November 24, 2009
November 22, 2009
Condemn the murder of Wadeka Singala, President of Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangh, Orissa!
The Orissa government led by Naveen Patnaik has unleashed a fresh wave of fascist attack on the people’s movements. Two members of Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangh (CMAS), including its president Wadeka Singana were killed in police firing on 20th November 09 during a protest by its members in Narayanpatna Tribal Panchayat region. The other deceased member is yet to be identified. At least six were injured in the incident. CMAS is an organisation of adivasi peasants which have been fighting for the rights of tribal communities over land and forests. It has come in conflict with the government and its armed forces which is facilitating the plunder and loot of natural resources by the Indian and multinational corporations. The CMAS has also been fighting against alienation of tribal lands, and to stop their encroachment by non-tribals.
The villagers and CMAS members were protesting this Friday in front of the Naraypatna police station against atrocities by the security forces during patrolling. The CMAS was demanding withdrawal of CRPF and frequent patrolling by the police in the area. More than 300 CMAS activists, including women and children armed with the traditional tribal weapons, gheraoed the police station in protest against the massive deployment of security forces in the area. “It’s harvest time and the locals were being harassed by security forces combing the area,’’ a tribal leader stated. The agitators first went to the CRPF camp only to be turned away. They then reached the police station to lodge their protest. While the CMAS and others were protesting peacefully, the police gripped by panic opened fire indiscriminately and without provocation. The police and the administration have justified the firing by claiming that it had to open fire “in self-defence”. Moreover, while the movement is demanding withdrawal of armed forces, the state has responded through repression and adding to the number of troops in the area after the incident. One company of CRPF and another company of Indian Reserve Battalion have been now deployed in the area to “maintain law and order”!
DSU condemns the killing of the two activists of CMAS by the police, and demands punishment of the guilty. We also demand that the grievances of the people must be addressed, and the armed forces removed from the Narayanpatna region.
November 11, 2009
Social Transformation and the Question of Poitical Violence
“Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one.” – Karl Marx
At a time when the spectre of Maoism is haunting India’s ruling classes, a vehement debate has been launched by the media, academics, and intellectuals on the question of violence. The likes of Manmohan-Chidambaram-Buddhadeb have also been referring to it of late, by making constant ‘appeals’ or threats to the revolutionary forces to ‘abjure violence’. As if the masters of the country who never lose sleep over the violence caused by the present exploitative system leading to the death of lakhs of indebted peasants, millions of stillborn and malnourished children, or the tens of thousands perishing in the absence of the very basic health facilities, the three hundred women who die in pregnancy or child-birth everyday in the country, or for that matter the 77% of the population living on an average daily income of less than Rs.20, has been rudely awakened by the practice of political violence by the revolutionary masses. Simplistic and false distinctions between democratic struggle vs. armed struggle, mass movement vs. ‘militarism’ etc. have also been resurrected, reflections of which are seen in the present political discourse in JNU as well.
Such facile debates on violence play down the fascist violence unleashed in the vast countryside by the feudal lords, rich peasants, village strongmen and their armed goons over the small and marginal peasants, dalit landless labourers and adivasi peasants. It does not recognise the coercive extraction of surplus labour by big capitalists from millions of workers in the ‘unorganised sector’, existing in the state of bondage or semi-bondage. The cacophony over ‘violence’ seeks to submerge the anguish of the classes and sections who have suffered forcenturies the burden of exploitative and regressive production relations in our society, replete with daily violence. It conveniently covers up the forcible and violent subjugation of a whole people or nation in the name of ‘territorial integrity’, as the experience of Kashmir, North East or Punjab exemplifies. For the oppressed masses, violence is an everyday experience, a fact of life. They know it well, as they are the targets of this violence. For Marxists too, violence has never been the central issue. What is central is the question of putting an end to the exploitation of one human being by another and of one class by another, through revolutionary social transformation.
Revolutionary social transformation is the essence of Marxism: The great teachers of Marxism, including Marx himself, emphasised the absolute necessity of the use of force in order to overthrow the exploitative classes and for the capture of political power by the oppressed. Marx and Engels in the concluding paragraph of the Communist Manifesto wrote, “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.” While summarising the concrete historical experiences of Paris Commune, the first ever worker’s government that “stormed heaven” and overthrew the bourgeoisie from the seat of power in 1871 through armed insurrection, Marx stressed the need of the proletariat to organise and arm itself in order to defeat the bourgeoisie and to defend the victories of the revolution. On the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin emphatically upheld the necessity of revolutionary violence in his State and Revolution, “the liberation of the oppressed class is impossible not only without a violent revolution, but also without the destruction of the apparatus of state power which was created by the ruling class”. Mao, who was at the helm of the Chinese Revolution and who developed the strategies and tactics of revolution in the colonial and semi-colonial context, noted that “the seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest form of revolution.” No wonder, the question of violence that has been so clearly addressed by generations of Marxist revolutionaries, is deliberately obfuscated not only by the proclaimed anti-Marxist, but also by the pseudo-communists who have deviated from the path of class struggle and socialism. By criminalising the armed resistance and revolutionary violence of the oppressed, they openly or implicitly facilitate and justify the repression of the rulers, thereby siding with the oppressors in the violent class struggle.
Revolutionary social transformation and the capture of political power by the oppressed is not possible without revolutionary violence: The theory and practice of Marxism as well as the history of worldwide communist movement shows that no radical reordering of the society is possible without the oppressed classes confronting the violence of the oppressors with revolutionary violence. The quest for maintaining ‘peace’ and ‘order’ in any society with exploitative social relations, is nothing but a ploy of the ruling classes to continue unhindered the existing exploitative system. The Indian ruling classes is also no exception to this. Even India’s First War of Independence in 1857 or the various tribal rebellions during the colonial period were violently suppressed by the British colonial army. The agrarian armed struggle of Telangana under Communist leadership was crushed by Nehru’s Congress government after the transfer of power in 1947 through the deployment of Indian Army. Similarly, the national liberation struggle led by the Mizo National Front in the North East was quelled by the use of army and air force, which also involved the forced displacement and ‘clustering’ of 80% of the total Mizo population in resettled villages. The national liberation movements of the people of Kashmir, Nagalim, Manipur or Asom etc., who have been fighting to achieve the democratic right of self-determination, have likewise been confronted militarily by the Indian state. ‘Peace’ in Punjab was established in 1980s through a violent extermination campaign that culminated in the storming of the Golden Temple by the Indian security forces during ‘Operation Blue Star’. The violence perpetrated in all these cases, which have confronted the ruling classes of the country, has been variously justified by the ruling classes and their political parties, including those wearing the mask of communists, the CPI and later the CPI(M). Most of these movements have strived for democratic revolutions under the leadership of their respective national bourgeoisie. The Indian ruling class comprising of the feudal and comprador big bourgeoisie however has repeatedly resorted brutal suppression of the revolutionary potential of these people’s movements and their democratic aspirations through the use of the state and its coercive apparatus, primarily the armed forces.
The character of the present Indian society, the tasks of the Indian revolution, and the necessity of armed struggle: The Communist Party of India followed a revisionist policy from its very inception, and tailed the Congress during anti-colonial movement. After 1947, the undivided CPI got enmeshed in the quagmire of parliamentarism, the question of revolution being never seriously addressed. The CPI(M) too had a similar analysis about the Indian society as CPI, for whom sharing of political power with the ruling classes through parliamentary elections became the single-point agenda. It was the great Naxalbari armed agrarian uprising in 1967 which blazed the trail of revolution in the subcontinent, combining revolutionary theory with practice. Hailed as the ‘Spring Thunder’, the Naxalbari movement for the first time correctly analysed the character of the Indian state and society, its class composition, and the need of armed struggle. Quite contrary to the understanding of CPI, CPI(M) and other such revisionist forces, which characterised the Indian society as bourgeois democratic, the Naxalbari movement established the semi-feudal and semi-colonial character of the Indian society. It identified the Indian state as the combined class-rule of feudalism, comprador big bourgeoisie and imperialism, who are the targets of the Indian revolution. The task was to bring in the New Democratic Revolution under the leadership of the proletarian party. ‘Land to the tiller’ became one of the important programs of the revolution, which mobilised the landless and small peasants. This also gave the framework to understand the caste question with all its significance from a Marxist perspective, a question which was so far ignored or brushed aside by the revisionist communist parties.
Since the contradiction between the broad masses and feudalism was identified by the Naxal movement as the primary class contradiction in the Indian society, the fight against feudal exploitation and state oppression was conducted through armed agrarian struggle, on the basis of worker-peasant alliance. In the period of 1967-74, the Naxalbari movement made initial efforts to implement the strategy and tactics of protracted people’s war through area-wise seizure of power, building base areas in the countryside, and developing people’s revolutionary power by replacing the power of the Indian ruling class. Though the movement suffered serious setback due to severe repression in the ’70s, Naxalbari showed the oppressed masses of the entire subcontinent the path of liberation through an intensified class struggle against their oppressors, whereas the revisionists offered only class collaboration. Naxalbari was a clear break from those who have abandoned the path of Marxism, and rejected revolutionary violence in the name of ‘democracy’, or for ‘making use’ of the parliament. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism became the political weapon of the people, while armed struggle for capturing political power the strategy. 42 years of Naxalbari’s glorious legacy has proved beyond doubt that in the Indian social reality, it is the only path of revolutionary social transformation. To ask the revolutionary masses to ‘abjure’ violence therefore is to ask them to give up Marxism, and class struggle. As long as the ruling classes retain its powers to exploit and oppress through open and systemic violence, political violence of the oppressed will continue to be relevant, justified, and necessary.
Naxalism is not the problem, it is the solution: The expansion of the revolutionary movement over the last four decades to a vast region of central, eastern and southern India has now strengthened to become the ‘largest internal security threat’ for the ruling classes. The people, particularly the adivasi masses, have successfully overthrown the old exploitative system in large swathes of Dandakaranya, and are creating in its place embryonic forms of people’s government (Janatana Sarkar). The masses are now running their own affairs throughrevolutionary people’s committees, ushering in a people-centric development. They are also defending the gains of the movement by building armed people’s militia, involving the entire population. They have fought back state violence perpetrated through the armed forces or Salwa Judum, and successfully prevented the corporate loot of their resources. The present war on people is nothing but an intensification of the class struggle between the rulers and the ruled, moving towards an all-encompassing civil war. The world-wide economic crisis is pushing the Indian state towards intensified exploitation of the people and their resources, whereas the mass resistance is also taking more militant form, drawing large sections of the oppressed classes towards the revolutionary movement. In such a volatile context, there is every possibility that the present imperialist crisis will turn into a revolutionary one. History has shown that the crises of imperialism have weakened the domestic and imperialist ruling classes, thereby paving the way for revolution. The question therefore is not of choosing violence over non-violence, but of Marxism over revisionism and fascism, of freedom over exploitation and injustice.
At a time when the spectre of Maoism is haunting India’s ruling classes, a vehement debate has been launched by the media, academics, and intellectuals on the question of violence. The likes of Manmohan-Chidambaram-Buddhadeb have also been referring to it of late, by making constant ‘appeals’ or threats to the revolutionary forces to ‘abjure violence’. As if the masters of the country who never lose sleep over the violence caused by the present exploitative system leading to the death of lakhs of indebted peasants, millions of stillborn and malnourished children, or the tens of thousands perishing in the absence of the very basic health facilities, the three hundred women who die in pregnancy or child-birth everyday in the country, or for that matter the 77% of the population living on an average daily income of less than Rs.20, has been rudely awakened by the practice of political violence by the revolutionary masses. Simplistic and false distinctions between democratic struggle vs. armed struggle, mass movement vs. ‘militarism’ etc. have also been resurrected, reflections of which are seen in the present political discourse in JNU as well.
Such facile debates on violence play down the fascist violence unleashed in the vast countryside by the feudal lords, rich peasants, village strongmen and their armed goons over the small and marginal peasants, dalit landless labourers and adivasi peasants. It does not recognise the coercive extraction of surplus labour by big capitalists from millions of workers in the ‘unorganised sector’, existing in the state of bondage or semi-bondage. The cacophony over ‘violence’ seeks to submerge the anguish of the classes and sections who have suffered forcenturies the burden of exploitative and regressive production relations in our society, replete with daily violence. It conveniently covers up the forcible and violent subjugation of a whole people or nation in the name of ‘territorial integrity’, as the experience of Kashmir, North East or Punjab exemplifies. For the oppressed masses, violence is an everyday experience, a fact of life. They know it well, as they are the targets of this violence. For Marxists too, violence has never been the central issue. What is central is the question of putting an end to the exploitation of one human being by another and of one class by another, through revolutionary social transformation.
Revolutionary social transformation is the essence of Marxism: The great teachers of Marxism, including Marx himself, emphasised the absolute necessity of the use of force in order to overthrow the exploitative classes and for the capture of political power by the oppressed. Marx and Engels in the concluding paragraph of the Communist Manifesto wrote, “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.” While summarising the concrete historical experiences of Paris Commune, the first ever worker’s government that “stormed heaven” and overthrew the bourgeoisie from the seat of power in 1871 through armed insurrection, Marx stressed the need of the proletariat to organise and arm itself in order to defeat the bourgeoisie and to defend the victories of the revolution. On the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin emphatically upheld the necessity of revolutionary violence in his State and Revolution, “the liberation of the oppressed class is impossible not only without a violent revolution, but also without the destruction of the apparatus of state power which was created by the ruling class”. Mao, who was at the helm of the Chinese Revolution and who developed the strategies and tactics of revolution in the colonial and semi-colonial context, noted that “the seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest form of revolution.” No wonder, the question of violence that has been so clearly addressed by generations of Marxist revolutionaries, is deliberately obfuscated not only by the proclaimed anti-Marxist, but also by the pseudo-communists who have deviated from the path of class struggle and socialism. By criminalising the armed resistance and revolutionary violence of the oppressed, they openly or implicitly facilitate and justify the repression of the rulers, thereby siding with the oppressors in the violent class struggle.
Revolutionary social transformation and the capture of political power by the oppressed is not possible without revolutionary violence: The theory and practice of Marxism as well as the history of worldwide communist movement shows that no radical reordering of the society is possible without the oppressed classes confronting the violence of the oppressors with revolutionary violence. The quest for maintaining ‘peace’ and ‘order’ in any society with exploitative social relations, is nothing but a ploy of the ruling classes to continue unhindered the existing exploitative system. The Indian ruling classes is also no exception to this. Even India’s First War of Independence in 1857 or the various tribal rebellions during the colonial period were violently suppressed by the British colonial army. The agrarian armed struggle of Telangana under Communist leadership was crushed by Nehru’s Congress government after the transfer of power in 1947 through the deployment of Indian Army. Similarly, the national liberation struggle led by the Mizo National Front in the North East was quelled by the use of army and air force, which also involved the forced displacement and ‘clustering’ of 80% of the total Mizo population in resettled villages. The national liberation movements of the people of Kashmir, Nagalim, Manipur or Asom etc., who have been fighting to achieve the democratic right of self-determination, have likewise been confronted militarily by the Indian state. ‘Peace’ in Punjab was established in 1980s through a violent extermination campaign that culminated in the storming of the Golden Temple by the Indian security forces during ‘Operation Blue Star’. The violence perpetrated in all these cases, which have confronted the ruling classes of the country, has been variously justified by the ruling classes and their political parties, including those wearing the mask of communists, the CPI and later the CPI(M). Most of these movements have strived for democratic revolutions under the leadership of their respective national bourgeoisie. The Indian ruling class comprising of the feudal and comprador big bourgeoisie however has repeatedly resorted brutal suppression of the revolutionary potential of these people’s movements and their democratic aspirations through the use of the state and its coercive apparatus, primarily the armed forces.
The character of the present Indian society, the tasks of the Indian revolution, and the necessity of armed struggle: The Communist Party of India followed a revisionist policy from its very inception, and tailed the Congress during anti-colonial movement. After 1947, the undivided CPI got enmeshed in the quagmire of parliamentarism, the question of revolution being never seriously addressed. The CPI(M) too had a similar analysis about the Indian society as CPI, for whom sharing of political power with the ruling classes through parliamentary elections became the single-point agenda. It was the great Naxalbari armed agrarian uprising in 1967 which blazed the trail of revolution in the subcontinent, combining revolutionary theory with practice. Hailed as the ‘Spring Thunder’, the Naxalbari movement for the first time correctly analysed the character of the Indian state and society, its class composition, and the need of armed struggle. Quite contrary to the understanding of CPI, CPI(M) and other such revisionist forces, which characterised the Indian society as bourgeois democratic, the Naxalbari movement established the semi-feudal and semi-colonial character of the Indian society. It identified the Indian state as the combined class-rule of feudalism, comprador big bourgeoisie and imperialism, who are the targets of the Indian revolution. The task was to bring in the New Democratic Revolution under the leadership of the proletarian party. ‘Land to the tiller’ became one of the important programs of the revolution, which mobilised the landless and small peasants. This also gave the framework to understand the caste question with all its significance from a Marxist perspective, a question which was so far ignored or brushed aside by the revisionist communist parties.
Since the contradiction between the broad masses and feudalism was identified by the Naxal movement as the primary class contradiction in the Indian society, the fight against feudal exploitation and state oppression was conducted through armed agrarian struggle, on the basis of worker-peasant alliance. In the period of 1967-74, the Naxalbari movement made initial efforts to implement the strategy and tactics of protracted people’s war through area-wise seizure of power, building base areas in the countryside, and developing people’s revolutionary power by replacing the power of the Indian ruling class. Though the movement suffered serious setback due to severe repression in the ’70s, Naxalbari showed the oppressed masses of the entire subcontinent the path of liberation through an intensified class struggle against their oppressors, whereas the revisionists offered only class collaboration. Naxalbari was a clear break from those who have abandoned the path of Marxism, and rejected revolutionary violence in the name of ‘democracy’, or for ‘making use’ of the parliament. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism became the political weapon of the people, while armed struggle for capturing political power the strategy. 42 years of Naxalbari’s glorious legacy has proved beyond doubt that in the Indian social reality, it is the only path of revolutionary social transformation. To ask the revolutionary masses to ‘abjure’ violence therefore is to ask them to give up Marxism, and class struggle. As long as the ruling classes retain its powers to exploit and oppress through open and systemic violence, political violence of the oppressed will continue to be relevant, justified, and necessary.
Naxalism is not the problem, it is the solution: The expansion of the revolutionary movement over the last four decades to a vast region of central, eastern and southern India has now strengthened to become the ‘largest internal security threat’ for the ruling classes. The people, particularly the adivasi masses, have successfully overthrown the old exploitative system in large swathes of Dandakaranya, and are creating in its place embryonic forms of people’s government (Janatana Sarkar). The masses are now running their own affairs throughrevolutionary people’s committees, ushering in a people-centric development. They are also defending the gains of the movement by building armed people’s militia, involving the entire population. They have fought back state violence perpetrated through the armed forces or Salwa Judum, and successfully prevented the corporate loot of their resources. The present war on people is nothing but an intensification of the class struggle between the rulers and the ruled, moving towards an all-encompassing civil war. The world-wide economic crisis is pushing the Indian state towards intensified exploitation of the people and their resources, whereas the mass resistance is also taking more militant form, drawing large sections of the oppressed classes towards the revolutionary movement. In such a volatile context, there is every possibility that the present imperialist crisis will turn into a revolutionary one. History has shown that the crises of imperialism have weakened the domestic and imperialist ruling classes, thereby paving the way for revolution. The question therefore is not of choosing violence over non-violence, but of Marxism over revisionism and fascism, of freedom over exploitation and injustice.
Resist the War Waged on the People by the Indian Government!
The former US president George W. Bush declared a ‘War on Terror’ in the pretext of 9/11, and attacked Iraq andthen Afghanistan so that US imperialism could capture oil, gas and other natural resources in these foreign countries. The prime minister of India too made an open declaration of war against ‘terrorism’ after 26/11. P Chidambaram too recently announced the government’s decision to go on a military offensive adhering to the dictates of the US. This time the offensive was aimed at the people of this country, those who are among the most deprived and exploited. This is just to facilitate the handing over of the country’s natural resources to the plunder and loot of foreign corporations, even though purported aim is to ‘re‐establish the sovereign rule of the Indian state in Maoist influenced regions’. One of the main proponents of this war on people is Manmohan Singh, who was an economist with the World Bank controlled by US imperialism before he joined active politics. Till the day of becoming the finance minister of the UPA government, P Chidambaram was a member of the Board of Directors in Vedanta, the British mining multinational. He was also the lawyer of the notorious US electricity corporation, Enron. Both Singh and Chidambaram have been die‐hard advocates of foreign investment to the country, the two foremost agents of US imperialism in the country. On 18th of June 2006, the prime minister made a statement in the parliament, pronouncing that ‘the environment for foreign investment is going to be severely affected if left‐wing extremism continues to grow and expand in the mineral‐rich regions of the country’. The booty of this war declared by Manmohan Singh’s government on the people is going to be handed over to the imperialist countries, particularly to US imperialism.
Borders within the country: Much like the US government which sent 1.5 lakh soldiers to occupy Iraq and 1 lakh to Afghanistan, the Indian government too is sending its 1 lakh troops to wage a war against in central and eastern parts of the country, with similar purposes in mind. Only that the target this time is our own people, in our own territory. It is as if the government has declared a part of this country to be a foreign land, and is now sending its armed forces to occupy it. In addition to the Indian army and the air‐force, tens of thousands of armed personnel from the police, CRPF, ITBP, IRB, Special Task Force, Rashtriya Rifles, etc. are mobilized to take part in this full‐scale war. The home ministry and the defense ministry are jointly overseeing this war under the command of high‐ranked army officers. Army colonels and brigadiers are running Jungle Warfare Schools in Chhattisgarh, and are imprting training to the troops to confront the people. The notorious Rashtriya Rifles under the direct command of the Indian army, as well as the ITBP and BSF, raised for defending the borders of the country, are being redeployed by the central government for this military offensive. Air force helicopters are being requisitioned, including the ‘Garud’ armoured helicopters. The government is outlaying more than 7,300 crores of hard‐earned money of the working people for this war. The government is preparing to take the help of intelligence input from US defense satellites as well. In Lalgarh too, which the home secretary has termed as the ‘laboratory of joint army operations’, US spy‐satellites were used to scan Borpelia, Kantapahadi, Ramgarh and adjoining areas. In September 2009, the home minister Chidambaram went on a four‐day state visit to the US. Just after his return from this trip, ‘Operation Green Hunt’ was launched in the northern, southern and eastern parts of Bastar. At least 19 adivasi villagers were brutally murdered during this operation. It is worth noting that many teams of US security establishment secretly visited Chhattisgarh in order to assess the war preparations. The Indian government is also in constant consultation with the US army officers who are commanding the imperialist war against Afghanistan and North‐West Pakistan.
Corporate plunder for super‐profits is the real motive behind this war: From the year 2001 onwards, there was a scramble among various state governments to outsmart one another in inviting foreign investors and comprador big business houses of the country to their respective states, and to conclude hundreds of agreements and Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs). In Jharkhand itself, more than 100 MoUs were signed by the state government with Mittal, Jindal, Tata, RioTinto and other foreign and Indian big corporations in the last nine years involving mining projects, steel and aluminum plants, electricity plants, dams, and so on. In Orissa too, companies like Vedanta, POSCO, Tata, Hindalco, Jindal and Mittal are eyeing for the unexplored natural resources. The BJP government in Chhattisgarh has already concluded agreements with Essar, Tata, RioTinto and other such big corporations to set up Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in the mining sector. In these three states alone, agreements worth Rs.873,896 crores of investment in various projects have been concluded till September 2009. The peasants who are largely dependent on land, forests and rivers for their livelihood, particularly the adivasis, have refused to give up their resources for corporate plunder. They have organized themselves against forcible land‐acquisition for these big projects. The Maoists too, who have been fighting against the ruling classes to carry out a revolutionary transformation of the present exploitative system and for the liberation of the oppressed masses, have built up a strong resistance against these anti‐people projects. The Maoist movement has successfully organized the masses to fight for the scrapping of these agreements and MoUs, to resist the incursion of the corporates, and to establish people’s revolutionary power that guarantees the rights of the masses over land and natural resources in many of these regions.
The government intensified its onslaught on the people soon after the agreements and MoUs were concluded, and the adivasis in particular subsequently became the targets of state terror. The unleashing of Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh left hundreds of adivasis dead, raped and maimed, thousands of houses burnt, and more than seven hundred villages displaced. Children were decapitated, dead bodies of adivasi villagers were mutilated and hung from trees, rape was used as a means of state repression. Around three lakh adivasis were forced to leave their villages, of which more than fifty thousand were forcibly kept in Salwa Judum camps. The first of these police camps were financed by Essar. In the Singhbhum region of Jharkhand which attracted the largest amount of agreements for corporate investment, a reign of state terror was established through ‘Nagarik Suraksha Samiti’. ‘Tritiya Prastuti Committee’ was used in Balumath in order to crush the resistance against the setting up of a power plant by the Abhijit Group of Companies. In Orissa too, the so‐called ‘Shanti‐Sena’ which complimented the mercenary goons of the corporations, was created to attack the people’s resistance. The resistance of the people and the revolutionary movement has resiliently withstood the combined attacks of the police, para‐military and the vigilante gangs, and defended the people’s rights over land and natural resources. Imperialist forces, particularly US imperialism and its ‘strategic partner’ the Indian government, have therefore launched this fresh military offensive on the people in these regions, similar motives with which US imperialists went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan to subjugate and plunder the mineral and natural resources of these countries.
The only way forward is to Establish People’s Power: The people’s struggle for rights over their land, forests and natural resources has been continuing ever since the feudal and colonial forces have tried to dispossess them through the use of force or the ‘rule of law’. Ever since the imposition of the Forest Act by British colonialism, whereby the rights of the adivasis on their forests and land was taken away, many glorious rebellions challenged the might of British India. The adivasi Ulugulan under the leadership of Birsa Munda in Jharkhand, Bhumkal Vidroh in Bastar led by Gundadhar, the Ghumeswar rebellion in Orissa, etc., all were aimed at defending the rights of the people over land and forests. During Naxalbari movement too, the oppressed masses fought for their rights over land, and to establish people’s revolutionary power by overthrowing the feudal social order. The masses of this country in general and the adivasis in particular have a history of waging persistent and uncompromising struggles against the exploitation and oppression of the ruling classes. Even today the masses of the entire country, led by the people’s movements in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal etc. is marching forward, holding high the banner of revolutionary class struggle and defeating the fascist attacks of the reactionary rulers one after another. Be it Operation Green Hunt or Operation Siddharth, Salwa Judum or Harmad Vahini, Ranveer Sena, Sunlight Sena, C‐60, Black Hundreds, Sendra, Grey Hounds, CRPF or CoBRA, the fighting masses of the country have time and again stood up to ensure befitting response to the combined repression of the feudal, comprador big bourgeois and imperialist forces.
The Indian government must stop this war waged against the people of central and eastern India, and must immediately and unconditionally withdraw its armed forces from these regions. All the MoUs and agreements with foreign multinationals and Indian corporations for the plunder of natural resources of the people must be scrapped, and the land forcibly acquired for such projects must be restored to their rightful owners. In addition, the rights ofthe people over land and forests must be acknowledged. Otherwise, the people of this country will rise up against this war waged on them by the central and state governments, and fight a resolute struggle for establishingpeople’s sovereign power over their resources, their sources of life and livelihood. This struggle will not cease until the dream of a truly People’s Democratic India, visualized by Bhagat Singh and thousands of martyred revolutionaries, is turned into a reality.
Borders within the country: Much like the US government which sent 1.5 lakh soldiers to occupy Iraq and 1 lakh to Afghanistan, the Indian government too is sending its 1 lakh troops to wage a war against in central and eastern parts of the country, with similar purposes in mind. Only that the target this time is our own people, in our own territory. It is as if the government has declared a part of this country to be a foreign land, and is now sending its armed forces to occupy it. In addition to the Indian army and the air‐force, tens of thousands of armed personnel from the police, CRPF, ITBP, IRB, Special Task Force, Rashtriya Rifles, etc. are mobilized to take part in this full‐scale war. The home ministry and the defense ministry are jointly overseeing this war under the command of high‐ranked army officers. Army colonels and brigadiers are running Jungle Warfare Schools in Chhattisgarh, and are imprting training to the troops to confront the people. The notorious Rashtriya Rifles under the direct command of the Indian army, as well as the ITBP and BSF, raised for defending the borders of the country, are being redeployed by the central government for this military offensive. Air force helicopters are being requisitioned, including the ‘Garud’ armoured helicopters. The government is outlaying more than 7,300 crores of hard‐earned money of the working people for this war. The government is preparing to take the help of intelligence input from US defense satellites as well. In Lalgarh too, which the home secretary has termed as the ‘laboratory of joint army operations’, US spy‐satellites were used to scan Borpelia, Kantapahadi, Ramgarh and adjoining areas. In September 2009, the home minister Chidambaram went on a four‐day state visit to the US. Just after his return from this trip, ‘Operation Green Hunt’ was launched in the northern, southern and eastern parts of Bastar. At least 19 adivasi villagers were brutally murdered during this operation. It is worth noting that many teams of US security establishment secretly visited Chhattisgarh in order to assess the war preparations. The Indian government is also in constant consultation with the US army officers who are commanding the imperialist war against Afghanistan and North‐West Pakistan.
Corporate plunder for super‐profits is the real motive behind this war: From the year 2001 onwards, there was a scramble among various state governments to outsmart one another in inviting foreign investors and comprador big business houses of the country to their respective states, and to conclude hundreds of agreements and Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs). In Jharkhand itself, more than 100 MoUs were signed by the state government with Mittal, Jindal, Tata, RioTinto and other foreign and Indian big corporations in the last nine years involving mining projects, steel and aluminum plants, electricity plants, dams, and so on. In Orissa too, companies like Vedanta, POSCO, Tata, Hindalco, Jindal and Mittal are eyeing for the unexplored natural resources. The BJP government in Chhattisgarh has already concluded agreements with Essar, Tata, RioTinto and other such big corporations to set up Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in the mining sector. In these three states alone, agreements worth Rs.873,896 crores of investment in various projects have been concluded till September 2009. The peasants who are largely dependent on land, forests and rivers for their livelihood, particularly the adivasis, have refused to give up their resources for corporate plunder. They have organized themselves against forcible land‐acquisition for these big projects. The Maoists too, who have been fighting against the ruling classes to carry out a revolutionary transformation of the present exploitative system and for the liberation of the oppressed masses, have built up a strong resistance against these anti‐people projects. The Maoist movement has successfully organized the masses to fight for the scrapping of these agreements and MoUs, to resist the incursion of the corporates, and to establish people’s revolutionary power that guarantees the rights of the masses over land and natural resources in many of these regions.
The government intensified its onslaught on the people soon after the agreements and MoUs were concluded, and the adivasis in particular subsequently became the targets of state terror. The unleashing of Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh left hundreds of adivasis dead, raped and maimed, thousands of houses burnt, and more than seven hundred villages displaced. Children were decapitated, dead bodies of adivasi villagers were mutilated and hung from trees, rape was used as a means of state repression. Around three lakh adivasis were forced to leave their villages, of which more than fifty thousand were forcibly kept in Salwa Judum camps. The first of these police camps were financed by Essar. In the Singhbhum region of Jharkhand which attracted the largest amount of agreements for corporate investment, a reign of state terror was established through ‘Nagarik Suraksha Samiti’. ‘Tritiya Prastuti Committee’ was used in Balumath in order to crush the resistance against the setting up of a power plant by the Abhijit Group of Companies. In Orissa too, the so‐called ‘Shanti‐Sena’ which complimented the mercenary goons of the corporations, was created to attack the people’s resistance. The resistance of the people and the revolutionary movement has resiliently withstood the combined attacks of the police, para‐military and the vigilante gangs, and defended the people’s rights over land and natural resources. Imperialist forces, particularly US imperialism and its ‘strategic partner’ the Indian government, have therefore launched this fresh military offensive on the people in these regions, similar motives with which US imperialists went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan to subjugate and plunder the mineral and natural resources of these countries.
The only way forward is to Establish People’s Power: The people’s struggle for rights over their land, forests and natural resources has been continuing ever since the feudal and colonial forces have tried to dispossess them through the use of force or the ‘rule of law’. Ever since the imposition of the Forest Act by British colonialism, whereby the rights of the adivasis on their forests and land was taken away, many glorious rebellions challenged the might of British India. The adivasi Ulugulan under the leadership of Birsa Munda in Jharkhand, Bhumkal Vidroh in Bastar led by Gundadhar, the Ghumeswar rebellion in Orissa, etc., all were aimed at defending the rights of the people over land and forests. During Naxalbari movement too, the oppressed masses fought for their rights over land, and to establish people’s revolutionary power by overthrowing the feudal social order. The masses of this country in general and the adivasis in particular have a history of waging persistent and uncompromising struggles against the exploitation and oppression of the ruling classes. Even today the masses of the entire country, led by the people’s movements in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal etc. is marching forward, holding high the banner of revolutionary class struggle and defeating the fascist attacks of the reactionary rulers one after another. Be it Operation Green Hunt or Operation Siddharth, Salwa Judum or Harmad Vahini, Ranveer Sena, Sunlight Sena, C‐60, Black Hundreds, Sendra, Grey Hounds, CRPF or CoBRA, the fighting masses of the country have time and again stood up to ensure befitting response to the combined repression of the feudal, comprador big bourgeois and imperialist forces.
The Indian government must stop this war waged against the people of central and eastern India, and must immediately and unconditionally withdraw its armed forces from these regions. All the MoUs and agreements with foreign multinationals and Indian corporations for the plunder of natural resources of the people must be scrapped, and the land forcibly acquired for such projects must be restored to their rightful owners. In addition, the rights ofthe people over land and forests must be acknowledged. Otherwise, the people of this country will rise up against this war waged on them by the central and state governments, and fight a resolute struggle for establishingpeople’s sovereign power over their resources, their sources of life and livelihood. This struggle will not cease until the dream of a truly People’s Democratic India, visualized by Bhagat Singh and thousands of martyred revolutionaries, is turned into a reality.
October 29, 2009
Resist the JNU administration's attempts to privatise and commercialise education and basic facilities!
October 26, 2009
Resist the renewed attempts by the administration to commercialise and privatise basic facilities!
In the latest attempt by the administration to implement the guidelines of the recently released MHRD circular, it has called the meeting of the Inter-Hall Administration (IHA) with all hostel presidents on 30th October. The agenda for this meeting has not been disclosed yet, but we have come to know that the administration will push for the levying of user charges for electricity in hostels starting with Koyna, to devise a centralized mess payment system in the DSW, and to hike the mess bill, among other things. A hostel senior warden’s meeting has also been called on 26th Oct to prepare the way for these anti-student moves. This is nothing but another blatant attempt by the administration to privatise basic facilities in the campus, even after a collective mass resistance from the students forced it to backtrack from commercializing PSR in the last semester. The administration however persisted with the steep hike in the JNU prospectus fee as well as the installed electric meters in Koyna hostel, despite popular anger against these moves.
The present attempt vindicates our stand that the reason behind the installation of the electric meters in Koyna hostel was not to conduct any ‘survey’ but for levying user charges in the near future. This is now being sought to be done through the IHA and by keeping the student community in the dark. Alongside user charges, the administration proposes to set up a centralized mess system which would allow it direct control of the hostel management and also of the funds that are received, facilitating a large scale appropriation and misuse of funds by the administration. This also will violate the autonomy of the hostel and mess committees in matters related to hostel administration.
The sole justification of the administration for these moves is the drastic cuts in the funds allocated by the MHRD. While this resource crunch has not deterred this administration from its ‘beautification’ drive and from indulging in unnecessary spending, such as installing more and more useless benches, sign boards and flower pots, it has come down heavily on the students and sought to force students to buy the basic minimum facilities by withdrawing the subsidies. In the case of expanding health centre facilities, we have seen that funds were allocated by the UGC, but the administration arbitrarily chose to use it for ‘beautification’ at the expense of students’ health and life. This exposes the nature of this administration once again which wants to make this university and higher education at large an unaffordable commodity for the vast sections of our society. We therefore demand that the administration come out with a white paper on all the expenses under the Plan and Non-Plan heads during the last academic year. These sinister and repeated attempts by the administration have to be collectively resisted by the students this time too. Students have repeatedly come out in overwhelming numbers to oppose the attempts at privatization, commercialisation and commodification of education.
We demand that the JNUSU launch an uncompromising struggle against these renewed attempts. The JNUSU should call an emergency All Organisation Meeting to discuss the future course of action to resist this latest onslaught of privatization by the administration, and to mobilize the student community for a protest demonstration during the IHA meeting on 30th October 2009.
The present attempt vindicates our stand that the reason behind the installation of the electric meters in Koyna hostel was not to conduct any ‘survey’ but for levying user charges in the near future. This is now being sought to be done through the IHA and by keeping the student community in the dark. Alongside user charges, the administration proposes to set up a centralized mess system which would allow it direct control of the hostel management and also of the funds that are received, facilitating a large scale appropriation and misuse of funds by the administration. This also will violate the autonomy of the hostel and mess committees in matters related to hostel administration.
The sole justification of the administration for these moves is the drastic cuts in the funds allocated by the MHRD. While this resource crunch has not deterred this administration from its ‘beautification’ drive and from indulging in unnecessary spending, such as installing more and more useless benches, sign boards and flower pots, it has come down heavily on the students and sought to force students to buy the basic minimum facilities by withdrawing the subsidies. In the case of expanding health centre facilities, we have seen that funds were allocated by the UGC, but the administration arbitrarily chose to use it for ‘beautification’ at the expense of students’ health and life. This exposes the nature of this administration once again which wants to make this university and higher education at large an unaffordable commodity for the vast sections of our society. We therefore demand that the administration come out with a white paper on all the expenses under the Plan and Non-Plan heads during the last academic year. These sinister and repeated attempts by the administration have to be collectively resisted by the students this time too. Students have repeatedly come out in overwhelming numbers to oppose the attempts at privatization, commercialisation and commodification of education.
We demand that the JNUSU launch an uncompromising struggle against these renewed attempts. The JNUSU should call an emergency All Organisation Meeting to discuss the future course of action to resist this latest onslaught of privatization by the administration, and to mobilize the student community for a protest demonstration during the IHA meeting on 30th October 2009.
असली मुद्दा हिंसा का नहीं, न्याय और अधिकारों का है
छत्तीसगढ़ सहित देश के अनेक हिस्सों में गृह युद्ध जैसी स्थितियां गहराती जा रही हैं और सरकार उत्तर पूर्व और कश्मीर के बाद युद्ध का तीसरा मोर्चा खोल रही है. यह युद्ध दो ध्रुवीकृत शक्तियों के बीच चल रहा है, जिसमें एक तरफ राजसत्ता है, साम्राज्यवादी शक्तियां हैं, भारी-भरकम सैन्य शक्ति है, मल्टीनेशनल और भारत के दलाल पूंजीपति हैं, कॉरपोरेट मीडिया है और दूसरी तरफ है पूरे देश की संघर्षरत उत्पीडित जनता, जिसके जल-जंगल-जमीन सहित सारे संसाधनों को छीन लेने की कोशिश हो रही है और जिसके पास क्रांतिकारी संघर्षों की एक समृद्ध परंपरा है और साम्राज्यवाद से युद्ध की सदियों पुरानी विरासत है।
खुद सरकार के आंकडों के मुताबिक छत्तीसगढ़ में अभी 50000 सीआरपीएफ, बीएसएफ, राष्ट्रीय राइफल्स, कोबरा और सी-60 के जवान तैनात हैं और उनकी मदद के लिए 75000 अर्ध सैनिक बल और भेजे जा रहे हैं. इनके अलावा सेना और वायुसेना को सक्रिय तौर पर सैन्य अभियानों में लगाने की योजना है. इसमें राज्य की पुलिस और स्पेशल पुलिस अधिकारियों की गिनती नहीं की गयी है. कुछ समय में राज्य पर भारी हवाई हमले के साथ बड़े पैमाने पर अरण्य आखेट शुरू कर दिया जायेगा. अगर आप नामों में दिलचस्पी नहीं भी रखते हों, तब भी यह एक अर्थपूर्ण सूचना है कि ऑपरेशन ग्रीन हंट और सलवा जुडूम दोनों का अर्थ लगभग एक होता है-शिकार पर निकली राजसत्ता. यह 20 रुपये से भी कम पर गुजारा कर रहे, स्कूल, पेयजल और स्वास्थ्य सेवाओं से वंचित अपने ही लोगों के खिलाफ देश की युद्ध की घोषणा है, जो अपने बजट का 20 प्रतिशत रक्षा के नाम पर खर्च करता है.
यह युद्ध अमेरिकी साम्राज्यवाद की निगरानी में हो रहा है. पिछले कुछ महीनों में काफी संख्या में अमेरिकी डेलिगेटों ने छत्तीसगढ़ का दौरा किया है और उन्होंने अधिकारियों से मिल कर युद्ध को चलाने के तरीके सुझाये हैं. इसके अलावा भारत की सेना अमेरिका से नक्सलियों से निबटने के तरीके सीख रही है. इसके पहले भी भारत का दलाल शासक वर्ग अमेरिकी साम्राज्यवादियों से जनता के खिलाफ युद्ध के तरीके सीखता रहा है. उसके द्वारा उत्तर पूर्व के अनेक राज्यों और छत्तीसगढ़ और दूसरे राज्यों में में चलाये गये सलवा जुडूम, सेंदरा, नागरिक सुरक्षा समिति, तृतीय प्रस्तुति समिति, नरसि कोबरा, हरमाद वाहिनी, सनलाइट सेना और सल्फा जैसे हत्यारे अभियान उसने अमेरिका से ही सीखे हैं, जिसने वियतनाम में इन तरीकों का उपयोग किया था. संसाधनों पर कब्जे के लिए और जनता के प्रतिरोध के दमन के लिए जनता के पैसे से ही नयी-नयी बटालियनों का निर्माण किया जा रहा है. ग्रेहाउंडस और सी-60 के बाद अब कोबरा का निर्माण किया गया है, जिनमें आदिवासियों को अधिक-से-अधिक भरा जा रहा है. इस तरह आदिवासियों को ही सामने रख कर सत्ता इस लड़ाई को लड़ना चाहती है. जनता द्वारा सलवा जुडूम को पराजित करने के बाद राजसत्ता द्वारा माओवाद से लड़ने के नाम पर वंचित, उत्पीडित और संघर्षरत जनता पर बर्बर हमले का यह नया और विस्तारित आयाम है. यह साबित करता है कि शासक वर्ग के साम्राज्यवादी दलाली और कॉरपोरेट लूट के खिलाफ जनता का प्रतिरोध ऐसे स्तर पर पहुंच गया है कि सत्ता को जनपक्षधर होने के तमाम दावों-दिखावों को छोड़ कर खुलेआम जनता के खिलाफ युद्ध में उतरने की घोषणा करनी पड़ी है।
हालांकि यह युद्ध किसी एक जगह या राज्य तक सीमित नहीं है. जहां-जहां अपने जल-जंगल-जमीन की बर्बर लूट का जनता विरोध कर रही है, उसे माओवादी बता कर उसका निर्ममतापूर्वक दमन किया जा रहा है. यह हमने सिंगूर, कलिंगनगर, नंदीग्राम, कोयलकारो, नेत्रहाट, रायगढ़, जशपुर, जगतसिंपुर, लोहंडीगुडा में देखा है और सबसे हाल में लालगढ़ में हम यह होते देख रहे हैं.भारत का शासक वर्ग बहुराष्ट्रीय कंपनियों और भारत के दलाल पूंजीपतियों के हित में यह युद्ध चला रहा है. देश के संसाधनों और संपदा की लूट 1991 में देश पर वैश्वीकरण थोपने के बाद और अधिक तेज हुई है. लूट की इस प्रक्रिया में कॉरपोरेट जगत के साथ देश की तमाम सरकारें हैं, पूरी राजसत्ता है, सेना है, पुलिस है और उसके विज्ञापनों पर पलनेवाला मीडिया है. इस तरह पूरी व्यवस्था जनता से उसके जल-जंगल-जमीन को छीन कर मुनाफाखोर बहुराष्ट्रीय कंपनियों को सौंपने में लगी हुई है. नदियां बिक रही हैं, जंगल उजाडे जा रहे हैं, खेतों को बंजर कारखानों और विनाशकारी बांधों में बदला जा रहा है. केवल मुट्ठीभर अरबपतियों को फायदा पहुंचानेवाली इन विनाशकारी विकास परियोजनाओं के नाम पर बड़े पैमाने पर जनता को विस्थापित किया जा रहा है. लेकिन ये विस्थापित लोग, जिन्हें आज तक इस सत्ता ने कोई सुविधा नहीं मुहैया करायी, उल्टे उनके पास जो है, उसे छीन ही रही है, जब इस खुली लूट का विरोध करते हैं तो उन्हें राज्य माओवादी कह कर उन उलापा और छत्तीसगढ़ विशेष जन सुरक्षा अधिनियम जैसे काले कानून, सलवा जुडूम, सेना, वायुसेना के जरिये दमन का भयानक सिलसिला थोप देता है।अपने देश की संपदा को बहुराष्ट्रीय कंपनियों और दलाल पूंजीपतियों को सौंप पर उन्हें फायदा पहुंचाने के लिए राज्य द्वारा जारी इस खुली लूट और दमन से जुड़े बस कुछ तथ्य ये हैं. अपने पिछले कार्यकाल में भाजपा की रमन सिंह सरकार ने छत्तीसगढ़ में नये कारखानों के निर्माण के लिए कम से कम 11 कंपनियों से करार (एमओयू) किया. इसके अलावा टाटा, एस्सार, आर्सेलर मित्तल, जिंदल, टेक्सास जैसी कंपनियों को बैलाडिला इलाके में 96 खदानों की लीज दी गयी है, जिनकी शर्तों को देखते हुए कहा जा सकता है कि उन्हें लगभग बेच दिया गया है. इस कदम से इस इलाके में रहनेवाले आदिवासियों के अस्तित्व और उनकी संस्कृति का खात्मा हो जायेगा।अपनी जमीन और अपने अस्तित्व को छीन लेनेवाले विकास के नाम पर ऐसी विनाशकारी परियोजनाओं का जनता जब विरोध करती है तो इस प्रतिरोध को कुचलने के लिए और जमीनें खाली करवारने के लिए सत्ता द्वारा सलवा जुडूम जैसा अभियान शुरू किया जाता है. सुप्रीम कोर्ट द्वारा गैर कानूनी कहे जाने के बाद भी जारी रखेगये इस अभियान के जरिये सैकड़ों हत्याएं की गयीं, घर फूंक डाले गये और लोगों को अपने गांव छोड़ने पर मजबूर किया गया. सलवा जुडूम से 644 गांवों के 3.5 लाख लोग विस्थापित हुए. उनमें से 47 हजार लोगों को सड़कों के किनारे बनाये गये सरकारी राहत शिविरों में जबरन रखा गया है, जिन्हें सरकार ने अब स्थायी गांव घोषित कर रखा है. जो 40 हजार लोग आंध्र प्रदेश के जंगलों में भाग गये हैं, सरकार ने उन्हें कोई अधिकार नहीं देने की घोषणा की है. बाकी बचे 2,63,000 लोगों ने अपने गांवों में ही रहने का फैसला किया है. सरकार ने कहा है कि जो लोग राहत शिविरों में नहीं रह रहे हैं-वे माओवादी हैं, और इस परिभाषा के अनुसार ये ढाई लाख से अधिक लोग माओवादी हैं।और अब उनसे लड़ने के लिए सेना उतारी जा रही है. इन हत्यारे अभियानों में कॉरपोरेट जगत की दिलचस्पियों के बारे में इस तथ्य से अंदाजा लगाया जा सकता है कि पहला सलवा जुडूम राहत शिविर बनाने के लिए एस्सार ने फंड मुहैया कराये. एक दूसरा तथ्य यह है कि क्रेस्ट नामक कंपनी बस्तर, दांतेवाड़ा और बीजापुर जिलों में खनिज संपदा के लिए सर्वे करना चाहती थी. उसने कहा था कि वह सर्वे का काम तब तक नहीं कर सकती, जब तक ये इलाके खाली नहीं करा लिये जाते.ये इलाके अब खाली करा लिये गये हैं. जो नहीं हुए हैं, उन्हें खाली कराने के लिए अब सेना उतारी जा रही है. भारतीय सैन्य-अर्ध सैन्य बलों की यह ताकत उन लोगों पर आजमायी जानी है, जिन्हें पहले ही सत्ता पोषित नरसंहारों की श्रृंखला सलवा जुडूम के जरिये लगभग तबाह कर दिया गया है. कॉरपोरेट जगत के हितों से जुड़े इस सैन्य अभियान को मीडिया किन्हीं खूंखार आतंकवादियों के सफाये के गौरवशाली अभियान के बतौर कोक और नैनो के विज्ञापनों के साथ बेचेगा. हमेशा की तरह माओवादी बना दिये गये लोगों के हरेक प्रतिरोध को खून के प्यासे लोगों की हरकत के बतौर पेश किया जायेगा।1947 के बाद से विकास और राष्ट्र निर्माण के नाम पर चल रही बादी परियोजनाओं की कीमत सबसे अधिक आदिवासियों ने चुकायी है. इन परियोजनाओं से विस्थापित हुए कुल लोगों में लगभग आधी आबादी आदिवासियों की है, जबकि देश की आबादी में उनका हिस्सा सिर्फ 15 प्रतिशत है. और राष्ट्र निर्माण व विकास परियोजनाओं से हमें हासिल क्या हुआ है? छह करोड़ से अधिक विस्थापित. कुछ दर्जन अरबपति. और 77 प्रतिशत जनता के लिए 20 रुपये प्रतिव्यक्ति दैनिक खर्च.जाहिर है, यह सिर्फ छत्तीसगढ़ तक ही सीमित नहीं है. झारखंड, उड़ीसा, पश्चिम बंगाल, आंध्र प्रदेश-पूरे देश में यह प्रक्रिया चल रही है. कुछ समय पहले ही हमने सिंगूर में देखा कि किस तरह अपने को कम्युनिस्ट कहनेवाली पश्चिम बंगाल की बुद्धदेव सरकार ने किसानों की जमीन एक कॉरपोरेट घराने के लिए छीनी और टाटा को कार बनाने के लिए 2929 हजार करोड़ रुपये की सब्सिडी दी. इसका विरोध करने पर गांववालों पर निर्दयता से लाठी चार्ज किया गया. एक आंदोलनकारी युवती तापसी मलिक का बलात्कार करने के बाद सीपीएम कार्यकर्ताओं ने हत्या कर दी थी. यही सरकार नंदीग्राम में सलेम ग्रुप के लिए सिंगूर से भी बड़ी एक परियोजना के लिए जमीन हड़पने के लिए लोगों पर बर्बरतापूर्वक गोली चलाने से भी नहीं हिचकी. नंदीग्राम के लोगों को प्रतिरोध के लगभग आठ महीनों के दौरान सरकार और सीपीएम दोनों के हर तरह के उत्पीड़न का सामना करना पड़ा.लालगढ़ में सत्ता द्वारा किये जा रहे दमन और इसके प्रतिरोध को जनता एक ऐतिहासिक ऊंचाई पर ले गयी. यहां पुलिस और सीपीएम की हरमाद वाहिनी के दशकों लंबे अत्याचारों के खिलाफ जब जनता ने प्रतिरोध संगठित किया, पुलिस और सीपीएम को अपने इलाके से बाहर खदेड़ दिया और अपने लिए विकास के वैकल्पिक मॉडल विकसित किये तो उसके खिलाफ राज्य ने खुलेआम युद्ध छेड़ दिया. देश के सबसे वंचित और उत्पीड़ित समुदायों में से एक, जंगलमहल की जनता पर राज्य की संगठित सैन्य कार्रवाई इस जून से चल रही है. यहां भी जनता और वैकल्पिक विकास के प्रति उसकी रचनात्मकता के खिलाफ दमनात्मक कार्रवाईयों में सीपीएम सरकार पीछे नहीं रही है. साफ है सीपीएम भी शासक वर्ग की तरफ से इस युद्ध का नेतृत्व कर रही है और वह इसमें कांग्रेस और भाजपा के साथ कदम-से-कदम मिला कर चल रही है।इसी तरह उडीसा के कलिंगनगर में टाटा के प्रोजेक्ट के लिए जमीन के अधिग्रहण का किसान विरोध कर रहे थे, तो उन पर पुलिस ने फायरिंग की. इस बर्बर हमले में 14 आदिवासी मारे गये. झारखंड के कोयलकारो बांध परियोजना के जरिये विस्थापन का विरोध करने के कारण लंबे समय से आंदोलनकारी जनता पर दमन चल रहा है. ये तो देश के विभिन्न हिस्सों में चल रहे भारी विस्थापन, जनता द्वारा किये जा रहे प्रतिरोध और सरकार द्वारा किये जा रहे दमन के बस कुछ उदाहरण भर हैं।अभी हम मीडिया में 'माओवादी हिंसा' की चर्चा बड़े जोर-शोर से देख रहे हैं. लेकिन यही मीडिया पुलिस-सेना-अर्ध सैनिक बलों की कार्रवाईयों में जनता की हत्याओं की खबरों पर चुप्पी साध लेता है. इसी साल फर्जी मुठभेड़ों के नाम पर लगभग 50 लोग अकेले बस्तर इलाके में मारे गये हैं, लेकिन हम कभी मीडिया में इनकी तसवीरें या खबरें नहीं पाते. हमारे देश में वंचित लोग जब तक चुप रहते हैं, तब तक उनकी हत्या और बलात्कार की घटनाएं कभी 'खबर' नहीं बन पातीं, लेकिन जब वे लोग इस दमन के खिलाफ संघर्ष करते हैं तभी वे साम्राज्यवाद के इस प्रचारतंत्र-मीडिया-के लिए खबर बन जाते हैं. लेकिन इसके जरिये भी सिर्फ जनता के संघर्षों की गलत तसवीर और पुलिसिया झूठ का ही प्रचार किया जाता है और जनता के संघर्ष को अनौचित्यपूर्ण ठहराने की कोशिश की जाती है. कहने की जरूरत नहीं है कि सिर्फ जनता के संघर्षों को ही निशाना बनाने के लिए मीडिया और बुद्धिजीवियों द्वारा हिंसा को मुद्दा बनाया जाता है, जबकि असली मुद्दा हिंसा नहीं, बल्कि न्याय और अधिकारों का है, जो जनता से छीने जा रहे हैं।
कुछ बुद्धिजीवी अभी अमन की बातें कर रहे हैं, लेकिन हमें यह समझना पड़ेगा कि अमन अपने आप में कोई लक्ष्य नहीं हो सकता, बल्कि हमेशा यह इंसाफ के साथ ही आता है. अमन का मतलब अन्याय के खिलाफ चुप्पी नहीं है, बल्कि लड़ाई से अपने अधिकारों को जीतना है. जो लोग लड़ रहे हैं, वे इसी लक्ष्य के लिए लड़ रहे हैं. वे अपने जल-जंगल-जमीन-जिंदगी-ईमान और इज्जत के लिए लड़ रहे हैं।इस लड़ाई में हरेक जनवादी ताकतों को साम्राज्यवादी लूट और सत्ता के खिलाफ लड़ रही जनता के साथ खड़ा होना है, क्योंकि वर्ग संघर्ष की लड़ाई में बीच का रास्ता नहीं होता.
October 09, 2009
Stand in solidarity with the resilient people fighting the social fascist CPM! Uphold the revolutionary legacy of Naxalbari!
The Indian ruling class, the running dogs of imperialism, with the aid of big corporates has declared war on the most oppressed of the people. In various parts of the country para-military operations are currently going on to dispossess people from their land, lives and livelihood, and to crush militant people’s movements against imperialist aggression. The CPM, a reactionary, bankrupt, social-fascist force, is part and parcel of the Indian ruling class that is thrusting extreme exploitation in the name of neo-liberal reforms. Acting under the dictates of the imperialist masters, their various posturing notwithstanding, this parliamentary ‘Left’ is no different from the congress or the BJP. In the last parliament election, their alliances with the casteist and communal forces like AIADMK, TDP or BJD is another reflection of their opportunist and communal politics, as well as their complete betrayal of Left politics at large.
They are however not a party which turned revisionist. Rather, it has always been so. Though the CPM’s ‘love for the poor’ is orchestrated at every occasion by its apologists, the reality is quite the contrary. CPM came to power in 1979, accompanied by their slaughtering of 36 refugees including women and children at Morichjhapi. The murders at Keshpur, Garbeta, Chhoto angariya, Burdwan followed in their regime.
Let us see where CPM stands in terms of Neo-liberal reforms and state repression. To start with, they never opposed the SEZ Act when it came to parliament and shamelessly stood by the rest of the UPA. SFI in campus are crying hoarse against the Congress giving tax relief to Corporates. In West Bengal, however, CPM has given huge bounties to Corporates like Tata, Jindal, Mahindra as well as the infamous Salem group, etc. They have simply refused all demands including repeated RTIs filed by reporters and civil rights organizations, to make the agreements with these corporates public, saying these are ‘trade secrets’! Being directed by the court, they were compelled to reveal some parts of their agreement with the Tatas in the Singur small car project, which was one of their ‘smaller’ ventures. It showed that Tata Motors Limited (TML) was given around Rs. 3000 crore of government subsidy by CPM. According to the terms of this agreement, if one calculates in terms of net present value (NPV), the subsidy that TML gets for the land in Singur is anywhere between Rs.100 to Rs.150 crores; the subsidy due to the rental payment structure is Rs.78 crores; the implicit subsidy due to the tax holiday and the soft loan would be about Rs.1835 crores; the real estate “gift”, also known in WBIDC terminology as “infrastructural assistance”, is worth Rs.160 crores; and the subsidized electricity will cost another Rs.706 crores. So the giant Corporate Tata was gifted generously Rs.2928 crores of public money by a government that still prefers to call itself ‘communist’! And all this ‘subsidy’ or ‘assistance’ is for a factory that would produce cars for the use of the social-fascist party to drive ahead with its neo-liberal agenda. For this project they grabbed 1000 acres of land from the people, by brutally lathicharging on people, killed one young peasant Rajkumar Bhul and raped and killed Tapashi Malik. After the Tata left the project midway and headed towards Gujarat, they are still refusing to return the land to the peasants, or using it for some public benefit. So much for their ‘fight against imperialism’.
CPM's collaboration with Salem was at least six times bigger than the Tata project. They were desperate therefore to grab lands for Salem groups and this time did not hesitate to fire on the poor peasants, killing many of them, burning their houses, raping women, torturing people in order to ensure land for the giant corporate. It was only a resilient and determined movement by the people of Nandigram for eight long months, that led into one more brutal carnage by the CPM in November, but at the end of it, the state government was forced to cancel the project in Nandigram. This was soon followed by the militant protest and resistance against the prolonged and rampant corruption in the Public Distribution System, where ration meant for the poor were regularly sold in black market and smuggled out.
The people of Lalgarh and subsequently the entire Jungal Mahal who are the most deprived and impoverished adivasi, SC and OBC section of the society, have raised in arms against prolonged governmental negligence, state repression and plunder of resources. The CPM shedding all its Left pretensions unleashed a para-military operation in connivance with the Congress government. Ideological shadow-boxing was once again suspended. In the name of ‘Flushing Out’ a handful of Maoists, the para-military spread a carnage across Jungal Mahal. They dragged people out of their houses, beat them up ruthlessly and forced to stay in ‘relief camps’. The people were used by the police to detect land mines. Their drinking water has been polluted and poisoned. Their houses were ransacked and looted. A number of cases of molestation of women took place. The women have been specially targeted and beaten around their private parts or stripped naked in the name of body checks. The local schools in Jungal Mahal now have been turned into temporary ‘relief’ camps or camps of the para-military. It is exactly the Salwa Judum model that is being replicated in West Bengal, once again showing that the difference among these parliamentary parties lie only in the colours of the flag, but not in actual practice or politics.
Coupled with this extreme terror and torture by the police and para-military on ground, the CPM is also trying to terrorise the civil society. CPM so far has exhibited unlimited loyalty to congress by implementing the draconian UAPA. They did the same by implementing AFSPA in Tripura. They have arrested Chhatradhar Mahato, the spokesperson of People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA) under UAPA, by branding the organization as a “Maoist front” and under trumped-up cases. Further, in a recent press statement the Home Secretary proclaimed that ALL the people who are sympathetic to PCPA or the Lalgarh movement at large, are liable to be booked under the UAPA. He said that the intellectuals, students, academics, cultural personalities and particularly civil right activists who have stood by the people of Lalgarh are all ‘Maoists’. Already many civil right activists, including Prasun Chatterjee and Raja Sarkhel, members of Gana Pratirodh Mancha and Swapan Dasgupta, owner of the Radical Publishing house and editor of Bengali People’s March, are booked under UAPA and kept in police custody. This is simply becoming a build up to the terror rule of the notorious Congress CM Siddhartha Shankar Ray during the initial years of the Naxalbari movement.
SFI is proudly carrying forward the legacy of social-fascist CPM, justifying its imperialist agenda, neo-liberal reforms and state repression. SFI had done this after the Nandigram carnage too. They along with their parent party however are now saying that it was a ‘mistake’! They posture to be ‘left’ only in retrospection these days. In campus also, students remember how they upheld the Nestle outlet and campaigned blatantly in its favour in 2004-05. They were not in favour of waging any protest when Manmohan Singh came to campus and condemned the students who showed him black flag. They shamelessly ‘disassociated’ themselves from the workers’ movement in 2007 and demanded for proctorial enquiry against the students who had fought for the rights of workers. They ran away from a UGBM grabbing the quorum sheets in order to sabotage it. In the movement against privatization in the last semester too, they were the first ones to pull out from the demand of an assertive mode of struggle, despite campaigning for the same in the beginning. The self-proclaimed champions of workers’ rights, SFI, have always been absent in struggles for the rights of contract workers’ on campus. They were simply silent on the issue of blatant violation of OBC reservation this time (and were only concerned about the lack of seat increase) and called the protest demonstration called by DSU against violation of reservation as sectarian! Even after it is clear how OBC reservation is being scuttled by the crafty exclusion of ‘creamy layer’, they still support it. In the recent struggle for health center too, the SFI’s presence was token, as their activists hardly were present in the ad-block while the movement was going on. Their degenerate and completely bankrupt politics is well known to students by now.
When the war between the oppressor and the oppressed is on, there is only one side a genuine left party should take – the side of the oppressed. The history of the CPM has shown that time and again it has only stood by the feudal- comprador big bourgeois oppressors. Their farce of ‘love for the poor’ is completely exposed. And now when the oppressed have begun to assert themselves, the CPM and SFI have begun to cry hoarse against this genuine people’s movement! SFI must understand that CPM harmads who were the rapists, murderers and police informers will definitely be targeted by the fighting masses. The palacial house of Anuj Pandey, which was standing as a proud emblem of CPM’s class rule in the extreme poverty stricken regions of Lalgarh was razed to the grounds by the people of Lalgarh. The social-fascist CPM will be crushed by the people similarly.
The Naxalite movement has degenerated, says SFI. Do they imply that they have shifted their initial stand about it that it was a ‘CIA conspiracy’? Contrary to their wishful profiling of the movement, this revolutionary people’s movement has spread across the country, and has become the most assertive strike-back of the most downtrodden sections of the country.
‘To be attacked by the enemy is not a bad thing, but a good thing’, said Mao. So the continuous vilification of DSU by SFI only emboldens our conviction in the people’s movement. DSU will always stand by the fight of the people for their land, livelihood and dignity against the ruling class, the comprador bourgeoisie, the feudal forces and the stooges of imperialism ranging form the Congress/BJP to these pseudo-left SFI.
They are however not a party which turned revisionist. Rather, it has always been so. Though the CPM’s ‘love for the poor’ is orchestrated at every occasion by its apologists, the reality is quite the contrary. CPM came to power in 1979, accompanied by their slaughtering of 36 refugees including women and children at Morichjhapi. The murders at Keshpur, Garbeta, Chhoto angariya, Burdwan followed in their regime.
Let us see where CPM stands in terms of Neo-liberal reforms and state repression. To start with, they never opposed the SEZ Act when it came to parliament and shamelessly stood by the rest of the UPA. SFI in campus are crying hoarse against the Congress giving tax relief to Corporates. In West Bengal, however, CPM has given huge bounties to Corporates like Tata, Jindal, Mahindra as well as the infamous Salem group, etc. They have simply refused all demands including repeated RTIs filed by reporters and civil rights organizations, to make the agreements with these corporates public, saying these are ‘trade secrets’! Being directed by the court, they were compelled to reveal some parts of their agreement with the Tatas in the Singur small car project, which was one of their ‘smaller’ ventures. It showed that Tata Motors Limited (TML) was given around Rs. 3000 crore of government subsidy by CPM. According to the terms of this agreement, if one calculates in terms of net present value (NPV), the subsidy that TML gets for the land in Singur is anywhere between Rs.100 to Rs.150 crores; the subsidy due to the rental payment structure is Rs.78 crores; the implicit subsidy due to the tax holiday and the soft loan would be about Rs.1835 crores; the real estate “gift”, also known in WBIDC terminology as “infrastructural assistance”, is worth Rs.160 crores; and the subsidized electricity will cost another Rs.706 crores. So the giant Corporate Tata was gifted generously Rs.2928 crores of public money by a government that still prefers to call itself ‘communist’! And all this ‘subsidy’ or ‘assistance’ is for a factory that would produce cars for the use of the social-fascist party to drive ahead with its neo-liberal agenda. For this project they grabbed 1000 acres of land from the people, by brutally lathicharging on people, killed one young peasant Rajkumar Bhul and raped and killed Tapashi Malik. After the Tata left the project midway and headed towards Gujarat, they are still refusing to return the land to the peasants, or using it for some public benefit. So much for their ‘fight against imperialism’.
CPM's collaboration with Salem was at least six times bigger than the Tata project. They were desperate therefore to grab lands for Salem groups and this time did not hesitate to fire on the poor peasants, killing many of them, burning their houses, raping women, torturing people in order to ensure land for the giant corporate. It was only a resilient and determined movement by the people of Nandigram for eight long months, that led into one more brutal carnage by the CPM in November, but at the end of it, the state government was forced to cancel the project in Nandigram. This was soon followed by the militant protest and resistance against the prolonged and rampant corruption in the Public Distribution System, where ration meant for the poor were regularly sold in black market and smuggled out.
The people of Lalgarh and subsequently the entire Jungal Mahal who are the most deprived and impoverished adivasi, SC and OBC section of the society, have raised in arms against prolonged governmental negligence, state repression and plunder of resources. The CPM shedding all its Left pretensions unleashed a para-military operation in connivance with the Congress government. Ideological shadow-boxing was once again suspended. In the name of ‘Flushing Out’ a handful of Maoists, the para-military spread a carnage across Jungal Mahal. They dragged people out of their houses, beat them up ruthlessly and forced to stay in ‘relief camps’. The people were used by the police to detect land mines. Their drinking water has been polluted and poisoned. Their houses were ransacked and looted. A number of cases of molestation of women took place. The women have been specially targeted and beaten around their private parts or stripped naked in the name of body checks. The local schools in Jungal Mahal now have been turned into temporary ‘relief’ camps or camps of the para-military. It is exactly the Salwa Judum model that is being replicated in West Bengal, once again showing that the difference among these parliamentary parties lie only in the colours of the flag, but not in actual practice or politics.
Coupled with this extreme terror and torture by the police and para-military on ground, the CPM is also trying to terrorise the civil society. CPM so far has exhibited unlimited loyalty to congress by implementing the draconian UAPA. They did the same by implementing AFSPA in Tripura. They have arrested Chhatradhar Mahato, the spokesperson of People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA) under UAPA, by branding the organization as a “Maoist front” and under trumped-up cases. Further, in a recent press statement the Home Secretary proclaimed that ALL the people who are sympathetic to PCPA or the Lalgarh movement at large, are liable to be booked under the UAPA. He said that the intellectuals, students, academics, cultural personalities and particularly civil right activists who have stood by the people of Lalgarh are all ‘Maoists’. Already many civil right activists, including Prasun Chatterjee and Raja Sarkhel, members of Gana Pratirodh Mancha and Swapan Dasgupta, owner of the Radical Publishing house and editor of Bengali People’s March, are booked under UAPA and kept in police custody. This is simply becoming a build up to the terror rule of the notorious Congress CM Siddhartha Shankar Ray during the initial years of the Naxalbari movement.
SFI is proudly carrying forward the legacy of social-fascist CPM, justifying its imperialist agenda, neo-liberal reforms and state repression. SFI had done this after the Nandigram carnage too. They along with their parent party however are now saying that it was a ‘mistake’! They posture to be ‘left’ only in retrospection these days. In campus also, students remember how they upheld the Nestle outlet and campaigned blatantly in its favour in 2004-05. They were not in favour of waging any protest when Manmohan Singh came to campus and condemned the students who showed him black flag. They shamelessly ‘disassociated’ themselves from the workers’ movement in 2007 and demanded for proctorial enquiry against the students who had fought for the rights of workers. They ran away from a UGBM grabbing the quorum sheets in order to sabotage it. In the movement against privatization in the last semester too, they were the first ones to pull out from the demand of an assertive mode of struggle, despite campaigning for the same in the beginning. The self-proclaimed champions of workers’ rights, SFI, have always been absent in struggles for the rights of contract workers’ on campus. They were simply silent on the issue of blatant violation of OBC reservation this time (and were only concerned about the lack of seat increase) and called the protest demonstration called by DSU against violation of reservation as sectarian! Even after it is clear how OBC reservation is being scuttled by the crafty exclusion of ‘creamy layer’, they still support it. In the recent struggle for health center too, the SFI’s presence was token, as their activists hardly were present in the ad-block while the movement was going on. Their degenerate and completely bankrupt politics is well known to students by now.
When the war between the oppressor and the oppressed is on, there is only one side a genuine left party should take – the side of the oppressed. The history of the CPM has shown that time and again it has only stood by the feudal- comprador big bourgeois oppressors. Their farce of ‘love for the poor’ is completely exposed. And now when the oppressed have begun to assert themselves, the CPM and SFI have begun to cry hoarse against this genuine people’s movement! SFI must understand that CPM harmads who were the rapists, murderers and police informers will definitely be targeted by the fighting masses. The palacial house of Anuj Pandey, which was standing as a proud emblem of CPM’s class rule in the extreme poverty stricken regions of Lalgarh was razed to the grounds by the people of Lalgarh. The social-fascist CPM will be crushed by the people similarly.
The Naxalite movement has degenerated, says SFI. Do they imply that they have shifted their initial stand about it that it was a ‘CIA conspiracy’? Contrary to their wishful profiling of the movement, this revolutionary people’s movement has spread across the country, and has become the most assertive strike-back of the most downtrodden sections of the country.
‘To be attacked by the enemy is not a bad thing, but a good thing’, said Mao. So the continuous vilification of DSU by SFI only emboldens our conviction in the people’s movement. DSU will always stand by the fight of the people for their land, livelihood and dignity against the ruling class, the comprador bourgeoisie, the feudal forces and the stooges of imperialism ranging form the Congress/BJP to these pseudo-left SFI.
Condemn the arrest of political activists in Bengal! Stop the continued crackdown on democratic organizations and activists by social-fascist CPM!
The CPI(M)-run West Bengal government has intensified its crackdown on people’s movements and political activists that have dared to raise voice against the decades-old social fascist rule of the pseudo communists of Bengal. After surreptitiously abducting and arresting Chhatradhar Mahato, the leader of the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA), the CPI(M) government has now put behind bars two activists of the Gana Pratirodh Manch, the West Bengal chapter of Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF). As reported by the media, Raja Sarkhel and Prasun Chatterjee were arrested in Kolkata on 5th October, and taken to West Medinipur where they were produced in the Jhargram sub-divisional court. Both have been sent to 14 days police remand, and it is apprehended that they are being physically and mentally tortured in the name of interrogation. Alleging connections with the PCPA and by implication the Maoists, the state has clamped charges under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). Yesterday, on 6th October the CPI(M)’s fascist state police arrested Bhanu Sarkar and Ramesh, two members of Bandi Mukti Committee for pasting posters demanding the release of Chattradhar Mahato. Similarly, the Bengal police raided a printing press in Kolkata and arrested Swapan Dasgupta, the publisher of Radical Publications, and six others. Dasgupta is also the editor of Bengal People’s March, a widely circulated revolutionary magazine. Such fascist onslaught on mass organizations and the freedom of expression reminds us of the build up to the clampdown on democratic rights and massacre of thousands of youths in Bengal during the hay-days of Naxalbari uprising by the then congress government in 1960s-70s, when anyone who stood up to criticize the government of the day was either summarily put behind bars or killed.
A similar atmosphere of state terror is again being created in Bengal, where the CPI(M) has threatened to persecute activists, academics and intellectuals who are critical of the state government, and who have been in solidarity with the people’s movement in Lalgarh. The PCPA that has been leading the movement for last ten months, has been branded by the state as a front of the Maoists, whereas the truth is that PCPA is a platform of the struggling people of Lalgarh where people from all ideologies and have come together to confront the repressive government. All the people who have been part of this organization in Jangalkhand, or sympathized with it from outside, are now being termed ‘Maoists’, and false criminal charges are being put on them. According to the state and the CPI(M)’s logic, even the academics and intellectuals who have attended PCPA public meetings or contributed money to the organization, are guilty of aiding the Maoists! This is a dangerous ploy to crush all forms of dissent and unleash white terror. After Singur and Nandigram, the series of assaults in the wake of Lalgarh movement has once again exposed that CPI(M) is nothing but an integral part of the Indian ruling-class who is competing with Manmohan-Chidambaram-Modi to implement imperialist policies, and to crush voices of dissent that are resisting this onslaught.
We must condemn these draconian measures by the West Bengal government, and also build up strong resistance to its nefarious designs to frame anyone in the name of being Maoists or Maoist sympathizer. We demand the immediate and unconditional release of Chattradhar Mahato, Raja Sarkhel, Prasun Chatterjee, Swapan Dasgupta as well as other political activists who have been incarcerated on false charges by the social-fascist CPI(M) government in Bengal for the sole ‘crime’ of standing by the Lalgarh struggle. This will be another way of extending our solidarity with the movements fighting against state repression.
A similar atmosphere of state terror is again being created in Bengal, where the CPI(M) has threatened to persecute activists, academics and intellectuals who are critical of the state government, and who have been in solidarity with the people’s movement in Lalgarh. The PCPA that has been leading the movement for last ten months, has been branded by the state as a front of the Maoists, whereas the truth is that PCPA is a platform of the struggling people of Lalgarh where people from all ideologies and have come together to confront the repressive government. All the people who have been part of this organization in Jangalkhand, or sympathized with it from outside, are now being termed ‘Maoists’, and false criminal charges are being put on them. According to the state and the CPI(M)’s logic, even the academics and intellectuals who have attended PCPA public meetings or contributed money to the organization, are guilty of aiding the Maoists! This is a dangerous ploy to crush all forms of dissent and unleash white terror. After Singur and Nandigram, the series of assaults in the wake of Lalgarh movement has once again exposed that CPI(M) is nothing but an integral part of the Indian ruling-class who is competing with Manmohan-Chidambaram-Modi to implement imperialist policies, and to crush voices of dissent that are resisting this onslaught.
We must condemn these draconian measures by the West Bengal government, and also build up strong resistance to its nefarious designs to frame anyone in the name of being Maoists or Maoist sympathizer. We demand the immediate and unconditional release of Chattradhar Mahato, Raja Sarkhel, Prasun Chatterjee, Swapan Dasgupta as well as other political activists who have been incarcerated on false charges by the social-fascist CPI(M) government in Bengal for the sole ‘crime’ of standing by the Lalgarh struggle. This will be another way of extending our solidarity with the movements fighting against state repression.
August 10, 2009
DSU Public Meeting: State Repression and Peoples' Resistance: Experiences from Lalgarh
DSU organised a public meeting on State Repression and People's Resistance: Experiences from Lalgarh on 7th Aug 2009, at 9pm at the KC Open Air Theatre, JNU. More than 400 students attended the meeting, where the DSU Fact-Finding Report on Lalgarh was released by the three speakers: Prof. Amit Bhattacharya of the Jadavpur University, Arundhati Roy the well-known writer, and Madan Kashyap the Hindi poet. The Report is the documentation of a nine-member DSU team's visit to lalgarh, West Bengal from 7 June to 10 June this year, barely a week before the paramilitary operations were unleashed on the masses of Jangalkhand. The following is the transcript of the first few minutes of Ms. Arundhati Roy's speech that evening:
"Very nice to see so many here…. Actually I have read the report and I do want to congratulate the students who wrote it because it really does come across as a very humane document and a document with which it’s pretty hard to argue because it does really make a lot of space for peoples’ voices as opposed to some preachings from some previously indoctrinated position.
I really want to congratulate; very nicely written work… It’ s very comforting to know that people from this university do go out and do listen; I think one of the troubles we are having these days is that people have just stopped listening. Everybody is full of information, full of..., so sure of themselves and even when we appear to be listening we are not really listening! So I think that this document somehow has a lot of listening and I appreciate that. The last line of this report says that ‘Lalgarh should become a model of resistance in the rest of the country’ and… I want to talk about that actually because you have heard quite a lot of detail exactly what are the ins and outs, what the texture of the movement and I just think that it’s pretty clear that the distinctions that are being made in the corporate press and the corporate civil society trying to separate Adivasis and the Maoists and the governments and talk about people being sandwiched in the middle is a very apolitical position which eventually in some cases in a naive and well-intentioned way and in some cases in a pretty malafide and not at all well-intentioned way but... support the status quo and then people talk of peace and what that kind of peace ends up meaning is ‘can you peacefully allow the corporates to take over the land!?’ So Peace is a very contentious word!
I just want to defocus a little bit and talk about the larger scenario that is unfolding in this country. To say that we are in a very dangerous position because over a period of time …. certain things have been put in place and it’s very difficult for people to understand it systemically unless they are very political people. But basically what has happened is what we think of democracy has been emptied out and each of its institutions hollowed out and we have something of a plastic bag above our heads...."
"Very nice to see so many here…. Actually I have read the report and I do want to congratulate the students who wrote it because it really does come across as a very humane document and a document with which it’s pretty hard to argue because it does really make a lot of space for peoples’ voices as opposed to some preachings from some previously indoctrinated position.
I really want to congratulate; very nicely written work… It’ s very comforting to know that people from this university do go out and do listen; I think one of the troubles we are having these days is that people have just stopped listening. Everybody is full of information, full of..., so sure of themselves and even when we appear to be listening we are not really listening! So I think that this document somehow has a lot of listening and I appreciate that. The last line of this report says that ‘Lalgarh should become a model of resistance in the rest of the country’ and… I want to talk about that actually because you have heard quite a lot of detail exactly what are the ins and outs, what the texture of the movement and I just think that it’s pretty clear that the distinctions that are being made in the corporate press and the corporate civil society trying to separate Adivasis and the Maoists and the governments and talk about people being sandwiched in the middle is a very apolitical position which eventually in some cases in a naive and well-intentioned way and in some cases in a pretty malafide and not at all well-intentioned way but... support the status quo and then people talk of peace and what that kind of peace ends up meaning is ‘can you peacefully allow the corporates to take over the land!?’ So Peace is a very contentious word!
Stand in solidarity with the struggling masses of Lalgarh! Participate in the Lalgarh Solidarity Convention!
Voice your protest against the violations in OBC Reservation! The struggle for social justice must be continued!
After the results for new admissions in all the courses were declared, DSU has already pointed out the gross violations and non-implementation of reservations in JNU, especially the OBC reservation. In MPhil/PhD programmes, the percentage of students selected is 14.5% for SC category, 6.5% for ST category, 11.9% for OBC category and 1.8% for PH students, clearly indicating a shortfall in every category. In MA/MSc/MCA too they are shortfalls in almost every category, and particularly for OBC where the total seats offered is a mere 13.6%! In many Centers the number of OBC students taken is NIL while in some other Centers it is nominal. The administration apparently planned 18% OBC reservation this time but keeping with its casteist track-record, it has again flouted the reservations.
The casteist designs to subvert OBC reservation started right after the declaration of 27% OBC reservation. After the recommendations of Veerappa Moily Committee, 54% seat increase was made conditional to the implementation of 27% reservation. That gave the foremost excuse to the university administrations to implement reservation in a staggering manner, which was three years in JNU. Although the administration has been appropriating the massive amount of funds from UGC and MHRD to ‘build infrastructure’ so that 27% reservation and 54% seat increase can be implemented, in reality there had been a regular and consistent denial of OBC reservation since last year. Earlier with the deprivation points the number of OBC students who could get admission was much higher, more than 20%. Last year after the implementation of the first phase of reservation, which was stipulated at 12%, only 9.95% OBC students could take admission due to the faulty implementation.
First, the faulty ‘Wait-list System’ introduced last year was extremely anti-student, which ensured that students coming from far-flung regions or deprived socio-economic backgrounds are unable to take admission in the short notice. It resulted in the non-fulfillment of quotas in all categories, and an actual reduction of overall seats in JNU. This system was replaced with the old ‘Offer System’ this year as a result of strong student agitation. Another weapon used by the administration to scuttle OBC reservation has been the ‘Ten Point Cut-Off’ for OBC students as a Merit Cut-Off (relaxing ten points from the last marks scored by the last general category student), rather than setting it at the Eligibility Cut-Off (relaxing ten marks from the eligibility marks which is 40). This is casteist, arbitrary and also in complete violation of even the MHRD guidelines in this respect. With the illogic of ‘maintaining merit’, the casteist-communal administration is actually ensuring that seats reserved for OBC candidates are not fulfilled this year too.
Last year there was a massive students’ agitation against non-implementation of reservation along with seat-cut, and the system of waiting list. In the face of the agitation the administration formed two committees, which were supposed to be time-bound and would look into all the violations. The JNUSU leadership also conceded to that and called off the agitation. The two committees however, never met till very late and at the end came up with contradictory recommendations. The Rupamanjari Ghosh Committee suggested same minimum eligibility for general and OBC students, while the Aditya Mukherjee Committee recommended differential minimum eligibility for the two. The administration however chose to do what it was determined to do, and maintained same eligibility criterion for both and set the Ten Points Relaxation at merit cut off. The reluctance, contradiction and undemocratic functioning of these committees prove that they were just a farce and the administration had never taken them seriously.
The role of JNUSU leadership is condemnable in this crucial fight for social justice. Last year the AISA-led JNUSU conceded the fight at the mere administrative assurance of the farcical committees. They, however, did no agitation to ensure that these committees atleast meet. They cribbed and complained at the end when the pointlessness of these two committees were clear but did not confront the administration at all to ensure reservation this year. Very conveniently they remained silent and called no agitation nor mobilise students on the day of the crucial Academic Council Meeting held on the 21st of April. They called for a token protest demo later and buried the issue with no outcome. More shockingly, even after the blatant denial of reservation this year, the JNUSU has not called for a single protest demo or any kind of agitational programme to confront the casteist administration. They held one half-hearted ‘protest meeting’ in the JNUSU office in silence and one public meeting, where too no concrete charter of action was taken. It only reflects their spinelessness along with the NGO-brand of politics which they are practicing despite their ‘Marxist-Leninist’ pretensions. SFI too is silent on this issue. It is understandable since their (il)logic to support the exclusion of ‘creamy layer’ has fallen flat, when seats for OBC students are being left vacant.
Students of JNU have a history to fight for social justice. The Deprivation Point system which is implemented in JNU has no legal standing. Yet this progressive policy was made possible by assertive students’ movements. And now in JNU we the students are not even being able to ensure what is legally and constitutionally granted! The casteist and communal nature of this administration is well known to the students by now. It is never going to grant reservation on its own and will always find newer means to bypass it, unless we force them to do otherwise. The fight for full implementation of reservation must continue even if the complacent and complicit JNUSU leadership betrays or gives up the fight.
The casteist designs to subvert OBC reservation started right after the declaration of 27% OBC reservation. After the recommendations of Veerappa Moily Committee, 54% seat increase was made conditional to the implementation of 27% reservation. That gave the foremost excuse to the university administrations to implement reservation in a staggering manner, which was three years in JNU. Although the administration has been appropriating the massive amount of funds from UGC and MHRD to ‘build infrastructure’ so that 27% reservation and 54% seat increase can be implemented, in reality there had been a regular and consistent denial of OBC reservation since last year. Earlier with the deprivation points the number of OBC students who could get admission was much higher, more than 20%. Last year after the implementation of the first phase of reservation, which was stipulated at 12%, only 9.95% OBC students could take admission due to the faulty implementation.
First, the faulty ‘Wait-list System’ introduced last year was extremely anti-student, which ensured that students coming from far-flung regions or deprived socio-economic backgrounds are unable to take admission in the short notice. It resulted in the non-fulfillment of quotas in all categories, and an actual reduction of overall seats in JNU. This system was replaced with the old ‘Offer System’ this year as a result of strong student agitation. Another weapon used by the administration to scuttle OBC reservation has been the ‘Ten Point Cut-Off’ for OBC students as a Merit Cut-Off (relaxing ten points from the last marks scored by the last general category student), rather than setting it at the Eligibility Cut-Off (relaxing ten marks from the eligibility marks which is 40). This is casteist, arbitrary and also in complete violation of even the MHRD guidelines in this respect. With the illogic of ‘maintaining merit’, the casteist-communal administration is actually ensuring that seats reserved for OBC candidates are not fulfilled this year too.
Last year there was a massive students’ agitation against non-implementation of reservation along with seat-cut, and the system of waiting list. In the face of the agitation the administration formed two committees, which were supposed to be time-bound and would look into all the violations. The JNUSU leadership also conceded to that and called off the agitation. The two committees however, never met till very late and at the end came up with contradictory recommendations. The Rupamanjari Ghosh Committee suggested same minimum eligibility for general and OBC students, while the Aditya Mukherjee Committee recommended differential minimum eligibility for the two. The administration however chose to do what it was determined to do, and maintained same eligibility criterion for both and set the Ten Points Relaxation at merit cut off. The reluctance, contradiction and undemocratic functioning of these committees prove that they were just a farce and the administration had never taken them seriously.
The role of JNUSU leadership is condemnable in this crucial fight for social justice. Last year the AISA-led JNUSU conceded the fight at the mere administrative assurance of the farcical committees. They, however, did no agitation to ensure that these committees atleast meet. They cribbed and complained at the end when the pointlessness of these two committees were clear but did not confront the administration at all to ensure reservation this year. Very conveniently they remained silent and called no agitation nor mobilise students on the day of the crucial Academic Council Meeting held on the 21st of April. They called for a token protest demo later and buried the issue with no outcome. More shockingly, even after the blatant denial of reservation this year, the JNUSU has not called for a single protest demo or any kind of agitational programme to confront the casteist administration. They held one half-hearted ‘protest meeting’ in the JNUSU office in silence and one public meeting, where too no concrete charter of action was taken. It only reflects their spinelessness along with the NGO-brand of politics which they are practicing despite their ‘Marxist-Leninist’ pretensions. SFI too is silent on this issue. It is understandable since their (il)logic to support the exclusion of ‘creamy layer’ has fallen flat, when seats for OBC students are being left vacant.
Students of JNU have a history to fight for social justice. The Deprivation Point system which is implemented in JNU has no legal standing. Yet this progressive policy was made possible by assertive students’ movements. And now in JNU we the students are not even being able to ensure what is legally and constitutionally granted! The casteist and communal nature of this administration is well known to the students by now. It is never going to grant reservation on its own and will always find newer means to bypass it, unless we force them to do otherwise. The fight for full implementation of reservation must continue even if the complacent and complicit JNUSU leadership betrays or gives up the fight.
JNU administration scuttles OBC Reservation once again! Shortfall in SC and PH Reservation continues!
The JNU admission results for all courses and all schools this year has now been declared, with the announcement of MPhil/PhD results in the last two days of this week. The results have once again confirmed the JNU administration’s undemocratic and anti-student position in its functioning, the implementation of reservations being no exception to this rule. The administration has shown its extreme lack of respect for social justice and democratic norms over the years, not only in its day to day functioning but also in implementing policies mandated by law and the Indian constitution. The casteist and anti-Dalit/OBC/minority position of the administration is no secret for the JNU student community, which has repeatedly seen that it has always protected the brahmanical, ‘upper-caste’ and Hindu interests over that of the oppressed castes, communities and religious/national minorities. In spite of prolonged student agitations for social-justice and for democratization of education in JNU by way of challenging the dominant caste’s hegemony, the administration has devised newer ways to protect these very interests, sometimes through the ‘waiting-list’ system and sometimes through the ‘merit cut-off’! Its no surprise that the casteist and Hindu-communal JNU administration has once again undermined and subverted the OBC reservations this year too, while the SC and PH reservations have also been left unfulfilled.
The administration has decided to implement OBC reservation in a staggered manner giving the excuse of ‘lack if infrastructure to accommodate new students’, despite students’ demand that it be implemented at one go. Last year too, we have observed that they admitted only 9.5% students under OBC reservation though the decision was to take in 12%. According to JNU administration’s own plans, this year 18% OBC reservation was to be implemented. However, as expected, there is a shortfall of about 4% this year in OBC reservations, while there is a shortfall of more than 1% in SC and .5% in PH reservations. Let us look at the MPhil/PhD results this year:
The administration has decided to implement OBC reservation in a staggered manner giving the excuse of ‘lack if infrastructure to accommodate new students’, despite students’ demand that it be implemented at one go. Last year too, we have observed that they admitted only 9.5% students under OBC reservation though the decision was to take in 12%. According to JNU administration’s own plans, this year 18% OBC reservation was to be implemented. However, as expected, there is a shortfall of about 4% this year in OBC reservations, while there is a shortfall of more than 1% in SC and .5% in PH reservations. Let us look at the MPhil/PhD results this year:
M.Phil/Ph.D: 540 (66.9%) [Unreserved], 101 (12.5%) [SC], 54 (6.6%) [ST], 96 (11.9%) [OBC], 15 (1.8%) [PH]
Some Centres and Schools have been particularly notorious for its casteist behaviour, which also is also reflected in the way they have scuttled the OBC reservations, as shown in the table on the left. While these Centres have not admitted a single student under OBC reservation, there are many more Centres which implemented reservations, including OBC, very nominally.
MPhil/PhD (Unreserved, SC, ST, OBC, PH)
SAA (15, 4, 2, 0, 0)
INP (SIS) (7, 2, 1, 0, 0)
ITD (SIS) (8, 0, 0, 0, 0)
USS (SIS) (8, 1, 0, 0, 0)
EUP (SIS) (9, 2, 1, 0, 0)
Ancient History (CHS-SSS) (7, 2, 1, 0, 0)
EDU (CZHE-SSS) (14, 2, 4, 0, 1)
Linguistics (SL) (11, 1, 2, 0, 0)
Russian (SL) (7, 0, 1, 0, 0)
Philosophy (SSS) (11, 0, 1, 0, 0)
In the MA (School of Languages) results declared this week, out of 55 students selected, 46 (83.64%) are in the Unreserved Category, 3 (5.45%) in SC, 1 (1.82%) in ST, 5 (9.09%) in OBC and 0 in PH categories. Thus the tally of results this year for MA/MSc/MCA admissions comes as shown in the following table:
MPhil/PhD (Unreserved, SC, ST, OBC, PH)
SAA (15, 4, 2, 0, 0)
INP (SIS) (7, 2, 1, 0, 0)
ITD (SIS) (8, 0, 0, 0, 0)
USS (SIS) (8, 1, 0, 0, 0)
EUP (SIS) (9, 2, 1, 0, 0)
Ancient History (CHS-SSS) (7, 2, 1, 0, 0)
EDU (CZHE-SSS) (14, 2, 4, 0, 1)
Linguistics (SL) (11, 1, 2, 0, 0)
Russian (SL) (7, 0, 1, 0, 0)
Philosophy (SSS) (11, 0, 1, 0, 0)
In the MA (School of Languages) results declared this week, out of 55 students selected, 46 (83.64%) are in the Unreserved Category, 3 (5.45%) in SC, 1 (1.82%) in ST, 5 (9.09%) in OBC and 0 in PH categories. Thus the tally of results this year for MA/MSc/MCA admissions comes as shown in the following table:
579 (60.95%) [Unreserved], 141 (14.84%) [SC], 74 (7.79%) [ST], 130 (13.68%) [OBC], 26 (2.74%) [PH]
This gives the break-up of 2024 students selected for admissions to the Bachelor, Masters and MPhil/PhD Courses this year (268 in BA 1st Year, 950 in MA and 806 in MPhil/PhD). The following table gives the total category-wise break-up for this year’s admissions:
Total: 2024, 1254 (61.96%) [Unreserved], 280 (13.83%) [SC], 155 (7.66%) [ST],
285 (14.08%) [OBC], 50 (2.47%) [PH]
The resistance by the administration to the implementation of OBC reservations is expected, but not from JNUSU, led by the ‘Marxist-Leninist’ AISA! So far the concrete programmes of the AISA-JNUSU regarding the non-fulfillment of reservation have been mere tokenism! They called for a half-hearted ‘protest meeting’ in Teflas with representatives from other universities, where no concrete plan of action was charted out. They called one more public meeting to ‘discuss’ the issue of reservation. While there is nothing wrong in holding public meetings, isn’t it too late to just discuss the issue and end it there? Half of the admission procedure is over by now. The fact that OBC reservation has not been fulfilled is glaring. Especially after the M.Phil/Ph.D results have been declared the shortfall is found to be even more acute. The JNUSU however has not declared a single protest action till now. In the last one year too the JNUSU did nothing to ensure that the shortfall of reservation in the last year and the two committees were sitting on it. The reason of ‘merit cut-off’ etc. was known to the campus in the previous year too. The Academic Council meeting took place on 21st April this year, where the modalities of implementing OBC reservation was decided. JNUSU called no protest. We know that by merely calling public meetings and token protests social-justice cannot be ensured. It is not clear at all how they are going to confront this extremely casteist administration and its clear designs to blatantly deny reservation, without mobilisng the students for a serious confrontation with it.
No matter who is in the government, BJP or Congress, colour of the state machinery always remain saffron!
No matter who grabs the seat of power in Delhi, be it the BJP or the Congress, the Indian state machinery is owned by the communal fascist forces and they will go to any extent to maintain the repressive ‘Hindu order’. Be it the Congress government in the center or the BJP state government, justice remains a far fetched fantasy when it is sought against the communal fascists. From M.P. to Delhi this is being proved over and over again, in the countless witch hunting of minorities, in the atrocities on the dalits, in the killings of the likes of Prof. Sabharwal who dares to challenge the saffron brigade...an so on. The army, the police, the court, the organizations like NHRC and lastly the media are all used regularly by the ruling class and the feudal forces to safeguard their regime.
NHRC recently gave a clean chit to the police in the Batla House fake encounter: so much for ‘human rights’. The NHRC report refuted all the points raised by Kamran Siddiqui, General Secretary of an NGO Real Cause and proclaimed that the police fired in ‘self-defense’ as the two dangerous ‘terrorists’ had attacked the police frontally with sophisticated weapons. Shockingly, the entire report of NHRC is based only on the report and response of the police to its queries. They have not even taken the testimony of a single resident of the area, many of whom had openly attacked the police version of the entire incident in front of the media.
The feeling among the residents of Batla house region now is understandably full of despair and anger on the police and state version of the incident which has been shamelessly vindicated by the NHRC. The report of NHRC deals in details on the post mortem report of M.C. Sharma which has again been provided by the police. On the basis of that, they refute any chance of M.C Sharma being shot at the back, as was reported or even visually proved through photographs. They however, are extremely brief on the postmortem reports of the two men who were killed, Atif Amin and Mohammad Sajid. They make no mention at all about the six shots found on Md Sajid’s head, which very clearly shows that they have been shot from point blank range and can not be a result of a ‘shoot out’. In the brief reporting on their postmortem reports they have however mentioned that some injuries on the two men were sustained because they were hit by some blunt objects. This does not corroborate with the police version that they died because they sustained bullet injuries only. The NHRC however has not commented on that. The NHRC has justified the Home Ministry’s response as to why there was no magisterial enquiry ordered by the Lt. Governor, on the incident, which is compulsory after any encounter. ‘Dangerous terrorists’ like Atif and Sajid deserves no further probing said the state and NHRC agrees in silence. Questions were raised about the impossibility of the claims made by the police that two other ‘terrorists’ had escaped while the ‘shoot out’ was on, as the building L-18 in Batla house has only one entry/exit which was heavily guarded by the police.
The NHRC once again has upheld the police version in this regard, which is extremely opaque and open ended. They further maintained that they are not interested in this point because it does not fall directly under the purview of the incident, i.e. The encounter! They simply reiterated the police version and made no efforts at all to to probe beyond that. Such blatant and shameless efforts to shield the police and its bloody histories only expose the inherent bias of the NHRC itself. Such bodies in the past too have tried to safeguard this communal and repressive state machinery and its various organs. Justice on its own will always be on side of the police, the army, the political parties and other agents of the ruling class and the dominant feudal forces and never to common people, unless it is forced upon by assertive people’s movements.
The acquittal of the murderers of Prof. Sabharwal, and murder of another person yesterday night, only proves this further. Prof. Sabharwal was murdered in full view of hundreds of police men, teachers, students and office staffs of Madhav College, Ujjain in 2006. The Nagpur high court however, recently acquitted all the six accused goons of ABVP who had killed him. Further, yesterday, Parminder Singh, a friend and accountant of prof. Sabharwal's son, Himanshu Sabharwal, was killed by unidentified people in DU, North Campus. They along with some other people were pasting posters yesterday night about a protest march against the unjust acquittal of the killers of Prof. Sabharwal. After that Parmindar Singh was killed. Himanshu Sabharwal alleges that it was the ABVP goons again who had killed him too.
And these acts of violences are 'official, justified and legal'. The perpetrators of these acts are therefore never convicted by the 'rule of law'. State terror gets vindicated and safeguarded every time while the same law brands people's movements for their lives, livelihood and dignity as 'terrorist/ extremist' etc. This will continue if we do not fight this fascist state machinery and their agents. Because it is only organised, assertive movements of the people which can and have always defeated fascism
Para-military seize of Lalgarh completes a month! The people refuse to succumb, and continue their struggle!
Yesterday, the joint para-military operation in Lalgarh has completed a month. The news no longer flashes in national media much, not just because the corporate media thinks this news has lost its ‘market value’ but also because of unofficial state-censorship which is preventing the media from depicting the brutal realities of the para-military operation as well as the bold fight back by the people who simply refuse to succumb even to this extreme terror. Such is the nature of ‘democracy’ as defined and designed by the Buddhas and the Chidambarams.
However, the atrocious state repression is going on unbridled: The para-military is ‘cleansing’ area after area. Burning down houses, brutally lathicharging on old people, women and children, ransacking their houses, urinating and adding excreta and poison in their drinking water. They have stripped around 70-80 women naked in the pretext of check and molested them. They have burnt down people’s poultries and crops and arresting people randomly. They are looting, burning the houses of the people and then forcefully shifting them to ‘relief camps’. Forcing people to shift into ‘relief’ camps is an old model of state repression. Destroy their livelihoods, and give them ‘relief’. Haven’t we seen that already in Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, the North East, or in Tamil Eelam? The people are however refusing to accept relief from the state. Quite a few incidents of beating people up in the relief camps were also reported. Many people have emptied the relief camps and gone back to villages. Many of them took refuge in the camps run by the People’s Committee Against police Atrocities (PCPA) and other organisations. One pregnant woman, Parvati Kishku refused to take help from the government, even after the BDO himself intervened. She preferred to give birth to her child in the relief camp of PCPA. But still hundred people are also kept forcefully in the government relief camps in pathetic conditions. They run short of food, space and medical facilities and the people holed up there live with utmost difficulty.
The state is taking help of American and Israeli intelligence agencies to obtain satellite pictures of the area under operation! As the people refuse to co-operate with the state to hand over the Maoists, the state is taking help of bigger war-experts US and Israel to help them with satellite images! Such is the desperation of the Indian state. The self-proclaimed ‘anti-US/Israel’ pseudo-Left CPM has no problems at all with this military aid from these agencies.
Schools have been closed down to turn them into army camps: Replicating the Chhattisgarh model, 14 Schools of Midnapore, Lalgarh, Jhargram, Shalboni, Goaltore areas have been closed down and they have been turned into army camps. More than 15,000 students are being affected by this. Even hostels have been vacated to make space for the police and para-military. One week back, the students of Binpur high school staged a protest in front of the school against conversion of their school building into a makeshift police camp. They were beaten up mercilessly with lathis and rifle butts. The police declared unambiguously that these students will be arrested if they dared to protest again. The students on the other hand have given a week’s time to the police to clear their schools, failing which they will resist more vibrantly this forceful occupation of school building. The health center of Katapahari which was completely dysfunctional before but was run by the PCPA successfully in the last eight months has been turned into a police camp as well.
Ground zero is a no-entry zone for civil bodies: Not only media, but nobody is allowed to go inside the Lalgarh and adjacent areas. The first team of Calcutta-based intellectuals and human rights activists went inside Lalgarh. They met the people and even spoke to Chhatradhar Mahato the leader of PCPA. Their cars were repeatedly checked by the police but they were not stopped. After coming back once they became vocal about state atrocities, they were implicated with the charge of breaking 144. After that an all India seven member team of civil right activists were restricted in the Midnapore town itself which is out of the area under 144 and were stopped from going inside. And the same charge of breaking section 144 was put on them. A third team consisting of Medha Patekar, Anuradha Talwar, Sujato Bhadra and others were stopped once again on the highway. The state was less tolerant this time and on of the team members, reputed film maker Gopal Menon was beaten up mercilessly with rifle buts. He had to be hospitalized with fractures and internal injuries. Some journalists, especially photographers were beaten up on the same day. Later a team of Amnesty International was stopped as well from gong inside Lalgarh. The operation must take place in silence, in isolation, without the knowledge of common people. These restrictions however are not applicable for the CPM goons who came from outside in a big numbers to hold motorcycle rallies right inside Shalboni and Goaltore. On being pressed by the media, the Home secretary of West Bengal shamelessly proclaimed that is ‘outside the 144 zone’ and so there was no question of taking action against them! The state indeed decides the boundaries of law!
The people however are refusing to give up: The army is ‘recapturing and sanitising’ village after village but with no people in it. The activities of the committee have not reduced in the mean time. They have held processions, meetings braving police attacks. In a number of occasions the CRPF has open fired on such processions but yet the struggle has not stopped. The PCPA had called for a strike in the three districts of West Medinipur, Bankura and Purlia on the 8th of July and to the surprise of the state it was completely successful. All government and private offices, schools, colleges, communication etc were stopped. They have declared another strike for 72 hours from the 19 July in the three districts. The state said people are terrorized by the Maoists and therefore they were forced to go on strike. By doing this, state is refusing to see the justness of the peoples’ movement of Lalgarh. And recognize the power of the people…
The casteist administration once again denies reservation to OBC students!
The results for new admission in BA and MA courses have been announced in JNU. The results have made it clear that once again the 18% reservation (which is anyway less than the 27% which was supposed to be implemented this year) for the OBC students have not been properly implemented. The figures for the total number of OBC students admitted this year are shocking and in many centers it is far less than the stipulated 18%. In certain cases like School of Arts and Aesthetics, International Economics (EIL), the number of OBC students is NIL. In Modern History the number of students in OBC category is nil, only one OBC student has been taken in the general category. Even in big centers like CESP or Political Science the number of OBC students is 3 and 4 respectively, which is nowhere close to the 18% of the total seats offered.
More shocking was to see that even SC/ST and PH quota has remained unfulfilled in certain centers. Going by this overall pattern it is pretty clear that after the final lists of M.Phil/Ph.d are published, the total number of students taken in the reserved category will once again fall short of the stipulated quota.
We have seen deliberate subversion and non-implementation of reservation especially for the OBC students in the last year. The overall number of OBC students admitted last year was 9.95% whereas it was supposed to be atleast 12%, through reservation. There was also a shortfall in SC/ST and PH reservation as well. After a widespread protest from the students’ community, the administration had promised to form two committees to look into the overall violations of reservation as well as to carry over the shortfall to the next academic year. With this promises the JNUSU leadership had also withdrawn the struggle. This year however, it is already clear that far from accommodating the shortfall of the previous year, the administration has once again shamelessly ensured further non-implementation of reservation, particularly that of OBC students. Some schools like SSS and Arts and Aesthetics particularly have denied reservation to students blatantly.
The casteist administration is bound to defend itself with the ‘logic’ of non-availability of eligible candidates. Administration very cunningly has interpreted the ten marks relaxation, which is mandatory according to the MHRD directives for OBC students, from the merit cut-off, (the mark scored by last student in the general category) instead of the eligibility cut-off (the pass marks for all students). This year also the merit cut-off has ensured that the OBC reservation remains unfulfilled.
The role of JNUSU leadership, its inaction and lack of struggles for the proper implementation of reservation has emboldened this casteist administration. The JNUSU leadership did nothing to ensure that the two committees that were formed atleast meet or function. The committees which were supposed to be ‘time-bound’ never even met for once, till very late. They finally came up with contradictory statements and never bothered to inform or discuss with JNUSU. Silence and complicity was the reply of JNUSU to this. More crucially they did not inform or mobilise students at all on the day of the Academic Council meeting in April 2009 when all the decisions regarding implementation of treservation was taken. All they did was to croak and cry on the ‘insensitivity and casteist mindset’ of the administration after the battle was lost. They staged a token protest demonstration and washed their hands off.
Now the casteist administration has once again blatantly denied reservation. Inaction and complicity can never defeat these casteist forces. JNUSU must pro-actively mobilise students to confront these recationary forces and fight the non-implementation of reservation immediately.
June 30, 2009
Expose SFI-CPM's Lies! Stand by Lalgarh's Struggle against State Repression!
Masses make their own histories, not in the best of circumstances
of their own choice but in the circumstances given to them. -Marx
The old is dying and the new is struggling to be born;
The old is dying and the new is struggling to be born;
in this interregnum there arises a great diversity of morbid symptoms. -Gramsci
.........
As more and more write-ups and commentaries on the people's uprising in Lalgarh is pouring in, it is important to respond to some of the salient points that keep coming up albeit couched in political sophistry. Whether it is from the sensation-crazed media or from Karats to Yechury, Biman Bose or Buddhadeb and their likes in the Liberation, or the SFI and AISA in this campus, all have striking similarities. The most striking aspect which also speaks volumes of their political bankruptcy is their latent and mortal fear to accept that people, the masses of the people, can also think. They do have a political will determined by their objective and subjective experiences of the harsh realities of eking out a livelihood in some of the most economically backward regions of the subcontinent. This is a deliberate vice of all ruling class ideologies and their practitioners to portray people as lifeless beings, empty receptacles who can only be 'gullible' and 'innocent'. So like the "white man's burden" it is for the righteous CPM, Liberation and their torchbearers in the campus -including some of the learned faculty- to show the people the 'true' path. But this path is of servility to the existing exploitative, blood-thirsty policies promoted by all the political parties that have put their money-bags in the parliament.
Why are these parties insisting that the people of Lalgarh are gullible, ignorant, innocent, illiterate…? It is only in that way they can justify their massive police-paramilitary build up in the region to 'liberate' the people from the clutches of the Maoists who have led them astray under the barrel of the gun. What CPM, Liberation, SFI and AISA is conveniently forgetting is that the same people of Lalgarh has long been fighting the harmads, the fascist goons of the CPM armed to the teeth with ammunition provided from the government ordinance factories. These storm-troopers were the forces through which the CPM used to maintain their control over the people, enforce elections, corner government money meant for the development of the adivasis, and maintain an informers' network which used to work in tandem with the police. So to say the Maoists have terrorised the people of Lalgarh into submission to indulge in their 'infantile disorder' is to refuse to admit the bold and daring initiative of the masses of Jangalkhand, their efforts to build a future free from all forms of exploitation and domination. The efforts to build health centres, roads linking up all the villages, small check dams and other water harvesting methods through which they have managed two crops a season are all definite indicators of the political will of the people, their vision of their future. Through these efforts where the people -adivasis and dalits were at the centre of development and not CPM and its village strongmen - the impoverished masses of Lalgarh has succeeded in freeing themselves from CPM's stranglehold in the last eight months of the movement against state repression, and to reverse their dependency on migratory labour outside the region. This people who have dared to manage their own future can rebel against any form of domination and exploitation, and as per SFI if the Maoists are doing that, then they too will be taught a lesson by the masses. The People's Committee have given an open call for everyone to visit these areas to have a first hand knowledge of what is becoming and what is passing away in the unfolding struggle of Lalgarh. Perhaps the SFI and AISA members should go to these areas and see the initiative of the masses for themselves, and discover the truth.
SFI was quoting Mao perhaps to teach the DSU a lesson or two on the need for politics to be in command of all the actions by the revolutionaries. But strangely one thing that is missing in all the SFI and AISA pamphlets was politics from the point of view of the oppressed, deprived, discriminated and exploited. While reading Mao, SFI might have also come across this great insight from that Marxist practitioner-to have faith in the masses and only the masses. All the parliamentary parties fear the masses. Whenever the masses rise in revolt they grab the constitution which normally and conveniently they forget. They turn upside down all dissidence of the people into a 'law and order' question. So when Yechury is busy asking Manmohan Singh to show his seriousness by deploying the forces with immediate effect in Lalgarh and adjoining areas, Prakash Karat makes a song and dance about the virtues of dealing with the Maoists politically and 'administratively'. To add to this, Brinda Karat has gone senile to the extent that she has harped on the imperialist backed (for CPM's alleged opposition to the Nuke Deal) efforts of the Congress-Trinamul-'Ultra Left' combine to dislodge a democratically elected government of West Bengal. In all this double-talk of the CPM leaders, their fascist face could not be hidden from the masses. Soon they set the gun on Chidambaram's shoulder to declare the CPI (Maoist) as a terrorist organisation. So much for their political and ideological dealing with the Maoists. They have even declined to differentiate between the Maoists and the members of the People's Committee leading the struggle, paving way for the persecution of one and all resisting state repression. When we look into the arms-haul made from the CPM office in Khejuri near Nandigram-which Mamata Banerjee had declared as 'liberated from the clutches of CPM'-nobody asked as to how a party could have police uniforms and ammunition from the ordinance factories in its office. Predictably, there was no police-paramilitary operation against Mamata's 'liberated' Khejuri. This also shows the class character of ruling class oppression of all forms of dissent -whether armed or unarmed- that are genuinely from the masses of the people. As long as it is turf war between CPM and Trinamul, Congress or BJP, it is not a law and order question.
SFI has blamed the Maoists for making people's struggles a 'law and order' question. Does that mean the people do not have any right to defend themselves against the flagrant violation of their right to livelihood, dignity, and security? There was also an indication that in Kandhamal it was due to the Maoist killing of the Hindu Fascist Lakshmanananda that the people of Kandhamal had to suffer the persecution of the RSS-Bajrang Dal goons. So does that mean by the same standards, the people of Lalgarh have to suffer in the hands of the security forces because the Maoists sided with the oppressed masses? The SFI should come clear. They would make even an RSS and ABVP proud with their findings, which lacks any class analysis and reads like the handout of the officialdom.
Today anyone who defiantly speak against the anti-people policies of the government and at the same time keep all ruling class parties away from their struggle are branded Maoists. And Chidambaram-Buddha combine have also called the Maoists as terrorists. The SFI taking cue from that has also started profiling the very ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. If they have differences with the ideology of the revolutionaries, they should state first their ideological-political differences. Who is the genuine representative of the revolutionary ideals of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao and all people's heroes will be determined by those who have dared to make their own histories not in circumstances of their own choice but in circumstances given to them. Lalgarh and its people have dared to do it. The progressive and democratic forces including the Maoists have said they are with them. It is only the CPM, SFI, Liberation and AISA by indulging in duplicity have turned against the fighting masses, or are parroting the oft-repeated sophistry that 'innocent' [read ignorant] people are caught between the state and the Maoists. They should know that the failure of the revisionist CPM in West Bengal or Kerala does not mean the defeat of communist ideology in the subcontinent. It only shows the failure of a party that turned against the cause of social change by caricaturing Marxism, by becoming a part of the Indian ruling class, and thereby the trusted agents of imperialism, feudalism and the big bourgeoisie. The complete failure of CPM in addressing the genuine demands of the adivasis and poor peasants even after their 30 years of virtual reign in West Bengal is a tell-tale sign of the party's deviation from the basics of Marxist politics. Their reactionary political ideology as is visible from the failure of land redistribution among the masses, and also from the invitation to the Tatas and Jindals for establishing the industries at the cost of poor peasants and adivasis. It is no different from Congress and BJP's pro-imperialist political line.
Branding anyone who is standing against state oppression as Maoists has become a license to torture and kill. And it is not a new tactic, it was employed when dalit Christians were burnt alive by the RSS goons in Orissa, in persecuting adivasis in the name of Salwa Judum, in the cold-blooded murder of adivasi youths on mere suspicion of being Maoist supporters in Chattisgarh, and in the present state repression in Lalgarh. The SFI is trying hard to justify the butchering of poor adivasis because they have started to resist the perpetuation of decades of organized and systemic violence on the most oppressed sections of the society. The SFI is ruing the punishment of Avijit Mahatos and Anuj Pandeys of the CPM, who has generated people's wrath because of their fascist stranglehold over the poor masses. SFI must understand that Marxist politics is not what is propagated by CPM, but what is manifested by the conviction of Lalgarh's adivasi masses to fight against the ruling class's dictatorship. No amount of 'course-correction' and 'introspection' can save CPM from its eminent doom, and no amount of repression can break the resolve of the heroic Lalgarh masses for their liberation.
June 26, 2009
Fight the Communal-Fascist ABVP and the Sangh Giroh!
(The following is the statement signed by more than fifty JNU students against ABVP's fascist call for state repression on DSU and its activists for upholding its political belief:)
We, the undersigned, strongly condemn ABVP and its demand for persecution of DSU and its activists. ABVP in their pamphlet of 23rd June has asked for imposition of draconian laws like UAPA on DSU and its activists. It said ‘We demand that DSU office bearers should be immediately arrested and booked under the provisions of UAPA . The administration should immediately stop the activities of DSU by seizing its literature, propaganda materials, its accounts and office’. This is nothing but an open call for fascist repression by the state and the administration on a section of the JNU’s students for their political belief and exercising their democratic right to organize themselves and to dissent.
It is no surprise that it comes from ABVP which is threatened by a progressive and democratic students’ movement on campus, as well as by militant people’s movements outside. The communal-fascist ABVP and its masters RSS-BJP-Bajrang Dal-VHP brigade is known for targeting and repressing minority communities, dalits, adivasis, women as well as others who dare to question and resist their Hindu-fundamentalist agenda. They are also known to use the state apparatus in furthering their politics of repression. By using the same weapon that the state uses to carry out its repression on people’s movements, by terming them as ‘terrorist’, ‘Maoist’ etc. the ABVP and its like now are trying to target student’s organizations and activists in JNU. We will collectively resist any such nefarious design by the ABVP, or its protectors, the administration and the state.
We, the undersigned, strongly condemn ABVP and its demand for persecution of DSU and its activists. ABVP in their pamphlet of 23rd June has asked for imposition of draconian laws like UAPA on DSU and its activists. It said ‘We demand that DSU office bearers should be immediately arrested and booked under the provisions of UAPA . The administration should immediately stop the activities of DSU by seizing its literature, propaganda materials, its accounts and office’. This is nothing but an open call for fascist repression by the state and the administration on a section of the JNU’s students for their political belief and exercising their democratic right to organize themselves and to dissent.
It is no surprise that it comes from ABVP which is threatened by a progressive and democratic students’ movement on campus, as well as by militant people’s movements outside. The communal-fascist ABVP and its masters RSS-BJP-Bajrang Dal-VHP brigade is known for targeting and repressing minority communities, dalits, adivasis, women as well as others who dare to question and resist their Hindu-fundamentalist agenda. They are also known to use the state apparatus in furthering their politics of repression. By using the same weapon that the state uses to carry out its repression on people’s movements, by terming them as ‘terrorist’, ‘Maoist’ etc. the ABVP and its like now are trying to target student’s organizations and activists in JNU. We will collectively resist any such nefarious design by the ABVP, or its protectors, the administration and the state.
Rape as instrument of oppression: Down with the use of systematic sexual violence against Kashmiri women! Punish the guilty in the Shopian rape case!
North East, Kashmir, Gujarat, Orissa, Chengara, Nandigram, Lalgarh.…be it the Communal-Fascist BJP or Social-Fascist CPM, Sexual violence has been the weapon of choice in the state’s repressive arsenal, whatever may parliamentary party in power be. Women become the most vulnerable targets of violence during war, communal violence or military occupation. That is the reason why, even in movements of the landless peasants, Dalits and Tribals, women forms the most militant section of a struggling population. In Nandigram, Singur, Lalgarh or anywhere else where land was being grabbed or the state and ruling parties has unleashed its violence upon the people, women were seen taking the lead in the struggle against it. Sexual violence has become the best weapon for the state to crush this surging tide of rebellion. Rape is used as an instrument of subjugation. The names of Tapasi Mallick and Manorama Devi are still fresh in our memories. The rape of adivasi women in Bastar by the state forces or the notorious Salwa Judum that has unleashed a reign of terror through rape and other forms of sexual assault, demonstrates the particular vulnerability of women. Similarly the Sri Lankan armed forces have been accused for decades for systematic violence of Tamil women.
The case of the rape and murder of two women in Shopian in Kashmir on May 29 by the security forces has again exposed the real face of the Indian state. This is the same state that is now yelling for ‘law and order’ situation in Lalgarh, the place where the CPM goons/Harmads in nexus with police/CRPF has been sexually assaulting women and other since a long time. In this Shopian dual rape and murder case, the state government initially denied any incident of rape, but later medical reports established that women were gangraped by 15-18 men. That the Jammu and Kashmir state administration and police was involved in a cover-up and destruction of evidence in the Shopian cases has been proved even by the state-appointed judicial commission. The commission report describes in detail the involvement of all state officials right from the police officials to the medical officers in hushing-up the case and passing it off as accidental death by drowning. The government was forced to take some action following massive protests in Shopian and across the state. But the culprits have not yet been caught due to the destruction of substantial evidence by the police and district officials, and the guilty officials too have not been punished sufficiently. The people in Kashmir have yet again come out to protest in large numbers demanding punishment against the culprits, but more importantly demanding the repeal of AFSPA, and an end to the terror of security forces. It is only because of the mounting protests and public outrage that the state government woke up after its week-long silence and was forced to order an enquiry. It was the collective public anger that forced the police to register a case of murder and rape, which it had refused to do till now.
This particular incident of rape is one among the many that take place on regular basis in the Kashmir that has been militarized and occupied by Indian security forces. In both Kashmir and the Northeast, time and again cases of abuse by the troops have come to light, but the state has never punished them for their crimes. According to a 1994 UN report, there were 882 rape cases by the security forces in Kashmir between 1990-92. According to Indian National Human Rights Commission, there were 1,039 cases of human rights violations (which include, rapes, terrorizing, abduction & killing of innocent women, children and youngsters & communal violence) by the security forces from 1990-1999, an average of 109 per year. These are just the official figures. The real numbers must be even higher as most of the cases go unreported out of sheer fear. As we know there are all legal measures to shield these illegal actions done under the cover of the AFSPA in Kashmir and North-east, PSA (Kashmir), the Disturbed Areas Act (DAA) etc. Draconian laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) grants enormous powers to the security forces, to search, arrest, detain or shoot-to-kill anyone on the basis of suspicion-of course all in the name of ‘maintaining public order’ in so called ‘disturbed areas’. The abuse of power by security forces has resulted in incidents of arbitrary detention, torture, rape, molestation, harrasement and killing. It also protects military personnel responsible for serious crimes from prosecution, creating a pervasive culture of impunity.
The people of Kashmir have long been subjected to terror, abuse and brutality of the Indian security forces. The armed occupation of the valley is the biggest method of the Indian state of controlling the popular aspirations of the people for self-determination. The people of the valley have consistently fought against state repression and occupation. The Shopian rape and murder case has pushed people to the brink of tolerance of state and army’s violence and has again made them come out on the streets in large numbers to demand justice and independence of Kashmir.
The case of the rape and murder of two women in Shopian in Kashmir on May 29 by the security forces has again exposed the real face of the Indian state. This is the same state that is now yelling for ‘law and order’ situation in Lalgarh, the place where the CPM goons/Harmads in nexus with police/CRPF has been sexually assaulting women and other since a long time. In this Shopian dual rape and murder case, the state government initially denied any incident of rape, but later medical reports established that women were gangraped by 15-18 men. That the Jammu and Kashmir state administration and police was involved in a cover-up and destruction of evidence in the Shopian cases has been proved even by the state-appointed judicial commission. The commission report describes in detail the involvement of all state officials right from the police officials to the medical officers in hushing-up the case and passing it off as accidental death by drowning. The government was forced to take some action following massive protests in Shopian and across the state. But the culprits have not yet been caught due to the destruction of substantial evidence by the police and district officials, and the guilty officials too have not been punished sufficiently. The people in Kashmir have yet again come out to protest in large numbers demanding punishment against the culprits, but more importantly demanding the repeal of AFSPA, and an end to the terror of security forces. It is only because of the mounting protests and public outrage that the state government woke up after its week-long silence and was forced to order an enquiry. It was the collective public anger that forced the police to register a case of murder and rape, which it had refused to do till now.
This particular incident of rape is one among the many that take place on regular basis in the Kashmir that has been militarized and occupied by Indian security forces. In both Kashmir and the Northeast, time and again cases of abuse by the troops have come to light, but the state has never punished them for their crimes. According to a 1994 UN report, there were 882 rape cases by the security forces in Kashmir between 1990-92. According to Indian National Human Rights Commission, there were 1,039 cases of human rights violations (which include, rapes, terrorizing, abduction & killing of innocent women, children and youngsters & communal violence) by the security forces from 1990-1999, an average of 109 per year. These are just the official figures. The real numbers must be even higher as most of the cases go unreported out of sheer fear. As we know there are all legal measures to shield these illegal actions done under the cover of the AFSPA in Kashmir and North-east, PSA (Kashmir), the Disturbed Areas Act (DAA) etc. Draconian laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) grants enormous powers to the security forces, to search, arrest, detain or shoot-to-kill anyone on the basis of suspicion-of course all in the name of ‘maintaining public order’ in so called ‘disturbed areas’. The abuse of power by security forces has resulted in incidents of arbitrary detention, torture, rape, molestation, harrasement and killing. It also protects military personnel responsible for serious crimes from prosecution, creating a pervasive culture of impunity.
The people of Kashmir have long been subjected to terror, abuse and brutality of the Indian security forces. The armed occupation of the valley is the biggest method of the Indian state of controlling the popular aspirations of the people for self-determination. The people of the valley have consistently fought against state repression and occupation. The Shopian rape and murder case has pushed people to the brink of tolerance of state and army’s violence and has again made them come out on the streets in large numbers to demand justice and independence of Kashmir.
June 25, 2009
Stop para-military operation in Lalgarh! Stop atrocities on the protesting people in the name of ‘flushing out’ Maoists!
A war is being waged by the Indian state on the most marginalized people of Lalgarh and Jangal Mahal (the forested and tribal dominated areas of Medinipur, Bankura and adjoining districts) in West Bengal right now. 11 companies of Para military forces including 6 Companies of BSF, one company of CoBRA have been deployed. 11 more companies of CRPF (and if required the notorious Grey Hounds) are on their way. This huge number of army is being posted to “sanitize” the entire Lalgarh, Shalboni, Ramgarh and Goaltor Block, off a ‘handful of Maoists’! Thus ‘Operation Lalgarh’ has become the news of the day. Unfortunately even after the sixth day of operation this huge army with its full force has failed to ‘flush out the handful of Maoists’. Rather, what they have been doing in the name of ‘combating Maoists’ is to unleash utter state terror on the villagers. The same villagers who had ‘dared’ to boycott police for the last seven months as a retaliation to the extreme terror unleashed on them on last November, were beaten mercilessly by the police and para-military on their way to the ‘operation’. They have been dragged out of their houses, beaten up ruthlessly and forced to stay in ‘relief camps’. They have been used to detect land mines. Their drinking water has been polluted at a number of places by the para-military. Their houses have been ransacked. A number of cases of molestation of women have also been reported in the media. The women have been specially beaten around their private parts. The local schools have been turned into temporary ‘relief’ camps. It is exactly the Salwa Judum model that is being replicated in West Bengal. The colour of the flag notwithstanding, its once again clear that all parliamentary political parties will unleash the same kind of terror whenever people rise up to challenge their power, question their authority and demand for justice and rights. The state government is showing bonhomie with their ‘arch enemy’ Congress while planning the state terror. The ‘ideological differences’ always vanish when the ruling parties ally with each other against the people. Thus Buddhadeb has vested full faith in his political opponent Chidambaram and the Congress, a bigger expert in state terror, rather than listening to his own people, and now the state has forbidden any independent scrutiny of the paramilitary operations in fear of public outcry against it.
The CPM-led state government is carrying out a massacre in the name of its ‘operation’ against ‘Maoists’ in Lalgarh, and is forcing people to stay in relief camps. The bourgeois media is hiding the fact that the thousands of villagers are being forced to run away from their homes ever since the ‘operation’ began, out of fear of persecution and torture by the security forces. Despite severe repression, many thousands are still resisting the entry of armed security forces by blockading the roads and retaliating state violence by using their traditional weapons. The armed forces are moving forward only by tear-gassing, brutally lathi-charging and beating up the protesting masses. TV images clearly show the police and CRPF openly dragging people out of their houses, and thrashing them with rifle butts, and also vandalizing entire villages. Yet, the media is silent about the blatant police brutality on the villagers, betraying its true class character.
This area of Jangal Mahal has seen extreme backwardness, hunger deaths, malnutrition and lack of development. The government for the last sixty two years since the so-called independence, including the 30 years of the so–called left government has done virtually nothing for the people. There are no roads, no electricity, absolutely no health facility or any sources of livelihood inside the villages. More shockingly there has been no provision for irrigation and drinking water in these extremely dry regions. The people here were forced to live an inhuman life for years. As the discontent of the people developed into a resistance against the government since 1996, state repression intensified in these areas. The CRPF was first deployed way back in 2006. Since then the people of this region have faced extreme state terror. The police regularly arrested people in mere suspicion without producing any legal ground. There have been forcible ‘checks and raids’ in the houses at night by the police when they used to ransack houses, beat up people and molest women. The CPM played two roles in the areas. The leaders siphoned off the entire money allotted for developmental activities while the cadres worked as informers to the police about the various political affiliations of the people. As a result regularly before any elections many non-CPM activists of various organizations were picked up as ‘Maoists’. The anger of the people therefore is directed massively against the CPM cadres and leaders in these regions. The natural outburst of that was seen when a thousand people gathered to demolish the palatial house of CPM leaders.
This is not an armed clash between the state and the ‘Maoists’ as the corporate media would like us to believe. For the Indian state, anyone who challenges its authority and power, and fights for an end of the exploitative system, is termed a ‘Maoist’. In that case, the tens of thousands of people of lalgarh and jangal mahal area can be labeled as ‘Maoists’ because they are all fighting the state. This also nullifies the argument coming from some sections of the media, and even the intelligentsia, that the adivasis are stuck between the Maoists and the state. Those making this ridiculous claim fail to see that the people have organized and are fighting their own battle. In this struggle, the people of jangal mahal have not only shown a model of resistance but have also attempted to undertake basic developmental work on their own, which the Indian state and the CPM deprived them of. The state with its full force wants to repress this movement, so that it does not become a model for all the other oppressed and struggling people of the country. But the state cannot stop Lalgarh from becoming a glorious example of people’s struggle against exploitation, against state repression and for social justice, like it could not stop Nandigram or Naxalbari from becoming part of the legacy of militant people’s resistance.
The CPM-led state government is carrying out a massacre in the name of its ‘operation’ against ‘Maoists’ in Lalgarh, and is forcing people to stay in relief camps. The bourgeois media is hiding the fact that the thousands of villagers are being forced to run away from their homes ever since the ‘operation’ began, out of fear of persecution and torture by the security forces. Despite severe repression, many thousands are still resisting the entry of armed security forces by blockading the roads and retaliating state violence by using their traditional weapons. The armed forces are moving forward only by tear-gassing, brutally lathi-charging and beating up the protesting masses. TV images clearly show the police and CRPF openly dragging people out of their houses, and thrashing them with rifle butts, and also vandalizing entire villages. Yet, the media is silent about the blatant police brutality on the villagers, betraying its true class character.
This area of Jangal Mahal has seen extreme backwardness, hunger deaths, malnutrition and lack of development. The government for the last sixty two years since the so-called independence, including the 30 years of the so–called left government has done virtually nothing for the people. There are no roads, no electricity, absolutely no health facility or any sources of livelihood inside the villages. More shockingly there has been no provision for irrigation and drinking water in these extremely dry regions. The people here were forced to live an inhuman life for years. As the discontent of the people developed into a resistance against the government since 1996, state repression intensified in these areas. The CRPF was first deployed way back in 2006. Since then the people of this region have faced extreme state terror. The police regularly arrested people in mere suspicion without producing any legal ground. There have been forcible ‘checks and raids’ in the houses at night by the police when they used to ransack houses, beat up people and molest women. The CPM played two roles in the areas. The leaders siphoned off the entire money allotted for developmental activities while the cadres worked as informers to the police about the various political affiliations of the people. As a result regularly before any elections many non-CPM activists of various organizations were picked up as ‘Maoists’. The anger of the people therefore is directed massively against the CPM cadres and leaders in these regions. The natural outburst of that was seen when a thousand people gathered to demolish the palatial house of CPM leaders.
This is not an armed clash between the state and the ‘Maoists’ as the corporate media would like us to believe. For the Indian state, anyone who challenges its authority and power, and fights for an end of the exploitative system, is termed a ‘Maoist’. In that case, the tens of thousands of people of lalgarh and jangal mahal area can be labeled as ‘Maoists’ because they are all fighting the state. This also nullifies the argument coming from some sections of the media, and even the intelligentsia, that the adivasis are stuck between the Maoists and the state. Those making this ridiculous claim fail to see that the people have organized and are fighting their own battle. In this struggle, the people of jangal mahal have not only shown a model of resistance but have also attempted to undertake basic developmental work on their own, which the Indian state and the CPM deprived them of. The state with its full force wants to repress this movement, so that it does not become a model for all the other oppressed and struggling people of the country. But the state cannot stop Lalgarh from becoming a glorious example of people’s struggle against exploitation, against state repression and for social justice, like it could not stop Nandigram or Naxalbari from becoming part of the legacy of militant people’s resistance.
June 23, 2009
LALGARH: The Bastion of People’s Resistance against State Repression
Continued state repression had been underway in Lalgarh and its adjacent areas from November 2008, after the landmine blast on the convoy of Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, while he was returning from the inauguration of the SEZ of Jindal Steels in Salboni, about 50 kilometres from Lalgarh. In the name of arresting ‘Maoists’, the police went on a rampage arbitrarily arresting villagers, most of them adivasis, and beating them up mercilessly, leaving three persons dead with many gravely injured. These well-planned brutalities have been targeted particularly against women and children. Following this the people had formed the Pulishi Santrash Birodhi Janasadharoner Committee (PSBJC) or the People’s Committee against Police Atrocities to resist the fascist onslaught of the CPI(M)-run state machinery. Lalgarh and other areas were made out-of-bounds for the security forces in order to prevent them from carrying out their atrocities. In this moment of sharply divided battle-line between the adivasi peasants and the State reminiscent of the great Naxalbari uprising, DSU felt the need to visit Lalgarh with the aim of extending solidarity to the ongoing people’s movement, and to bring out the ground reality that has been deliberately overlooked or maliciously obscured by the mainstream corporate media and pro-state forces. A nine-member DSU fact-finding team visited Lalgarh from 7th to 10th June 2009. The team visited over 25 villages in that region and interacted extensively with the people. From these interactions it had become clear that the incidents of police atrocities in November last year were not unique, but merely a continuation of such state and police terror that the people of the region have been subjected to since 2000. What is unique this time is the people’s resistance, which has taken an organized and sustained shape this time around.
The history of police atrocities: The people in all the villages we visited conclusively verified police torture. They described how the police used to enter their houses very late at night, and in the name of ‘raids’ and ‘checks’ vandalized their houses and mercilessly beat them up, how any movement of the villagers at night even to look for their cattle was enough to act as proof for them being ‘Maoists’. Almost every family had one or more members who had been booked for being a ‘Maoist’. We were told about the 90 year old Maiku Murmu of Teshabandh who was beaten to death by the police way back in 2006. Young school girls were regularly molested by the police in the pretext of ‘body checks’. Women were forced to show their genitals at night during ‘raids’ in the pretext of confirming their gender. Before every election 30-40 people from every village would be picked up as ‘Maoists’ in order to weaken the opposition to the ruling CPI(M). The incident of police brutality in Chhotopelia, where a number of women were ruthlessly beaten up and one of them Chhitamoni lost her eye, acted as the last straw. The arrest of three students on the baseless charge of ‘waging war against the state’ further enraged the people. Lalgarh have now risen up-in-arms against this long drawn atrocities and organised oppression of the CPI(M) and the entire exploitative system they represent.
CPI(M)’s white terror: For the villagers, police terror was coupled with the terror unleashed by the social-fascist CPI(M). In fact, the police and CPI(M) are not just in alliance with each other, they meant one and the same thing for the villagers. In Madhupur, the local panchayat office had been turned into a camp of the harmad vahini [armed CPI(M) goons]. They told us how the ‘motor cycle army’ of the harmads roamed around the villages, terrorizing people, tearing down their houses, firing in the air, and beating people up, exactly the same way they used to operate in Nandigram. The police not only stood as mute spectators whenever the harmads went on a rampage, it supported them in all possible ways. The harmads even used police jeeps to move around. To return these ‘favours’, the local CPI(M) cadres acted as informers for the police. We met one villager whose house was demolished by the harmad, during which he kept calling the police for help, but they never came. Similarly, they narrated the incident of Khash Jongol where the harmads open fired on a village meeting and killed three people, injuring three others. It was only after an armed resistance was put up by the villagers, that the harmads were forced to retreat to Memul and then to Shijua. It is the same CPI(M) which is today shamelessly describing the resistance in Lalgarh as ‘anarchy’, whereas all this while its own cadres were perpetuating a reign of terror on the people. Recently the local CPI(M) leaders with active help of the police floated the so called Maoist Resistance Force with 200 cadres to terrorize the masses and collect ‘taxes’ on the stretch of the highway they controlled. Abhijit Mahato, which SFI celebrates as a ‘student leader’, along with many others were its local ring leaders. This way, the state and CPI(M) wanted to replicate the notorious Salwa-Judum style operations against the militant adivasis of West Bengal. It is therefore no surprise that masses themselves have now decided to retaliate and punish such criminals.
Who is really anti-development? This entire region in Midnapore (as also the districts of Bankura and Purulia) is marked by extreme poverty and backwardness. Agriculture is dependent on rainfall, which is scanty. We saw the dysfunctional government canal, which is lying dry. Villagers showed us the pathetic condition of roads which become completely inaccessible during the monsoon. About the state of medical facilities, the less said the better, with not a single functioning health centre for miles. Villagers have extremely limited sources of livelihood, depending largely only on picking of saal leaves and cultivation of limited crops. Starvation-deaths in the neighbouring Amlasol shows the precarious the lives of the adivasis in this region are, while the CPI(M) members continue to amass huge wealth at their expense. This is the real face of the CPI(M)’s ‘pro-poor’ rule of 30 years. Today it is branding as ‘anti-development’ those forces which are challenging the oppressive state machinery. A living proof against this typical propaganda is the developmental work done by the Committee against Police Atrocities. The Committee was formed against police atrocities but has also been carrying out people-centred developmental work in Lalgarh region in the past seven months. On its own has made 20 km of roads with red stone chips (‘morrum’), with villagers volunteering their labour. They have repaired several tubewells, and have installed new ones at half the price than the panchayat. They have also started constructing a check dam in Bohardanga to fight the water crisis. Two major works undertaken by the committee is the process of land distribution and running a health center in Katapahari. The government was supposed to distribute wasteland among the landless, but never did so. Now the Committee is taking initiative in Banshberi and other villages to distribute the wasteland adjacent to the forests to the landless people. We witnessed the distribution of the patta in one village. The Committee has also turned a dysfunctional building in Katapahari into a health center, which attends to more than 150 patients every day. Organs of people’s political power are being developed by the villagers throughout the region, with village after village forming people’s committees to look after their own needs and taking decisions for their benefit in a collective manner. Today in more than 200 villages there exist such committees, which have become the real institutions of people’s democracy. This makes it clear who is in favour of development for the poorer and marginalized classes and communities, and who is against it. As the nodal organisation of the people, the PSBJC is fulfilling the tasks of people-centric development and redistribution of wealth that the ruling classes of the country could never achieve in the last 60 years of so-called independence.
We also observed that the CPI (Maoist) enjoys mass support of the people in this area. Its posters could be seen everywhere. We were informed by the villagers that Maoists have held meetings attended by thousands of people. The villagers seemed very clear about the need for an armed resistance in the face of regular joint attacks by the state and CPI(M), and in anticipation of a brutal all-round assault. The restriction imposed by the state on adivasis against carrying their traditional weapons is another sign that the state is threatened by the collective strength of the oppressed masses of Lalgarh.
The ‘anarchy’ of the state vs. the resistance of the people: Our team was witness to the genuine anger and suffering of the people of Lalgarh. Therefore, we strongly condemn the media branding of the resistance there as ‘anarchy’ and ‘lawlessness’. We also believe that the police, administration and CPI(M) are solely responsible for the current situation in Lalgarh. In the past few days, people have demolished houses of local CPI(M) leaders and some of their party offices in the area. The crowds were jubilant as they tore down the house of CPI(M) leader Anuj Pandey because, as we too witnessed, the common people now have nothing but utter hatred for CPI(M) mis-rule and terror. The sight of the lone palatial house of this CPI(M) leader in the sea of poverty of Lalgarh was a disgusting proof of what the CPI(M) actually stands for in this state. People are demolishing CPI(M)’s party offices with their traditional weapons with the same anger that they are demolishing police camps. Every rally or meeting held by the PSBJC in the area is attended by people in their thousands. Our team was witness to one such big rally on 7th June attended by about 12000 people from various villages across the district, as well as several other meetings across the area during our visit. Inspite of seeing this organized assertion by the adivasis for their dignity and freedom, the CPI(M) has the audacity to claim that the adivasis are being ‘used as human shields’ by the Maoists. They are claiming to have the overwhelming support of the adivasis as proved by their victory in the Jhargram seat in the recent Lok Sabha elections. The hollowness of this claim can be understood by the fact that just about 12 % votes was cast in the region with an overwhelming majority boycotting the polls, and this 12% represents the combined ‘strength’ of all the parliamentary parties in the region, including the CPI(M), Trinamool and Congress!
In the dictionary of the ruling class, ‘anarchy’ and ‘terror’ are words to describe the organized resistance of the masses who have been pushed to the brink. These words are not meant for the armed gangs and mercenary armies of the rulers who attack, kill or suppress people to maintain their iron-grip over state-power and people’s lives. CPI(M) is crying hoarse about their party being ‘attacked’ in Khejuri, but it maintains a silence about the seizure of the huge cache of arms from its members in Khejuri last week. It is an open secret that CPI(M) and Trinamool possess more arms and ammunition than any other political force in the region.
Things stand at a crucial stage in Lalgarh today. With the entry of the central and state armed forces, nothing short of a full-scale war and a large-scale massacre of the fighting people can be expected. Rather than starting discussions on the people’s charter of demands which enumerates the problems faced by people of Lalgarh, the state is resorting to brute force, which is the only answer that it knows to a legitimate struggle of the oppressed. During the first day’s face-off yesterday, more than 50 peaceful protestors have been arrested, and 65 were injured due to the unprovoked assault by the security forces. Following on the heels of the state forces, CPI(M)’s harmads too have entered Lalgarh today and demolished the People’s Health Centre at Chakadoba. SFI is now that a democratic country cannot tolerate anarchy and lawlessness. This democratic country that SFI believes in can most definitely tolerate years of poverty, backwardness, state repression and brutality. CPI(M) and its ivory-tower ‘intellectuals’ can condemn mass movements of the oppressed classes. But the masses of Lalgarh have resolved to continue their fight to the finish. They are finally beginning to taste a life free of state terror and are participating in their own development, which they are ready to protect at all costs. In the different villages we visited, many residents held one opinion in common, ‘we have got independence for the first time’. The fight eventually is for much more than freedom from terror alone. It is a fight to end exploitation of one human by another, and the people of Lalgarh are showing the way to us in that struggle. No amount of fascist state–terror and repression can crush the people’s aspiration for freedom and justice. Red salute to the heroic masses of Lalgarh!
'Stop Police-military action in Lalgarh! Resolve problems through discussions!'
Let us look at the context of the present situation in Lalgarh. Ever since the police committed atrocities in November last, people’s discontent took the form of a mass rebellion against state terror. The joint attacks by the police and the main ruling party were repulsed by the adivasi people of the area under the leadership of the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities. Four members of the committee lost their lives as a result of such attacks.
Despite persistent demands for the punishment of those policemen who committed crimes, the state government has done absolutely nothing in this regard. On the contrary, in the post-election period, they had made the blueprint for police action and further complicated the situation by arresting some people on cooked-up charges. On 12 June at Dharampur, the hermads (goons) of the main ruling party launched attacks against the members of the People’s Committee. The consequent resistance against such attacks took the form of a mass revolt and the residence of a person identified as an oppressor and his party office was attacked.
We hold that the inefficiency of the State government as also the backing given to unholy forces by them have created such an explosive situation. The steps the state government has taken for its ‘solution’ will create a dangerous situation and lead to more bloodshed. The employment of the central para-military force and the butcher ‘cobra’ units effectively implies declaration of war against the people. Needless to say, it would close the door for the restoration of democratic atmosphere.
We believe that the Lalgarh struggle is rooted in centuries of deprivation, exploitation and humiliation. It is rooted in socio-economic exploitation. It can never be an ‘administrative’ or ‘law and order’ problem. The question is political, not military. We condemn in unequivocal terms this deployment of para-military forces by the state and central governments in Lalgarh. We maintain that the state should immediately come out of this path of bloody confrontation and sit down for talks with the representatives of the struggling people of Jangal Mahal and make a sincere attempt to arrive at a solution.
Kolkata, 18-6-09
Signatories:
Mahasweta Devi, Aparna Sen, Bibhas Chakrabarty, Sujato Bhadra, Amit Bhattacharyya, Joy Goswami, Subhendu Dasgupta, manas Joardar, Chaitali Datta, Tarun Naskar, Tarun Sanyal, Pallab Kirtaniya, Kalyan Roy, Bratya Basu, Shanta Dey, Bhaskar Gupta, Debabrata Panda, Jibankrishna Dey, Debaprasad Roychoudhuri, Sanchita Bhoumik, Kamala Adak, Gopa Mitra, Layla Khaled, Ratna Sengupta, Ranjan Chakraborty, Siddhartha Saha, Sukhendu Bhattacharya, Gopa Mukherjee, Debashis Goswami, Dipanan Roychoudhry and many others.
A Preliminary Report on the Lalgarh Movement by the DSU Fact-finding Team
A 9 member DSU fact-finding team comprising of students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and journalists recently visited Lalgarh, to probe into the reality of the ongoing movement of the people in the area. Here is a preliminary account of our observations. We would like to appeal to you to highlight on certain issues of the movement, which have so far been overlooked and neglected by the media.
We heard through various media and other sources that massive state repression had been underway in Lalgarh and other adjacent areas since November 2008, after the attempted mine blast on the convoy of Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. We had learnt of the incidents of rampant police atrocities after this land mine blast, especially on women and school children in the area. Following this the people there had formed the Pulishi Santrash Birodhi Janasadharoner Committee (PSBJC) or the People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA) and have blockaded Lalgarh and other adjoining areas from police and other administration. With these preliminary facts in hand, we visited Lalgarh from 7 to 10 June, 2009. The team visited the villages of Chhotapelia, Katapahari, Bohardanga, Sijua, Dain Tikri, Sindurpur, Madhupur, Babui Basha, Shaluka, Moltola Kadoshol, Basban, Papuria, Komladanga, pukhria, Korengapara, gopalnagar, Khash jongol, Shaalboni, Shaal danga, Andharmari, Darigera, Bhuladanga, Chitaram Dahi, Teshabandh, Bhuladanga and talked extensively to people. We attended a big meeting called by the People’s Committee in Lodhashuli on the 7th of June and witnessed other small meetings which were held inside the villages. A firing and frontal battle between the people on the one hand and the state and armed gangs of the CPM on the other, in Dharampura and Madhupur/Shijua had started during our stay in Lalgarh.
The visit to Lalgarh and interaction with the people broke many of the myths which we still held before going there. After listening to the chronological narrative of the history of police atrocities in the area, we realized that the November incidents were not unique. It was merely the continuation of extreme state terror and police atrocities that the people of the region have been subjected to since 2000. What is unique this time is the resistance, which has taken an organized and sustained shape this time around.
The people in all the villages we visited conclusively verified police torture. They described how the police entered houses very late at night, and in the name of ‘raids’ and ‘checks’ vandalized their houses and mercilessly beat them up, how any movement of the villagers at night even to look for their cattle was banned. Almost every family had one or more members who had been booked for being a ‘Maoist’. We were told about the 90 year old Maiku Murmu of Teshabandh who was beaten to death by the police way back in 2006. Young school girls were regularly molested by the police in the pretext of ‘body check’. Women were forced to show their genitals at night during ‘raids’ to confirm their gender. Before every election 30-40 people from every village were picked up as ‘Maoists’ in order to weaken the opposition to the ruling CPI (M). The incident of police brutality in Chhotopelia, where a number of women were ruthlessly beaten up and one of them Chhitamoni lost her eye, acted as the last straw. The arrest of three students on the baseless charge of ‘waging war against the state’ further enraged the people. Lalgarh have now risen up-in-arms against this long drawn atrocities and organised oppression of the CPI (M).
For the villagers, police terror was accompanied by the terror unleashed by CPI (M). In fact, the police and CPI (M) are not just in alliance with each other, they meant one and the same thing for the villagers. Our team was taken to Madhupur, where the local panchayat office had been turned into a camp of the harmad vahini (armed gangs of the CPM). They told us how the ‘motor cycle army’ of the harmads roamed around the villages, terrorizing people, breaking their houses brutally, firing in the air, and beating people up, exactly in the same way they did in Nandigram. The police not only stood as mute spectators whenever the harmads went on a rampage, it supported them in all possible ways. The harmads even used police jeeps to move around. To return these ‘favours’, the local CPI (M) cadres acted as informers for the police.
We met one villager whose house was demolished by the harmad, during which he kept calling the police for help, but they never came. Similarly, they narrated the incident of Khash Jongol where the harmads open fired on a village meeting and killed three people, injuring three others. It was only after an armed resistance was put up by the villagers, that the harmads were forced to retreat to Memul and then to Shijua.The Committee was formed against police atrocities but has also been carrying out alternative developmental work inside Lalgarh in the past seven months. These areas are marked by extreme poverty and backwardness. Agriculture is dependent on rainfall which is scanty. We saw the dysfunctional government canal, which is lying dry. They showed us the pathetic condition of roads which become completely inaccessible during the monsoons. The Committee on its own has made 20 km of roads with red stone chips (‘morrum’), with villagers volunteering their labour. They have repaired several tubewells, and have installed new ones at half the price than the panchayat. They have also started constructing a check dam in Bohardanga to fight the water crisis. Two major works undertaken by the committee is the process of land distribution and running a health center in Katapahari. The government was supposed to distribute wasteland among the landless, but never did so. Now the Committee is taking initiative in Banshberi and other villages to distribute the wasteland adjacent to the forests to the landless people. We witnessed the distribution of the patta in one village. The Committee has also turned a dysfunctional building in Katapahari into a health center, which attends to more than 150 patients every day. Doctors from Kolkata and other regions visit there thrice a week.
We had also attended a huge meeting called by the Committee in Lodhashuli against a sponge iron factory located in the region. We visited the factory site and saw the adverse effect of pollution on the trees, water bodies and land. The people informed that even the paddy grown in the region have turned black, so much so that even the panchayat has refused to accept the paddy. The meeting was attended by around 12000 people from many villages of the district, despite a bus strike called by CPM. It was a vibrant meeting, where the committee resolved among other things to boycott the factory and bring about its closure.
The presence of the Maoists within Lalgarh was one of the most contended issues during our visit. Our team observed the presence of Maoists and that they had mass support of the people in this area. Their posters could be seen everywhere. We were informed by the villagers that Maoists have held meetings attended by thousands of people. The people seemed pretty clear about the need for an armed resistance in the face of the regular joint attacks by the CPM and the state. The restriction on carrying traditional arms by them is a clear signal by the state to debilitate this movement.
This team was witness to the genuine anger and suffering of the people. Therefore, we do not agree with many sections sections of the media which brand the resistance there as ‘anarchy’. We also believe that the police, administration and CPM are solely responsible for the current situation in Lalgarh.
By the time we left Lalgarh, the struggle has intensified. By then, the people had been successful in making their immediate enemy CPM to escape along with the police. The enthusiasm we saw in the people was exuberant. For the first time they are being part of not some vote-minting political party but a committee which is their own organization. They are living a life free of state terror and building their own developmental projects. In different villages many residents held one opinion in common, ‘we have got independence for the first time’. Their fight is against age old exploitation, deprivation, torture and terror. In this way, it is a historic fight.
We urge the media to revisit Lalgarh. The movement has its roots in extremely impoverished socio economic conditions increased by the inaction of the state. The state is bound to strike back at this fight of the people. The CRPF and other central forces will soon come with the orders to open fire on the resilient masses. The state government is also shamelessly asking the notorious and infamous Grey hounds and Cobra to come and crush the people’s movement. That will be the most unfortunate and condemnable thing. The anger of the masses against massive state terror, underdevelopment and corruption is valid. And so is the fight against it. This team will publish a detailed report based on our visit about this movement in Lalgarh. We remember the progressive role played by some sections of the media especially the regional media in Bengal progressive role during the Nandigram movement and would appeal to you to also stand by the people of Lalgarh and their genuine fight before the state carries out yet another genocide.
March 25, 2009
Building a Revolutionary Alternative
to the Politics Of Opportunism and Compromise
A Report on the Successful completion of the III Unit Conference of DSU, JNU
DSU’s III Unit Conference was successfully concluded on 22nd March, 2009 which was organised in the Comrade Naveen Memorial Hall (Teflas TV Hall) with the participation of a large number of its members and sympathisers. Several rounds of debates and discussions in General Body Meetings took place in the run up to the unit conference, where the activities and interventions by DSU in the campus and outside were thoroughly reviewed. These discussions which encompassed ideological, political and organisational aspects were synthesized and several important resolutions were passed in the closed session of the conference. The conference started with the hoisting of the DSU flag and a minute’s silence in the memory of the martyrs of the revolutionary students’ movement, selection of the presidium, discussions on the DSU Constitution, organisational review, passing of resolutions and election of the Executive Committee. In the Open Session that followed, G N Saibaba, a former member of the Andhra Pradesh Radical Students’ Union and the Vice-Chairperson of the International League of People’s Struggles, delivered the Keynote Address where he talked about the history of revolutionary students’ movement in India and its role in the context of the present imperialist crisis. An overview of DSU’s functioning was presented, followed by solidarity messages by various organisations such as the Naga Students’ Union Delhi, Delhi Tamil Students’ Union, Revolutionary Cultural Front etc. as well as several sympathisers. Several important suggestions and criticisms were also put forward by sympathisers which the organisation resolves to incorporate in its coming days.
Some of the important resolutions passed in the Unit Conference are:
DSU recognised the need to intensify the students movement within JNU and outside to face the grave challenges posed by privatization of education, growing unemployment, curbing of democratic rights through draconian measures like Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations, scuttling of reservation, depoliticisation, right-wing attacks on minorities, oppressed castes and tribal communities, patriarchy and violence on women, state repression of the revolutionary movement, the present economic crisis of world imperialism and so on. In doing so, we must also expose and intensify the fight against revisionism and opportunism within the students’ movement on campus, in the process of building up a genuine alternative to the election-centric politics of AISA and SFI. The fascist attacks by ABVP goons in JNU has been going on unabated with the active shielding and support of not only the administration but also a section of the teachers. The inability and even unwillingness to confront the sanghi lumpens beyond empty-phrase mongering by both SFI and particularly by ‘radical’ AISA, has emboldened these fascists and the list of their violent acts are ever increasing. In this situation, DSU recognises its responsibility to mobilise the student community to confront the sangh-giroh in campus and bring them to justice.
Similarly, the very crucial ongoing fight against privatisation of campus cannot be clinched with either AISA or SFI in the lead, whose gross betrayal of the trust of the student community has been repeated so often that the students no longer expects them to ‘fight’ issues beyond tokenism. In times of real crisis their strategy has been to withdraw from the movement or to compromise with the administration and thereby backstab the aspirations of the student community. After rustication orders, AISA-led JNUSU has termed the stopping of the prospectus-sale as unfortunate, an action which was decided in the JNUSU Council with a common agreement between AISA and SFI and implemented by a handful of students. It matters little to them if this act undermined and disrespected the call for action mandated by the UGBM or that it does not address the crucial demand for the removal of electric meters from Koyena. AISA and SFI’s ‘commitment’ to fight the scuttling of reservations and of seat-cuts was already experienced by the campus last year.
DSU in the coming days will work towards mobilizing and consolidating the student community under the guiding principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to collectively face the challenges ahead, and to integrate with the larger movement for a revolutionary social transformation. Taking forward the legacy of Naxalbari and inspiration from revolutionary martyrs like Bhagat Singh, Charu Mazumdar, Anuradha Gandhi, Saketh Rajan, Naveen Babu and thousands of others who laid down their lives for the liberation of the oppressed masses, DSU reaffirms its resolves to uncompromisingly carry forward the banner of revolutionary students’ movement.
A Report on the Successful completion of the III Unit Conference of DSU, JNU
DSU’s III Unit Conference was successfully concluded on 22nd March, 2009 which was organised in the Comrade Naveen Memorial Hall (Teflas TV Hall) with the participation of a large number of its members and sympathisers. Several rounds of debates and discussions in General Body Meetings took place in the run up to the unit conference, where the activities and interventions by DSU in the campus and outside were thoroughly reviewed. These discussions which encompassed ideological, political and organisational aspects were synthesized and several important resolutions were passed in the closed session of the conference. The conference started with the hoisting of the DSU flag and a minute’s silence in the memory of the martyrs of the revolutionary students’ movement, selection of the presidium, discussions on the DSU Constitution, organisational review, passing of resolutions and election of the Executive Committee. In the Open Session that followed, G N Saibaba, a former member of the Andhra Pradesh Radical Students’ Union and the Vice-Chairperson of the International League of People’s Struggles, delivered the Keynote Address where he talked about the history of revolutionary students’ movement in India and its role in the context of the present imperialist crisis. An overview of DSU’s functioning was presented, followed by solidarity messages by various organisations such as the Naga Students’ Union Delhi, Delhi Tamil Students’ Union, Revolutionary Cultural Front etc. as well as several sympathisers. Several important suggestions and criticisms were also put forward by sympathisers which the organisation resolves to incorporate in its coming days.
Some of the important resolutions passed in the Unit Conference are:
- DSU will strive to integrate with the militant people’s resistance in various parts of the country against repressive state policies.
- DSU reiterates its resolve to stand by workers and peasants revolutionary movements in the country and outside and to mobilize students and youth for uniting with their movements to stand against the rule of imperialist, feudal and comprador bureaucratic bourgeoisie to achieve a revolutionary social transformation.
- The organization resolves to struggle against the casteist and brahmanical policies of the state including the forthcoming SC/ST Reservations Act in the faculty positions and for the full implementation of the provisions of reservation.
- DSU resolves to stand by the ongoing movements for self-determination including secession, such as in Kashmir, Nagalim, Assam, Manipur, Sri Lanka, Palestine and other oppressed nationalities.
- DSU resolves to support the democratic demands of people for separate statehood in Telangana, Gorkhaland, Bodoland and others.
- Increasing attack on Muslims and Christians promoted by communal-fascist forces with the active support of the state in Gujarat, Orissa, Karnataka as well as in the whole of the county led by RSS-VHP-Bajrang Dal-BJP-ABVP and other outfits of the sangh giroh shows the growing stranglehold of the feudal-imperialist forces on the oppressed masses. Encounter killings and communal witch-hunting in the name of fighting Islamic Terrorism or conversion implemented by the Hindu Right has made life and livelihood of the minorities in the country vulnerable. DSU resolves to fight communal fascism in all its forms inside and outside the campus and also to strengthen all the people’s movements fighting against Hindu-communal-fascist terror.
- Banning of various people’s organizations including revolutionary students’ unions, revolutionary mass organizations, revolutionary trade unions, women’s organizations, cultural organizations, SIMI etc. by the state is a direct attack on the democratic rights of the people to and curbing of the right to organize and express their opinion. DSU condemns such fascist designs of the ruling classes, and resolves to fight against these bans and demands that all such bans must immediately be revoked.
- The regressive and reactionary role of the anti-people corporate media has come to light over and over again in instances of minority witch-hunt, reservation, anti-women, casteist and fundamentalist reporting as well as constructing opinions and profiles. DSU condemns the regressive and biased media and resolves to voice peoples’ concerns and issues and of the students in particular which does not find a place in the corporate media.
- DSU will strive towards strengthening the ongoing revolutionary people’s movements worldwide and particularly in India and to integrate with the people’s movements in order to march towards attaining the goals of the New Democratic Revolution in South Asia.
- DSU resolves to intensify the struggle against revisionist trends in the Indian communist movement and to continue to expose the social-fascist official left who has implemented imperialist policies in Bengal and Kerala. The glorious people’s resistance in Nandigarm, Singur, Chengra, Lalgarh etc are the outpouring of people’s anger against the social-fascist CPI(M). In the campus, DSU will intensify its ideological and political struggle against revisionism as it is manifested in the regressive politics of SFI and AISA.
- The spectre of agrarian crisis that has gripped the length and breadth of the country is a grim reminder of the criminal neglect of various governments to the agrarian sector which still provides more than 70 percent of the jobs. More than 70 percent of the people in this country leave in worst conditions of penury and destitution in the rural areas. DSU strongly condemn the subservient nature of the Indian ruling classes towards imperialist loot and plunder and stresses the need to fight for a pro-people agrarian policy which can only ushered in by a pro-people government that will stand against the profit seeking imperialists and their local comprador agents tooth and nail. With the deepening grip of the policies of Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation the Indian economy has been ever more strongly embedded in the imperialist web, especially with the US. The policies of LPG are nothing but the dictates of Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) pedalled by the IMF and World Bank that the Indian ruling classes have been implementing since 1991. This has resulted in the most brutalised existence for the various sections of the masses. With the vice like grip of recession fleecing the Indian economy, the situation of the masses has gone from bad to worse. Any political party whether it is the Congress, BJP, or the parliamentary Marxists like CPM, CPI or CPI(ML) Liberation or any of their kind have nothing concrete to offer to the people except a further dose of the same policies as is evident from the recent overtures of the Indian government in opening up the insurance structure to the imperialist capital and several such measures. More than 600 SEZs have been approved by the Indian government which is nothing but creating enclaves where the law of the land is not applicable. Along with this are the hundreds of MOUs signed by the Indian government and various state governments with imperialist and comprador monopoly capital for mining, construction of super highways, mega-dams, which is nothing but the unbridled loot and plunder of minerals and resources of the vast sections of the people. DSU will make all efforts to expose and to struggle against the farce of parliamentary ‘democracy’ and elections.
- The ruling classes knowing fully well that the masses are not going to take it lying low have also enhanced the teeth of the government with more draconian laws like the ULPA and various other local variants of the same enacted by the respective state governments. This is despite the provisions of more draconian laws like the AFSPA in the North East and Kashmir, the PSA (Kashmir), the Disturbed Areas Act (DAA) and similar such instruments which has strengthened the fascist authoritarian hands of the state. Those who offer unflinching resistance to the anti-people policies of the state are met with such bloody vigilante campaigns like Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh, the Harmad goons of the CPM in Nandigram, Singur, Salboni, Lalgarh, the mercenary forces of the state on the heroic masses of Kalinganagar, Kashipur, Jagatsingpur etc. DSU resolves to stand against the repressive policies of the state and to support the people’s movements fighting these policies.
- In recent years we have experienced an upsurge of privatization drive in different aspects of education which has been consistent with the reports that Knowledge Commission, Birla-Ambani Report suggested. Major thrust in these reports has been de-politicization of student body – the recommendations of Lyngdoh Committee is an instrument of facilitating privatization by repressing students’ voice of dissent resistance and right to unionize. Privatization of education also largely ensures this process in JNU as well. We have experienced privatization of education through introduction of different market-oriented courses, privatizing basic amenities. DSU resolves to struggle against privatization of education and to fight to establish a democratic, scientific and people oriented education.
DSU recognised the need to intensify the students movement within JNU and outside to face the grave challenges posed by privatization of education, growing unemployment, curbing of democratic rights through draconian measures like Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations, scuttling of reservation, depoliticisation, right-wing attacks on minorities, oppressed castes and tribal communities, patriarchy and violence on women, state repression of the revolutionary movement, the present economic crisis of world imperialism and so on. In doing so, we must also expose and intensify the fight against revisionism and opportunism within the students’ movement on campus, in the process of building up a genuine alternative to the election-centric politics of AISA and SFI. The fascist attacks by ABVP goons in JNU has been going on unabated with the active shielding and support of not only the administration but also a section of the teachers. The inability and even unwillingness to confront the sanghi lumpens beyond empty-phrase mongering by both SFI and particularly by ‘radical’ AISA, has emboldened these fascists and the list of their violent acts are ever increasing. In this situation, DSU recognises its responsibility to mobilise the student community to confront the sangh-giroh in campus and bring them to justice.
Similarly, the very crucial ongoing fight against privatisation of campus cannot be clinched with either AISA or SFI in the lead, whose gross betrayal of the trust of the student community has been repeated so often that the students no longer expects them to ‘fight’ issues beyond tokenism. In times of real crisis their strategy has been to withdraw from the movement or to compromise with the administration and thereby backstab the aspirations of the student community. After rustication orders, AISA-led JNUSU has termed the stopping of the prospectus-sale as unfortunate, an action which was decided in the JNUSU Council with a common agreement between AISA and SFI and implemented by a handful of students. It matters little to them if this act undermined and disrespected the call for action mandated by the UGBM or that it does not address the crucial demand for the removal of electric meters from Koyena. AISA and SFI’s ‘commitment’ to fight the scuttling of reservations and of seat-cuts was already experienced by the campus last year.
DSU in the coming days will work towards mobilizing and consolidating the student community under the guiding principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to collectively face the challenges ahead, and to integrate with the larger movement for a revolutionary social transformation. Taking forward the legacy of Naxalbari and inspiration from revolutionary martyrs like Bhagat Singh, Charu Mazumdar, Anuradha Gandhi, Saketh Rajan, Naveen Babu and thousands of others who laid down their lives for the liberation of the oppressed masses, DSU reaffirms its resolves to uncompromisingly carry forward the banner of revolutionary students’ movement.
March 21, 2009
We the students are the Union!
Let us build up a militant students’ movement
to challenge the authoritarian administration,
to isolate the compromising pseudo-left,
and to defeat the communal fascists!
to challenge the authoritarian administration,
to isolate the compromising pseudo-left,
and to defeat the communal fascists!
Destruction, destitution, displacement and death today are called ‘Development’. It is a time when imperialism coupled with fascism is destroying lives, livelihood and dignity of millions of people, to safeguard the interests of a handful. It is a time when the dream of an exploitation-free and just society is called a utopia! Yet hundreds and thousands of the most oppressed of the society have been fighting for that. Because in that ’utopia’ alone lies the belief for life, the hope for the future. In the present social system, the odds are heavily against the oppressed sections that constitute a vast majority of the population. The need therefore is to demolish this system that benefits a few at the cost of the many, and to build a new society in its place through a radical social transformation. And this struggle must be fought from wherever we are located. In this context of constant attack from all the powers-that-be, let us look at our own campus!
JNU is not an island. The JNU administration represents the ruling class in the campus! We all know that this casteist-communal-patriarchal administration is up for selling JNU to the market forces. They have internalized the language and politics of World Bank, IMF etc. as well as the Tata-Birlas. According to them, JNU is being converted to a ‘world class university’. And naturally for ‘resource generation purposes’ they need to levy user charges for electricity, hike the price of prospectus, rent out PSR for commercial use! And with the ‘resources’ which is nothing but tax-payer’s money, we have the plasma TVs, the manicured flower pots, pointless signboards and hideous hoardings. ‘World Class’ therefore entails nothing but an external glitter, but with gradually privatized education and commercialized basic facilities, denial of minimum wages and basic legal rights to the mazdoors on campus. And the decisions for all these have been taken arbitrarily, bypassing all concerned bodies of students, teachers and karamcharis. Such anti-student policies, going by the World Bank model again, has to be necessarily implemented in such an undemocratic manner, more in consultation with the market than with the representatives of university community. After all, when the ruling classes ask the people whether they want to get displaced to make way for an SEZ or not!
The World Bank and its cronies have rightly identified students’ movement as the ‘biggest impediment to privatization of education’. And hence Lyngdoh came knocking! The Lyngdoh committee report is intrinsically linked to the larger designs of depoliticisation, facilitating a complete privatization of basic and higher education. It is designed to crush consciously articulated political dissent and opposition. The Committee states that students must be ‘integrationist’ and ‘nationalists’ at heart, and student politics should be aimed at inculcating values of social and economic ‘development’. But imposition of Lyngdoh Recommendations is a thinly veiled instrument for crushing the countrywide students’ movement that raises the genuine issues of the masses and also challenges the status quo. With clauses which will have far reaching consequences, it aims to ensure administration’s hold on the election process, confine student politics within the boundary of the institution, cutting it off from the larger political processes in the name of ‘unnecessary politicization of student bodies’. The Supreme Court Stay on the JNU election process, which is free of money and muscle power and known for its democratic credentials, prove beyond doubt that Lyngdoh is not meant to eliminate the drawbacks of student politics; rather it is here to facilitate state’s control and repression. In this, Lyngdoh is no different in nature from a vast range of draconian laws imposed by the state on the people from above, be it MISA, TADA, POTA, MCOCA, UAPA, AFSPA, NSA, etc to name a few. The only difference is that while these draconian laws target and suppress the struggling masses, Lyngdoh aims to clamp down on the students and the youth.
And when feudalism and the market ties a knot, social justice becomes a prime target. Measures like Lyngdoh are resorted to by the state to quell the simmering discontent among the large majority of students today, who is facing injustice, discrimination and exclusion at every step. Can we expect social justice from a state whose very fabric historically has been woven with brahminical ideology? The recent legislation of 27% OBC reservation was not a ‘gift’ from Manmohan and Co. It is an outcome if long battles that thousands of people for several decades have fought and even given their lives for. It was a movement that forced the state to recognize a right which the casteist society denied for centuries. However, just the passing of legislations don’t really mean their implementation. The casteist authorities always seek to take away with one hand what they were forced to grant with the other. JNU again provides a perfect example of this! Last year in April, JNU administration assured JNUSU that 27% reservations for OBC student would be implemented at one go. However it unilaterally decided later that OBC reservation will be implemented in a phased process. The excuse was infrastructural inadequacy. Making OBC reservation conditional on seat-increase signified reserving the seats for upper caste students. Even the stipulated 12% reserved seats for the first year of implementation was not fulfilled. While around 22% OBC students joined the campus without reservation, with implementation of reservation in phased manner, a meager 9.95% OBC students joined last year. Thus, the administration defeated the reservation policy even after it was made into a law. Same happened with PH reservations as well. Moreover, the administration took a unilateral decision of doing away with progressive ‘offer-system’ and initiated a ‘waiting-list’ system for admissions. It was clear that the waiting-list system is not a conducive system in a university like JNU where students apply from different parts of India. With a short notice in the waiting list, it is virtually impossible for non-Delhi students to come and take admission. And it makes it much more difficult for students coming from deprived socio-economic backgrounds take admissions, or worse, to wait till the next list comes. But it was a conscious policy of this casteist, communal administration to scuttle reservation, to make it an exclusive privilege of the metropolitan-‘meritorious’, upper caste students. After students’ agitation, the administration constituted yet another committee to look into the deficit in reserved seats and to review the wait-list system. It will be a time-bound committee, they promised! But as expected, we are yet to hear from that committee, while admissions for the coming session is just three months away! This year too, the administration has not yet come out with a clear roadmap as to how it will fulfill the mandated reservation quotas along with last year’s deficit! The administration with its actions has time and again made clear that it is against any step towards a just, democratic and inclusive education in JNU, and is an agent of all the regressive and anti-student forces.
The rising incidents of communal hooliganism are a product of this: Like imperialism is fuelling and feeding the fascist forces, JNU administration also shields and nurtures the communal lumpens. The sanghi perpetrators were left scot-free even after they vandalized and scuttled the presidential debate in 2007. The administration ignored the mass deposition of over thousand students, the video proofs that clearly identified the perpetrators and even the Shankar Basu Committee Report that categorically recommended strictest punishment for the sanghi goons. The same handful of sanghis had beaten up a student once more in Chandrbhaga hostel night in the following semester and the administration conveniently hushed it up. The goons, emboldened, dared to attack yet another minority student in Lohit hostel just few days back, spreading a sense of terror. These lumpens are pets of the administration, like they are for any ruling class. They help to keep students diverted from real issues like privatization of education, commercialization of basic facilities. Like their sanghi masters are doing outside, by diverting people from genuine issues!
The pseudo-left student organizations have failed to stop either the administration or the communal fascists. The parliamentary mother parties of SFI and AISA have failed to go beyond tokenism and phrase-mongering, to challenge imperialism or fascism in their immediate manifestations. Rather, they ally with these forces and compromise on the struggle at every step. Thus one can’t expect them to wage any genuine struggle against these forces, their rhetoric notwithstanding. Both these organisations have engaged in petty mudslinging and alleging each other for ‘failures’ while claiming ‘victories’ to themselves. They are the two sides of the same coin. They have sat on hunger strikes (in last year only there were four) whenever they wanted to score mileage over each other, while failing in all the major struggles. Non-implementation of reservation and seat-cut was one of the major struggles last year. The AISA-led JNUSU remained completely silent on the change to ‘wait-list’ system and continuously defended the administration’s position that there had been no seat-cut. SFI initially argued that there was seat-cut and even requisitioned a UGBM, but after their resolution was defeated made a complete u-turn. Both started an opportunist hunger strike after that, and withdrew after administration gifted them one more committee! They took out a victory march and forgot about the committee which despite being time bound, is yet to come out with concrete positions.
The betrayal of the fight against privatization by AISA-SFI is another glorious addition to their politics of opportunism! When the crucial fight against fee hike, electric meter and commercialization of campus spaces started, students responded in an unprecedented manner. There were more than thousand students who joined the long march called by JNUSU. When the administration refused to yield an inch on the major demands of removal of electric meters and reduction of prospectus price, the students debated in the UGBM and decided on a concrete course of action of blockading the ad-block after two days of strike. The students extensively boycotted classes for many days, participated in all the protest actions of JNUSU in large numbers. Yet the leadership betrayed the spirit of the movement as well as the UGBM mandate, by not going into the blockading. 722 students through an open letter asked the JNUSU leadership to respect the mandate, without any response. The AISA led JNUSU with their new allies SFI decided to stop the sell of prospectus in ad-block, a proposal that was defeated by the UGBM (AISA itself had debated and voted against it in the UGBM!). With barely forty students they went for this adventurist action, and the administration took disciplinary action against five of them (something they said will happen, only if we go for the blockading). They championed yet another defeated resolution of the UGBM to go for indefinite hunger strike (something SFI had debated and voted against in the UGBM!). One by one SFI and AISA withdrew from the hunger strike, as arbitrarily as they started it. The result is that the all the prospectus had been sold at the hiked price. The electric meters are still in place in Koyena! And to top it, now we have come to know, that the president had expressed his ‘remorse for the unfortunate protest’! This is the tradition of opportunist, bankrupt and anti-democratic politics of so-called ‘left’ AISA and SFI.
We the students are the union! All the struggles in JNU that have been won (in real terms) were because of collective, organized and principled students’ struggles despite the repeated compromises and betrayals by JNUSU leadership. The pseudo-left has compromised, failed and betrayed the movements to challenge the casteist-communal-patriarchal administration and its communal stooges. Let us radicalize the campus politics. And reclaim our historical legacy of militant students’ struggles! Fight to secure our future, with equality and social justice in education!
JNU is not an island. The JNU administration represents the ruling class in the campus! We all know that this casteist-communal-patriarchal administration is up for selling JNU to the market forces. They have internalized the language and politics of World Bank, IMF etc. as well as the Tata-Birlas. According to them, JNU is being converted to a ‘world class university’. And naturally for ‘resource generation purposes’ they need to levy user charges for electricity, hike the price of prospectus, rent out PSR for commercial use! And with the ‘resources’ which is nothing but tax-payer’s money, we have the plasma TVs, the manicured flower pots, pointless signboards and hideous hoardings. ‘World Class’ therefore entails nothing but an external glitter, but with gradually privatized education and commercialized basic facilities, denial of minimum wages and basic legal rights to the mazdoors on campus. And the decisions for all these have been taken arbitrarily, bypassing all concerned bodies of students, teachers and karamcharis. Such anti-student policies, going by the World Bank model again, has to be necessarily implemented in such an undemocratic manner, more in consultation with the market than with the representatives of university community. After all, when the ruling classes ask the people whether they want to get displaced to make way for an SEZ or not!
The World Bank and its cronies have rightly identified students’ movement as the ‘biggest impediment to privatization of education’. And hence Lyngdoh came knocking! The Lyngdoh committee report is intrinsically linked to the larger designs of depoliticisation, facilitating a complete privatization of basic and higher education. It is designed to crush consciously articulated political dissent and opposition. The Committee states that students must be ‘integrationist’ and ‘nationalists’ at heart, and student politics should be aimed at inculcating values of social and economic ‘development’. But imposition of Lyngdoh Recommendations is a thinly veiled instrument for crushing the countrywide students’ movement that raises the genuine issues of the masses and also challenges the status quo. With clauses which will have far reaching consequences, it aims to ensure administration’s hold on the election process, confine student politics within the boundary of the institution, cutting it off from the larger political processes in the name of ‘unnecessary politicization of student bodies’. The Supreme Court Stay on the JNU election process, which is free of money and muscle power and known for its democratic credentials, prove beyond doubt that Lyngdoh is not meant to eliminate the drawbacks of student politics; rather it is here to facilitate state’s control and repression. In this, Lyngdoh is no different in nature from a vast range of draconian laws imposed by the state on the people from above, be it MISA, TADA, POTA, MCOCA, UAPA, AFSPA, NSA, etc to name a few. The only difference is that while these draconian laws target and suppress the struggling masses, Lyngdoh aims to clamp down on the students and the youth.
And when feudalism and the market ties a knot, social justice becomes a prime target. Measures like Lyngdoh are resorted to by the state to quell the simmering discontent among the large majority of students today, who is facing injustice, discrimination and exclusion at every step. Can we expect social justice from a state whose very fabric historically has been woven with brahminical ideology? The recent legislation of 27% OBC reservation was not a ‘gift’ from Manmohan and Co. It is an outcome if long battles that thousands of people for several decades have fought and even given their lives for. It was a movement that forced the state to recognize a right which the casteist society denied for centuries. However, just the passing of legislations don’t really mean their implementation. The casteist authorities always seek to take away with one hand what they were forced to grant with the other. JNU again provides a perfect example of this! Last year in April, JNU administration assured JNUSU that 27% reservations for OBC student would be implemented at one go. However it unilaterally decided later that OBC reservation will be implemented in a phased process. The excuse was infrastructural inadequacy. Making OBC reservation conditional on seat-increase signified reserving the seats for upper caste students. Even the stipulated 12% reserved seats for the first year of implementation was not fulfilled. While around 22% OBC students joined the campus without reservation, with implementation of reservation in phased manner, a meager 9.95% OBC students joined last year. Thus, the administration defeated the reservation policy even after it was made into a law. Same happened with PH reservations as well. Moreover, the administration took a unilateral decision of doing away with progressive ‘offer-system’ and initiated a ‘waiting-list’ system for admissions. It was clear that the waiting-list system is not a conducive system in a university like JNU where students apply from different parts of India. With a short notice in the waiting list, it is virtually impossible for non-Delhi students to come and take admission. And it makes it much more difficult for students coming from deprived socio-economic backgrounds take admissions, or worse, to wait till the next list comes. But it was a conscious policy of this casteist, communal administration to scuttle reservation, to make it an exclusive privilege of the metropolitan-‘meritorious’, upper caste students. After students’ agitation, the administration constituted yet another committee to look into the deficit in reserved seats and to review the wait-list system. It will be a time-bound committee, they promised! But as expected, we are yet to hear from that committee, while admissions for the coming session is just three months away! This year too, the administration has not yet come out with a clear roadmap as to how it will fulfill the mandated reservation quotas along with last year’s deficit! The administration with its actions has time and again made clear that it is against any step towards a just, democratic and inclusive education in JNU, and is an agent of all the regressive and anti-student forces.
The rising incidents of communal hooliganism are a product of this: Like imperialism is fuelling and feeding the fascist forces, JNU administration also shields and nurtures the communal lumpens. The sanghi perpetrators were left scot-free even after they vandalized and scuttled the presidential debate in 2007. The administration ignored the mass deposition of over thousand students, the video proofs that clearly identified the perpetrators and even the Shankar Basu Committee Report that categorically recommended strictest punishment for the sanghi goons. The same handful of sanghis had beaten up a student once more in Chandrbhaga hostel night in the following semester and the administration conveniently hushed it up. The goons, emboldened, dared to attack yet another minority student in Lohit hostel just few days back, spreading a sense of terror. These lumpens are pets of the administration, like they are for any ruling class. They help to keep students diverted from real issues like privatization of education, commercialization of basic facilities. Like their sanghi masters are doing outside, by diverting people from genuine issues!
The pseudo-left student organizations have failed to stop either the administration or the communal fascists. The parliamentary mother parties of SFI and AISA have failed to go beyond tokenism and phrase-mongering, to challenge imperialism or fascism in their immediate manifestations. Rather, they ally with these forces and compromise on the struggle at every step. Thus one can’t expect them to wage any genuine struggle against these forces, their rhetoric notwithstanding. Both these organisations have engaged in petty mudslinging and alleging each other for ‘failures’ while claiming ‘victories’ to themselves. They are the two sides of the same coin. They have sat on hunger strikes (in last year only there were four) whenever they wanted to score mileage over each other, while failing in all the major struggles. Non-implementation of reservation and seat-cut was one of the major struggles last year. The AISA-led JNUSU remained completely silent on the change to ‘wait-list’ system and continuously defended the administration’s position that there had been no seat-cut. SFI initially argued that there was seat-cut and even requisitioned a UGBM, but after their resolution was defeated made a complete u-turn. Both started an opportunist hunger strike after that, and withdrew after administration gifted them one more committee! They took out a victory march and forgot about the committee which despite being time bound, is yet to come out with concrete positions.
The betrayal of the fight against privatization by AISA-SFI is another glorious addition to their politics of opportunism! When the crucial fight against fee hike, electric meter and commercialization of campus spaces started, students responded in an unprecedented manner. There were more than thousand students who joined the long march called by JNUSU. When the administration refused to yield an inch on the major demands of removal of electric meters and reduction of prospectus price, the students debated in the UGBM and decided on a concrete course of action of blockading the ad-block after two days of strike. The students extensively boycotted classes for many days, participated in all the protest actions of JNUSU in large numbers. Yet the leadership betrayed the spirit of the movement as well as the UGBM mandate, by not going into the blockading. 722 students through an open letter asked the JNUSU leadership to respect the mandate, without any response. The AISA led JNUSU with their new allies SFI decided to stop the sell of prospectus in ad-block, a proposal that was defeated by the UGBM (AISA itself had debated and voted against it in the UGBM!). With barely forty students they went for this adventurist action, and the administration took disciplinary action against five of them (something they said will happen, only if we go for the blockading). They championed yet another defeated resolution of the UGBM to go for indefinite hunger strike (something SFI had debated and voted against in the UGBM!). One by one SFI and AISA withdrew from the hunger strike, as arbitrarily as they started it. The result is that the all the prospectus had been sold at the hiked price. The electric meters are still in place in Koyena! And to top it, now we have come to know, that the president had expressed his ‘remorse for the unfortunate protest’! This is the tradition of opportunist, bankrupt and anti-democratic politics of so-called ‘left’ AISA and SFI.
We the students are the union! All the struggles in JNU that have been won (in real terms) were because of collective, organized and principled students’ struggles despite the repeated compromises and betrayals by JNUSU leadership. The pseudo-left has compromised, failed and betrayed the movements to challenge the casteist-communal-patriarchal administration and its communal stooges. Let us radicalize the campus politics. And reclaim our historical legacy of militant students’ struggles! Fight to secure our future, with equality and social justice in education!
March 20, 2009
Strongest and Historical Ally of Imperialism is Fascism: We have to Defeat Both!
The recent crisis of imperialist economy is acute, but not new. It has several historical precedents. And history is witness to the simultaneous rise of fascism forces, whenever imperialism is either too strong or weak. Fascism and imperialism are historical allies. They feed into each other.
The practice of whipping up of communal sentiments to cover up the lack of development in every aspect of social lives had been an old and regular tactics of the ruling class. The right wing parties, be it the congress or BJP and their various allies have always used the communal card to misdirect the real grievances of the people regarding their deplorable material conditions. Just like the Nazis did with the Jews in
The Sangh-giroh does not represent people of any religion. They represent the landlords, the casteist semi-feudal authorities and the comprador big bourgeoisie, whose interest today are directly tied to American imperialism and global finance capital. Their love for George W. Bush, the poster boy of the regressive Christian rights and values is evident. But poor dalit-christians of Orissa had been at the receiving end of their brutal violence. What happened in Kandhamal is not an isolated event, although it is an outcome of a sustained effort of the Sangh Parivar to spread the poison of communal hatred in Orrisa. The violence in Orissa is not exclusively a religious violence. It must be seen as part of the evolving social economical and political conditions in the country in general and in Orissa particular. Orissa has a share of 6.6% of total value of the mineral resources but constitutes only 1.6% of the national industrial production. These huge mineral resources make Orissa a lucrative destination for the world’s biggest MNCs and private capital. The Orissa government has ruthlessly pursued land acquisition for mining companies and for exploitation of other natural resources through brute force in Kashipur, Kalinganagar, Jagatsinghpur and Hirakud to make way for foreign and indigenous capital at the cost of people and their livelihood. On the other hand there is the rising people’s resistance to these neo-liberal economic policies and economic plunder by imperialists too. The ruling classes, being aware of this reality, are finding ways to contain mass opposition. The sangh parivar is working precisely for the feudal and imperialist forces through its divisive politics of communal hatred and pitting the most marginalized groups against each other; in this case the adivasis against dalits, majority of whom happen to be Christians. When they want to safeguard the ‘Hindu order’ against other religions through their policies and values, they also have to perpetuate its own internal hierarchies of caste and gender. And here too application of brute forces becomes a systemic necessity. And thus the gruesome massacre of Khairlanji. Mass murders and rapes by the private armies of the feudal forces or the state like Ranvir Sena and Salwa Judum. The growing atrocities on dalits, adivasis and women are perpetrated by the feudal forces with the help of imperialism.
The targets of both fascism and imperialism include women too: In the current financial crisis, the women are worst hit. Lakhs are being thrown out of jobs and the horrors of unemployment are forcing women to prostitution and other demeaning jobs just in order to survive. Women employment is in sizable numbers in the financial sector, garments, handicrafts, service and entertainment sector, etc. Massive layoffs have already begun in the financial sector, about 5 lakhs are expected to loose their jobs in the textile sector, and handicrafts are in the doldrums due to the drop in exports. Besides, the acute agrarian crisis are affecting women the most as their drop in living standards has increased the household drudgery enormously. And when the ruling class unleashes the fascist forces to cover up the real problems of underdevelopment and exploitation, women become fresh targets. In all communal riots or state repression, rape and sexual assault are one of the main weapons of these patriarchal forces. We have seen it in
The whole point of communal fascism is to prevent the people from correctly identifying the forces that keep them in their deplorable condition. To project an illusory enemy in order to shield the real. To keep the people divided, and make the ruling classes and their parties more secure in their seats of power. Thus while the communal frenzy and riots can change governments, it never ever changes the anti-people economic policies of the Indian state. Be it NDA or UPA, Narendra Modi or Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, the IMF World Bank dictated new policies continue at both the center and state level. The major share of economy in this country is still in agriculture and the horrors of agrarian crisis are spiralling every year. No change in the governments in center and state levels could stop or control the crisis. Since 2000 agriculture in this country has been virtually stagnating. Farmers' indebtedness is rooted in such stagnation, increasing risk in production and marketing and lack of institutional support. And this has resulted into massive suicide by farmers. The number of suicide by farmers between 1997-2007 had been 182,936! And this also genocide, a cold blooded mass murder by the state and imperialist policies!
Therefore the fight against fascism has to be necessarily the fight against imperialism, and vice versa: The fight against the communal fascism therefore has to be a fight against the economic and social policies that dispossess people of their land and livelihood, subsidize the rich with the tax-payer’s money, which compels mass suicide of farmers, ruins small traders by redesigning the retail sector according to MNC diktats. It is underdevelopment and economic crisis that feeds the fire of communal fascism. The fight against communal fascism is not just ideological, but is a struggle against the whole social structure, on which the Indian state is based. And from Gowalkar to Gandhi the very fabric of Indian state is woven with brahminical ideology. And ALL the political parties, rhetorical difference notwithstanding, carry forward that legacy. This also matches with the undiluted support for all the governments to implement the policies of imperialism in their soil. And therefore, even the ‘left’ front government does not hesitate for a moment to give a communal colour to the anti-land grab movement in Nandigram by citing the presence of a large number of muslim peasants and few muslim organizations in the struggle! The parliamentary ‘left’ has chosen not to see the communal specter being materially rooted. This willful blindness is understandable because they uphold the same system that breeds the fascists! And therefore for all the parliamentary parties, muslims and other religious minorities have only two identities. They are either vote-bank or ‘terrorists’!
The hollowness of the opposition to the communal fascist by the parliamentary ‘left’ is also reflected in their electoral opportunism. All parties including the parliamentary ‘left’ frequently ally with former or future ally of BJP making a mockery of the ‘struggle against communalism’. In 1989, parliamentary ‘left’ supported the National Front government in which BJP was an important constituent! And now just take a look at the newly formed media hyped ‘third front’ led by CPI(M) . Jayalalitha’s AIADMK, a most reactionary party and former ally of NDA has taken too many communal steps in Tamil Nadu to expose its real color! Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP, another former ally of NDA has adapted most pro-imperialist and anti-people policies so far. But both these parties are star cast in the third front! Even more shockingly, the same ‘left’ front is also trying to woo the support of Navin Patnaik’s BJD! The same BJD whose active support as NDA ally to RSS and Praveen Togadia in igniting violent communal riots in Kandhmal and rest of Orissa just last year is fresh in public memory! Even the more radical-than-thou CPI(ML)-Liberation (the parent party of AISA) who has already courted alliance with CPI(M) in
But is it just a sordid tale of unilateral oppression by the imperialist, feudal and fascist forces? NO! It has never been so. And the hope for life, dignity and justice rests solely on the valiant anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggles fought by the most oppressed masses. And when the state and the imperialist forces oppress with variant forms of violence, killing with bullets and hunger, one can not expect the resistance against it to be fought only through the ‘peaceful means’. The ongoing revolutionary armed people’s movement with the participation of dalits, adivasis, women, peasants and workers across the country is today the only fitting challenge to the imperialist forces. The naxalite movement, no wonder, in the eyes of the state is therefore the ‘biggest internal security threat’ or ‘the major law and order problem’. Because it is in this movement alone they see their downfall! And naturally in
And our inspiration to fight comes from these unabated fighters and their uncompromising, courageous struggles against the morbid forces of imperialism, feudalism and the comprador bourgeoisie. Because we believe in life and people. And this fight must go on. As Marx says, ‘Let life be dead. But death must not be allowed to live’.
March 18, 2009
When imperialism strikes, strike back!
The entire capitalist/imperialist system is in the midst of a worst ever crisis since the times of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Never before, in these past 80 years has the crisis in the system been so deep and all encompassing. Already the
A report on “Global Systematic Crisis Alert” which toured the world in February 2006, says, “Our researchers insisted on that many times in the last two years: any comparison with the previous crises of our modern economy would be fallacious. It is neither a remake of the 1929 crisis, nor a repetition of the 1970s oil crises nor 1987 stock market crisis. It is truly a global systematic crisis, that is to say a crisis affecting the entire planet and questioning the very foundations of the international system upon which the world was organized in the last decades.”The imperialist governments world over have pumped in gigantic amounts of funds to prop up the crumbling financial system. This is nothing but the appropriation of tax-payer's money to rescue big business. It entails nothing but privatization of profits and nationalization of losses!
After the great depression of 1929, the
Backward countries like
The economic crisis is taking a huge toll on jobs across
Banking and industrial sector in
The present crisis which is reminiscent of the Great depression is a systemic problem of the capitalist mode of production itself. The roots of the crisis lie in the imperialist system itself for which there is no solution within it. The solution is also not in Keynesianism, which the CPM brand intellectuals will like us to believe. They go on to the extend saying that ‘global Keynesianism’ would bring back the economy to the order. Keynesianism at best talks about the irrationality of capitalism. Let us remind them the endemic crisis arises not only from the irrationality but the class nature of it. And also the euphoria of ‘welfare state ’,’golden period of capitalism’ characterized by the Keynesian policies evaporated very long back. Thus no amount of patch work like Keynesianism can save the economy. The only real solution to revive the economy is through the very overthrow of the system and its replacement with the socialist alternative. It is only by challenging and fighting the imperialist forces tooth nail that we can end this supreme inequality, deprivation and exploitation and secure equality, dignity and justice.
March 07, 2009
The battle has been lost, but the fight must go on!
The month-long struggle against privatisation of the campus has finally ended in a sorry defeat, with the JNUSU withdrawing its hunger strike yesterday, despite an overwhelming and active participation of the student community in its initial days. But unlike many retreats and compromises of the JNUSU in the past, this defeat is going to be a historic one, with far-reaching consequences. It is an inexcusable surrender of the leadership to the forces which are trying to weaken the students’ movement for our rights and social justice, apart from clearing the way for privatisation of education and basic facilities in JNU. This struggle moved inevitably towards a fruitless culmination ever since the AISA-led JNUSU compromised on the major demands raised by the student community. Moreover, it demonstrated scant respect for democratic decisions of the students, the leadership trying their best to demobilise the student movement from the path of a militant confrontation with the administration. The JNUSU leadership finally decided to retreat from the site of struggle apparently respecting an appeal by JNUTA. But the real reason behind this surrender was the lack of support from the mass of students, and the predictable treachery of their ‘most reliable’ comrades the SFI. They withdrew from this highly unpopular hunger strike as soon as it was ensured that the rustication orders on the JNUSU leadership will be revoked through JNUTA’s intervention. But it meant that none of the core demands of the struggle is going to be clinched, and we may soon hear about formation of committees to ‘look into’ the demands. Thus, all that this month-long movement has achieved is to stop the commercialisation of PSR, a demand conceded by the administration on 3rd Feb itself. There has been a calculated silence from both AISA and SFI on the demand of removing electric meters, which means that the JNUSU leadership has bought the administration’s lie that the meters will remain merely for some ‘scientific survey’. The demand to roll-back the hiked prospectus price has been thoroughly compromised, and the administration did not budge an inch from its stance except coming up with the dangerous ‘charitable exemption’ for BPL students. This move can very well be the prelude to a differential fee structure in the coming days. We only hope that the JNUSU leadership will at least refrain from claiming this as an ‘achievement’ of the ongoing struggle!
It is by now clear to all that the AISA-led JNUSU was interested in resisting the privatisation moves of the administration only in rhetoric and not in practice. This is similar to the anti-imperialist cries of the parliamentary left who are enthusiastically implementing the same imperialist policies wherever they are in power. By compromising and surrendering on every count, the present JNUSU leadership has conceded not only this movement but also the movements in the coming days which will be fought, if at all, against this very administration! The credibility of the JNUSU is at a historic low, and the responsibility squarely lies on the JNUSU leadership who has repeatedly betrayed the trust and responsibility placed on them by the students of the campus. What was common between the administration and the present JNUSU leadership in the course of the struggle however was the bypassing of democratic bodies and ignoring the aspirations of the student community. The administration had taken the decisions on meter, fee-hike, PSR, ‘beautification’ etc. unilaterally bypassing all the concerned bodies like CDC or IHA and without involving representatives form students and teachers. Similarly, the JNUSU decided on the course of struggle unilaterally, by undermining the UGBM mandate, implementing courses of action which were defeated by the UGBM, bypassing the debates generated in the All-Organisation meetings and undercutting the larger students’ aspiration to confront this authoritarian administration with more assertive forms of protest.
JNUSU leadership and its alliance of opportunism: the AISA-led JNUSU vested its complete faith in their new-found ally SFI, and vehemently attacked voices of dissent and criticism, conveniently forgetting SFI’s commendable history of ‘disassociation’, betrayal and opportunism. It is the same SFI which started with the demand of paralyzing the ad-block in the initial period of the movement, and then took a sly u-turn on the eve of the UGBM. They mouthed the demand of blockade after the UGBM passed it, again to slip away on the eve of the blockade. The AISA-led JNUSU chose to forget all this in the hope that by sticking together they will be able to revoke the rustications. But by running away from the struggle, the SFI has once again assured us that it is an honest and true opportunist, even though it meant leaving AISA high and dry. The other ‘natural ally’ of the JNUSU in the course of this struggle was JNUTA, to the extent that its mere appeals had more weight and importance for the JNUSU leadership than the commands of the students passed through UGBMS. Members of JNUTA came uninvited at midnight and addressed the rally on the eve of the blockade, dissuading the students from going for this confrontation. This was readily agreed to by the JNUSU leadership. Again the JNUTA ‘appealed’ to the JNUSU to withdraw the indefinite hunger strike even before the negotiations began on any of our demands. Such a unilateral withdrawal at the behest of JNUTA has been unprecedented in a JNUSU-led struggle. JNUTA from the beginning has made no commitment in supporting our demands other than expressing its mild protest against rustications. It is not hidden from anyone that the teaching community, with a few honourable exceptions, is whole-heartedly backing the administration’s present privatisation drive. The deplorable role played by the JNUTA a few years back during the struggle to hike MCM amount is still fresh in our memory, when it insisted that the struggle be called-off with a compromise. The struggle rejected such offer and went ahead without the support of the JNUTA, finally winning it with the sole strength of the students. Knowing full well this history, how can JNUSU allow the JNUTA to dictate terms of the students’ movement and be influenced by it, when the TA’s role can at best be advisory? JNUTA is not a neutral body. It has remained closer to the administration than the students. JNUSU leadership’s capitulation to the pressure-tactics of JNUTA and the administration has converted a possible victory to a near-certain defeat, for which it is answerable to the students.
The JNUSU leadership vested their trust on everybody except the students. So pathetic and bankrupt has been AISA-led JNUSU’s politics that it forgot the political nature of the struggle, and tried to evoke a non-existent ‘humanism’ and ‘sympathy’ of the administration through a indefinite hunger strike! The students who came for the long march, boycotted classes for a long time, participated in all other protest actions called by JNUSU, has been left betrayed and angered. But the responsibility of this historic defeat of the ongoing movement will have to be borne by the opportunistic JNUSU leadership, and not by the student community. As Brecht has put it, The defeats and victories of the fellows at the top are not always the defeats and victories of the fellows at the bottom. This is a defeat of the leadership, and its high time that the students of the campus prepare for a fresh round of collective struggle against privatisation
It is by now clear to all that the AISA-led JNUSU was interested in resisting the privatisation moves of the administration only in rhetoric and not in practice. This is similar to the anti-imperialist cries of the parliamentary left who are enthusiastically implementing the same imperialist policies wherever they are in power. By compromising and surrendering on every count, the present JNUSU leadership has conceded not only this movement but also the movements in the coming days which will be fought, if at all, against this very administration! The credibility of the JNUSU is at a historic low, and the responsibility squarely lies on the JNUSU leadership who has repeatedly betrayed the trust and responsibility placed on them by the students of the campus. What was common between the administration and the present JNUSU leadership in the course of the struggle however was the bypassing of democratic bodies and ignoring the aspirations of the student community. The administration had taken the decisions on meter, fee-hike, PSR, ‘beautification’ etc. unilaterally bypassing all the concerned bodies like CDC or IHA and without involving representatives form students and teachers. Similarly, the JNUSU decided on the course of struggle unilaterally, by undermining the UGBM mandate, implementing courses of action which were defeated by the UGBM, bypassing the debates generated in the All-Organisation meetings and undercutting the larger students’ aspiration to confront this authoritarian administration with more assertive forms of protest.
JNUSU leadership and its alliance of opportunism: the AISA-led JNUSU vested its complete faith in their new-found ally SFI, and vehemently attacked voices of dissent and criticism, conveniently forgetting SFI’s commendable history of ‘disassociation’, betrayal and opportunism. It is the same SFI which started with the demand of paralyzing the ad-block in the initial period of the movement, and then took a sly u-turn on the eve of the UGBM. They mouthed the demand of blockade after the UGBM passed it, again to slip away on the eve of the blockade. The AISA-led JNUSU chose to forget all this in the hope that by sticking together they will be able to revoke the rustications. But by running away from the struggle, the SFI has once again assured us that it is an honest and true opportunist, even though it meant leaving AISA high and dry. The other ‘natural ally’ of the JNUSU in the course of this struggle was JNUTA, to the extent that its mere appeals had more weight and importance for the JNUSU leadership than the commands of the students passed through UGBMS. Members of JNUTA came uninvited at midnight and addressed the rally on the eve of the blockade, dissuading the students from going for this confrontation. This was readily agreed to by the JNUSU leadership. Again the JNUTA ‘appealed’ to the JNUSU to withdraw the indefinite hunger strike even before the negotiations began on any of our demands. Such a unilateral withdrawal at the behest of JNUTA has been unprecedented in a JNUSU-led struggle. JNUTA from the beginning has made no commitment in supporting our demands other than expressing its mild protest against rustications. It is not hidden from anyone that the teaching community, with a few honourable exceptions, is whole-heartedly backing the administration’s present privatisation drive. The deplorable role played by the JNUTA a few years back during the struggle to hike MCM amount is still fresh in our memory, when it insisted that the struggle be called-off with a compromise. The struggle rejected such offer and went ahead without the support of the JNUTA, finally winning it with the sole strength of the students. Knowing full well this history, how can JNUSU allow the JNUTA to dictate terms of the students’ movement and be influenced by it, when the TA’s role can at best be advisory? JNUTA is not a neutral body. It has remained closer to the administration than the students. JNUSU leadership’s capitulation to the pressure-tactics of JNUTA and the administration has converted a possible victory to a near-certain defeat, for which it is answerable to the students.
The JNUSU leadership vested their trust on everybody except the students. So pathetic and bankrupt has been AISA-led JNUSU’s politics that it forgot the political nature of the struggle, and tried to evoke a non-existent ‘humanism’ and ‘sympathy’ of the administration through a indefinite hunger strike! The students who came for the long march, boycotted classes for a long time, participated in all other protest actions called by JNUSU, has been left betrayed and angered. But the responsibility of this historic defeat of the ongoing movement will have to be borne by the opportunistic JNUSU leadership, and not by the student community. As Brecht has put it, The defeats and victories of the fellows at the top are not always the defeats and victories of the fellows at the bottom. This is a defeat of the leadership, and its high time that the students of the campus prepare for a fresh round of collective struggle against privatisation
March 04, 2009
The authoritarian administration must be confronted!
The ongoing struggle against the recent wave of privatization in the campus which began with a spirited mass demonstration at the ad-block on 3rd Feb. has entered its second month today. Whereas this struggle had been unparalleled in terms of unprecedented student participation, it has also experienced vacillation and opportunism of the JNUSU leadership in taking the struggle forward for a decisive victory as mandated by the students through the UGBM. It is therefore not surprising that the administration has so far conceded nothing to our demands except scrapping the plan to commercialise PSR. The aggressive and hostile stance of the anti-student and authoritarian administration again came to light yesterday when it came up with yet another circular to justify its moves of privatization as well as its disciplinary action on the protesting students! It vilified the ongoing movement against privatization by claiming that it is based on mere rumors! As if the electricity meters, the hiked fees, the commercialized PSR, the mushrooming constructions and installations are all figments of imagination! As if thousands of protesting students are engaged in a bitter struggle with the administration for ‘baseless issues’!
On the demand of removing electric meters from Koyena Hostel, the administration reiterated its ‘decision’ of not levying ‘user charges’. But they have also mentioned that electricity consumption is rising and they need to carry out ‘scientific survey’ to measure that! The questions remain, what is the point of installing meters in individual rooms to know the amount of net electricity consumption? The Presidents of two other hostels were also told about the installations of meters in their hostels. What is the extent of their ‘scientific survey’? And what if after doing a round of survey, the administration scientifically decides to levy user charges from the students? Moreover, the administration initially planned to charge students for consumption of electricity beyond a certain level, but this plan was quickly shelved as a result of the mass discontent and anger the meters have generated among the students. The protest against installation of electricity meters was strongly registered right from the start, because the students vest NO trust on this administration which is giving the argument that ‘JNU students are prosperous’ in every possible public forum, thereby exposing their real intention behind installing meters in hostels. And why does the administration want to do a survey of the cost of electricity consumed by the students, whereas their enormous unaccounted extravagant expenditure remains unmonitored? This is nothing but the first step towards charging students for electricity in the coming days.
For fee hike of prospectus even the administration admits that the issue remains unaddressed. It claimed that the fee hike was recommended by a committee ‘duly constituted comprising some members of the Standing Committee on admissions’! This particular committee that the administration is referring to was however formed unilaterally by the administration; its formation was not discussed in any democratic platforms. More dangerously, the minutes of its meetings revealed that they had recommended the increase of the amount of entrance examination fees along with increasing the fee of the prospectus! The administration for this year chose to stick to only one of the several reactionary and anti-student recommendations it had made! That the administration, as an extension of the anti-people and autocratic state apparatus, is going on implementing pro-market policies in the campus one after another, is no surprise. This administration headed by the VC is an assembly of crooks that profess neo-liberal economic policies, and for whom the students of JNU, its past and the present hardly matter. Their agenda is to shape the future of JNU and its students in a particular mould. Unless they are kicked out of their positions of power, the misdeeds of the thieves in the Pink Palace will lead JNU to a socially alienated, privatized and corporate-friendly enclave, where only the privileged will have a right to entry! The students know the gravity of this challenge to defend the present and future of JNU; its time that the JNUSU leadership lives up to the occasion.
A few old questions and fresh reminders to the JNUSU leadership: When the desperation and high-handedness of the administration is becoming more and more evident posing ever new threats, is this struggle led towards the right direction? The struggle started with unprecedented students’ participation and very pointed demands against privatization. Despite the massive students’ support and UGBM mandate the leadership refrained from going into more assertive forms of struggle like paralyzing the ad-block by blockading its entrances. It chose not to go into any concrete protest actions when students were with them, even after the negotiations failed! Rather they championed a course of action which was defeated in the UGBM and with a handful 30-40 students tried to stop the sell of prospectus at a late stage of the struggle. Right after which, they championed another defeated resolution by going for indefinite hunger strike, which still continues.
Was the JNUSU leadership trying to avoid ‘coercive tactics’ and ‘disciplinary action’ from the administration by not going for a blockade? Administration however did take action even when they were merely trying to stop the sell of prospectus, proving that the administration has outsmarted JNUSU leadership in strategy. And now in yesterday’s circular the administration is calling even the hunger strike a ‘coercive tactic’! The point is, the administration will deem any course of action which genuinely challenges privatization as ‘coercive’ and will repress! De-escalation of the spirit and participation of students by JNUSU leadership apprehending reactions from the administration has diluted this crucial fight, not only in the mass participation but also in its aims and objectives, resulting in frustration and desperation among the common students, a reflection of which was witnessed today when a student threatened to jump from the 8th floor of library if our demands were not met. The JNUSU leadership has already retreated from demanding removal of electric meters, and now with more prospectuses getting sold each day and its closing date coming nearer, any possibility of JNUSU forcing the administration to roll-back fee-hike seems grim! The only issue to the current phase of the ongoing struggle emerges to be the revocation of rustications. Fighting the disciplinary action undoubtedly is extremely crucial, but if the entire struggle gets reduced to it, giving up on all other crucial demands, it will open up floodgates for privatization in the future, and will irreparably damage the credibility of JNUSU and the progressive student movement of JNU! The administration is determined to sell-off JNU. Only a principled, militant and collective struggle of the students can stop it!
On the demand of removing electric meters from Koyena Hostel, the administration reiterated its ‘decision’ of not levying ‘user charges’. But they have also mentioned that electricity consumption is rising and they need to carry out ‘scientific survey’ to measure that! The questions remain, what is the point of installing meters in individual rooms to know the amount of net electricity consumption? The Presidents of two other hostels were also told about the installations of meters in their hostels. What is the extent of their ‘scientific survey’? And what if after doing a round of survey, the administration scientifically decides to levy user charges from the students? Moreover, the administration initially planned to charge students for consumption of electricity beyond a certain level, but this plan was quickly shelved as a result of the mass discontent and anger the meters have generated among the students. The protest against installation of electricity meters was strongly registered right from the start, because the students vest NO trust on this administration which is giving the argument that ‘JNU students are prosperous’ in every possible public forum, thereby exposing their real intention behind installing meters in hostels. And why does the administration want to do a survey of the cost of electricity consumed by the students, whereas their enormous unaccounted extravagant expenditure remains unmonitored? This is nothing but the first step towards charging students for electricity in the coming days.
For fee hike of prospectus even the administration admits that the issue remains unaddressed. It claimed that the fee hike was recommended by a committee ‘duly constituted comprising some members of the Standing Committee on admissions’! This particular committee that the administration is referring to was however formed unilaterally by the administration; its formation was not discussed in any democratic platforms. More dangerously, the minutes of its meetings revealed that they had recommended the increase of the amount of entrance examination fees along with increasing the fee of the prospectus! The administration for this year chose to stick to only one of the several reactionary and anti-student recommendations it had made! That the administration, as an extension of the anti-people and autocratic state apparatus, is going on implementing pro-market policies in the campus one after another, is no surprise. This administration headed by the VC is an assembly of crooks that profess neo-liberal economic policies, and for whom the students of JNU, its past and the present hardly matter. Their agenda is to shape the future of JNU and its students in a particular mould. Unless they are kicked out of their positions of power, the misdeeds of the thieves in the Pink Palace will lead JNU to a socially alienated, privatized and corporate-friendly enclave, where only the privileged will have a right to entry! The students know the gravity of this challenge to defend the present and future of JNU; its time that the JNUSU leadership lives up to the occasion.
A few old questions and fresh reminders to the JNUSU leadership: When the desperation and high-handedness of the administration is becoming more and more evident posing ever new threats, is this struggle led towards the right direction? The struggle started with unprecedented students’ participation and very pointed demands against privatization. Despite the massive students’ support and UGBM mandate the leadership refrained from going into more assertive forms of struggle like paralyzing the ad-block by blockading its entrances. It chose not to go into any concrete protest actions when students were with them, even after the negotiations failed! Rather they championed a course of action which was defeated in the UGBM and with a handful 30-40 students tried to stop the sell of prospectus at a late stage of the struggle. Right after which, they championed another defeated resolution by going for indefinite hunger strike, which still continues.
Was the JNUSU leadership trying to avoid ‘coercive tactics’ and ‘disciplinary action’ from the administration by not going for a blockade? Administration however did take action even when they were merely trying to stop the sell of prospectus, proving that the administration has outsmarted JNUSU leadership in strategy. And now in yesterday’s circular the administration is calling even the hunger strike a ‘coercive tactic’! The point is, the administration will deem any course of action which genuinely challenges privatization as ‘coercive’ and will repress! De-escalation of the spirit and participation of students by JNUSU leadership apprehending reactions from the administration has diluted this crucial fight, not only in the mass participation but also in its aims and objectives, resulting in frustration and desperation among the common students, a reflection of which was witnessed today when a student threatened to jump from the 8th floor of library if our demands were not met. The JNUSU leadership has already retreated from demanding removal of electric meters, and now with more prospectuses getting sold each day and its closing date coming nearer, any possibility of JNUSU forcing the administration to roll-back fee-hike seems grim! The only issue to the current phase of the ongoing struggle emerges to be the revocation of rustications. Fighting the disciplinary action undoubtedly is extremely crucial, but if the entire struggle gets reduced to it, giving up on all other crucial demands, it will open up floodgates for privatization in the future, and will irreparably damage the credibility of JNUSU and the progressive student movement of JNU! The administration is determined to sell-off JNU. Only a principled, militant and collective struggle of the students can stop it!
February 28, 2009
Remembering Com. Naveen Babu...
“Silence!Here sleeps my brother.
Don’t stand by him
with a pale face and a sad heart.
For, he is laughter!
Don’t cover his body with flowers,
what is the use of adding flowers to a flower?
If you can,bury him in your heart.
You will find
at the twitterings of the bird of the heart,
your sleeping soul has woken up.
If you can,
shed some tears.
and -
all the blood of your body…”
-from an anonymous poem written on the walls of Presidency Jail, Calcutta, during the Naxalbari uprising.
It was a revolutionary transformation of an ordinary student, from an A.P. village, who came to the capital city with high ambitions, into a guerrilla fighter of the revolutionary people’s war. That was the transformation of Naveen into Balakrishna. Starting his journey on the revolutionary path from JNU in late 1980s, Naveen embraced Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and within a decade reached the peaks of the Eastern Ghats at Darakonda, to lay down his life during an exchange of fire with the fascist Andhra Pradesh police on February 18, 2000.
Com. Naveen was in a village in Krishna district of Andhra in a middle peasant family. He completed his graduation in Hyderabad and joined M.A. Sociology in Meerut University in 1984. In 1986 he joined M.Phil course in Sociology in JNU, and after completing his dissertation in 1988 he joined Ph.D. Naveen formed the Student’s Forum, which stood for the exposure of the SFI’s politics of compromise in JNU. In 1986, the Delhi Radical Students Organisation (DRSO) was formed. In 1988 he joined the DRSO, and made it a force to reckon with in the campus. Com. Naveen was a revolutionary students’ leader who aspired to rejuvenate radical ideology in the university. He put in untiring efforts to build an all India revolutionary student movement and made himself and his room the centre for the revolutionary student movement in Delhi. He not only took part in every student movement at the JNU, the Delhi University and other colleges but also participated in programmes and activities organised outside the campus. Naveen not only countered the neo-colonial theories of the earlier leaders and thereby defend the political line of the DRSO, he also actively supported the right of self-determination of the nationality struggles, bringing DRSO close to the students of Kashmir and the North-East.
In 1989, when Delhi became the centre for the upper caste anti-Mandal mania, the DRSO swam against the tide, supporting reservations for the OBCs. When there were vacillations even amongst the revolutionary ranks, Naveen stood like a rock, patiently explaining the necessity for DRSO to support reservations, thereby drawing it closer to the oppressed sections. Since 1990, Naveen became a professional revolutionary. He left JNU in 1992 discontinuing his Ph.D to join a law course at the Delhi University (DU) in 1993. In 1990 itself, he represented DRSO in the all-India student body, AIRSF, taking responsibility for editing the student magazine KALAM. Naveen played an outstanding role at the International seminar on nationality struggles which was held in February ’96. The seminar, held under the auspices of the AIPRF played a key role in linking the class struggle with the nationality struggles, giving birth to the CCNDM - Coordination Committee of Struggles of Nationalities and Democratic Movements. This effort of Com. Naveen remains as a strong bridge between the revolutionary and nationality movements. As a part of this effort he clearly explained the process of emergence of class and revolutionary struggles in India to the representatives who came from different countries of the world. Particularly he accompanied the world famous intellectual, William Hinton, when he travelled to many places in India and hel ped him understand the movements going on in those places. In 1994-95, for the first time Naveen visited Balaghat district in order to understand the Adivasi movement in DK and the growth of Guerilla Zones.
With a pleasing personality, an affectionate behaviour, a microscopic analytical methodology, a role model living style, and with a continuous study of world literature for establishing socialism of which he dreamt, Com. Naveen never got tired of sharing his knowledge with friends and tirelessly sought to win over intellectuals to the side of revolution. With all these qualities he emerged as a role model for students and youth. Com. Naveen was known for his simple living habits and forth rightness. He was always ready to make honest self-criticism, showing an eagerness and sincerity to rectify mistakes. He always stood for taking up things critically, not blindly. He stood for fighting against wrong ideas, come what may. He was for principled fight, without any liberalism. Com. Naveen stood for the unity of words and deeds, theory and practice. He was an intellectual, in the tradition of martyrs Christopher Caudwell, David Guest, who laid down their lives in the Spanish Civil War, or Chaganti Bhaskar Rao martyred in the forests of Srikakulam. Com. Naveen blended his pen with the gun and laid down his life fighting the brutal Indian state for a new society free of exploitation and oppression.
RED SALUTE TO COM. NAVEEN!
Fight for revocation of the rustication and out-of-bound orders! Intensify the struggle against electric meters, fee hike, for social justice!
Yesterday the administration came down heavily with iron fist on five protesting students who were handpicked and summarily rusticated. No time to show-cause, no enquiry seemed necessary, because they were part of a JNUSU-led struggle against privatisation of this campus. It lays bare the real face of this autocratic administration and its design to privatise the campus by using all possible means at their disposal! Administration’s desperate act to strangulate this movement is similar to the way any organ of the ruling class clamps down to suppress people’s resistance. It is happening everywhere; let us be in no illusion that JNU administration is an exception. The administration wants to pursue the JNU of their dreams, where prosperous students buy their education and basic facilities and where they do not protest. They are clearly setting a standard for us to which we have to comply! And comply silently without any resistance. This is their definition of a ‘disciplined student’. It doesn’t matter to the administration the legacy the students of JNU uphold, the history of resistance we cherish and the collective spirit that students have shown in the face of privatisation moves by the administration! The history of the students’ movement of the campus is not a concern for the force which wants to determine our future in its own terms, on its own image! This is how the administration is strengthening the forces against the campus from outside: be it privatisation or Lyngdoh.
But should we go down without a fight? Clearly we have no other option but to uncompromisingly fight this battle tooth and nail. JNU students have repeatedly fought past moves of privatisation and commercialization, along with the repressions that followed as a result. Students of this university have fought to keep the fee structure low, resisted self-financed courses, resisted the hiked fee of prospectus and drafts, stopped the introduction of communal courses like yogic-science and astrology, stopped corporate funding in some schools, forced the removal of the monopoly outlet of Nestle, ensured minimum wages of workers on this campus. This time too, we have to fight to win, because what is at stake is our right to democratic education, right to dissent, right to subsidized basic facilities and social justice.
This authoritarian administration cannot be fought by undermining the students and their mandate. When the campus and its students’ movement is facing unprecedented onslaught from outside, we must be steadfast in our vigilance and critique against any subversion or compromise from within. This movement started with very concrete demands, and its course of action was set by the UGBM after much debate. It is a cause of grave concern that the JNUSU leadership is repeatedly disrespecting both the basic demands and the UGBM mandate, thereby helping the administration’s in its draconian moves. They have given up on the very crucial demand of removal of electric meters from Koyena hostel, citing dubious ‘advancements’ where there clearly aren’t any! Removal of the meters, not the mere suspension of ‘user charges’, is the overwhelming demand of the student community even now. In addition, JNUSU leadership (with extraordinary understanding and coordination between AISA and SFI) is repeatedly deciding on courses of action which were rejected by the UGBM, such as ‘stopping of the sale of prospectus forms’, ‘indefinite hunger strike’, etc. They have so far bypassed the resolution of blockading the ad-block, which was passed in the UGBM. In the days after this historic UGBM, AISA-led JNUSU managed to de-escalate and demobilize the movement so much, that the unprecedented and massive participation of thousands of students were reduced to 30-40 students on the day the selling of prospectus was stopped yesterday. Thus, this fight to defend the democratic ethos of the campus is ironically being fought by undermining the UGBM and its mandate, the highest and most democratic body of students. It shows the lack of integrity and commitment of the leadership to democratic values, and their lack of resolve to take this movement to a more assertive and logical stage.
Two days back, 722 students signed an open letter to the president of JNUSU with an appeal to respect the UGBM mandate, recognise the demand of removal of electric meters, and intensify the ongoing struggle by going for a blockade of the ad block. However, the decision of stopping of prospectus-sale yesterday and the hunger strike today reflects unilateralism and undemocratic functioning on the part of JNUSU Council. It has overturned the UGBM mandate and continues to impose a course of action on students which has already been rejected. DSU recognizes the need to collectively face the present onslaught on JNUSU and stand by it, but do not agree with the indefinite hunger strike as a mode of protest at this stage as it goes against the course of action decided in the last UGBM. In the last All Organization meeting, DSU and other organisations except AISA and SFI rejected the hunger strike, and since there was no consensus it was left to the JNUSU Council to decide, which predictably decided on an indefinite hunger strike. However, we are left with no other option but to stand by a JNUSU leadership that has compromised and betrayed decisions and aspirations of the students repeatedly during this movement at this crucial juncture in order to collectively fight the high-handed administration.
It is not that all students who came down to the street in such huge numbers a week back, came to the UGBM, boycotted classes for many days and participated in all the course of actions in large numbers to resist the drives of privatisation, have now lost interest! It is a matter that concerns each and every student of this university, for now and in the days to come. The issue of installation of electric meters or fee hike and rustication of protesting students are not in isolation, but are just the initial manifestation of larger assaults of privatisation and throttling of voices of dissent against it. Let us continue our fight to reclaim our university and our democratic culture!
February 26, 2009
DSU initiated a signature campaign in which 722 students signed an Open Letter to the JNUSU President demanding that the JNUSU uphold the mandate passed by the UGBM, respect the course of action decided therein, and therefore give a call for blockading the ad-block till all the demands are fulfilled, including the (1) Removal of electric meters from Koyena Hostel, (2) Complete roll-back of the hiked prospectus fee. The JNUSU must not betray the aspirations of the entire student community and must not retreat from this crucial struggle against privatization.
The text of the Open Letter is as follows:
"The ongoing struggle against privatization and for social justice led by JNUSU has failed to achieve two of its major demands:
1. Removal of electric meters from Koyena hostel. The installation of the electric meters is a systematic way to ensure the privatization of basic facilities. The mere assurances from the administration not to take user charges (which was their position even before the movement started) is just an eye wash to deter this movement and the JNUSU unfortunately is trying to sell the same logic. By keeping the electric meters the administration is keeping full scope for levying user charges in the future at their discretion, and no ‘written agreement’ with the JNUSU can stop them.
2. Complete roll-back of the hiked prospectus fee. The matter of the hiked price of the prospectus has not been addressed by the administration at all. Instead by talking about fee waiver for BPL students they have given clear indications to bring differential fee structure in JNU in the future.
We the undersigned students believe that no significant outcome has resulted from the many rounds of negotiations so far with the administration, unlike what the JNUSU is claiming currently. We apprehend that the leadership is heading towards a compromise with this corrupt, authoritarian administration, rather than confronting it. Therefore we demand to the JNUSU leadership:
1. To uphold the resolution passed in the UGBM and go for the blockading of the ad-block.
2. To take the ongoing struggle to its logical conclusion – of fulfilling all the demands which have not been achieved."
The text of the Open Letter is as follows:
"The ongoing struggle against privatization and for social justice led by JNUSU has failed to achieve two of its major demands:
1. Removal of electric meters from Koyena hostel. The installation of the electric meters is a systematic way to ensure the privatization of basic facilities. The mere assurances from the administration not to take user charges (which was their position even before the movement started) is just an eye wash to deter this movement and the JNUSU unfortunately is trying to sell the same logic. By keeping the electric meters the administration is keeping full scope for levying user charges in the future at their discretion, and no ‘written agreement’ with the JNUSU can stop them.
2. Complete roll-back of the hiked prospectus fee. The matter of the hiked price of the prospectus has not been addressed by the administration at all. Instead by talking about fee waiver for BPL students they have given clear indications to bring differential fee structure in JNU in the future.
We the undersigned students believe that no significant outcome has resulted from the many rounds of negotiations so far with the administration, unlike what the JNUSU is claiming currently. We apprehend that the leadership is heading towards a compromise with this corrupt, authoritarian administration, rather than confronting it. Therefore we demand to the JNUSU leadership:
1. To uphold the resolution passed in the UGBM and go for the blockading of the ad-block.
2. To take the ongoing struggle to its logical conclusion – of fulfilling all the demands which have not been achieved."
Let us not surrender before the fight is over! Resist any attempt to reduce this Crucial Struggle into mere Tokenism!!
Some organisations are spreading rumours about ‘achievements’ of the movement. But if we go by the reporting by the JNUSU leadership in All-Organisation meetings and their pamphlets, the electric meters will NOT be removed from the hostels. The administration has merely agreed not to take ‘user charges’ for the time-being, a declaration made three weeks back. People who believe that the administration is indeed investing so much money to do ‘survey of consumption’ are either fooling themselves or fooling others. And the JNUSU has simply given up on this extremely crucial demand of removing the meters, and is thereby facilitating the installation of meters in all the hostels in the coming days. With such an opportunistic approach, this fight against systematic privatisation of basic facilities in JNU is bound to get compromised right at the beginning! If the meters are installed, JNU is going to be the FIRST public university in this country where students will be charged for electricity separately. So much for our much-proclaimed historic legacy of fighting liberalization and privatisation! The sell of prospectus with a hiked price has also been going on for almost a month across the country and through postage. The proposal by AISA-SFI led JNUSU Council to stop the prospectus counter at such a late stage is a mere tokenism, which is too little too late in the name of fighting fee hike. In this stage maximum pressure should have been put on the administration to make them yield to our very pointed demands. Instead only the continuing JNU students and other students from the vicinity will be harassed by not letting them buy the forms. In our opinion this course of action shows a completely misplaced priority at this crucial stage of struggle. Instead of making the administration yield to all the demands, such tokenism is just a face saving device for the JNUSU leadership.
How democratic ethos got compromised in this struggle by the undemocratic JNUSU leadership. After the Long March of 10 Feb, when no consensus was reached for the future course of action, the students went for a UGBM, which is the highest decision making body of the students and whose mandate is binding on the JNUSU. The UGBM gave a concrete roadmap of struggle to blockade the ad-block and put maximum pressure on the obstinate administration. The JNUSU leadership however permanently withheld the decision to blockade the ad-block, and have now come up with a very different course of action. In the following AO meeting, after being pressurized by the rest of the organizations the decision to put blockade in abeyance was made a time-bound one, till the negotiations fail. The negotiations failed after four days. Yet the leadership took it to their discretion to say that since ‘the material conditions have changed the UGBM mandate stands null and void’! In the All Organisation meeting too, it is only AISA who advocated against the UGBM mandate; SFI maintained a convenient and well calculated silence while all the rest of the organisations pressurized the JNUSU to uphold the mandate. Since no consensus was emerging due to the AISA-SFI’s alliance to subvert the movement, they took it to the Council where SFI-AISA can work on their own, maintaining their newfound harmony! In a most opportunist way, they chose to implement a course of action that has been defeated by the UGBM, to only stop the sale of prospectus. Is this not a complete undermining of the democratic practices which the students’ movement in this campus has always upheld?
The university and student movement is going through a very critical phase. The stay order on students’ union election and the drive to privatize are not unconnected from each other. The need to gradually privatize universities, to turn education into a commodity which can be bought by the few who can afford it are all in the recommendations of the Birla-Ambani Report on higher education, a number of reports on education in India by the World Bank, the report of the Knowledge Commission etc. Students’ movement, as argued and identified by these forces, is the prime impediment on the way of privatisation. This argument has its merits. In JNU itself earlier drives of privatisation were resisted only by vigilant and assertive struggles by students. The forces which are hell bent on withdrawing the subsidy from education and basic facilities of students are the same ones which are trying to scuttle students’ movements and elections. They are the same agents of neo-liberal economic policies which are grabbing lands from peasants to make capital-intensive industries, selling the natural resources to imperialist forces, trying to turn the country into a Special Exploitation Zone.
And JNU is no island! The repeated statement by the VC that JNU students are ‘prosperous’ is a dangerous prelude to his further designs. His show of ‘charity’ by exempting the BPL students from paying for the prospectus adds to that. It is the clear signal to bring differential fee structure and to charge the basic facilities. The money of poor tax payers of this country can be invested in his ‘beautification’ drives, while ‘prosperous JNU students’ should manage their own education and well being! In the face of these multi-pronged attacks, what the JNUSU leadership chose to do is to completely concede before even trying to lead the fight! They tried to diffuse the unprecedented students’ unity and participation in this movement and undermined the mandate by the UGBM!
We will yet again reinstate our demands to the JNUSU leadership not to abandon or compromise in this extremely crucial fight against privatisation but to intensify the struggle to nip the designs of the administration right in its bud. Otherwise they will be equally responsible in ‘the attack on the soul of JNU'!
How democratic ethos got compromised in this struggle by the undemocratic JNUSU leadership. After the Long March of 10 Feb, when no consensus was reached for the future course of action, the students went for a UGBM, which is the highest decision making body of the students and whose mandate is binding on the JNUSU. The UGBM gave a concrete roadmap of struggle to blockade the ad-block and put maximum pressure on the obstinate administration. The JNUSU leadership however permanently withheld the decision to blockade the ad-block, and have now come up with a very different course of action. In the following AO meeting, after being pressurized by the rest of the organizations the decision to put blockade in abeyance was made a time-bound one, till the negotiations fail. The negotiations failed after four days. Yet the leadership took it to their discretion to say that since ‘the material conditions have changed the UGBM mandate stands null and void’! In the All Organisation meeting too, it is only AISA who advocated against the UGBM mandate; SFI maintained a convenient and well calculated silence while all the rest of the organisations pressurized the JNUSU to uphold the mandate. Since no consensus was emerging due to the AISA-SFI’s alliance to subvert the movement, they took it to the Council where SFI-AISA can work on their own, maintaining their newfound harmony! In a most opportunist way, they chose to implement a course of action that has been defeated by the UGBM, to only stop the sale of prospectus. Is this not a complete undermining of the democratic practices which the students’ movement in this campus has always upheld?
The university and student movement is going through a very critical phase. The stay order on students’ union election and the drive to privatize are not unconnected from each other. The need to gradually privatize universities, to turn education into a commodity which can be bought by the few who can afford it are all in the recommendations of the Birla-Ambani Report on higher education, a number of reports on education in India by the World Bank, the report of the Knowledge Commission etc. Students’ movement, as argued and identified by these forces, is the prime impediment on the way of privatisation. This argument has its merits. In JNU itself earlier drives of privatisation were resisted only by vigilant and assertive struggles by students. The forces which are hell bent on withdrawing the subsidy from education and basic facilities of students are the same ones which are trying to scuttle students’ movements and elections. They are the same agents of neo-liberal economic policies which are grabbing lands from peasants to make capital-intensive industries, selling the natural resources to imperialist forces, trying to turn the country into a Special Exploitation Zone.
And JNU is no island! The repeated statement by the VC that JNU students are ‘prosperous’ is a dangerous prelude to his further designs. His show of ‘charity’ by exempting the BPL students from paying for the prospectus adds to that. It is the clear signal to bring differential fee structure and to charge the basic facilities. The money of poor tax payers of this country can be invested in his ‘beautification’ drives, while ‘prosperous JNU students’ should manage their own education and well being! In the face of these multi-pronged attacks, what the JNUSU leadership chose to do is to completely concede before even trying to lead the fight! They tried to diffuse the unprecedented students’ unity and participation in this movement and undermined the mandate by the UGBM!
We will yet again reinstate our demands to the JNUSU leadership not to abandon or compromise in this extremely crucial fight against privatisation but to intensify the struggle to nip the designs of the administration right in its bud. Otherwise they will be equally responsible in ‘the attack on the soul of JNU'!
There can be No Retreat, No Compromise! We must Win this Battle!!
Tonight we enter into a more intensified stage of the ongoing battle! A battle with the corrupt, insensitive and authoritarian administration which is hell bent on privatising the university. This battle has to be clinched by us, before the administration wins it and succeeds in realizing their dream of turning this university into a corporate enclave.
The lies and insensitivity of the administration simply knows no bounds. In today’s newspapers the VC has given statements that JNU students are provided with ‘unlimited water and electricity’, that the number ‘of cars and bikes in front of hostels’ are a real proof that students are not from marginalized sections and that ‘90% of JNU students receive fellowships’! The VC, no wonder, sees what he wants to see. So the unlimited water that is sprinkled on his rose gardens in the summer when all the hostels remain dry is the only thing he can see. The students who own bikes and cars are the only students he’ll recognize and will try to justify his drives to privatisation at their cost! It is this same administration which had denied the full implementation of 27% OBC reservation. It required a forceful students’ struggle to force this same administration to hike the meagre amount of MCM. And the students who receive any kind of scholarship or fellowship (whose number is far less than 90%) knows how much harassment they have to face in the finance office every time. We remind Mr. VC and his coterie that the subsidized facilities that students have been receiving in this university since its inception is not a gift or show of charity from the administration but is a basic right of every student in this institution. Subsidy in education is being withdrawn in other universities as a ploy of the imperialist forces to privatise education and reduce it into a marketable commodity. Such designs have failed in the past in JNU because there has always been a thriving and vigilant students’ movement. The standard of its socially inclusive character and equitable education has to be defended and expanded rather than destroyed, as is being done by the present administration!
And all that ‘glitters’ is not JNU: it is not the pointless plasma TV, the ugly hoardings, the corporate parties in PSR, the flower pots, the electric meters, the costlier prospectus, mindless deforestation and construction which constitutes of JNU. Neither should it be the insensitivity of the administration, their shameless audacity to deny reservation over and over again, their rampant corruption, their boundless authoritarianism that should determine the nature and future of JNU. This university belongs to us. The socially sensitive, socially inclusive and democratic character that we have built over years has to be reclaimed from the handful of corporate-friendly dictators. This is a historic juncture for JNU, and everything that JNU has stood for is at stake today. The success or failure of the ongoing movement will determine how the future JNU will be. And the strength of the movement is us, the students of the campus. So join the protest march in large numbers that will culminate into a mass sit-in. With this peaceful form of protest, and by our collective strength of numbers and unity, we will defeat any attempts to repress or sabotage it
The lies and insensitivity of the administration simply knows no bounds. In today’s newspapers the VC has given statements that JNU students are provided with ‘unlimited water and electricity’, that the number ‘of cars and bikes in front of hostels’ are a real proof that students are not from marginalized sections and that ‘90% of JNU students receive fellowships’! The VC, no wonder, sees what he wants to see. So the unlimited water that is sprinkled on his rose gardens in the summer when all the hostels remain dry is the only thing he can see. The students who own bikes and cars are the only students he’ll recognize and will try to justify his drives to privatisation at their cost! It is this same administration which had denied the full implementation of 27% OBC reservation. It required a forceful students’ struggle to force this same administration to hike the meagre amount of MCM. And the students who receive any kind of scholarship or fellowship (whose number is far less than 90%) knows how much harassment they have to face in the finance office every time. We remind Mr. VC and his coterie that the subsidized facilities that students have been receiving in this university since its inception is not a gift or show of charity from the administration but is a basic right of every student in this institution. Subsidy in education is being withdrawn in other universities as a ploy of the imperialist forces to privatise education and reduce it into a marketable commodity. Such designs have failed in the past in JNU because there has always been a thriving and vigilant students’ movement. The standard of its socially inclusive character and equitable education has to be defended and expanded rather than destroyed, as is being done by the present administration!
And all that ‘glitters’ is not JNU: it is not the pointless plasma TV, the ugly hoardings, the corporate parties in PSR, the flower pots, the electric meters, the costlier prospectus, mindless deforestation and construction which constitutes of JNU. Neither should it be the insensitivity of the administration, their shameless audacity to deny reservation over and over again, their rampant corruption, their boundless authoritarianism that should determine the nature and future of JNU. This university belongs to us. The socially sensitive, socially inclusive and democratic character that we have built over years has to be reclaimed from the handful of corporate-friendly dictators. This is a historic juncture for JNU, and everything that JNU has stood for is at stake today. The success or failure of the ongoing movement will determine how the future JNU will be. And the strength of the movement is us, the students of the campus. So join the protest march in large numbers that will culminate into a mass sit-in. With this peaceful form of protest, and by our collective strength of numbers and unity, we will defeat any attempts to repress or sabotage it
The Administration is Crumbling, Let’s Fight for the Final Victory!
The unprecedented mass upsurge of the students of JNU against privatisation and for social justice poured out to the streets to express the collective anger against the anti-student and undemocratic decisions of the administration. Today’s demonstration once again showed that the student community of JNU is not ready to accept these autocratic pro-corporate policies lying down. The administration made all arrangements to keep the thousands of protesting students out of ad-block: mobilizing large numbers of Group 4 guards, police, barricades. The ad-block was turned into a war-zone by the administration, but the students made sure that the administration faced a crushing defeat in the first round of this battle. Now comes the crucial moment of winning the war tomorrow. The only excuse that the administration has given today while talking to JNUSU is that of vice-chancellor’s absence from the city. It therefore becomes crucial for another mass student gathering at Ad block tomorrow morning and to make successful the second day of total strike to clinch our demands.
The strength and victory of our movement is in large number of students’ participation with a relentless and uncompromising struggle. Tomorrow’s total university strike and mass gathering is much more than an extension of today’s agitation, it is the moment to reclaim JNU. It is not a matter of a single day, it is tomorrow that will decide the future of JNU, whether this university will be for the students, for a socially-responsible and democratic education, or will remain in the hands of a few ‘dalals’ of neo-liberalism who will continue to sell the campus and its resources to corporates. We must unite and strengthen JNUSU at this crucial juncture. It is a historic moment for students’ movement in JNU. We are very near to a victorious culmination of the ongoing struggle, and we must once again show this authoritarian administration that JNU is not their fiefdom, JNU hamara hai!
The strength and victory of our movement is in large number of students’ participation with a relentless and uncompromising struggle. Tomorrow’s total university strike and mass gathering is much more than an extension of today’s agitation, it is the moment to reclaim JNU. It is not a matter of a single day, it is tomorrow that will decide the future of JNU, whether this university will be for the students, for a socially-responsible and democratic education, or will remain in the hands of a few ‘dalals’ of neo-liberalism who will continue to sell the campus and its resources to corporates. We must unite and strengthen JNUSU at this crucial juncture. It is a historic moment for students’ movement in JNU. We are very near to a victorious culmination of the ongoing struggle, and we must once again show this authoritarian administration that JNU is not their fiefdom, JNU hamara hai!
“The defeats and victories of the fellows at the top aren't always defeats and victories for the fellows at the bottom.” -Brecht
The present struggle against privatisation is heading for yet another shameful compromise. This struggle started with unprecedented enthusiasm and participation of the students. But there is a general feeling that this struggle too is now heading towards a compromised end of which we have lots of precedence in the recent past. It is a sheer failure of the AISA-SFI led JNUSU to respect the students’ participation and concede to the corrupt and authoritarian administration, rather than taking the struggle to its logical conclusion through a more assertive form of struggle as mandated by the last UGBM.
What is being compromised by JNUSU leadership, and how? After more than ten days of spirited struggle the JNUSU has yesterday come up with a list of ‘achievements’! JNUSU is now claiming that all issues other than the fee hike of prospectus has been ‘clinched’. Much of its claims however are misplaced and misrepresented. The fact that the circular to rent out PSR will be rolled back was ensured by the administration after the 10 Feb Long March itself. Therefore it can not be flaunted as a ‘victory’ now to call off the current phase of the movement. Similarly, on the day of the Long March itself the Rector 2 agreed to give in writing that the administration will not take ‘user charges’, but maintained that they will not remove the meters. The fact that the movement went into a UGBM to decide future course of action was because the students did not accept these ‘solutions’ from the administration. The student community unambiguously demanded the meters to be removed from Koyena, and was resilient to the installation of the same in any other hostels. All know that the installation of meters is a systematic way to ensure privatization of basic facilities. And the administration in all possible public forums had justified the imposition of user charges giving the rubbish logic of ‘prosperous JNU’! Thus their mere assurances not to take user charges now are just an eye-wash to deter this movement, and the JNUSU unfortunately is now trying to sell the same logic of the administration to the students. The matter of fee hike has not been addressed by the administration at all. Rather they put forward this extremely dangerous argument of offering ‘fee waiver for BPL students’, thereby implying that all other students can afford the hiked prices of the prospectus. Isn’t this a prior indication to bring differential fee structure in JNU? And by keeping the electric meters the administration is keeping full scope for levying user charges in near future whenever they feel like it, and no ‘written agreement’ with JNUSU can stop them. The JNUSU leadership is either fooling themselves in vesting faith on them. Or more dangerously, they are acting as a stooge of the administration in materializing their designs of privatization.
They are arguing to stop the sell of the forms now, which is just a face saving device for both AISA and SFI. The argument given by AISA and SFI in yesterday’s all-organization meeting to stop selling of forms from the JNU counter now as the only course of action is a mere eyewash and a face saving device to pretend ‘radicalism’ after they have conceded the entire movement. As many people have argued in the past too, it is too late to be an effective action, when forms are being sold every day all over the country since past one moth. The possibility of the symbolic message that would have gone had this counter been stopped earlier is also gone since considerable time has been lost. Who buys forms from the JNU counter are mostly the continuing JNU students and few others from Delhi. They will be the only target of the struggle now, as in our assessment this will effectively put no pressure on this insensitive administration. In the proposal of blockading the ad-clock also the form counter would have been stopped but along with that the entire ad-block would have been paralysed too. The effect of such a pressure would have been much more on all the negotiations. The JNUSU leadership did not even try to confront the administration despite so much of students’ support before surrendering to them completely. This movement was unprecedented on the count of the students’ participation and a concrete roadmap mandated by the students in the UGBM. The leadership however is now conveniently trying to champion a defeated resolution of the UGBM where just the stopping of prospectus sale was proposed by SFI, rather than the one that was passed, thereby undermining the aspirations and the participation of the students. They therefore contributed rather than countering the undermining of the democratic space within this university. They scuttled the voice of the common students as much as the administration did!
A dress rehearsal for the upcoming elections in Bihar! The current bonhomie between the AISA and SFI leadership to sideline the common students who had consistently been in this movement comes as no surprise! It is a clear alliance of opportunism and compromise. SFI historically has never taken a strong stand against privatization inside and outside the campus, be it on the issue of removing the monopoly outlet of Nestle or in justifying corporate land grab in the name of SEZ! AISA also currently is in no position to take a strong stand, since their masters CPI(ML) Liberation are joining hands with the social fascist CPI(M) in Bihar in the upcoming parliament elections, the same CPI(M) who perpetrated the Nandigram massacre, the rape and murder of Tapasi Malik, the murder of Rizwanur, and in whose name AISA garnered votes in the last JNUSU elections. This is the magic of the farce called parliamentary democracy in India, and what we see in JNU is a mere fractional reflection of the same.
DSU appeals to the student community to force the JNUSU to abandon the path of compromised tokenism in the name of fighting privatization. We cannot allow the JNUSU leadership to betray the aspirations of the students and their mandate in the UGBM in this crucial juncture. JNUSU must uncompromisingly fight the corrupt and authoritarian administration and their designs to privatize the university, rather than claiming false victories.
What is being compromised by JNUSU leadership, and how? After more than ten days of spirited struggle the JNUSU has yesterday come up with a list of ‘achievements’! JNUSU is now claiming that all issues other than the fee hike of prospectus has been ‘clinched’. Much of its claims however are misplaced and misrepresented. The fact that the circular to rent out PSR will be rolled back was ensured by the administration after the 10 Feb Long March itself. Therefore it can not be flaunted as a ‘victory’ now to call off the current phase of the movement. Similarly, on the day of the Long March itself the Rector 2 agreed to give in writing that the administration will not take ‘user charges’, but maintained that they will not remove the meters. The fact that the movement went into a UGBM to decide future course of action was because the students did not accept these ‘solutions’ from the administration. The student community unambiguously demanded the meters to be removed from Koyena, and was resilient to the installation of the same in any other hostels. All know that the installation of meters is a systematic way to ensure privatization of basic facilities. And the administration in all possible public forums had justified the imposition of user charges giving the rubbish logic of ‘prosperous JNU’! Thus their mere assurances not to take user charges now are just an eye-wash to deter this movement, and the JNUSU unfortunately is now trying to sell the same logic of the administration to the students. The matter of fee hike has not been addressed by the administration at all. Rather they put forward this extremely dangerous argument of offering ‘fee waiver for BPL students’, thereby implying that all other students can afford the hiked prices of the prospectus. Isn’t this a prior indication to bring differential fee structure in JNU? And by keeping the electric meters the administration is keeping full scope for levying user charges in near future whenever they feel like it, and no ‘written agreement’ with JNUSU can stop them. The JNUSU leadership is either fooling themselves in vesting faith on them. Or more dangerously, they are acting as a stooge of the administration in materializing their designs of privatization.
They are arguing to stop the sell of the forms now, which is just a face saving device for both AISA and SFI. The argument given by AISA and SFI in yesterday’s all-organization meeting to stop selling of forms from the JNU counter now as the only course of action is a mere eyewash and a face saving device to pretend ‘radicalism’ after they have conceded the entire movement. As many people have argued in the past too, it is too late to be an effective action, when forms are being sold every day all over the country since past one moth. The possibility of the symbolic message that would have gone had this counter been stopped earlier is also gone since considerable time has been lost. Who buys forms from the JNU counter are mostly the continuing JNU students and few others from Delhi. They will be the only target of the struggle now, as in our assessment this will effectively put no pressure on this insensitive administration. In the proposal of blockading the ad-clock also the form counter would have been stopped but along with that the entire ad-block would have been paralysed too. The effect of such a pressure would have been much more on all the negotiations. The JNUSU leadership did not even try to confront the administration despite so much of students’ support before surrendering to them completely. This movement was unprecedented on the count of the students’ participation and a concrete roadmap mandated by the students in the UGBM. The leadership however is now conveniently trying to champion a defeated resolution of the UGBM where just the stopping of prospectus sale was proposed by SFI, rather than the one that was passed, thereby undermining the aspirations and the participation of the students. They therefore contributed rather than countering the undermining of the democratic space within this university. They scuttled the voice of the common students as much as the administration did!
A dress rehearsal for the upcoming elections in Bihar! The current bonhomie between the AISA and SFI leadership to sideline the common students who had consistently been in this movement comes as no surprise! It is a clear alliance of opportunism and compromise. SFI historically has never taken a strong stand against privatization inside and outside the campus, be it on the issue of removing the monopoly outlet of Nestle or in justifying corporate land grab in the name of SEZ! AISA also currently is in no position to take a strong stand, since their masters CPI(ML) Liberation are joining hands with the social fascist CPI(M) in Bihar in the upcoming parliament elections, the same CPI(M) who perpetrated the Nandigram massacre, the rape and murder of Tapasi Malik, the murder of Rizwanur, and in whose name AISA garnered votes in the last JNUSU elections. This is the magic of the farce called parliamentary democracy in India, and what we see in JNU is a mere fractional reflection of the same.
DSU appeals to the student community to force the JNUSU to abandon the path of compromised tokenism in the name of fighting privatization. We cannot allow the JNUSU leadership to betray the aspirations of the students and their mandate in the UGBM in this crucial juncture. JNUSU must uncompromisingly fight the corrupt and authoritarian administration and their designs to privatize the university, rather than claiming false victories.
“When the masses are not with you and you act, it is adventurism. When the masses are with you and you do not act it is real opportunism.” -Mao
The ongoing struggle against the drives to gradual privatisation of the university has reached a critical stage now. The demands of this movement had been so straight forward that either they can be clinched, or the movement fails. There is no scope for middle grounds this time. No space for maneuvering or committees. And this fight is an extremely important fight as it is not just about electric meters in one hostel, hiked price of prospectus, commercialization of PSR or OBC and PH reservation only. This is a fight to retain and reclaim JNU. A fight to uncompromisingly stall the efforts of privatisation before it engulfs the entire campus. A fight to ensure that JNU remains a socially inclusive, democratic institution which can organically accommodate students coming from even the most backward regions or social strata. And the direct adversary in this fight is the mindless, authoritarian administration whose only motive is to destroy the current socially inclusive character of JNU and reduce it to a corporate enclave, where education along with all the basic facilities are turned into commodities.
And the role of the JNUSU leadership so far in this struggle has been disappointing the AISA led JNUSU right form the start was determined to deescalate the spirit of the unprecedented students’ participation in this movement by proposing an indefinite hunger strike as the future course of action. They claimed that any other more assertive forms of protest will give ‘moral and political legitimacy’ to the JNU administration and negotiations will be difficult after that! As if this authoritarian and completely sold out administration cares for any legitimacy! Will the administration that threatened, misbehaved and did not even bother to recognize JNUSU’s legitimacy, will come down to a negotiating table unless it is sufficiently pressurized? The UGBM gave a complete rebuff to JNUSU and AISA’s proposal to go for hunger strike and other milder non-confrontational forms of struggle and gave a clear mandate to blockade the ad-block if negotiations fail beyond a certain time. SFI which started off with a call to ‘paralyse the ad-block’ and requisitioned for the UGBM on the same demand, conveniently made a compete u-turn on the day of the UGBM. It again returned to its earlier ‘radical’ pretension once the students mandated and upheld the demand for the more assertive form of protest of blockading the ad-block! And it shifted its position once again when the negotiations have virtually failed and according to the UGBM mandate its binding on the JNUSU to take the movement in this higher form. No surprises there! Their pretentious ‘war cries’ not withstanding, who will believe in their so-called fight against privatisation, when they have blatantly justified Nestle in JNU or corporate land grab and all other moves of liberalisation and privatisation elsewhere? The logic given by AISA and SFI for not going into this more assertive form of protest is that students are not yet ready!
What more can a common student possibly do? What made this particular movement stand out from all other movements in the past is by the sheer magnitude of students’ participation. Although the VC out of his utter desperation called the students ‘outsiders’ it was the JNU students who pro-actively and enthusiastically took part in large number in the protest demonstration of 3rd February, held parallel hostel GBMs and passed unanimous resolutions against the drives of privatisation, took part in the most vibrant and largest march of JNU’s recent history, came back in large numbers for a protest demonstration the next day, spontaneously took part in the mess campaign after the negotiations failed, participated and debated the matter in the UGBM which continued till seven in the morning, gave a mandate for the future course of action, observed two days of university strike with unprecedented spontaneity, boycotted classes for continuous three days often braving the threats form the teachers, took part in another march in large numbers, came to the ad-block early morning again in large numbers… What else can they possibly do to register their support for this movement?
The mode of protest that was upheld in the UGBM was NOT any coercive move. It was simply human blockading of the entry points of the ad-block to stop any body from entering, till the administration yields to our demands. This is to put maximum possible pressure on this absolutely arrogant and dictatorial administration which is otherwise not ready to budge even an inch from its position of privatizing the university.
What we stand to lose is more than this fight alone. The JNUSU leadership in its current status is on the verge of disrespecting the spirit of this movement. The large participation of students in every form of struggle in this movement had reflected the faith that the students had vested on JNUSU. And by compromising yet again with the administration, by not taking the struggle to a logical conclusion they are only betraying that faith and strengthening the designs of the administration. The JNUSU will also irrecoverably lose the trust of the student community. The VC has said in too many forums that the only impediment in realizing his dream of turning JNU into a ‘world class university’ is students’ politics. He obviously speaks the typical language of the World Bank. And we know too well by now the real character of the JNU of his ‘dreams’! The role of the JNUSU leadership far from countering boldly such designs is rather strengthening it. Their reluctance to implement the mandate of the UGBM equally sabotages the hard earned democratic ethos and practices of JNU. Along with this particular struggle, which in itself is extremely important, what we shall lose is the legitimacy of JNUSU in all the struggles in the coming days. Similarly the high handedness of the administration will also win along with its drives of privatisation, if we lose this battle!
Now that the negotiations have failed in yielding any positive outcome, we insist that the JNUSU leadership give a call of a blockade of as mandated by the UGBM to meet our demands of removing the electric meters from Koyena hostel, complete roll back of the hiked prospectus fee, scrapping the plan of PSR commercialization, full implementation of OBC and PH reservation. A retreat from any of these demands will be termed as a compromise and betrayal of the ongoing movement against privatisation. Let us also remind the JNUSU leadership that the victory of the leaders is always the victory of the masses. But the defeat of the leadership is not always the defeat of the masses!
And the role of the JNUSU leadership so far in this struggle has been disappointing the AISA led JNUSU right form the start was determined to deescalate the spirit of the unprecedented students’ participation in this movement by proposing an indefinite hunger strike as the future course of action. They claimed that any other more assertive forms of protest will give ‘moral and political legitimacy’ to the JNU administration and negotiations will be difficult after that! As if this authoritarian and completely sold out administration cares for any legitimacy! Will the administration that threatened, misbehaved and did not even bother to recognize JNUSU’s legitimacy, will come down to a negotiating table unless it is sufficiently pressurized? The UGBM gave a complete rebuff to JNUSU and AISA’s proposal to go for hunger strike and other milder non-confrontational forms of struggle and gave a clear mandate to blockade the ad-block if negotiations fail beyond a certain time. SFI which started off with a call to ‘paralyse the ad-block’ and requisitioned for the UGBM on the same demand, conveniently made a compete u-turn on the day of the UGBM. It again returned to its earlier ‘radical’ pretension once the students mandated and upheld the demand for the more assertive form of protest of blockading the ad-block! And it shifted its position once again when the negotiations have virtually failed and according to the UGBM mandate its binding on the JNUSU to take the movement in this higher form. No surprises there! Their pretentious ‘war cries’ not withstanding, who will believe in their so-called fight against privatisation, when they have blatantly justified Nestle in JNU or corporate land grab and all other moves of liberalisation and privatisation elsewhere? The logic given by AISA and SFI for not going into this more assertive form of protest is that students are not yet ready!
What more can a common student possibly do? What made this particular movement stand out from all other movements in the past is by the sheer magnitude of students’ participation. Although the VC out of his utter desperation called the students ‘outsiders’ it was the JNU students who pro-actively and enthusiastically took part in large number in the protest demonstration of 3rd February, held parallel hostel GBMs and passed unanimous resolutions against the drives of privatisation, took part in the most vibrant and largest march of JNU’s recent history, came back in large numbers for a protest demonstration the next day, spontaneously took part in the mess campaign after the negotiations failed, participated and debated the matter in the UGBM which continued till seven in the morning, gave a mandate for the future course of action, observed two days of university strike with unprecedented spontaneity, boycotted classes for continuous three days often braving the threats form the teachers, took part in another march in large numbers, came to the ad-block early morning again in large numbers… What else can they possibly do to register their support for this movement?
The mode of protest that was upheld in the UGBM was NOT any coercive move. It was simply human blockading of the entry points of the ad-block to stop any body from entering, till the administration yields to our demands. This is to put maximum possible pressure on this absolutely arrogant and dictatorial administration which is otherwise not ready to budge even an inch from its position of privatizing the university.
What we stand to lose is more than this fight alone. The JNUSU leadership in its current status is on the verge of disrespecting the spirit of this movement. The large participation of students in every form of struggle in this movement had reflected the faith that the students had vested on JNUSU. And by compromising yet again with the administration, by not taking the struggle to a logical conclusion they are only betraying that faith and strengthening the designs of the administration. The JNUSU will also irrecoverably lose the trust of the student community. The VC has said in too many forums that the only impediment in realizing his dream of turning JNU into a ‘world class university’ is students’ politics. He obviously speaks the typical language of the World Bank. And we know too well by now the real character of the JNU of his ‘dreams’! The role of the JNUSU leadership far from countering boldly such designs is rather strengthening it. Their reluctance to implement the mandate of the UGBM equally sabotages the hard earned democratic ethos and practices of JNU. Along with this particular struggle, which in itself is extremely important, what we shall lose is the legitimacy of JNUSU in all the struggles in the coming days. Similarly the high handedness of the administration will also win along with its drives of privatisation, if we lose this battle!
Now that the negotiations have failed in yielding any positive outcome, we insist that the JNUSU leadership give a call of a blockade of as mandated by the UGBM to meet our demands of removing the electric meters from Koyena hostel, complete roll back of the hiked prospectus fee, scrapping the plan of PSR commercialization, full implementation of OBC and PH reservation. A retreat from any of these demands will be termed as a compromise and betrayal of the ongoing movement against privatisation. Let us also remind the JNUSU leadership that the victory of the leaders is always the victory of the masses. But the defeat of the leadership is not always the defeat of the masses!
Let us Barricade the Ad-Block!
The UGBM tonight is not only to decide the future course of the ongoing movement against privatization, but to decide the future character of JNU itself. We must not shy away from taking the authoritarian administration head-on by taking the movement forward and to a higher form.
The VC said all those who walked in the long march were hired form outside! He also said the JNUSU is distributing free food to allure people to protests! Surely the language of market is the only thing the VC and his stooges understand! That’s why he can’t understand why the students in this campus fought against Nestle and for the minimum wages of the workers, why can’t students appreciate his mindless ‘beautification’ and considers it to be shameful wastage of public money, why students protest against the rise of the price of prospectus, why they demand the implementation of reservation, why they want Alimiyat Fazilat certificates to be recognized, why they refuse to pay separate electricity bills, why they object when PSR is being commercialized!
Because in his vision of the ‘World Class University’ these are no issues! In the University of his dreams students do not protest at all. They just remain as isolated atomized individuals who quietly study the courses he offers. In his university students will have to buy their education and basic facilities as well! And that is why the VC and his stooges do not belong to this university!
The university community of JNU understands the language of people and struggle. We would like to remind the VC and his coterie, that it is this university and JNUSU which remained functional even when the entire nation came at a stand still in the wake of the emergency, or stopped the then Prime Minister from entering the campus. It is this university which gave safe shelter to hundreds of Sikhs during the 1984 riots. The students of this university, have stood by people’s movements time and again in various places. They have also taken part in people’s movements themselves and have even got martyred.
Within the university also students have fought against privatization, the introduction of self-financed courses, the introduction of communalized and reactionary courses like astrology and yogic science, fought for the construction of new hostels, struggled to enhance MCM, threw out the monopoly outlet of Nestle, fought to ensure minimum wages of the workers, fought to implement reservation and so on. And apart from these well known struggles there are also many initiatives every day by unknown students in various levels to make this university a better, a more democratic and humane space to live. Such silent struggles, unregistered initiatives make this university a better home for thousands of students, teachers, karamcharis and workers every day.
And that is precisely what the VC and his stooges seek to destroy. Because what drives them is the neo-liberal economic policies. Which apart from destroying also dehumanizes! Which along with oppressing also ensures repression of any voice for democracy or voices of protests that demand for basic facilities of students, equality in education or social justice!
And thus we are in a historic juncture. The administration has refused to budge an inch even after thousands of students marched on the streets protesting against the installation of electric meters, the commercialization of PSR or the hiked prices of the prospectus. They can not possibly move from their position as they are tied down to immense corruption themselves. And should we succumb to the situation even after thousands of us have come down to the streets together. This struggle has already moved to a peak of students’ mobilization and participation. The next step can only be to move ahead in the same spirit and barricade the ad bloc. As the next step of this movement, let us resolve not to allow anybody to enter the ad bloc and function till they withdraw these moves to privatise the university. This university is ours, and let us decide to take the movement to a higher form.
Any retreat from this point of the struggle will be pushing the ball to the administration’s court again. Any reduction from this participatory stage of the struggles by reducing it to a few people sitting on indefinite hunger strike will be detrimental to the unprecedented spirit of this mass movement and will be a compromise with its militant essence. We have a historic necessity to barricade the administration which is systematically trying to sell and destroy the university, our university. Let us try and strike at them to clinch not only the ongoing struggles but also all the fights in the days to come. If we compromise or retreat this time, we stand to lose not only our present struggle but our past legacy and the future too
The VC said all those who walked in the long march were hired form outside! He also said the JNUSU is distributing free food to allure people to protests! Surely the language of market is the only thing the VC and his stooges understand! That’s why he can’t understand why the students in this campus fought against Nestle and for the minimum wages of the workers, why can’t students appreciate his mindless ‘beautification’ and considers it to be shameful wastage of public money, why students protest against the rise of the price of prospectus, why they demand the implementation of reservation, why they want Alimiyat Fazilat certificates to be recognized, why they refuse to pay separate electricity bills, why they object when PSR is being commercialized!
Because in his vision of the ‘World Class University’ these are no issues! In the University of his dreams students do not protest at all. They just remain as isolated atomized individuals who quietly study the courses he offers. In his university students will have to buy their education and basic facilities as well! And that is why the VC and his stooges do not belong to this university!
The university community of JNU understands the language of people and struggle. We would like to remind the VC and his coterie, that it is this university and JNUSU which remained functional even when the entire nation came at a stand still in the wake of the emergency, or stopped the then Prime Minister from entering the campus. It is this university which gave safe shelter to hundreds of Sikhs during the 1984 riots. The students of this university, have stood by people’s movements time and again in various places. They have also taken part in people’s movements themselves and have even got martyred.
Within the university also students have fought against privatization, the introduction of self-financed courses, the introduction of communalized and reactionary courses like astrology and yogic science, fought for the construction of new hostels, struggled to enhance MCM, threw out the monopoly outlet of Nestle, fought to ensure minimum wages of the workers, fought to implement reservation and so on. And apart from these well known struggles there are also many initiatives every day by unknown students in various levels to make this university a better, a more democratic and humane space to live. Such silent struggles, unregistered initiatives make this university a better home for thousands of students, teachers, karamcharis and workers every day.
And that is precisely what the VC and his stooges seek to destroy. Because what drives them is the neo-liberal economic policies. Which apart from destroying also dehumanizes! Which along with oppressing also ensures repression of any voice for democracy or voices of protests that demand for basic facilities of students, equality in education or social justice!
And thus we are in a historic juncture. The administration has refused to budge an inch even after thousands of students marched on the streets protesting against the installation of electric meters, the commercialization of PSR or the hiked prices of the prospectus. They can not possibly move from their position as they are tied down to immense corruption themselves. And should we succumb to the situation even after thousands of us have come down to the streets together. This struggle has already moved to a peak of students’ mobilization and participation. The next step can only be to move ahead in the same spirit and barricade the ad bloc. As the next step of this movement, let us resolve not to allow anybody to enter the ad bloc and function till they withdraw these moves to privatise the university. This university is ours, and let us decide to take the movement to a higher form.
Any retreat from this point of the struggle will be pushing the ball to the administration’s court again. Any reduction from this participatory stage of the struggles by reducing it to a few people sitting on indefinite hunger strike will be detrimental to the unprecedented spirit of this mass movement and will be a compromise with its militant essence. We have a historic necessity to barricade the administration which is systematically trying to sell and destroy the university, our university. Let us try and strike at them to clinch not only the ongoing struggles but also all the fights in the days to come. If we compromise or retreat this time, we stand to lose not only our present struggle but our past legacy and the future too
February 16, 2009
Intensify the ongoing struggle against privatization! Make the administration dysfunctional until our demands are met!
After yesterday’s JNUSU council meeting and today’s all-organization meeting, it has been decided to observe a two-day total university strike on Monday and Tuesday, giving ample time to the administration for negotiations, failing which, the students would have no other option but to undertake a mass sit-in to make the Administrative block dysfunctional. The administration is bent on destroying the very foundations of the university, and force its policies of privatization of campus spaces. The administration has so far turned a deaf ear to the protest by thousands of students, forcing us to go into a more decisive agitation. At this historic juncture, it is our collective responsibility to take the movement to a higher form and participate with all our strengths in the course of action decided in the UGBM. The struggle is not just about a Rs.80 increase in the prospectus fee, electric meters in hostels, or commercialization of the PSR. It is part of the larger fight against the neo-liberal agenda of privatization of our education and commercialization of campus, against making our education available only to a few sections of the rich, who can afford to buy education in the market.
The UGBM on 12th February to decide the course of action in the ongoing agitation against privatization of campus resolved to undertake a stronger, militant and more concrete action in order to channelize the unprecedented spirit of the students against privatization. The resolution that was passed in the UGBM made it clear that students were against reducing the momentum that had been built during the demonstrations at ad block on 3rd or the long march on the10th of February and the subsequent protests. Instead, the students, realizing the immediacy of the issues and the administration’s arrogant, deceitful, non-responsive reaction to this mass mobilization, gave their mandate to making the administration dysfunctional until all our demands were met.
This campus has consistently fought against previous attempts by the administration to privatize campus spaces and commodify education through fee hikes, corporate funding of courses, contractualization of services in the university etc. The students have resisted attempts to undermine the hard-fought socially-inclusive character of JNU that has come in the form of scuttling of reservation policy, reversal of deprivation points system as well as the upcoming challenge of anti-reservation bills being passed by the parliament. The students of JNU have stood up against the reactionary state during Emergency, the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom and the black-flagging of the PM during his visit to JNU. in 1995, the administration was forced to revert its policy of fee hike and also reinstate the deprivation points under a militant agitation led by JNUSU. In 2005, students successfully threw out Nestle from campus. But the students are aware that the fight against privatization is far from over. The neo-liberal assault of the state on education and social justice continues in several forms inside and outside the campus. This is an unprecedented attack by administration on us in its drive to make JNU a ‘world class university’, and it calls for an unprecedented response from the campus community in the form of a mass participation in decisive actions, as was reflected in the Long March.
DSU appeals to all the students of JNU to participate in large numbers in the ongoing agitation under the leadership of JNUSU until all our demands are met. Let us observe a 48-hour total university strike starting on Monday, and join the march and mass sit-in as mandated by the UGBM. Let us all give the administration a strong signal that we will struggle unitedly against their attempts to sell out our education and the university in the market
The UGBM on 12th February to decide the course of action in the ongoing agitation against privatization of campus resolved to undertake a stronger, militant and more concrete action in order to channelize the unprecedented spirit of the students against privatization. The resolution that was passed in the UGBM made it clear that students were against reducing the momentum that had been built during the demonstrations at ad block on 3rd or the long march on the10th of February and the subsequent protests. Instead, the students, realizing the immediacy of the issues and the administration’s arrogant, deceitful, non-responsive reaction to this mass mobilization, gave their mandate to making the administration dysfunctional until all our demands were met.
This campus has consistently fought against previous attempts by the administration to privatize campus spaces and commodify education through fee hikes, corporate funding of courses, contractualization of services in the university etc. The students have resisted attempts to undermine the hard-fought socially-inclusive character of JNU that has come in the form of scuttling of reservation policy, reversal of deprivation points system as well as the upcoming challenge of anti-reservation bills being passed by the parliament. The students of JNU have stood up against the reactionary state during Emergency, the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom and the black-flagging of the PM during his visit to JNU. in 1995, the administration was forced to revert its policy of fee hike and also reinstate the deprivation points under a militant agitation led by JNUSU. In 2005, students successfully threw out Nestle from campus. But the students are aware that the fight against privatization is far from over. The neo-liberal assault of the state on education and social justice continues in several forms inside and outside the campus. This is an unprecedented attack by administration on us in its drive to make JNU a ‘world class university’, and it calls for an unprecedented response from the campus community in the form of a mass participation in decisive actions, as was reflected in the Long March.
DSU appeals to all the students of JNU to participate in large numbers in the ongoing agitation under the leadership of JNUSU until all our demands are met. Let us observe a 48-hour total university strike starting on Monday, and join the march and mass sit-in as mandated by the UGBM. Let us all give the administration a strong signal that we will struggle unitedly against their attempts to sell out our education and the university in the market
Intensify the Ongoing Struggle! Defeat the Administration's Corporate Agenda!
After yesterday’s march where thousands of students had registered their protest against fee hike and privatization of JNU campus, the Rector assured the student community that the administration would discuss these issues when the VC would return to campus.
Today when the JNUSU went to make the students demands to the administration, the Vice Chancellor arrogantly denied all of them. Instead, he threatened the JNUSU and the protesting students that they would face dire consequences if the struggle continues. The VC claimed that thousands of students who marched yesterday were ‘outsiders’ and students of Jamia Milia and Delhi University who were hired by the JNUSU to do so. The administration, which is too scared to face the students and discuss the issues with them, instead shamefully chose to videotape the protest demonstration at ad block today.
The agitation against privatization has entered a crucial phase. For two weeks the protests under JNUSU’s leadership have continued and yet the administration has refused to discuss the issues with the students. After two days of strike by the JNUSU, instead of accepting to the demands like removal of electric meters from Koyna hostel, the VC declared that the administration plans to introduce electric meters in ALL hostels of JNU—above a nominal usage, students would be charged for electricity consumption.
Seeing the absolutely dictatorial attitude of the administration, the agitation needs to be intensified. The VC has rubbished not just the demands but the spirit of the JNUSU itself. The Vice-Chancellor’s words today only exposed his true face as the stooge of the state which kills peasants, adivasis, minorities in the name of neo liberal policies and SEZ. In all movements when the state intensifies its terror, the people intensify their movements and struggles through the necessary means to fulfill their just demands. At this moment we cannot take a step back but must further mobilize ourselves in a militant struggle that forces the Administration to fulfill our genuine demands. If not, we would be losing the entire battle. This struggle is not just about electricity meters, signboards, prospectus or the corruption in the administration, but rather about what JNU has been and what it should be.
The JNUSU has received a requisition signed by more than 1100 students for a UGBM to decide the future course of action. We appeal to all the students to attend the UGBM in large numbers to democratically deliberate and decide on the course of the struggle and to protect the ethos of the JNU campus.
Today when the JNUSU went to make the students demands to the administration, the Vice Chancellor arrogantly denied all of them. Instead, he threatened the JNUSU and the protesting students that they would face dire consequences if the struggle continues. The VC claimed that thousands of students who marched yesterday were ‘outsiders’ and students of Jamia Milia and Delhi University who were hired by the JNUSU to do so. The administration, which is too scared to face the students and discuss the issues with them, instead shamefully chose to videotape the protest demonstration at ad block today.
The agitation against privatization has entered a crucial phase. For two weeks the protests under JNUSU’s leadership have continued and yet the administration has refused to discuss the issues with the students. After two days of strike by the JNUSU, instead of accepting to the demands like removal of electric meters from Koyna hostel, the VC declared that the administration plans to introduce electric meters in ALL hostels of JNU—above a nominal usage, students would be charged for electricity consumption.
Seeing the absolutely dictatorial attitude of the administration, the agitation needs to be intensified. The VC has rubbished not just the demands but the spirit of the JNUSU itself. The Vice-Chancellor’s words today only exposed his true face as the stooge of the state which kills peasants, adivasis, minorities in the name of neo liberal policies and SEZ. In all movements when the state intensifies its terror, the people intensify their movements and struggles through the necessary means to fulfill their just demands. At this moment we cannot take a step back but must further mobilize ourselves in a militant struggle that forces the Administration to fulfill our genuine demands. If not, we would be losing the entire battle. This struggle is not just about electricity meters, signboards, prospectus or the corruption in the administration, but rather about what JNU has been and what it should be.
The JNUSU has received a requisition signed by more than 1100 students for a UGBM to decide the future course of action. We appeal to all the students to attend the UGBM in large numbers to democratically deliberate and decide on the course of the struggle and to protect the ethos of the JNU campus.
February 08, 2009
Intensify the Fight against Privatisation of Campus!
"All issues are students’ issues, and no issue is students’ issue alone."
The massive protest demonstration on February 3rd at the ad-block called by JNUSU has sent a clear message to the authoritarian JNU administration that anti-student policies, including the ongoing privatization drive in the campus in the name of ‘resource-generation’, must immediately stop. While installing of electric meters in the rooms of Koena hostel, a sharp increase in the price of the JNU prospectus, renting of the PSR, making of OBC reservation conditional to ‘availability of infrastructure’, curtailment in dhaba timings were some of the immediate demands, the students also collectively expressed their anger against bypassing of the student community in decision-making, and imposition of policies that go against the grain of JNU as a socially-sensitive and responsible institution. Taking full advantage of the supreme court stay on JNUSU elections, the administration has intensified its efforts to make JNU a corporate-friendly university, in the unfounded expectation that there will be no resistance from the students. The administration is introducing anti-student polices one after another in quick succession, and has once again challenged the student community to take up the responsibility of defending what JNU stands for: a democratic, inclusive and socially responsible education that upholds the spirit of criticality and non-conformism in thought.
The intensification of the privatisation drive in the campus: The students’ movement of JNU has fought attempts at privatisation and corporatisation of campus spaces in the past, the successful struggle against Nestle in 2004-05 and Tata funding in the School of Arts and Aesthetics in 2007 being recent examples. Past attempts at fee hike was also fought and won. However, this does not mean that the campus have remained immune to the larger policies of Liberalisation, Privatisation and imperialist Globalisation. Crores of rupees are being invested by corporate houses in the science centres of JNU to facilitate market-oriented research. Highly expensive courses such as the Global Studies Programme in CSSS have been introduced which are sponsored by multinationals like BMW and Mackenzie. Ford Foundation has provided funds for setting up and running the Centre for Law and Governance. Corporates like Mahindra and others have come to JNU for recruitment, and curriculums of many centres have been changed to cater to the needs of the market.
These are only a few examples from our campus how privatisation and corporatisation is being implemented in higher education. Today higher education remains accessible to only a few who can afford to pay hefty fees for technical courses in IITs, IIMs, engineering, medical and media institutes and so on, be it public or private. ‘Merit’ is not a criterion of admission for those who can pay large capitation fees and buys degrees in the market. Even in neighbouring DU colleges, the yearly fees have become highly prohibitive for a majority of the students from weak economic and social backgrounds. The fact that fees in JNU have remained low and thus affordable in some ways to the deprived classes, is because of the progressive students’ movement which have struggled against the logic of the market to uphold a democratic and inclusive education. With the onslaught of neo-liberal policies of the state, this too has come under attack. The days are not far when the administration will introduce a steep increase in the tuition fees and hostel rents etc. with the argument that the university needs to generate its own resources. The administration has tried to justify the electric meters in Koena hostel by arguing that most of the students get scholarships, and hence should bear a portion of the cost of education and facilities they receive.
Privatisation in the campus is taking place at many levels. Not only is the PSR being rented out or auditoriums made open for commercial use, even the essential services in the campus are also being made contractual where private companies such as Group 4 is in charge of campus security, Chase is providing library workers and lab assistants, Vayudoot is employing workers for gardening, garbage collection and electrical works, Garima is running messes in Chandrabhaga, Lohit and Mahi-Mandvi hostels, and so on. Much like the students who come from economically and socially weaker sections of the society are being denied the right to higher education, the workers are also denied their basic work-related rights under the privatized regime.
Attempts to scuttle 27% OBC Reservation: The rights and opportunities of the marginalised sections to education in campuses like JNU are being further jeopardized by the scuttling of OBC reservations even after it becoming the law of the land. Last year when after a protracted battle –both inside and outside the court– 27% OBC reservation got a go ahead, the JNU administration subverted it by a drastic reduction of seat cuts, and ensuring that a mere 9% students could take admission under the provisions of the act. Even though the administration assured that this year the full quota of 27% would be fulfilled, it has been again made conditional to ‘infrastructure’. Making the provision of 54% seat increase conditional on OBC reservation itself was a ploy to prolong and scuttle the implementation of reservation, and this year too the same logic of inability to increase seats have been used by administration. Whereas funds are in no short supply to be lavishly spent on needless extravagance in the name of ‘campus beautification’ and putting up of expensive gadgets and furniture all around, lack of funds is the excuse for not providing the necessary infrastructure to accommodate new students. This design to put hurdles on OBC reservation, along with that of PH category reservation has to be defeated, and we must ensure that the full quota of OBC and PH category reservation is fulfilled this year, without any reduction in the overall seats offered. The present agitation under the leadership of JNUSU must be intensified in order to force the administration for the full implementation of reservation policy in letter and spirit.
Authoritarian JNU administration: Even after the massive demonstration of the students, the administration in its discussions with the JNUSU has not shown any sign of genuinely addressing the demands. Disregarding the collective opinion of the student community the administration refused to remove the electric meters in Koena hostel, and in fact is contemplating its installment in other hostels as well. The decision to rent PSR has only been temporarily set aside, and it has declined to reduce the price of the prospectus. Despite repeated demands, the administration has not committed to implement 27% OBC reservation by this year. In all, the administration has yielded very little to the demands of the student community, and has only come up with vague and temporary assurances. This leaves the students with no other option than to further intensify the ongoing agitation by forging a unity of struggle and uncompromisingly fight for our legitimate rights.
The administration feels emboldened by the stay on the JNUSU elections and making this an excuse has been acting in an authoritarian manner. The JNUSU and the student community have been kept out of decision-making, thus trampling on the democratic rights which have been achieved through years of struggle. Meetings of Academic Council and various committees such as the Campus Development Committee are being held without any student representation, which has allowed the administration to impose its decisions on us. Previously unheard-of committees have suddenly sprung up, which are taking unilateral decisions pertaining to campus life. The administration must be confronted and their undemocratic decisions have to be rejected at every step, and be made accountable for its misdeeds as well as anti-student policies. This struggle is at the same time a part of the struggle to defend our democratic rights, the JNUSU and its constitution.
University for whom? It is not a coincidence that the supreme court stay and the phase of intensified privatisation has come at the same time. The administration feels that the student movement has been weakened by the onslaught of Lyngdoh. As the Birla-Ambani Report recognised students’ unions as the main hurdle to privatisation of education, the present VC too thinks that student politics, which has been the hallmark of JNU, is an impediment to the making of a ‘world-class’ university. In their scheme of a world-class university, the students will not have the right to raise demands and will have to bow to the decisions from above unquestioningly. No critique and resistance to the policies of the state will be tolerated, and no social concern or peoples’ issues will be addressed. In a world-class university, everything including education will be sold at the market price, ‘professionals’ will be produced for the industry. There will be no place for dissent, no place for opposition and alternatives. This is the essence of the world-class university which administration wants JNU to be, the same essence of the market and of imperialism.
JNU is not an island: Much like the oppressed classes of the country finds themselves at the receiving end of Indian state’s neo-liberal policies, and repressed through the use of violent force if they chose to resist them, the students too are faced with an onslaught on their basic rights, including the right to education. And at a time when an overwhelming majority of the peoples are facing an all out imperialist onslaught, how can a campus like JNU remain immune to this process? The same undemocratic and anti-people policies that are imposed elsewhere in the name of development are also being implemented in our campus with the same authoritarian manner. A Nestle outlet, electric meters, hike in the prospectus price, renting of campus spaces and facilities, Global Studies Programme, Posco scholarships or Ford sponsorship etc., all are manifestations of the same process. When we, as students, collectively stand against these policies in our campus, we also therefore strengthen the people’s resistance against the ongoing assault of privatization and imperialist plunder.
Intensify the ongoing struggle against privatisation in the campus! Guard against sectarianism! It is only an uncompromising and collective struggle that can resist and finally defeat the JNU administration’s anti-student and pro-corporate policies. The demonstration of 3 Feb is a reflection of this spirit. In the recent past, however, we have been witness to the betrayal of the students’ movement by JNUSU leadership, be it from SFI who sided with the administration in the struggle against Nestle and the in workers’ issue, or from AISA in the fight for OBC reservation which defended seat cuts last year. SFI is continuing with its tradition of sectarian one-upmanship by indulging in parallel agitations such as ‘paralyzing the administration’ without taking JNUSU or the larger student community into confidence, and thereby undermining the present struggle. The same SFI which was crying hoarse in the last UGBM of undemocratic JNUSU functioning did not wait to build a consensus in the JNUSU council meeting and went ahead with its own programme. Such acts of sectarianism will weaken the ongoing struggle for social justice and against privatisation, and will embolden the administration at a time when the JNU student movement is faced with grave challenges from inside and outside the campus. Let us intensify this struggle without falling prey to sectarian politics.
January 31, 2009
Palestine and Tamil Eelam: Liberation Movements under Imperialist Aggression
Countries want independence, nations want liberation, and people want revolution! –Mao
In recent times the world has been witness to brutal aggression on two of the most long-enduring and valiant struggles for independence: that of the Palestinian and the Eelam Tamil people. Through the 22 day-long assault on Gaza, called Operation Cast Lead which ended ten days ago, the Israel state tried in vain to teach the people of Gaza a lesson: Submit or Die. But the heroic Palestinians have refused to submit. The result is a death toll of more than 1375 and more than 5450 wounded, with above 65 percent civilian casualties, including 412 children. 115 are still missing. 4100 homes were destroyed. Most of them were dismembered and burned by missile fire and chemical weapons. Scores of children and women have been slaughtered as well as defenseless civilians and officials, in utter disregard for the rules of war or international law and public opinion. The one-sidedness of the attack can be measured by the 13 Israeli casualties in the same period. And all this went on for three full weeks while the ‘international community’ watched in silence and the people of the Arab world came out on the streets in militant protests condemning Israel and the US.
More than 70% of the people of Gaza today are refugees in their own land. In Gaza city alone, more than 22,000 families are receiving food aid. White phosphorus was used in crowded civilian areas, including refugee camps. White phosphorus once touches the skin, can burn through the flesh to the bone. Israel is not a party to a convention regulating its use. UN schools and main aid headquarters where tons of food was stocked were bombed. UN employees including drivers were killed. Amid growing demand for trial for war crimes in the International Criminal Court, Israel has banned the publication of the unit commanders who led the attacks against Palestine fearing they will be charged and tried for their crimes. Even Israeli human rights groups have demanded investigation to the incidents where unarmed women and children were killed. Israel faces prosecution for committing war crimes, more of which are coming to light after the invasion has been stalled. There are however reports of Israeli fresh air-strikes, indicating the fragile and temporary nature of the assault.
Gaza, a tiny geographical space stretched across 45 kilometers in length and 10 in breadth has 1.5 million people, the world's highest density of population. It suffered terrible civilian casualties during indiscriminate Israeli aerial bombardment of the region even during ‘stage one’ of the assault. As Israeli ground troops moved in for "stage two", the number of dead and injured grew enormously, as did the proportion of civilian casualties among the overall dead and wounded. Israeli troops surrounded Zeitun, near Gaza city and prevented rescue teams to offer help to the victims for four days. When paramedics eventually entered on 7th January, in one destroyed home they found four half-dead children clinging to the corpses of their mothers in the rubble. Israeli mortars purposefully attacked and killed more than 40 people outside one school in the Jabalya refugee camp. As a result, children under sixteen-years and women accounted for nearly 40% of the casualties.
Besides, the inhuman condition of Gaza as a result of the continued artillery and aerial shelling became amply clear when one considers the fact that Israel only admitted 40-50 truckloads of food and supplies a day, less than ten percent of what people need in Gaza during a full-scale war and after 18-months blockade perpetrated by Israel. This condition is further aggravated by scarcity of fuel, clean water and electricity. In the first few days of the land invasion, Gaza hospitals had inadequate supply of drugs, equipment, blood or electricity, with all the beds occupied long ago and even the corridors filled with the wounded. Israel did not allow more than a handful of the injured to be evacuated to hospitals elsewhere. It deliberately targeted ambulances and medical teams with the excuse that they could be carrying rockets. Along with the extermination of Palestinians, the Israeli authorities made phone calls and dropped leaflets warning Gaza residents to evacuate or face death. Israel’s foreign minister’s kept claiming that there was no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, while its armed forces went on battering residential areas, schools, hospitals, water-supply and electricity infrastructure, and even the UN headquarters in Gaza in the name of targeting the resistance fighters of Hamas. It seems that Israel has accomplished what its Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai’s warned in February 2008: that Gaza was facing a "shoah", the Hebrew word for Holocaust. This criminal misadventure of Israel however has only exposed its fascist designs, and further consolidated the movement for Palestinian national liberation.
Israel-US Imperial Nexus: The recent attacks in the name of war against terror and against the Palestinian peoples’ defensive war are all products of the same imperial war-machine. It was the US which helped the formation of Israeli state for ensuring its own survival, and since then the Israel has been the bridgehead of the US imperialism in West Asia and a safe base for its reactionary maneuvers all across the world. Both the US as well as Israel has closely integrated war-economies, selling weapons and waging wars to sustain itself. The imperialist administration cannot develop or reform its finance without launching wars at its initiative. Many wars and battles are and will be fought under the guidance and support of US imperialism. The US-Israel nexus has to be seen in this context. The US supply of up-to-date 1000 pound ‘bunker buster’ bombs and high-tech missiles to incinerate large numbers of human beings within their deadly radius, its role in overseeing the genocidal war amply makes clear from the statement of the Chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee Howard Berman that “Israel has a right, indeed a duty, to defend itself in response to the hundreds of rockets and mortars fired from Gaza… The loss of innocent life is a terribly tragedy and the blame for that tragedy lies with Hamas.” To the Bermans of the world, only the lives of Israelis matter, not the growing thousands of murdered, dismembered and mutilated Palestinians of Gaza – they do not count as people!
The mass military extermination campaign was a follow up of its non-stop total economic embargo and unremitting selective assassination campaign of the previous two years. Both were designed to purge Palestine of its Arab population, first via mass hunger, disease, humiliation and violent intimidation and the proxy power-grab through the Palestinian Authority under a puppet Mahmoud Abbas, the president. Saudi Arabia, Egypt did not protest the Israel attack. Even the PA controlled by Fatah was not critical. PA is persecuting anyone in the West Bank expressing solidarity with the resistance in Gaza, imprisoning students and professors, journalists and workers, etc.
The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has been working as the perfect agents of Israel and the US, evident from the comment made by a PA official in Ramallah that Israel made a big mistake in ending the attack on Gaza without overthrowing Hamas from the Gaza strip. He said that "the Hamas is still in power is bad for all", meaning bad for the PA as well as Israel-US. The PA is resorting to draconian measures in the West Bank to thwart the spread of sympathy and support for Hamas and the people of Gaza. Hamas, the peoples' representative organization of Gaza, leads a deocratically elected government after defeating Fatah, has won this round of the war. The Hamas may have probably been weakened militarily, but has emerged politically stronger. Israel thinks that "disproportionate" use of force against its adversaries, as it did with Egypt, Jordan, Syria and most recently, Lebanon in 2006, will crush down resistance. The US and Israel has been trying to dislodge Hamas with the help of its agent PA and Mahmoud Abbas, which failed, leading to a direct assault. In the words of the Israel leader: “…because everything is connected to everything…” it is necessary to destroy each and every facet of life, removing all conditions for Palestinians to exist with dignity and freedom. Israel attempted to eliminate the leadership of the Hamas, killing the Gaza commander Major General Tawfik Jabar on the first day of the attack itself. The Interior Minister, Said Siam was also killed, in a targeted attempt to finish off the resistance movement.
The struggle for Tamil Eelam and its fascist repression by the Sri Lankan state: While Gaza was being raged by the fascist Israel state in an attempt to sniff out the liberation movement of the Palestinian people, the Sri Lankan state was no less ruthless in its genocidal war on the Tamils fighting for their free Eelam, which continues till date with the support of Indian state and US imperialism. The occupation of Killinochi and Mullaithivu regions brought the historic Tamil nation in Sri Lanka’s north-east under Sri Lankan military rule, reminding us that the Israeli assault on Gaza is not the only “final solution” pursued by the imperialism and its regional allies across the world. The major suppliers of arms for Sri Lankan government are the US, Israel and India. Israel provides Kfir jets and illegal cluster munitions and also technical trainings for Sri Lankan Special Forces and paramilitary death-squads. As with Hezbollah and Hamas, the LTTE has also been banned as a ‘terrorist’ organisation in several countries in order to curb the scope of peoples’ resistance against imperialist aggression. This fits well to suit Sri Lanka’s strategic significance and also the military, political and theocratic elite that rule the country, maintaining a Western domination of a semi-colonial export-oriented economy.
The Sri Lankan state uses a mythical past drawn from religious texts to claim the whole territory for the Sinhalese, reminding us of Israeli’s claim on Palestinian land on the basis of concocted historical past. But truth is that the Tamil presence in the island dates from antiquity. The assertion of the rights of the Tamils as an oppressed nationality and the struggle for free Eelam has led to the Sri Lanka’s prolonged war against the Tamils involving some of the world’s worst war crimes. As has been the case throughout the conflict, Tamil civilians are facing the brunt of the Sri Lankan force’s brutal and indiscriminate assault. Civilians have been targeted, orphanages and hospitals have been regularly bombed. Torture, rape and random killings have been perpetrated by the state’s military and paramilitary forces. This brutal and inhuman nature of the Sinhala State is in full display in the recent assault launched to wipe off LTTE. Vanni, where the war is now being fought, artillery attacks and aerial bombing have already killed hundreds of civilians, including children. Hospitals, ambulances are being attacked. International organizations are not being allowed to enter those regions. As a result of indiscriminate aerial, naval and ground attacks more than 3000 have been killed and many thousands were injured within past few weeks and displacing over 400,000 who are living in subhuman conditions with no access to food, medicines and drinking water. The so-called international community, the UN, etc. by remaining silent and assenting to Sri Lankan government’s ploy to cut the Eelam area off from any outside contact have proven their true nature as an ally of imperialist forces. As a resident of Vanni noted, "The message the Sri Lankan forces were passing to the civilians of Vanni, by repeated and unprovoked attacks, is that they should subjugate themselves by walking into the territories in the hands of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA)." This was a trap the fighting Tamil people have not fallen into. The Sri Lankan Army intruding deep into the Tamil territory did not find a single person, the whole population moving northwards to avoid its wrath, and possibly to fight back at an opportune time. With the full knowledge that the whole Tamil civilian population is now confined in a region less than 300 kilometers, Sri Lanka continues to pound it with bombardments, the declaration of ‘safe-zones’ notwithstanding.
Indian State’s support to the Imperialist Genocides: The struggles of the Palestinians and Tamils to end occupation are important components of the worldwide anti-imperialist struggle. After the Cold War, the Indian ruling classes have been working as willing agents of US imperialism in South Asia, and with the support of the US trying to implement its expansionist designs in the region. It explains the calculated silence maintained by the Indian state when thousands of civilians were slaughtered in Palestine and Sri Lanka, failing to even condemn the killing of thousands of unarmed civilians. While India continues to maintain strong diplomatic and military ties with Israel in this period, Indian intelligence and security forces were involved in aiding the Sri Lankan forces in its genocide of Tamils in the name of ‘War against Terror.’ The various political parties, media and the so-called civil society and the intellectuals have maintained a criminal silence and failed to take a stand in favour of the oppressed Eelam Tamils. It was however easy to condemn and protest against Israel as it is comfortably distant from the Indian shores.
But even the use of mass-murders, bombs and rapes, blockades and displacements, and disproportionate use of fascist violence amid the US imperialism’s change-of-mask from Bush to Obama, has hardly been able to crush the aspirations of the oppressed people for freedom and dignity. Both in Gaza and Vanni, with little outside support the Palestinians and Tamils are resisting the repeated wars of aggression which has demanded huge sacrifice from the freedom-aspiring people. Surrounded and slaughtered though they are, these attacks have strengthened rather than weakened the liberation movements, steeling the resolve to fight on till the final goal is achieved. As Abu Leila of Hamas told the media from an undisclosed location in Gaza, “The Israelis destroyed a lot of empty buildings but they completely failed to break our organization.” In the same spirit a journalist from Tamil Eelam noted that though the Sri Lankan military is testing the breaking point of the Tamil people, they "are not prepared to surrender themselves.” As history has proven over and over again, the spirit of freedom and justice among the oppressed cannot be crushed by the use of force, and it is only a matter of time when the resistance, whether for a free Palestine or a free Tamil Eelam, succeeds in throwing out the oppressors and achieving liberation
In recent times the world has been witness to brutal aggression on two of the most long-enduring and valiant struggles for independence: that of the Palestinian and the Eelam Tamil people. Through the 22 day-long assault on Gaza, called Operation Cast Lead which ended ten days ago, the Israel state tried in vain to teach the people of Gaza a lesson: Submit or Die. But the heroic Palestinians have refused to submit. The result is a death toll of more than 1375 and more than 5450 wounded, with above 65 percent civilian casualties, including 412 children. 115 are still missing. 4100 homes were destroyed. Most of them were dismembered and burned by missile fire and chemical weapons. Scores of children and women have been slaughtered as well as defenseless civilians and officials, in utter disregard for the rules of war or international law and public opinion. The one-sidedness of the attack can be measured by the 13 Israeli casualties in the same period. And all this went on for three full weeks while the ‘international community’ watched in silence and the people of the Arab world came out on the streets in militant protests condemning Israel and the US.
More than 70% of the people of Gaza today are refugees in their own land. In Gaza city alone, more than 22,000 families are receiving food aid. White phosphorus was used in crowded civilian areas, including refugee camps. White phosphorus once touches the skin, can burn through the flesh to the bone. Israel is not a party to a convention regulating its use. UN schools and main aid headquarters where tons of food was stocked were bombed. UN employees including drivers were killed. Amid growing demand for trial for war crimes in the International Criminal Court, Israel has banned the publication of the unit commanders who led the attacks against Palestine fearing they will be charged and tried for their crimes. Even Israeli human rights groups have demanded investigation to the incidents where unarmed women and children were killed. Israel faces prosecution for committing war crimes, more of which are coming to light after the invasion has been stalled. There are however reports of Israeli fresh air-strikes, indicating the fragile and temporary nature of the assault.
Gaza, a tiny geographical space stretched across 45 kilometers in length and 10 in breadth has 1.5 million people, the world's highest density of population. It suffered terrible civilian casualties during indiscriminate Israeli aerial bombardment of the region even during ‘stage one’ of the assault. As Israeli ground troops moved in for "stage two", the number of dead and injured grew enormously, as did the proportion of civilian casualties among the overall dead and wounded. Israeli troops surrounded Zeitun, near Gaza city and prevented rescue teams to offer help to the victims for four days. When paramedics eventually entered on 7th January, in one destroyed home they found four half-dead children clinging to the corpses of their mothers in the rubble. Israeli mortars purposefully attacked and killed more than 40 people outside one school in the Jabalya refugee camp. As a result, children under sixteen-years and women accounted for nearly 40% of the casualties.
Besides, the inhuman condition of Gaza as a result of the continued artillery and aerial shelling became amply clear when one considers the fact that Israel only admitted 40-50 truckloads of food and supplies a day, less than ten percent of what people need in Gaza during a full-scale war and after 18-months blockade perpetrated by Israel. This condition is further aggravated by scarcity of fuel, clean water and electricity. In the first few days of the land invasion, Gaza hospitals had inadequate supply of drugs, equipment, blood or electricity, with all the beds occupied long ago and even the corridors filled with the wounded. Israel did not allow more than a handful of the injured to be evacuated to hospitals elsewhere. It deliberately targeted ambulances and medical teams with the excuse that they could be carrying rockets. Along with the extermination of Palestinians, the Israeli authorities made phone calls and dropped leaflets warning Gaza residents to evacuate or face death. Israel’s foreign minister’s kept claiming that there was no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, while its armed forces went on battering residential areas, schools, hospitals, water-supply and electricity infrastructure, and even the UN headquarters in Gaza in the name of targeting the resistance fighters of Hamas. It seems that Israel has accomplished what its Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai’s warned in February 2008: that Gaza was facing a "shoah", the Hebrew word for Holocaust. This criminal misadventure of Israel however has only exposed its fascist designs, and further consolidated the movement for Palestinian national liberation.
Israel-US Imperial Nexus: The recent attacks in the name of war against terror and against the Palestinian peoples’ defensive war are all products of the same imperial war-machine. It was the US which helped the formation of Israeli state for ensuring its own survival, and since then the Israel has been the bridgehead of the US imperialism in West Asia and a safe base for its reactionary maneuvers all across the world. Both the US as well as Israel has closely integrated war-economies, selling weapons and waging wars to sustain itself. The imperialist administration cannot develop or reform its finance without launching wars at its initiative. Many wars and battles are and will be fought under the guidance and support of US imperialism. The US-Israel nexus has to be seen in this context. The US supply of up-to-date 1000 pound ‘bunker buster’ bombs and high-tech missiles to incinerate large numbers of human beings within their deadly radius, its role in overseeing the genocidal war amply makes clear from the statement of the Chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee Howard Berman that “Israel has a right, indeed a duty, to defend itself in response to the hundreds of rockets and mortars fired from Gaza… The loss of innocent life is a terribly tragedy and the blame for that tragedy lies with Hamas.” To the Bermans of the world, only the lives of Israelis matter, not the growing thousands of murdered, dismembered and mutilated Palestinians of Gaza – they do not count as people!
The mass military extermination campaign was a follow up of its non-stop total economic embargo and unremitting selective assassination campaign of the previous two years. Both were designed to purge Palestine of its Arab population, first via mass hunger, disease, humiliation and violent intimidation and the proxy power-grab through the Palestinian Authority under a puppet Mahmoud Abbas, the president. Saudi Arabia, Egypt did not protest the Israel attack. Even the PA controlled by Fatah was not critical. PA is persecuting anyone in the West Bank expressing solidarity with the resistance in Gaza, imprisoning students and professors, journalists and workers, etc.
The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has been working as the perfect agents of Israel and the US, evident from the comment made by a PA official in Ramallah that Israel made a big mistake in ending the attack on Gaza without overthrowing Hamas from the Gaza strip. He said that "the Hamas is still in power is bad for all", meaning bad for the PA as well as Israel-US. The PA is resorting to draconian measures in the West Bank to thwart the spread of sympathy and support for Hamas and the people of Gaza. Hamas, the peoples' representative organization of Gaza, leads a deocratically elected government after defeating Fatah, has won this round of the war. The Hamas may have probably been weakened militarily, but has emerged politically stronger. Israel thinks that "disproportionate" use of force against its adversaries, as it did with Egypt, Jordan, Syria and most recently, Lebanon in 2006, will crush down resistance. The US and Israel has been trying to dislodge Hamas with the help of its agent PA and Mahmoud Abbas, which failed, leading to a direct assault. In the words of the Israel leader: “…because everything is connected to everything…” it is necessary to destroy each and every facet of life, removing all conditions for Palestinians to exist with dignity and freedom. Israel attempted to eliminate the leadership of the Hamas, killing the Gaza commander Major General Tawfik Jabar on the first day of the attack itself. The Interior Minister, Said Siam was also killed, in a targeted attempt to finish off the resistance movement.
The struggle for Tamil Eelam and its fascist repression by the Sri Lankan state: While Gaza was being raged by the fascist Israel state in an attempt to sniff out the liberation movement of the Palestinian people, the Sri Lankan state was no less ruthless in its genocidal war on the Tamils fighting for their free Eelam, which continues till date with the support of Indian state and US imperialism. The occupation of Killinochi and Mullaithivu regions brought the historic Tamil nation in Sri Lanka’s north-east under Sri Lankan military rule, reminding us that the Israeli assault on Gaza is not the only “final solution” pursued by the imperialism and its regional allies across the world. The major suppliers of arms for Sri Lankan government are the US, Israel and India. Israel provides Kfir jets and illegal cluster munitions and also technical trainings for Sri Lankan Special Forces and paramilitary death-squads. As with Hezbollah and Hamas, the LTTE has also been banned as a ‘terrorist’ organisation in several countries in order to curb the scope of peoples’ resistance against imperialist aggression. This fits well to suit Sri Lanka’s strategic significance and also the military, political and theocratic elite that rule the country, maintaining a Western domination of a semi-colonial export-oriented economy.
The Sri Lankan state uses a mythical past drawn from religious texts to claim the whole territory for the Sinhalese, reminding us of Israeli’s claim on Palestinian land on the basis of concocted historical past. But truth is that the Tamil presence in the island dates from antiquity. The assertion of the rights of the Tamils as an oppressed nationality and the struggle for free Eelam has led to the Sri Lanka’s prolonged war against the Tamils involving some of the world’s worst war crimes. As has been the case throughout the conflict, Tamil civilians are facing the brunt of the Sri Lankan force’s brutal and indiscriminate assault. Civilians have been targeted, orphanages and hospitals have been regularly bombed. Torture, rape and random killings have been perpetrated by the state’s military and paramilitary forces. This brutal and inhuman nature of the Sinhala State is in full display in the recent assault launched to wipe off LTTE. Vanni, where the war is now being fought, artillery attacks and aerial bombing have already killed hundreds of civilians, including children. Hospitals, ambulances are being attacked. International organizations are not being allowed to enter those regions. As a result of indiscriminate aerial, naval and ground attacks more than 3000 have been killed and many thousands were injured within past few weeks and displacing over 400,000 who are living in subhuman conditions with no access to food, medicines and drinking water. The so-called international community, the UN, etc. by remaining silent and assenting to Sri Lankan government’s ploy to cut the Eelam area off from any outside contact have proven their true nature as an ally of imperialist forces. As a resident of Vanni noted, "The message the Sri Lankan forces were passing to the civilians of Vanni, by repeated and unprovoked attacks, is that they should subjugate themselves by walking into the territories in the hands of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA)." This was a trap the fighting Tamil people have not fallen into. The Sri Lankan Army intruding deep into the Tamil territory did not find a single person, the whole population moving northwards to avoid its wrath, and possibly to fight back at an opportune time. With the full knowledge that the whole Tamil civilian population is now confined in a region less than 300 kilometers, Sri Lanka continues to pound it with bombardments, the declaration of ‘safe-zones’ notwithstanding.
Indian State’s support to the Imperialist Genocides: The struggles of the Palestinians and Tamils to end occupation are important components of the worldwide anti-imperialist struggle. After the Cold War, the Indian ruling classes have been working as willing agents of US imperialism in South Asia, and with the support of the US trying to implement its expansionist designs in the region. It explains the calculated silence maintained by the Indian state when thousands of civilians were slaughtered in Palestine and Sri Lanka, failing to even condemn the killing of thousands of unarmed civilians. While India continues to maintain strong diplomatic and military ties with Israel in this period, Indian intelligence and security forces were involved in aiding the Sri Lankan forces in its genocide of Tamils in the name of ‘War against Terror.’ The various political parties, media and the so-called civil society and the intellectuals have maintained a criminal silence and failed to take a stand in favour of the oppressed Eelam Tamils. It was however easy to condemn and protest against Israel as it is comfortably distant from the Indian shores.
But even the use of mass-murders, bombs and rapes, blockades and displacements, and disproportionate use of fascist violence amid the US imperialism’s change-of-mask from Bush to Obama, has hardly been able to crush the aspirations of the oppressed people for freedom and dignity. Both in Gaza and Vanni, with little outside support the Palestinians and Tamils are resisting the repeated wars of aggression which has demanded huge sacrifice from the freedom-aspiring people. Surrounded and slaughtered though they are, these attacks have strengthened rather than weakened the liberation movements, steeling the resolve to fight on till the final goal is achieved. As Abu Leila of Hamas told the media from an undisclosed location in Gaza, “The Israelis destroyed a lot of empty buildings but they completely failed to break our organization.” In the same spirit a journalist from Tamil Eelam noted that though the Sri Lankan military is testing the breaking point of the Tamil people, they "are not prepared to surrender themselves.” As history has proven over and over again, the spirit of freedom and justice among the oppressed cannot be crushed by the use of force, and it is only a matter of time when the resistance, whether for a free Palestine or a free Tamil Eelam, succeeds in throwing out the oppressors and achieving liberation
January 24, 2009
Carry Forward the Workers’ Movement on Campus!
Since November 2006, workers on JNU campus have been demanding and fighting for their basic rights and minimum wages. An issue which initially emerged when 15 construction workers at the School of Physical Sciences construction site demanded their full wages, has over the last two years come to involve all sections of contract workers on the campus. Maalis, safai karamcharis, mess workers, workers in the library, along with the JNUSU and students, have all raised their voice in a persistent struggle for certain basic demands, which are still being denied to them by the administration-contractor nexus. They continued in the face of violence by the administration in the form of retrenchment from work, breaking of their jhuggis, threat and intimidation, and other assaults.
Over the course of the struggle the workers realized the importance of and need for collective action and struggle in an organized manner. The demand for an independent Workers’ Union emerged in October 2007 in some sections of the contract workers. This demand quickly spread through all the sections and the process of unionization began when the workers initiated a monthly meeting for all the contract workers on the campus, where common students and the JNUSU would also be present. In the course of this and subsequent meetings, many more demands and grievances came to be articulated. Over the subsequent months, this came to take a more formal structure with representatives from all worksites and contracts, and formulated a charter of demands.
The contract workers formed their union, the JNU Sangharshil Mazdoor Union (JNUSMU) in September 2008 and demonstrated in front of the ad block for the fulfillment of their charter of demands. These include full payment of the minimum wage, payment on time, provision of ESI/PF facilities and proper account number and cards to every worker, provision of ID cards, basic worksite facilities and first-aid and so on. Hundreds of workers, students and some members of the faculty protested and demanded these rights under the banner of JNUSMU and JNUSU. However, the administration refused to recognize the JNUSMU and negotiate with the workers’ representatives, declaring that it was ready to discuss the issues with JNUSU and any individual worker who might have some grievances but not with the JNUSMU. Not surprisingly, the workers who are vocal and active in this process are being targeted or threatened, and some even removed from work, by the corrupt and feudal contractors with the full support of the administration. The administration also signed an order to cut a day’s pay for many workers for the day of the demonstration.
We know that the administration’s recognition of the united contract workers on the campus can only come through a consistent and strong struggle of the JNUSMU. The JNUSMU has come to the phase of formulating a Constitution to give due direction to the Workers Union and formulating a formal structure, which we think is a necessary step towards a democratic unionization of workers. There is currently an initiative of workers and students which would culminate in the drafting and adopting of the JNUSMU Constitution.
In this context, we call upon the JNUSU to strengthen the solidarity between the students and workers, and to support and assist the JNUSMU in any way necessary in the writing of a formal constitution. In recent times we have seen signs of apathy and disinterest on the part of JNUSU leadership to engage in the ongoing workers’ struggle on the campus, whereas there is a need for the JNUSU to take proactive role in supporting the workers’ movement. The workers and students look forward to the JNUSU to once again take up the issue of the construction workers in the process of drafting the Constitution, who are as yet being denied their full wages by the administration and contractors, in the massive work taken up for the 'beautification' of this 'world class' university. The struggle for implementation of rights and dignity of all contract workers on campus is an ever-continuing one, and needs an active and persistent support and solidarity from all other sections of the campus. We appeal to the JNUSU and the campus community to come out in full force, to assist and support the JNUSMU in this crucial stage of clinching a progressive, democratic Constitution for the united contract workers of the campus.
November 16, 2008
Public Meeting: Sri Lanka's Genocidal War on Eelam Tamils and the Question of Nation's Self-Determination
Self-determination of nations in the Marxist programme cannot, from a historico-economic point of view, have any other meaning than political self-determination, state independence, and the formation of a national state. - Lenin
Genocidal war on Eelam Tamils by the fascist Sri Lankan state: For the last two weeks, the Sri Lankan armed forces have been engaged in an aggressive war with the people of Tamil Eelam, aimed not only at the combatants but the entire civilian population. As a result, Thousands of Tamils have been killed, wounded and have been forcefully displaced. It is not a war between the Sri Lankan army and the LTTE as the mainstream media tries to portray, but is an attempt by the Sri Lankan state to wipe out the entire Tamil population from the island, in the cover of eliminating the LTTE. Schools, orphanages, hospitals had been made targets of indiscriminate aerial bombings by the Sri Lankan Air Force. For example, 61 children from “Sencholai” (Red Garden), a home for children who lost their parents in war, recently died in one such attack. Sri Lanka Army’s Deep Penetration Unit fired upon a civilian bus travelling from Madhu to Paalampiddi in January 2008 killing 20, of whom 11 were school children, and injured 14 out of whom eight were children. No civilian area has been spared by the air force, which are attacked on an everyday basis. Bunkers have become an inevitable infrastructure in all schools. It is as if the Sri Lankan government wants to create a graveyard in the whole of Tamil populated areas in the Eelam. Such an approach is consistent with the Sri Lankan President’s comment that this is the final assault to finish off the ‘terrorist’ LTTE, only after which it will think of any ‘talks’ with the Tamils! We have heard many times about the ‘final solution’ to the Tamil national question by Sri Lankan presidents through the use of brute force, but the Tamils fighting for their separate country has defeated the wars of aggression every time in the past. This time too, even with thousands of casualties, the Tamil people are bravely resisting the might of the Sri Lankan state, and this time too, its misadventure is bound to culminate in failure. The struggle of the Eelam Tamils for an independent country has emerged out of a historic experience of oppression and subjugation in the hands of the Singhalese nation. This reflects the political aspirations of the Tamil people to be free of Singhalese national oppression, and it can only have a political solution, and not a purely military one. It is therefore necessary for all the democratic voices to recognise and stand by the inalienable right of the Eelam Tamils to self-determination through secession from Sri Lanka, and to oppose the ongoing genocidal war of aggression by the Sri Lankan state on the freedom-aspiring Tamils in the northern and eastern parts of the island country.
The approach of the Sri Lankan state: Irrespective of the parties in power in Colombo, the response of the Singahlese ruling classes in Sri Lanka towards the democratic aspirations of the Tamils have primarily been through the use of brute force. In 1983 itself, the then President Jayawardene declared that “I am not worried about the opinion of the Tamil people …now we cannot think of them. not their life or their opinion …the more you put pressure in north, the happier the Sinhala people will be here… really if I starve the Tamils out, the Sinhala people will be happy”. From the time direct British colonial rule ended in 1948, the successive Singhalese governments have followed a consistent policy of national oppression and discrimination towards the Tamil minorities, denying their basic rights and opportunities for socio-economic development. Land settlement policies implemented from 1950s onwards displaced millions of Tamils in the northern and eastern districts such as Mannur and Mulai Thivu in a planned manner, which were then redistributed among Singhalese peasants and landless labourers. The Sri Lankan parliament declared Buddhism as the state religion, and pursued a policy of discrimination against other religious minorities. The ‘Sinhala-Buddhist Only Act’ formulated in 1956 declared Sinhala as the only official language, which was against the policy so far followed of recognizing both Sinhala and Tamil as state language. Further, in 1970, discrimination against Tamil youths pursuing higher studies in the name of standardization led to a drastic decline in their entry to government jobs. In 1979 the Sri Lankan state enacted the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act to cope with the growing militancy among the Tamils. This Act and the subsequent crackdown by the army of Tamil youths confirmed the fears of the Tamils that the Sinhalese government was hell bent to exterminate them.
These are only a few examples from the history of a long-running process of calculated oppression and discrimination by the Sri Lankan state towards the Tamil minorities. The Tamils in Sri Lanka initially voiced their opposition peacefully to these oppressive and undemocratic policies, such as the mass resignation of Tamil MPs in 1956 and 1958, a series of demonstrations and strikes in Colombo, etc. The response of the Sri Lankan state then, as now, has been to unleash a reign of terror and brute force through the army on the agitating Tamil population, leading to the first major wave of Tamil refugees to the northern and eastern parts of the island in 1958. The state-sponsored massacre of hundreds of Tamils in 1983 made the question of self-determination through peaceful means decisively redundant, and pushed the Tamils in Sri Lanka to the path of armed struggle for national liberation of Eelam, a path made crimson by the blood of thousands of martyrs. This war has also helped the Sinhalese ruling classes in diverting the attention from the basic issues of livelihood and economic development of the people of the country in general, with a large part of the GDP spent in financing the exorbitant defense budget.
The Tamil national movement for an independent Eelam: With the democratic aspirations and demands of the national minority in Sri Lanka crushed ruthlessly, the Tamil parliamentary parties passed the historic Vettukottai Resolution in 1977 where demand for a separate Tamil Eelam was raised for the first time under the banner of Tamil United Liberation Front. From that time onwards, for more than 30 years the struggle for a separate Eelam is being waged by the Tamils, withstanding untold repression of the Sri Lankan armed forces which is aided directly or indirectly by Indian state and its imperial master, the U.S. The war imposed on the freedom-aspiring Tamils took genocidal proportions in 1995 and 2000, in 2002 when the ceasefire agreement was broken, and again now in 2008. The Sri Lankan state has violated agreements signed with the Tamil representatives over and over again, and now it is imposing the precondition of laying down arms, in one word surrender, before any negotiation. The Tamils have been facing the choice between fighting for freedom at the risk of death or living as slaves throughout the period of this decades-long war. The Tamils have been offered and they have rejected a negotiated settlement through international mediation many times in the past, which could have led to peace, but a peace without justice. An uncompromising struggle for national self-determination, the fight for a free Eelam has emerged as one of the foremost nationality movements in the world, which have been demonized and isolated by the present imperialist world order led by U.S. imperialism. Rather than recognizing and upholding the just demand of the Tamil national minority, the rulers of India represented by Congress, BJP or even the so-called communists CPI(M) has acted as the faithful South Asian agents of U.S. interests in repressing the Tamil Eelam movement.
Indian state, the faithful agent of U.S. imperialism in South Asia: India has been following an expansionist policy towards its neighbouring countries in South Asia, and has even militarily intervened more than once in their internal affairs. In Sri Lanka too, under this policy of furthering its own geo-political interests (which is tied to the interests of U.S. imperialism) Indian state initially supported the armed struggle of the Eelam Tamils. But soon the Indian state joined hands with the Sri Lankan government to suppress the movement, and sent the Indian Peace Keeping Force in 1986 which created mayhem in the Tamil populated areas in Sri Lanka, killing, raping and maiming thousands. After a complete military defeat of the Indian mercenary army it was forced to retreat, but Indian ruling classes, irrespective of the party in power, has till date continued full diplomatic and military support to the fascist Sri Lankan state. Pranab Mukherjee, the defence minister has this week stated that India will not stop military aid to Sri Lanka, and expressed its willingness to help the Rajapakshe government in carrying out the present genocide of Tamils. A Sri Lankan army official has recently revealed that Sri Lankan military officers are being trained in Dehradun and Gurgaon military camps by the Indian army. But this is not all. According to some media reports, hundreds of Indian military personnel are directly involved in the present war, serving in Sri Lankan armed forces in advanced battle fronts. Such overt and covert support is not surprising, given the Indian state’s anti-democratic and pro-imperialist character, which itself has been crushing the genuine demands of various nationalities, such as Kashmiris, Nagas, Manipuris and Assamese and others within its territorial boundaries through the use of superior military might. It is not possible for Sri Lanka to continue its war against the Tamil national minorities without the approval of the Indian state, and Rajapakshe’s constant visits to New Delhi of late makes it clear that Indian government is actively supporting the present war. And being the foremost custodian of U.S. interests in South Asia, it is not difficult to conclude that India is given a go-ahead in this by Washington itself.
The so-called Marxist parties such as CPI, CPI(M) or CPI ML (Liberation) too has abandoned the Leninist principle of supporting the democratic demand of national self-determination, including secession, and have failed to force the Indian state from following a policy of non-intervention in Sri Lanka. They are equally responsible for castigating the movement for Tamil Eelam as ‘terrorism’, thereby helping in its brutal repression. Major regional parties in Tamil Nadu, whether DMK or AIDMK which never fails to celebrate Tamil nationalism to garner votes, have utterly failed to take any decisive action to prevent the ongoing massacre and displacement of thousands of Tamils in Eelam. Close to than 60,000 people have died and nearly 3 lakh have been displaced so far during this war, most of whom are Tamils. The media also has played its devious role in hiding the true situation of Eelam Tamils, which is uncritically presenting the biased versions spoon-fed by the Sri Lankan government, or completely blacking out this calculated extermination of an entire population in the name of ‘war against terror’. The Indian media, such as the casteist and Brahmanical Hindu group run by N. Ram, too is guilty of justifying this brutal repression, rather than building a public opinion against this unceasing cold-blooded massacre of hundreds of civilians on an everyday basis.
The need of the Hour: The Sri Lankan government, in its attempt to silently carry out this latest military misadventure to sniff out the Tamil resistance, has expelled all humanitarian agencies including the Red Cross as well as the international media from the war front. Of late the Sri Lankan forces have also stopped providing data about casualties in the ongoing war. Such criminal attempts of systematically silencing democratic and genuine rights of the people by use of force will inevitably fail. We must demand an immediate and unconditional declaration of cease-fire from the Sri Lankan government and a stop to the genocide in Tamil Eelam. At the same time, following the principles of Marxism-Leninism, which stands unequivocally in favour of the right to self-determination of the oppressed nationalities, we must raise our voice in support of the demand of Eelam Tamils for independence. It is high-time that the Sri Lankan and Indian ruling classes as well as their master U.S. realize that only a free and independent Tamil Eelam can ensure permanent resolution to the nationality question in Sri Lanka, and only a unity based on justice and equality of the two nations can usher in peace in the island. Moreover, only an integration of the revolutionary class struggle with the national liberation struggles can effectively fight feudalism and imperialism, two primary enemies of the people in the Third World countries.
Genocidal war on Eelam Tamils by the fascist Sri Lankan state: For the last two weeks, the Sri Lankan armed forces have been engaged in an aggressive war with the people of Tamil Eelam, aimed not only at the combatants but the entire civilian population. As a result, Thousands of Tamils have been killed, wounded and have been forcefully displaced. It is not a war between the Sri Lankan army and the LTTE as the mainstream media tries to portray, but is an attempt by the Sri Lankan state to wipe out the entire Tamil population from the island, in the cover of eliminating the LTTE. Schools, orphanages, hospitals had been made targets of indiscriminate aerial bombings by the Sri Lankan Air Force. For example, 61 children from “Sencholai” (Red Garden), a home for children who lost their parents in war, recently died in one such attack. Sri Lanka Army’s Deep Penetration Unit fired upon a civilian bus travelling from Madhu to Paalampiddi in January 2008 killing 20, of whom 11 were school children, and injured 14 out of whom eight were children. No civilian area has been spared by the air force, which are attacked on an everyday basis. Bunkers have become an inevitable infrastructure in all schools. It is as if the Sri Lankan government wants to create a graveyard in the whole of Tamil populated areas in the Eelam. Such an approach is consistent with the Sri Lankan President’s comment that this is the final assault to finish off the ‘terrorist’ LTTE, only after which it will think of any ‘talks’ with the Tamils! We have heard many times about the ‘final solution’ to the Tamil national question by Sri Lankan presidents through the use of brute force, but the Tamils fighting for their separate country has defeated the wars of aggression every time in the past. This time too, even with thousands of casualties, the Tamil people are bravely resisting the might of the Sri Lankan state, and this time too, its misadventure is bound to culminate in failure. The struggle of the Eelam Tamils for an independent country has emerged out of a historic experience of oppression and subjugation in the hands of the Singhalese nation. This reflects the political aspirations of the Tamil people to be free of Singhalese national oppression, and it can only have a political solution, and not a purely military one. It is therefore necessary for all the democratic voices to recognise and stand by the inalienable right of the Eelam Tamils to self-determination through secession from Sri Lanka, and to oppose the ongoing genocidal war of aggression by the Sri Lankan state on the freedom-aspiring Tamils in the northern and eastern parts of the island country.
The approach of the Sri Lankan state: Irrespective of the parties in power in Colombo, the response of the Singahlese ruling classes in Sri Lanka towards the democratic aspirations of the Tamils have primarily been through the use of brute force. In 1983 itself, the then President Jayawardene declared that “I am not worried about the opinion of the Tamil people …now we cannot think of them. not their life or their opinion …the more you put pressure in north, the happier the Sinhala people will be here… really if I starve the Tamils out, the Sinhala people will be happy”. From the time direct British colonial rule ended in 1948, the successive Singhalese governments have followed a consistent policy of national oppression and discrimination towards the Tamil minorities, denying their basic rights and opportunities for socio-economic development. Land settlement policies implemented from 1950s onwards displaced millions of Tamils in the northern and eastern districts such as Mannur and Mulai Thivu in a planned manner, which were then redistributed among Singhalese peasants and landless labourers. The Sri Lankan parliament declared Buddhism as the state religion, and pursued a policy of discrimination against other religious minorities. The ‘Sinhala-Buddhist Only Act’ formulated in 1956 declared Sinhala as the only official language, which was against the policy so far followed of recognizing both Sinhala and Tamil as state language. Further, in 1970, discrimination against Tamil youths pursuing higher studies in the name of standardization led to a drastic decline in their entry to government jobs. In 1979 the Sri Lankan state enacted the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act to cope with the growing militancy among the Tamils. This Act and the subsequent crackdown by the army of Tamil youths confirmed the fears of the Tamils that the Sinhalese government was hell bent to exterminate them.
These are only a few examples from the history of a long-running process of calculated oppression and discrimination by the Sri Lankan state towards the Tamil minorities. The Tamils in Sri Lanka initially voiced their opposition peacefully to these oppressive and undemocratic policies, such as the mass resignation of Tamil MPs in 1956 and 1958, a series of demonstrations and strikes in Colombo, etc. The response of the Sri Lankan state then, as now, has been to unleash a reign of terror and brute force through the army on the agitating Tamil population, leading to the first major wave of Tamil refugees to the northern and eastern parts of the island in 1958. The state-sponsored massacre of hundreds of Tamils in 1983 made the question of self-determination through peaceful means decisively redundant, and pushed the Tamils in Sri Lanka to the path of armed struggle for national liberation of Eelam, a path made crimson by the blood of thousands of martyrs. This war has also helped the Sinhalese ruling classes in diverting the attention from the basic issues of livelihood and economic development of the people of the country in general, with a large part of the GDP spent in financing the exorbitant defense budget.
The Tamil national movement for an independent Eelam: With the democratic aspirations and demands of the national minority in Sri Lanka crushed ruthlessly, the Tamil parliamentary parties passed the historic Vettukottai Resolution in 1977 where demand for a separate Tamil Eelam was raised for the first time under the banner of Tamil United Liberation Front. From that time onwards, for more than 30 years the struggle for a separate Eelam is being waged by the Tamils, withstanding untold repression of the Sri Lankan armed forces which is aided directly or indirectly by Indian state and its imperial master, the U.S. The war imposed on the freedom-aspiring Tamils took genocidal proportions in 1995 and 2000, in 2002 when the ceasefire agreement was broken, and again now in 2008. The Sri Lankan state has violated agreements signed with the Tamil representatives over and over again, and now it is imposing the precondition of laying down arms, in one word surrender, before any negotiation. The Tamils have been facing the choice between fighting for freedom at the risk of death or living as slaves throughout the period of this decades-long war. The Tamils have been offered and they have rejected a negotiated settlement through international mediation many times in the past, which could have led to peace, but a peace without justice. An uncompromising struggle for national self-determination, the fight for a free Eelam has emerged as one of the foremost nationality movements in the world, which have been demonized and isolated by the present imperialist world order led by U.S. imperialism. Rather than recognizing and upholding the just demand of the Tamil national minority, the rulers of India represented by Congress, BJP or even the so-called communists CPI(M) has acted as the faithful South Asian agents of U.S. interests in repressing the Tamil Eelam movement.
Indian state, the faithful agent of U.S. imperialism in South Asia: India has been following an expansionist policy towards its neighbouring countries in South Asia, and has even militarily intervened more than once in their internal affairs. In Sri Lanka too, under this policy of furthering its own geo-political interests (which is tied to the interests of U.S. imperialism) Indian state initially supported the armed struggle of the Eelam Tamils. But soon the Indian state joined hands with the Sri Lankan government to suppress the movement, and sent the Indian Peace Keeping Force in 1986 which created mayhem in the Tamil populated areas in Sri Lanka, killing, raping and maiming thousands. After a complete military defeat of the Indian mercenary army it was forced to retreat, but Indian ruling classes, irrespective of the party in power, has till date continued full diplomatic and military support to the fascist Sri Lankan state. Pranab Mukherjee, the defence minister has this week stated that India will not stop military aid to Sri Lanka, and expressed its willingness to help the Rajapakshe government in carrying out the present genocide of Tamils. A Sri Lankan army official has recently revealed that Sri Lankan military officers are being trained in Dehradun and Gurgaon military camps by the Indian army. But this is not all. According to some media reports, hundreds of Indian military personnel are directly involved in the present war, serving in Sri Lankan armed forces in advanced battle fronts. Such overt and covert support is not surprising, given the Indian state’s anti-democratic and pro-imperialist character, which itself has been crushing the genuine demands of various nationalities, such as Kashmiris, Nagas, Manipuris and Assamese and others within its territorial boundaries through the use of superior military might. It is not possible for Sri Lanka to continue its war against the Tamil national minorities without the approval of the Indian state, and Rajapakshe’s constant visits to New Delhi of late makes it clear that Indian government is actively supporting the present war. And being the foremost custodian of U.S. interests in South Asia, it is not difficult to conclude that India is given a go-ahead in this by Washington itself.
The so-called Marxist parties such as CPI, CPI(M) or CPI ML (Liberation) too has abandoned the Leninist principle of supporting the democratic demand of national self-determination, including secession, and have failed to force the Indian state from following a policy of non-intervention in Sri Lanka. They are equally responsible for castigating the movement for Tamil Eelam as ‘terrorism’, thereby helping in its brutal repression. Major regional parties in Tamil Nadu, whether DMK or AIDMK which never fails to celebrate Tamil nationalism to garner votes, have utterly failed to take any decisive action to prevent the ongoing massacre and displacement of thousands of Tamils in Eelam. Close to than 60,000 people have died and nearly 3 lakh have been displaced so far during this war, most of whom are Tamils. The media also has played its devious role in hiding the true situation of Eelam Tamils, which is uncritically presenting the biased versions spoon-fed by the Sri Lankan government, or completely blacking out this calculated extermination of an entire population in the name of ‘war against terror’. The Indian media, such as the casteist and Brahmanical Hindu group run by N. Ram, too is guilty of justifying this brutal repression, rather than building a public opinion against this unceasing cold-blooded massacre of hundreds of civilians on an everyday basis.
The need of the Hour: The Sri Lankan government, in its attempt to silently carry out this latest military misadventure to sniff out the Tamil resistance, has expelled all humanitarian agencies including the Red Cross as well as the international media from the war front. Of late the Sri Lankan forces have also stopped providing data about casualties in the ongoing war. Such criminal attempts of systematically silencing democratic and genuine rights of the people by use of force will inevitably fail. We must demand an immediate and unconditional declaration of cease-fire from the Sri Lankan government and a stop to the genocide in Tamil Eelam. At the same time, following the principles of Marxism-Leninism, which stands unequivocally in favour of the right to self-determination of the oppressed nationalities, we must raise our voice in support of the demand of Eelam Tamils for independence. It is high-time that the Sri Lankan and Indian ruling classes as well as their master U.S. realize that only a free and independent Tamil Eelam can ensure permanent resolution to the nationality question in Sri Lanka, and only a unity based on justice and equality of the two nations can usher in peace in the island. Moreover, only an integration of the revolutionary class struggle with the national liberation struggles can effectively fight feudalism and imperialism, two primary enemies of the people in the Third World countries.
November 11, 2008
Condemn the attack on Prof. S A R Geelani by ABVP lumpens in Delhi University! Punish the ABVP lumpens!
The communal fascist lumpens of the ABVP and RSS unmasked their fascist face yet again in DU. On the 6th of November, a seminar on ‘Communalism, Fascism and Democracy: Rhetoric and Reality’ was organised by a group of DU students. SAR Geelani, lecturer of Zakir Hussein College and DU was chairing the seminar. As soon as Prof. Geelani entered, some ABVP lumpens entered the hall. One of them went up to the dais and spat on Geelani’s face. The rest led by Nupur Sharma, the DUSU president, went on a rampage across the room, breaking the mikes, furniture and glass panes of doors and windows. The police being a silent onlooker, finally the students pushed these goons out of the room. The doors were closed from inside and the seminar went on successfully. The lumpens however kept breaking the remaining windows from outside and hurled abuses against Geelani in particular and the Muslim community in general.
What happened in DU did not come as a shock or a surprise. It was indeed the continuation of what happened in DU history department last semester when these same goons vandalized it and assaulted its HoD Prof. Jafri, because they did not agree with a portion of the history syllabus. It is the same communal and fascist ideology that propelled their friends in JNU to go on rampage in the presidential debate last year because they did not agree with a statement made by a speaker. And all this makes their fascist ideology too clear for everyone to see. You can not say things which I don’t agree to! You can not practice a religion which I don’t belong to! If you demand anything which I don’t like, you are a terrorist! It is the same politics of silencing people of different faith, ideology or culture which we have seen in so many instances of communal pogroms.
However the politics of the sangh parivar is NOT one of communalism alone. It is equally casteist and patriarchal. The same fascist ideology that led into the mass killing of Muslims with the help of the state in Gujarat was operating behind the mass murder of dalits in Jehanabad or Laxmanpur-Bathe. It was the same people who mass-raped in Jhabua, who try to force women to become sati even today. They are the same lot who in the name of salwa judum are trying to force the tribals out of the forests in Bastar to capture the land for the MNCs. The practice of whipping up of communal sentiments to cover up the lack of real development in every aspect of social lives of this country had been an old and regular tactic for the Indian ruling classes. The right wing parties, be it the Congress or the BJP and their various allies have always used the communal card to misdirect the real grievances of the people reeling under deplorable conditions. Just like the Nazis did with the Jews in Germany, the Hindutva brigade picks out the Muslim community as the scapegoat for all the problems, real or imaginary. And then we have the Mosque demolitions; the post-Ayodhya riots; Gujarat genocide; the mysterious bomb blasts and the fake encounters… The list seems never-ending.
They have full backing of the administration and the state. Be it JNU or even DU these lumpens are not large in number. But they are emboldened because of the institutionalized protection they are ensured of. In JNU after a prolonged enquiry and despite a positive report by the Shankar Basu Committee, all the identified goons of the ABVP who had done the rampage in presidential debate were let off. The Chandrabhaga hostel incident has been hushed up completely by the administration. In DU too no action has been taken against the goons who vandalized History department. And the larger scenario of state sponsored communal-fascism is too evident by now. The Gujarat genocide was made possible by the active involvement of the state machinery. The salwa judum has been created and armed by the state to forcefully evict the tribals. The Malegaon and Nanded blasts have not called for any action against the accused.
Playing the game of ‘democracy’: 60 years since the so-called independence and the role reversals of NDA and UPA for the last ten years only exposes the communal colour of the parliamentary parties. Be it the right or the “left”-wing, the Muslims Christians other religious minorities in this ‘democracy’ are vested with only two identities. They are either vote-bank or terrorist to all the parties that are in or are craving for power. The parliamentary ‘Left’ has equally failed to see the communal specter being rooted into the material conditions of the society. This willful blindness is understandable, because they too are intrinsically a part of the same system that breeds the fascists. Naturally, their opposition to the hindu right is restricted to supporting the Congress in place of BJP! The same congress, whose neo-liberal policies create the ground for communal-fascism. Buddhadev Bhatatcharya is following the same policy in his state in a bid to woo investors. And in the process when it comes to repression, they quickly adopt the same politics of communal-fascism. The peasants of Nandigram who were fighting for their land were termed both ‘Maoist’ and ‘Islamic fundamentalist’ by the CPM government. Kerala government too recently has arrested two people who had Geelani’s photo on their computer, as potential terrorists!
Then there are the parliamentary exigencies. The so-called ‘left’ parties (actually, all parties) frequently ally with former or future partners of BJP, making a mockery of the struggle against communalism. Even the more-radical-than-thou CPIML-Liberation (the parent party of AISA) who have been courting the CPI & CPM for national level alliances, ended up allying with Nitish Kumar’s Samata party, who went on to join the NDA and now rules Bihar. Liberation’s ally in the last Bihar assembly elections, Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP is a former ally of BJP. Such is the magic of India’s parliamentary politics!
There is only force that the Sanghi lumpens are scared of. It is the collective strength of the people. Unless we protest, we assert, force them to retreat, they will keep assaulting the democratic spaces and try to throttle all the voices that seek to challenge them. The attack on SAR Geelani was not just an attack on an individual. It is a concerted attack on our right to expression and dissent, on rights of people to challenge the state-driven policies. We have to decide which side we are on!
What happened in DU did not come as a shock or a surprise. It was indeed the continuation of what happened in DU history department last semester when these same goons vandalized it and assaulted its HoD Prof. Jafri, because they did not agree with a portion of the history syllabus. It is the same communal and fascist ideology that propelled their friends in JNU to go on rampage in the presidential debate last year because they did not agree with a statement made by a speaker. And all this makes their fascist ideology too clear for everyone to see. You can not say things which I don’t agree to! You can not practice a religion which I don’t belong to! If you demand anything which I don’t like, you are a terrorist! It is the same politics of silencing people of different faith, ideology or culture which we have seen in so many instances of communal pogroms.
However the politics of the sangh parivar is NOT one of communalism alone. It is equally casteist and patriarchal. The same fascist ideology that led into the mass killing of Muslims with the help of the state in Gujarat was operating behind the mass murder of dalits in Jehanabad or Laxmanpur-Bathe. It was the same people who mass-raped in Jhabua, who try to force women to become sati even today. They are the same lot who in the name of salwa judum are trying to force the tribals out of the forests in Bastar to capture the land for the MNCs. The practice of whipping up of communal sentiments to cover up the lack of real development in every aspect of social lives of this country had been an old and regular tactic for the Indian ruling classes. The right wing parties, be it the Congress or the BJP and their various allies have always used the communal card to misdirect the real grievances of the people reeling under deplorable conditions. Just like the Nazis did with the Jews in Germany, the Hindutva brigade picks out the Muslim community as the scapegoat for all the problems, real or imaginary. And then we have the Mosque demolitions; the post-Ayodhya riots; Gujarat genocide; the mysterious bomb blasts and the fake encounters… The list seems never-ending.
They have full backing of the administration and the state. Be it JNU or even DU these lumpens are not large in number. But they are emboldened because of the institutionalized protection they are ensured of. In JNU after a prolonged enquiry and despite a positive report by the Shankar Basu Committee, all the identified goons of the ABVP who had done the rampage in presidential debate were let off. The Chandrabhaga hostel incident has been hushed up completely by the administration. In DU too no action has been taken against the goons who vandalized History department. And the larger scenario of state sponsored communal-fascism is too evident by now. The Gujarat genocide was made possible by the active involvement of the state machinery. The salwa judum has been created and armed by the state to forcefully evict the tribals. The Malegaon and Nanded blasts have not called for any action against the accused.
Playing the game of ‘democracy’: 60 years since the so-called independence and the role reversals of NDA and UPA for the last ten years only exposes the communal colour of the parliamentary parties. Be it the right or the “left”-wing, the Muslims Christians other religious minorities in this ‘democracy’ are vested with only two identities. They are either vote-bank or terrorist to all the parties that are in or are craving for power. The parliamentary ‘Left’ has equally failed to see the communal specter being rooted into the material conditions of the society. This willful blindness is understandable, because they too are intrinsically a part of the same system that breeds the fascists. Naturally, their opposition to the hindu right is restricted to supporting the Congress in place of BJP! The same congress, whose neo-liberal policies create the ground for communal-fascism. Buddhadev Bhatatcharya is following the same policy in his state in a bid to woo investors. And in the process when it comes to repression, they quickly adopt the same politics of communal-fascism. The peasants of Nandigram who were fighting for their land were termed both ‘Maoist’ and ‘Islamic fundamentalist’ by the CPM government. Kerala government too recently has arrested two people who had Geelani’s photo on their computer, as potential terrorists!
Then there are the parliamentary exigencies. The so-called ‘left’ parties (actually, all parties) frequently ally with former or future partners of BJP, making a mockery of the struggle against communalism. Even the more-radical-than-thou CPIML-Liberation (the parent party of AISA) who have been courting the CPI & CPM for national level alliances, ended up allying with Nitish Kumar’s Samata party, who went on to join the NDA and now rules Bihar. Liberation’s ally in the last Bihar assembly elections, Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP is a former ally of BJP. Such is the magic of India’s parliamentary politics!
There is only force that the Sanghi lumpens are scared of. It is the collective strength of the people. Unless we protest, we assert, force them to retreat, they will keep assaulting the democratic spaces and try to throttle all the voices that seek to challenge them. The attack on SAR Geelani was not just an attack on an individual. It is a concerted attack on our right to expression and dissent, on rights of people to challenge the state-driven policies. We have to decide which side we are on!
Condemn the attack on Prof. S A R Geelani by the ABVP!
Stand in solidarity with the people of Orissa, Karnataka,
and other places fighting against communal-fascist RSS-VHP-BJP!
Join
PROTEST
MARCH
9.30pm 10 Nov . 2008 (Tonight)
From
November 07, 2008
Condemn the assault and vandalism of the fascist ABVP-RSS in Delhi Univesity!
Today on 6th of November students and teachers of
The ABVP goons attacked the women students and participants, broke the microphone and hurled chairs. They also manhandled media persons who were covering the meeting. Sahi and Ramchandran, who were speakers at the meeting, were threatened by the communal-fascist goons. At this point, the Pro-Vice Chancellor and the Proctor called one of the organisers and told him that the meeting could not go on because it was creating a 'law and order' problem! It was the courage and resistance of the audience who insisted on continuing the meeting that even after such intimidation, threats and open display of vandalism that the meeting could be continued. The ABVP goons were pushed out of the room by the audience and the meeting continued. The lumpens however continued to throw stones at the room, broke window panes, tried to break the doors and hurled abuses on the speakers and the organizers in the presence and support of a large contingent of Delhi Police. SAR Geelani in particular was targeted. All their attempts at scuttling the meeting however ended in failure and Geelani delivered his speech to an applauding audience, much like in JNU where the ABVP lumpens had to flee due to the collective resistance of the university community. It is to be noted that last year too, the faculty members and students of the Delhi University History Department were targeted by the same goons who are yet to be punished.
The communal-fascist politics of the sangh-giroh in Gujarat, Orissa, Karnataka,
1. The DU administration lodge a FIR against the ABVP culprits, especially persons like Nupur Sharma, Vikas Dahiya, Desh Ratan, Sonu Singh, Ashutosh and others.
2. A time-bound enquiry into today’s act of vandalism and assault and action against the guilty.
3. To ensure that such acts of assault and disruption are not repeated in future
November 02, 2008
A University that does not allow dissent becomes a prison!
The recent stay on JNUSU elections for violation of the Lyngdoh recommendations is yet another instance of direct state intervention to curb democratic movements, of students this time, to crush the voices of dissent. This is yet another attempt of the state to depoliticize students’ politics and to curtail our rights question and protest.
Is Lyngdoh really aiming at curbing money and muscle power as many would like us to believe? Well, the Amicus Curie in Supreme Court who is entitled to oversee the violations of Lyngdoh Committee recommendations has not sent a single letter to the universities that have not started election process following the recommendations of the report or to the universities like DU which have openly and blatantly flouted the recommendations by using as much money and muscle power as it used to do. But it did stay the JNUSU elections because the real aim of Lyngdoh is to curb politicization of the students and create students’ unions which are bureaucratized, depoliticized and works as a puppet of university authorities. Where students’ politics is cocooned within a limited frame and not allowed to debate, discuss and vote on issues of social and political importance.
All laws come with a ‘progressive face’. No laws formulated and implemented by the state openly claims to repress. The POTA, TADA, MCOCA etc where brought forward to ensure ‘national integrity’. The AFSPA was brought with the pretext of ‘national security’, the SEZ act came in with the aim of ‘development’. But these laws are actually aimed to repress, to deny the democratic rights to the people, to throttle the voices of dissent, and to liquidate people’s movements against the powers that be. The Lyngdoh committee recommendations with all its so-called progressive aims are ultimately aimed at curbing the democratic movements of the students and to silence the voices of critique and dissent that emerges through these movements.
Is it a matter that concerns the ‘political lot’ of JNU only? The stay on JNUSU election is not just an order against the election process. It is a direct assault on the students’ movement and politics. And politics in this campus is far wide spread than just elections. Some people say Lyngdoh has praised the JNU model. But that model is not only about the technicalities that ensure a money-muscle free peaceful election. It is an evolved model of political consciousness, of the culture of debate, the courage to question and critique anything, the right to protest and to fight for rights and justice, to fight against oppression and injustice. And not surprisingly these are the things that Mr.Lyngdoh’s recommendations ultimately aim to curb. JNU student movement has fought against the way JNU is being subtly corporatised, against the monopoly of nestle outlet, when workers’ rights are openly being violated, when reservation is craftily denied, when communal lumpens are shielded by the administration. Any issues pertaining to students’ welfare, be it the fight against privatization of the university, fight against fee-hike, fight to build new hostels, to hike the MCM amount, to recognize Alimiyat –Fazilat certificates, or the fight to ensure and regularize scholarships etc. have all been clinched with collective struggles of students and under the banner of JNUSU. And all these struggles were political fights against a casteist, communal and patriarchal administration which is hell-bent on corporatising and eventually privatizing the university in due course as per the Birla-Ambani Report. Lyngdoh and his reactionary recommendations are only here to facilitate that. The rich political debates on campus where students not only build their opinions but also vote on the larger questions of imperialist aggression, on state repression, the neo-economic policies, the nuke deal, SEZs, land grab and the fight against it, the movements on nationality question etc. are also contradictory to the ‘integrationist’ and ‘nationalist’ politics that Mr. Lyngdoh recommends.
Is Lyngdoh really aiming at curbing money and muscle power as many would like us to believe? Well, the Amicus Curie in Supreme Court who is entitled to oversee the violations of Lyngdoh Committee recommendations has not sent a single letter to the universities that have not started election process following the recommendations of the report or to the universities like DU which have openly and blatantly flouted the recommendations by using as much money and muscle power as it used to do. But it did stay the JNUSU elections because the real aim of Lyngdoh is to curb politicization of the students and create students’ unions which are bureaucratized, depoliticized and works as a puppet of university authorities. Where students’ politics is cocooned within a limited frame and not allowed to debate, discuss and vote on issues of social and political importance.
All laws come with a ‘progressive face’. No laws formulated and implemented by the state openly claims to repress. The POTA, TADA, MCOCA etc where brought forward to ensure ‘national integrity’. The AFSPA was brought with the pretext of ‘national security’, the SEZ act came in with the aim of ‘development’. But these laws are actually aimed to repress, to deny the democratic rights to the people, to throttle the voices of dissent, and to liquidate people’s movements against the powers that be. The Lyngdoh committee recommendations with all its so-called progressive aims are ultimately aimed at curbing the democratic movements of the students and to silence the voices of critique and dissent that emerges through these movements.
Is it a matter that concerns the ‘political lot’ of JNU only? The stay on JNUSU election is not just an order against the election process. It is a direct assault on the students’ movement and politics. And politics in this campus is far wide spread than just elections. Some people say Lyngdoh has praised the JNU model. But that model is not only about the technicalities that ensure a money-muscle free peaceful election. It is an evolved model of political consciousness, of the culture of debate, the courage to question and critique anything, the right to protest and to fight for rights and justice, to fight against oppression and injustice. And not surprisingly these are the things that Mr.Lyngdoh’s recommendations ultimately aim to curb. JNU student movement has fought against the way JNU is being subtly corporatised, against the monopoly of nestle outlet, when workers’ rights are openly being violated, when reservation is craftily denied, when communal lumpens are shielded by the administration. Any issues pertaining to students’ welfare, be it the fight against privatization of the university, fight against fee-hike, fight to build new hostels, to hike the MCM amount, to recognize Alimiyat –Fazilat certificates, or the fight to ensure and regularize scholarships etc. have all been clinched with collective struggles of students and under the banner of JNUSU. And all these struggles were political fights against a casteist, communal and patriarchal administration which is hell-bent on corporatising and eventually privatizing the university in due course as per the Birla-Ambani Report. Lyngdoh and his reactionary recommendations are only here to facilitate that. The rich political debates on campus where students not only build their opinions but also vote on the larger questions of imperialist aggression, on state repression, the neo-economic policies, the nuke deal, SEZs, land grab and the fight against it, the movements on nationality question etc. are also contradictory to the ‘integrationist’ and ‘nationalist’ politics that Mr. Lyngdoh recommends.
The way ahead: The stay on JNUSU elections has to be vacated in the court through a legal battle. But so far no stay order on any students’ union has been won in the court only. The legal battle will have to go parallel with a strong political battle exposing the real intentions of the state intervention in students’ politics. It is NOT money-muscle power and criminalization of students politics that they seek to attack. It is the politicization of students’ politics, our right to protest and dissent that they seek to assault. And JNU is not the first university that is standing against the reactionary recommendations of Lyngdoh. The SU elections of Allahabad University have been stayed on the pretext of ‘preparing formalities conducive for Lyngdoh recommendations’ for the last two years. The students of Kanpur and Lucknow University have been brutally lathi-charged by the police while they were protesting against the implementation of the same. It is by rejecting the Lyngdoh recommendations everywhere in toto and fighting against the all forms of state’s repression that we can democratize students’ politics and our present society.
October 27, 2008
DSU's Resolution Rejecting Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations in JNU gets passed in the UGBM Unanimously!
The students of JNU have unanimously passed with overwhelming enthusiasm and show of unity the DSU resolution placed in the UGBM that concluded in the wee hours of 26th October, after a night-long debate. The text of the resolution is:
'The JNUSU Constitution expresses the democratic ethos and norms of the JNU students evolved over 37 years of collective struggle. The Supreme Court’s stay on the JNUSU Elelctions and the attempt to impose Lyngdoh Committee recommendations in JNU is against the letter and spirit of the JNUSU Constitution. This UGBM therefore resolves to reject the implementation of Lyngdoh Committee recommendations in JNU in any form.'
The struggle must now be intensified to defeat Lyngdoh committee recommendations not only in JNU but everywhere, in its totality. We must unitedly fight to finally scrap Lyngdoh, which is against the very spirit of students' movements, its autonomy and voices of dissent.
Reject Lyngdoh in toto! Defend our JNUSU and its Constitution! Resist the attack on our democratic tradition!
The JNU students’ movement is today facing a grave threat in the form of Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations. The Supreme Court stay on the JNUSU Elections is a direct attack on our democratic rights, our democratic space on the campus. Lyngdoh, if imposed, will completely crush and suppress our institutions like JNUSU and its Constitution, which has been at the forefront in the JNU student’s struggle against administration’s anti-student policies, as well as that of the Indian state. JNUSU represents our collective voice of resistance and is the most formidable platform of struggle, and we must defend its weakening or dismantling through the reactionary Lyngdoh. We need to be aware that in this planned attempt to curb our democratic institutions, the Youth for Equality (YFE) has over and over again betrayed the current collective struggle of students in upholding the JNU constitution and the democratic traditions against the stay and the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations. They presented their own lawyer on the day of yesterday’s hearing on the case in Supreme Court who supported full implementation of Lyngdoh. In subsequent all organization meetings they had taken inconsistent and dubious stands on the issue and have lied and contradicted their position. They have publicly called the previous two JNUSUs ‘illegal’ and have slandered against an ex-Chief Election Committee member. So lets isolate YFE in our struggle against Lyngdoh and in defense of the JNUSU.
But the struggle against Lyngdoh cannot be confined only to JNU. In the garb of controlling criminalization of student politics, the Lyngdoh recommendations strengthen the hands of the University administrations. In universities like JNU have a history of progressive struggles, and that has been possible precisely because the students’ movement have successfully prevented the administration from interfering in students’ affairs, and whenever such attempts were made, the students fought back. Now JNU’s student movement must spearhead the countrywide struggle against the imposition of Lyngdoh, and any compromise or confusion in this matter will pave way for the destruction of our hard-earned democratic space.
But the struggle against Lyngdoh cannot be confined only to JNU. In the garb of controlling criminalization of student politics, the Lyngdoh recommendations strengthen the hands of the University administrations. In universities like JNU have a history of progressive struggles, and that has been possible precisely because the students’ movement have successfully prevented the administration from interfering in students’ affairs, and whenever such attempts were made, the students fought back. Now JNU’s student movement must spearhead the countrywide struggle against the imposition of Lyngdoh, and any compromise or confusion in this matter will pave way for the destruction of our hard-earned democratic space.
In this historic juncture, DSU appeals to the student community of JNU to speak out against Lyngdoh Committee recommendations and the Supreme Court stay of the JNUSU Elections on its basis. Come out and pass a mandate in the UGBM tonight in total rejection of Lyngdoh Committee recommendations. Only through this we will be able to defend our JNUSU and the JNUSU Constitution.
Unite for an uncompromising fight against the reactionary Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations! Join tomorrow's UGBM in large numbers!
The Supreme Court served a notice to the JNUSU and JNU administration stating that the JNUSU elections are in violation of the recommendations of the Lyngdoh Committee. Today was a hearing of the case. The JNUSU EC and representatives of all organizations had come together to respond to the situation and legal counsel was engaged to argue on behalf of the JNUSU and the student community. This assault on JNU’s tradition of independent elections is a cleverly timed one: in the absence of a elected JNUSU to lead a struggle.
Today’s verdict confirms our position expressed in our pamphlet yesterday that not informing the students about the imminent threat of Lyngdoh and not mobilizing them actively against it immediately is not a correct approach to fight this onslaught on the hard earned democratic space of JNU. In the coming days, an uncompromising struggle can be the only answer to the attack on JNU’s democratic tradition and institution.
The Blatant HYPOCRISY and BETRAYAL of Y4E: Till last night the Youth for quality (Y4E) was standing in consensus with the rest of the organizations rejecting Lyngdoh Committee recommendations in all organization meetings. Today in the morning however Justice Lahoti appeared in Supreme Court and said he was representing Y4E, and that his clients are in favour of Lyngdoh Recommendations in JNU! This immediately weakened the case of JNUSU and the Judge got a clear pretext to impose the stay order. This complete betrayal of the movement is shameful and condemnable, but is expected from the Y4E who had always been doing sectarian, unprincipled and discriminatory politics. Being pushed to wall in the AO meeting they admitted that YFE supports Lyngdoh Committee recommendations in JNU. Organizations like this must be isolated and we strongly feel that no movement against Lyngdoh can be fought in the same platform with YFE which is inviting Lyngdoh to JNU. Therefore, although DSU has been and will be a part of all the struggles that are going to be launched in the coming days in JNU against Lyngdoh and although we agree to the broad spirit of the joint statement issued by other organizations WE REFUSED TO BE A SIGNATORY TO THAT SINCE Y4E HAS ALSO SIGNED IT. The struggle against Lyngdoh is going to be the prime and most crucial challenge in the days to come and we insist that only a principled and uncompromising struggle rejecting Lyngdoh in toto in JNU and elsewhere can safeguard students’ movement across the country.
The context of the Lyngdoh Committee is one of the state’s withdrawal from education. The World Bank and its cronies are aggressively pushing for privatization of education. The Birla-Ambani report on Higher Education clearly identifies student politics as the chief impediment to privatization. A politicized student body is a stumbling block for neo-liberal designs; Lyngdoh is designed to depoliticize students and crush consciously articulated political dissent and opposition. Lyngdoh claims to be a champion of democratic space for students, directed only against money and muscle power. But the stated aim of the Lyngdoh recommendations is actually to do away with or at least limit the politicization of student bodies and the intervention of political parties in student elections. JNU has a history of struggles against fee-hikes and the privatization of education led by a politicized students union. Had it not been for the presence of a political JNUSU with clear ideological affiliations with left movements, this university would have been privatized a decade ago and many of us would not have been able to afford an education in JNU.
The use of money and muscle continues in numerous places despite Lyngdoh; because powerful ruling class student organizations can easily buy and beat their way around Lyngdoh and indeed any other law. It is the dissenting student voices that face a crackdown. In JNU if elections are free and fair, it is not because of some code of conduct but because the student body rejects lurid shows of wealth and power. The only answer to the criminalization of student politics is a pervasive politicization of student politics and NOT the regulation of student politics by the state. We must fight the imposition of the Lyngdoh recommendations in JNU and in every other campus.
We appeal to the students of JNU to come out in large numbers in tomorrow’s UGBM and participate in all the struggles in the coming days against the onslaught of Lyngdoh. We the students must give an unified mandate to decisively defeat the onslaught of Lyngdoh. This is a decisive moment in the history JNU’s student movement, and the students are called to play their historic role in defense of our democratic space, our JNUSU and its unique Constitution.
Today’s verdict confirms our position expressed in our pamphlet yesterday that not informing the students about the imminent threat of Lyngdoh and not mobilizing them actively against it immediately is not a correct approach to fight this onslaught on the hard earned democratic space of JNU. In the coming days, an uncompromising struggle can be the only answer to the attack on JNU’s democratic tradition and institution.
The Blatant HYPOCRISY and BETRAYAL of Y4E: Till last night the Youth for quality (Y4E) was standing in consensus with the rest of the organizations rejecting Lyngdoh Committee recommendations in all organization meetings. Today in the morning however Justice Lahoti appeared in Supreme Court and said he was representing Y4E, and that his clients are in favour of Lyngdoh Recommendations in JNU! This immediately weakened the case of JNUSU and the Judge got a clear pretext to impose the stay order. This complete betrayal of the movement is shameful and condemnable, but is expected from the Y4E who had always been doing sectarian, unprincipled and discriminatory politics. Being pushed to wall in the AO meeting they admitted that YFE supports Lyngdoh Committee recommendations in JNU. Organizations like this must be isolated and we strongly feel that no movement against Lyngdoh can be fought in the same platform with YFE which is inviting Lyngdoh to JNU. Therefore, although DSU has been and will be a part of all the struggles that are going to be launched in the coming days in JNU against Lyngdoh and although we agree to the broad spirit of the joint statement issued by other organizations WE REFUSED TO BE A SIGNATORY TO THAT SINCE Y4E HAS ALSO SIGNED IT. The struggle against Lyngdoh is going to be the prime and most crucial challenge in the days to come and we insist that only a principled and uncompromising struggle rejecting Lyngdoh in toto in JNU and elsewhere can safeguard students’ movement across the country.
The context of the Lyngdoh Committee is one of the state’s withdrawal from education. The World Bank and its cronies are aggressively pushing for privatization of education. The Birla-Ambani report on Higher Education clearly identifies student politics as the chief impediment to privatization. A politicized student body is a stumbling block for neo-liberal designs; Lyngdoh is designed to depoliticize students and crush consciously articulated political dissent and opposition. Lyngdoh claims to be a champion of democratic space for students, directed only against money and muscle power. But the stated aim of the Lyngdoh recommendations is actually to do away with or at least limit the politicization of student bodies and the intervention of political parties in student elections. JNU has a history of struggles against fee-hikes and the privatization of education led by a politicized students union. Had it not been for the presence of a political JNUSU with clear ideological affiliations with left movements, this university would have been privatized a decade ago and many of us would not have been able to afford an education in JNU.
The use of money and muscle continues in numerous places despite Lyngdoh; because powerful ruling class student organizations can easily buy and beat their way around Lyngdoh and indeed any other law. It is the dissenting student voices that face a crackdown. In JNU if elections are free and fair, it is not because of some code of conduct but because the student body rejects lurid shows of wealth and power. The only answer to the criminalization of student politics is a pervasive politicization of student politics and NOT the regulation of student politics by the state. We must fight the imposition of the Lyngdoh recommendations in JNU and in every other campus.
We appeal to the students of JNU to come out in large numbers in tomorrow’s UGBM and participate in all the struggles in the coming days against the onslaught of Lyngdoh. We the students must give an unified mandate to decisively defeat the onslaught of Lyngdoh. This is a decisive moment in the history JNU’s student movement, and the students are called to play their historic role in defense of our democratic space, our JNUSU and its unique Constitution.
Reject Lyngdoh! Oppose the Stay on JNUSU Elections!
JNUSU EC has resigned. The old JNUSU Council takes over the charge of the Union! The UGBM scheduled on 25 October (sat.) will be conducted by the JNUSU and Chaired by the JNUSU President.
In an all organization meeting convened at 8pm today evening on 25th October 2008, the JNUSU all the Election Committee members have submitted their resignation citing their inability to continue with this year’s JNUSU election process in the wake of the Supreme Court’s stay order today. The JNUSU Council now takes over the charge as per the JNU Constitution after the EC has resigned. It is for the UGBM to decide till how long this JNUSU will continue in office, apart from deliberating and deciding on the further course of action. In this hour of grave danger and crisis to our much cherished democratic tradition and institution, we repose our faith in JNUSU to spearhead the struggle against the imposition of Lyngdoh and in defense of our democratic space. We at the same time believe that a Struggle Committee be formed with representatives from all organizations to work in co-ordination with the JNUSU leadership in mobilizing the campus community for this struggle. It is only the path of an uncompromising and principled struggle challenging the Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations as well as the Supreme Court stay order both inside and outside the court that we will collectively be able to overcome this crisis.
In a time of this unprecedented attack on the JNUSU and its Constitution in the wake of the stay order of the Supreme Court, we demand that the JNUSU:
Immediately Convene a Emergency JNUSU Council meeting!
Establish a Struggle Committee comprising of representatives of all organizations to lead the struggle against Lyngdoh and to uphold the JNUSU Constitution!
In a time of this unprecedented attack on the JNUSU and its Constitution in the wake of the stay order of the Supreme Court, we demand that the JNUSU:
Immediately Convene a Emergency JNUSU Council meeting!
Establish a Struggle Committee comprising of representatives of all organizations to lead the struggle against Lyngdoh and to uphold the JNUSU Constitution!
When Lyngdoh Comes Knocking…
The Supreme Court has served a notice stating that the JNUSU elections for the last three years including the present one has been violating the recommendations of the Lyngdoh Committee. The Election Committee has received this notice on the 21st of October. An All Organization meeting was