Punish the police officers guilty of brutalities on protesting students! Remain vigilant against further victimization of students by Administration!

One full week has passed by since the brutal lathi-charge by Delhi Police and RAF on the students of JNU. They very next day, after the protest demonstration at the ad-block an all-organisation delegation along with the JNUSU met the administration. That day, showing a rare exception to his longstanding apathy towards meeting students, the VC too attended the meeting and expressed his ‘concern’ and ‘sympathy’! A few direct questions were put to the VC: ● Who gave the permission to the RAF armed with lathi to enter the campus? ● Why did nobody from the administration except the associate dean come to the scene, even after the lathi-charge? ● Where was the ‘Chief Security Officer’, who was conspicuously absent throughout the incident? ● What steps the administration taking to ensure punishment to the four culprits who had ‘high connections’ and for whose security hundreds of riot-control police was let loose on protesting students? ● Why hasn’t the administration implemented the pointed suggestions regarding security arrangements for the campus, including in the 24x7 dhaba, which were suggested by the students a year back?

The administration including the VC had no clear answer.The VC said that he has not given the permission to the RAF to enter. When we pointed out that in that case he must file a case against the Delhi Police for flouting the autonomy of the university whereby the administration’s permission has to be sought by the police to enter the university premises, the VC simply qualified his statement saying, the police can enter the campus if it is a riot-like situation! So, was it a ‘riot-like situation’ that day within JNU? To determine this, the administration constituted an enquiry committee with Prof. Harjit Singh, which was supposed to submit its report by last Friday morning but has failed to do so.

But as it came clear by Friday, the ‘Enquiry Committee’ chose to call itself a ‘fact finding Committee’ and was clearly interested in finding out what led to the lathi-charge, and not the incidents of eve-teasing and intimidation by the four outsiders, the subsequent police brutalities and shielding of the culprits by the Delhi administration. The enquiry committee is apparently looking into the ‘provocations’ from the students, trying to implicate and put the entire blame on the students for the lathi-charge that evening. The Committee did not give any public notice asking for witnesses, which is the usual norm, but rather selected a few witnesses on its own. To those witnesses also it asked highly problematic and leading questions like ‘who damaged the car of the accused?’ ‘who threw the first stone?’, etc. and asking the witnesses to identify individual students by showing photographs and footages of the incident. Clearly the propensity of the committee is more anti-student than being anti-police and RAF, which it should have been. Although it is not yet clear to the students what are the contents and conclusions of the report, with such a mode and orientation of the enquiry, the Committee is very well trying to establish that there was indeed a ‘law and order breakdown’ within the campus and that the students have ‘taken law into their own hands’, therefore the police action was justified! We must remain vigilant against any attempt by the administration to implicate and further victimize the students. The students of this campus will NOT accept such blatant twisting of reality to shield the barbaric police action.

The police must be held accountable on the following points: ● The Delhi administration and the police mobilised such a huge force including more than 300 RAF to safeguard four drunk lumpen harassers who had ‘high connections’, and what were those connections ● It took more than three hours to even file an FIR, much pressure and intimidation was exerted on the people who went to file the FIR! ● In whose permission did the police and armed RAF enter the campus ● There was no need of Lath-charging so brutally to disperse the crowd. ● The police didn’t give any warning to the students before lathi-charging, as per the protocol, despite having a public address system. ● The police threw stones helter-skelter at the students although throwing projectiles by the police is not permitted under any law. ● The male police charged, beaten up, physically manhandled women students and they had no female constabulary. ● The police which is supposed to beat up only below the waist were beating students on their head and shoulders which could have caused fatal injuries. ● when a handful of students and a professor went to close the gate for the second time, the police resorted to brutal lathi charge once again, although the crowd was already dispersed. This time they selectively picked up students and shelled tear gas after lathi-charging!

The university must file a case against the police, especially implicating DCP Dhadiwal and DCP Chhaya Sharma, who were in charge! There can be no ‘balancing act’ in this case, and we must resist the singled out victimization of any student in this regard. We call upon the students, teachers and staff and karamcharis of the university to unitedly resist this police brutality or further attacks on students. The JNUSU must break its silence and inaction in the name of ‘introspection’ to proactively lead a militant and uncompromising struggle against these attacks. Some organisations like SFI which have so far not brought out any public position against the atrocities condemning the administration and police, is maintaining in All Organisation meetings that the ‘students could have avoided the situation’. We warn them not to indulge in such anti-student propaganda and refrain from being an agent of the administration. We must take this struggle for campus autonomy and security, and for the punishment of the guilty to its logical conclusion fighting all forms of intimidation, slander and betrayals.

Rise up against the massive police-RAF crackdown on protesting students! Ensure safety and security of the campus community!

Last night, around 600 students were brutally lathi-charged inside the university by the Delhi police and Rapid Action Force in a most shocking, gruesome and unprecedented manner. Indiscriminate lathi-charge was resorted to by the police twice, while four rounds of tear gas shells were also burst. Girl students were brutally beaten up and manhandled although there was not a single woman constable. Students were hit above the waist, on head and shoulders which could have caused fatal injuries. The forces also threw stones helter-skelter on the students. Many students, some faculty members and G4S guards got badly injured. Around four students had to be hospitalized. Around five students were picked up by the police; they were dragged on the road, kicked in their faces and badly beaten up, and were later release only due to student’s protest. All these were done to shield four lumpens, Ankit Nanda, Amit Chauhan, Nitin Kapoor and Gagan Kumar, who came to the campus in a car completely drunk, who abused and teased a girl student. When stopped at the gate by the G4S, they drew a gun to threaten and intimidate the G4S in the gate.

The sequence of events: The students of the campus have been facing such incidents of lumpenism by outsiders, teasing and harassment of girl students for quite some time now. Yesterday it crossed all limits. When these four lumpens were intimidating the guard, the police van (PCR) that was standing just outside the North Gate did nothing. As soon as some students gathered and tried to confront the lumpens, immediately the police van came inside and gave ‘safe refuge’ to them. These hooligans had ‘high connections’ which they proudly flaunted to the students present there. No wonder, within an hour, more forces were called into the campus, not to apprehend the guilty but to provide security to them. The ACP came along with the SHO of Vasant Kunj Police Station. Soon afterward more than 300 troops of Rapid Action Force, fully armed with shields and lathis gathered outside the gate. After the students protested, they were only removed from the vicinity of the gate but kept ready nearby. The students collectively decided to lock the gate from inside so that the RAF can not barge in and the culprits cannot abscond. The father and sister of one of the goons appeared in the meantime and proclaimed that the culprits had all the rights to carry a gun!

More students gathered and immense anger generated who witnessed the shielding of the goons by the police. The anger was justified, as it took the police around three hours to even file an FIR. While the FIR was being filed, the students who went to the police station faced pressure, intimidation and coercion from different quarters to dilute the case.

The students were peaceful till the end. The anger of the students was taken out on the lumpen’s vehicle! While a few students wanted to set it on fire, the overwhelming majority of the students prevailed upon them and the fire was soon extinguished. Many opinions were coming about the future course of action and debated on the spot, and after deliberations it was decided that they will not be allowed to go out of the campus unless they tender a public apology. If needed their faces would also be blackened. The JNUSU president himself declared this decision from the top of the police van, and barring only a few students, majority present there agreed to it. Accordingly, a voluntary human-chain was formed by the protesting students keeping distance with the car, so that the public apology could be facilitated.

The police was not yet ‘confident’ to take the lumpens out of the car and therefore waited for the DCP (south Delhi) to arrive. The DCP arrived and told that any public apology by the accused is against the law! However, this was not conveyed to the students properly and many people were in confusion as to what is going to happen. What followed this from the police was extremely shocking. Instead of making any attempts to control the situation inside, or even to explain the situation to the students, the gate was suddenly opened (which was so far locked from inside to keep the RAF away) without letting the hundreds of students know about this decision, and the impending police crackdown. The Associate Dean as well as the JNUSU leadership agreed to open the gate unilaterally without first consulting, or even informing the students. The Dean is now claiming that he had asked for ‘ten minutes from the police to remove the students’ before opening the gate! Even this ‘agreement’ was not informed to the students. It was an absolutely irresponsible decision by the administration and JNUSU leadership to open the gate without removing the RAF from the other side first. This made more than 600 protesting students vulnerable to the assault by the ruthless RAF. We strongly condemn this irresponsible decision.

After the police and the RAF started lathi-charging, some students started pelting stones in self-defence. But that lasted merely for few minutes, as instantly the ruthless lathi charging started. After one round of lathi-charging the RAF retreated. A few students and two professors got down to the street and asked the RAF to go out of the campus and tried to close the gate. The RAF immediately returned to a second bout of attack. This time it was much more ruthless and completely unprovoked. Women students were particularly targeted this time and some of them were dragged by their hair. Students were randomly picked up and taken away. Tear gas shells were also burst. No where ever police bursts tear gas after already lathicharging!

In this entire episode, the administration was shockingly absconding. The Registrar made a token visit in the beginning and the Associate Dean vanished as soon as the lathi charge started. A few Professors tried to negotiate with the police and RAF while the rest of the administration kept away. Other faculty members, barring a very few did not feel it important enough to even see in what condition the students were even after such a massive assault. The shameless VC far from coming to the students while they were being beaten up stationed RAF infront of his own house to safeguard himself! The Chief Security Officer who has completely proved himself to completely incompetent by now, appeared in the scene long after everything was over. In none of the incidents of harassment, abuses, beating up etc that have taken place in the campus at night in the last few months, was he ever present. Yesterday was no exception. W Demand the immediate dismissal of this worthless, irresponsible officer. The administration must take responsibility of the entire incident. The case against the four lumpens must be pursued from the university too and university must take a strong position against the DCP under whose order such assault was orchestrated.

Why didn’t we sign the Joint statement of the JNUSU and few other organizations? After such a massive assault on the students, the first response that comes from the students’ community should be to strongly and unequivocally condemn and protest the police atrocities and the administration’s complicity and failure to prevent the police from such a crackdown. However, the statement ended with a call for ‘introspection’ on behalf of the students’ community over certain ‘developments during the protest’. This statement by itself implicates the student community in the entire incident along with the police and administration. Why should the student community take responsibility of this massive assault on an unprovoking mass? Such statement dilutes the spirit of the entire protest and it was completely counter productive at this point of time. It strengthens the version of the police that students provoked the attack. Even the media quoted the statement and said ‘students believe they have overreacted’! The Joint Statement is definitely not the platform to ‘introspect’. It should have rather been an all-out attack on the perpetrators of this massive violence. There are other platforms and means to introspect and debate on mode of protest. To impose ‘introspection’ even when there are opinions to the contrary is nothing but shunning of responsibility on the part of the leadership and thereby shifting the onus to the common students. This has happened at a time when the historic role of the JNUSU leadership should have been to stand by the student community which has received the brunt of such massive crackdown.

Let us unitedly ensure that the perpetrators of such violence by the state machinery be punished. The administration now must come out with a concrete mechanism to ensure security of the students on campus.

Massive militant protests by students of Germany, Austria, USA and Canada against fee hike and privatization of education!!

The students across Germany, Austria, parts of USA, Poland and Canada have launched massive movements against fee hikes, withdrawal of funds from education and gradual privatization of education. Implementing the neo-liberal policies, these countries have gradually withdrawn funds from education, especially higher education. Following the economic crisis the governments have been more stringent in spending money in education, which has led into massive fee hike, especially in the past couple of years. The examination systems have also been made stricter, making it impossible for most students who also work to pay for their education, to clear them. These movements of the university students in different cities and countries which have now spread across continents have been supported widely by the workers and trade unions too.

Since late October this year, massive students movements erupted across many countries against fee hike and for a more equitable and democratic education. On Thursday October 22, students at Vienna University occupied their main lecture hall, Auditorium Maximus. 6 days later, the occupations have spread to other Austrian universities and cities like Graz, Klagenfurt, Innsbruck, Salzburg, Linz and many other cities in Autria and Germany. On October 28, 50.000 students in Vienna and 400 in Salzburg took to the streets to march against a lack of resources, space and finance and for free education. Their main demands are, for an increase in funding to the universities instead of giving money to the banks, no to tuition fees, the bologna process (European directive furthering moves towards marketisation of education) and “knock out” the exams. One of the main slogans on the demonstrations was “Money for education – not for the banks and big business!” The students are occupying the universities and the lecture hall and running communes and people’s kitchen. Plenaries, meetings, alternative lectures and classes are going on inside these occupied halls since the past one month.

Almost 250,000 students took to the streets of over 40 German cities since first week of November, protesting against a number of ongoing reforms of third-level education in the Federal Republic. Students protested primarily against the introduction tuition fees as well as the introduction of a combination Bachelor-Masters study programme, and difficult and limited access to graduate programmes. The biggest demonstrations of the students was in Berlin (nearly 30,000 participants), Stuttgart (15,000) and Hamburg (13,000). Smaller manifestations took place in over 100 cities and towns all over the country. Here too students have started to occupy universities and lecture halls making the institutions dysfunctional till there demands are met. There have been crackdown on many of the protests and yet they have not died down. In some places the governments were forced to come up with some negotiations and paltry reforms which the protesters have rejected.

The movement has spread to the USA too: In University of California Berkeley, University of California Los Angeles, San Francisco State University, University of California Davis, CSU Fresno and UCSC--students took over buildings to reclaim space and send the message that they won't tolerate an exorbitant fee increase, fund-cuts, layoffs, and an increasing reliance on private funding and free-market logic in place of public financing and support. The police acting on the orders of the authority have cracked down on the students in several campuses of California. The police charged them with batons and even rubber bullets. Riot cops and the notorious SWAT team of police were also brought in to disperse the students. The movements however continue with escalated protests and demonstrations. The students here too are taking over administrative buildings and lecture halls to continue their struggles. In Los Angeles for example, the students have taken over, Campbell Hall, renaming it "Carter-Huggins Hall" in honor of two leaders of the Black Panther Party, Bunchy Carter and John Huggins, murdered there in 1969. Similar actions are taking place in other campuses too.

Education has been one of the worst hit sectors worldwide after the recession. In India too, education has been massively affected. That is precisely why these movements of the students in different countries are being ruthlessly censored by the international media. It is only through the internet and other informal/alternative means of communication that these movements are connecting with each other. DSU extends its solidarity with these students movements of the students which are being fought for the most just demands for equitable and democratic education. It is only by such militant and uncompromising struggles we can fight the imperialist powers and win our basic right of education.

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.

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.

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.