Maoists in the forest areas, said the officer.
See, who can bring the real change.