A Year of Repression by the Joint Forces in Jangal Mahal & A Year of Resistance!

 

RED SALUTE TO HEROIC LALGARH!

The Lalgarh Movement has withstood ONE YEAR of state terror since the Joint Operations started in Jungal Mahal a year back on the 18th of June 2009. This one year entails the most brutal fascist repression by the state police, CRPF, & CPI(M)’s harmads on the adivasi people of Lalgarh. This one year has been, more importantly, also one of heroic and stiff resistance of the fighting masses in the face of the brute mercenary forces of the state. Last year, near about a week before the commencement of the Joint Operations we had the privilege to visit Lalgarh (from the 7th to the 10th of June). Villagers even then were aware of the impending onslaught on their movement but were also determined to fight back most valiantly to defend their independence. And it is the same determination and resolve with which they stand by their movement today in spite and despite the continuing attempts by the state and the center to crush the resistance.

The Lalgarh movement, as we know, started as an unprecedented collective response by the people against the atrocities committed by the goons of the ruling CPM and the police as well as the acute underdevelopment that prevailed in the region. Alongside, it rejected the ‘development’-paradigm of the state that entails the gifting of land/forest resources to the corporate of the likes of Tata and Jindal. Following the landmine attack on the convoy of the chief minister by the Maoists, a fresh assault was launched on the common villagers in Lalgarh by the police which provided the grounds for the formation of the PCPA in November 2008. This marked the beginning of a unique and qualitatively distinct people’s movement for jal, jangal and jameen in the entire Jungal Mahal that spread like wildfire.

The fight that ensued and still continues is a struggle between two different orders. While the struggling people are tearing down the vestiges of the old repressive society, they are at the same time laying the foundations of a new one. On one side is the dictates of the neo-liberal agenda facilitated by the state and its agents, while on the other side lies the formidable resistance being launched by the most exploited and impoverished sections of the society-primarily the adivasis. Moving beyond the two struggles of Singur and Nandigram that were a resistance against state repression to defend against corporate takeover of land and livelihood, the Lalgarh movement has opened up new possibilities of a revolutionary social transformation, with its vision for an alternative people-centric development. The movement has unleashed the creative potentials and the initiative of the oppressed people, who were kept subjugated for centuries by the rulers of the land, the latest of them being the social-fascist CPI(M).

This Lalgarh movement has been successful in breaking down the old structures of power, and building in their place people’s institutions which are truly democratic in nature, ensuring the active participation of the masses in resistance. Formation of people’s committees, people’s assemblies, building necessary infrastructure in health and irrigation, creating opportunities for livelihood, distributing land, fighting alcoholism, superstitions and malpractices within the society, are just a few achievements of the Lalgarh movement within a short span of time. It is this vision of a growing alternative people’s power that has threatened the ruling classes and thereby exposed the ideological shadow-boxing of the parliamentary parties (Congress-TMC-CPM). To crush this resistance, they have joined hands against the people and have launched the Joint Operations in Jungal Mahal as elsewhere (in the shape of the Operation Green Hunt).  The joint forces have been perpetrating all forms of violence and atrocities in this period.

But the people in Lalgarh over the course of their struggle have used their creative energy to build up an organized structure that has also generated the strength, as we see today, to sustain as well as defend itself in the face of the continuing state repression. On the face of growing state repression, they have organised themselves into people’s militia’s, which is taking on the armed force of the state with traditional weapons. The qualitative leap and the continuing vitality of the heroic Lalgarh movement against all odds prove the invincibility of the people’s struggle and carry forward the revolutionary legacy of Naxalbari.


FASCIST STATE REPRESSION AND PEOPLE"S REVOLUTIONARY RESISTANCE
“In this 15 months of rebellion people have been loosing their limbs, eyes and even lives every now and then. Is it Sonia or Manmohan or Chidambaram or Mamata  or Buddadev…who will take the responsibility of this hellish brutality?” –Second Letter by PCPA addressed to APDR, Lalgarh Manch & Intellectuals supporting the Struggle of the People.

Ever since the entry of the Joint Forces in Jungal Mahal, the fighting people were subjected to various forms of atrocities and state terror, indiscriminate arrests, kidnap, rapes, plunders killings and arson of an unprecedented magnitude. This one year of ‘occupation’ has seen a permanent 144 and a rampant militarization in this entire region. And closely toeing the CRPF and the police, this year has also seen the infiltration of the harmads in large numbers. These mercenary brigands have the license to unleash their terror, kill and plunder under the protection of the joint Forces and thereby have full immunity from the law. These state sponsored Harmad camps are vehemently opposed by the local people who demand their immediate disbandment. But, the Joint forces either deny their presence or even grants legal sanction to them. The CPM, the Police Super and DG Bhupinder Singh maintains that the forces are there to establish the rule of law for which the Harmad camps are ‘essential’. In reality the terror unleashed by this nexus of paramilitary and the harmads in order to ‘uphold the rule of law’ has impeded the normal social-cultural-economic life in Jungal Mahal. It has crippled the education system of the children; jeopardized the everyday rituals and festivities or ‘paravs’ of the adivasis; deterred the farmers to attend to their fields in the fear of gun-shots; driven thousands of arsoned villagers into relief camps, and so on. All of these go unreported behind the glitters of the corporate media through an active disinformation campaign.

   
However, what is most inspiring is that the people of Lalgarh have shown their resolve that they are not prepared to face this state terror lying low. Under the leadership of the PCPA, they are coming out in vibrant rallies protesting against undeclared arrests; random beatings and torture; false cases through branding; harassment of adivasi women; loot of ornaments, money and paddy; occupation of schools and health centers, and other such atrocities.  The Joint Forces and the harmads on the other hand are specifically targeting these mass mobilizations with indiscriminate arrests, lathi-charge and even bullets. In order to break the backbone of the struggle the fascist forces are targeting the PCPA leadership and activists. While many of them are being indiscriminately booked under the draconian UAPA as we saw in the case of the PCPA spokesperson Chhatradhar Mahato. Others are being killed in numerous fake encounters as was witnessed in the cold-blooded murder of the PCPA President Lalmohan Tudu. The other tactic being, to arrest villagers through the so called ‘Cordon & Search Operations’ and pressurizing their family members to turn into police-informers.  Nonetheless, such brute force and fascist tactics to divide the people have not been able to dampen the spirit of the movement as it surges ahead with every passing day.         

“It is not enough today to oppose the practice of dubbing someone Maoist and subjecting them to state terror, it is necessary also to oppose the torture being perpetrated on the Maoists as well as the anti-democratic and anti-constitutional activities of the government. Our organization honours the Constitution of our country. But observe how the Central and State governments themselves flout   the Constitution! We demand that whether one is a Gandhibadi or a Maobadi, everyone should be tried before a court according to the constitutional tenets.” –Third Letter by PCPA addressed to APDR, Lalgarh Manch & Intellectuals supporting the Struggle of the People.

BUILDING A PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC POWER IN THE FACE OF REPRESSION
One of the most defining aspects of the Lalgarh movement has been the pro-people and participatory alternative model of development that it has successfully practiced from its very inception. During DSU’s visit to Lalgarh in June 2009, we came across numerous such attempts made under the organized leadership of the PCPA with the en-masse participation of the villagers. People were collectively attempting to put an end to the 63 years of historic neglect, underdevelopment and exploitation that the state entailed for them no matter who came to power. We saw initiatives being taken in the field of agriculture and land distribution; irrigation; roads; water, shelter and health; education, culture and social awareness; people’s judiciary; and even environmental issues.  But of course, with the commencement of the Joint Operations these people’ initiatives in general, and the health centers in particular, became one of the prime targets of the state forces.

In the last one year, in spite of the relentless paramilitary operations, the PCPA has built up thirty-five health centers all over Jangalmahal and these are being run by its health department. These centers are providing health services and medicine for free to the villagers who earlier had to go 50 km away to Midnapore town for any such needs. The PCPA has also built up a permanent hospital at Chakdoba in Belpahari, a 30 year old demand of the people to which the “leftist” state govt. turned a deaf ear for so long. People from twenty-five nearby villages accelerated the work of this hospital by providing voluntary labour. The Joint forces on the other hand were not willing to tolerate such activities. They closed the health center at Kantapahari, immediately after entering the area. The Joint Forces occupy these centers in the working hours forcing the doctors and their patients to stay away. And alongside, these health centers are being accused of providing treatment to the wounded Maoists and thereby being looted off the medicines. Patients are also being taken as prisoners on the ground of baseless accusations. This is how the state is conspiring to destroy the health facilities and thereby to obliterate the poor people of Jangalmahal. Similarly the development wing of PCPA restored 22 wells within 15 days particularly, in Kalshibhanga and Patree, by bringing people together in a common endeavour. Hundreds of acres of land is being distributed to the landless poor. With the motive to disrupt and destroy these developmental works born of popular initiative, the Joint Forces repeatedly were laying siege on these villages. However, such attempts bring out thousands of villagers to resist such plunderous raids.

The government is falsely accusing through its propaganda machinery that the PCPA is obstructing their development projects. But truth be told, the government had never been bothered about addressing the hardships faced by the people of Jungal Mahal before the movement started, or even after it. And for a fact, no developmental work has ever been opposed by the people at any point of time. The only difference was that with the spread of the movement, the people now started demanding more accountability in the functioning of the local administration that was infested with corruption. Instead of gaining the faith of the people, the state has been targeting the developmental works that the people themselves were introducing. But against all odds, whether the combined attack of the Joint Forces or the marauding raids of the harmads, the persistence of such pro-people initiatives only goes on to testify that the movement has over this one year strengthened itself further among the masses. People are not only looking after their own development here, but alongside are also showing the courage and strength to defend them through whatever means.

“The idea of cooperation flowered in the minds of the people. Thousands of common people are working day after day with common thoughts in mind, towards common goals, and that is strengthening the social bonds among them. However much they try, Chidambaram or Buddha will never be able destroy that bond, neither will they be able to win over the hearts of the people.” –Third Letter by PCPA addressed to APDR, Lalgarh Manch & Intellectuals supporting the Struggle of the People.

Condemn the Crackdown on Intellectuals, Journalists and Civil Rights Activists in Bengal! Stand by the Fighting People of Lalgarh!!

The people of Lalgarh for the last one year have faced the worst forms of state repression. With the coming in of paramilitary forces, the people have been subjected to increasing number of atrocities which have been perpetrated in connivance with local CPM harmads and police informers. In Lalgarh and entire Jungalmahal area, this period has also seen the imposition of section 144 for the past 12 months making it the longest one in India’s history. One of the reasons for imposing such unprecedented prohibitive orders is to prevent civil rights activists, journalists, intellectuals from visiting the area to cover up the atrocities, torture and killings by the joint forces and the local CPM harmads.

In continuation of the strangling of democratic voices that the social-fascist CPM has imposed, the West Bengal state police arrested 13 people, including 3 intellectuals and 72 villagers on 15th June in Lalgarh. Nisha Biswas, a scientist of Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute, Kanishka Chowdhury, professor of a Behala college and writer Manik Mondal, associated with Lalgarh Mancha along with ten media persons were arrested from Mathurapur village for trying to tell the other side of the story. They had gone to Jungalmahal to meet the struggling people of Lalgarh and to bring to light not only the repression of the state but also the resistance of the people and the developmental activities that the movement has undertaken which for the last one year has been buried through the disinformation campaign of the mainstream corporate media. 72 villagers were arrested while attempting to prevent the police from taking away the journalists and intellectuals. The intellectuals have been put under 14 days judicial custody following which there is an attempt to thrust the draconian UAPA on them. While a public protest has forced the state government to release the ten journalists, the three intellectuals and the villagers are still being kept in prison. The PCPA has called for a bandh in the three districts of Paschim Medinipur, Bankura and Purulia on Friday in protest against the arrest of the 13 people.

This is not the first time that CPM has targeted members of the civil society in order to silence all voices of dissent. A few months back in a press statement the Home Secretary of the state had branded the activists, intellectuals who stood by the people of Lalgarh as all ‘Maoists’. Already many civil right activists, including Prasun Chatterjee and Raja Sarkhel, members of Gana Pratirodh Mancha, Kiriti Roy, secretary of Manabadhikar Suraksha Manch have been arrested under UAPA. Swapan Dasgupta, the editor of Bangla People’s March, who was terminally ill with blood cancer, was booked under UAPA, and denied of basic emergency medical needs forcing his death in police custody. Lalmohan Tudu, the President of PCPA was picked up from his house by the Joint Security Forces and killed in cold blood in a fake encounter. Hundreds of activists of the PCPA and villagers are being put behind bars on cooked-up charges. All this are being carried out in the name of ‘flushing out’ the Maoists and restoring ‘peace’ and ‘law and order’! We demand the immediate and unconditional release of the intellectuals and the villagers arrested and framed by the Bengal police!

Defeat the JNU Administration’s Attempts to Scuttle 27% OBC Reservation!

The results of the JNU entrance examination for admission into the coming academic session is going to be announced in less than a month’s time from now. However, the JNU administration is yet to come out with the new rules for the proper and full implementation of the mandatory 27% OBC reservation in place of the faulty ‘merit cut-off’ criteria which was rejected by the last Academic Council meeting. Since 2008, when 27% OBC reservation was introduced in higher education, the casteist, anti-reservation and ‘meritocratic’ administration has repeatedly tried all means to ensure that this legally mandated provision is not properly implemented. The inordinate and unjustifiable delay in bringing out the new criteria for the upcoming admissions is nothing but another attempt to scuttle the OBC reservations for one more year.

First, to delay the full implementation of OBC reservation, the JNU administration used the excuse of ‘lack of adequate infrastructure’ and tried to deliver social justice in installments. Next, the casteist and opportunist misinterpretation of the cut-off criteria was introduced, which was later upheld by the Aditya Mukhrjee Committee. Sidelining the MHRD directives on OBC reservation, which clearly say that the OBC students will be given a relaxation of ten points from the ‘prior determined’ cut-off for the general category students, the eligibility cut-off has been surreptitiously replaced by a ‘merit cut-off’, i.e., instead of deducting ten points from the eligibility marks (which is 40 in most centres), ten points are deducted from the marks scored by the last selected candidate in general category. As a result of the malicious and anti-student interpretation of the cut-ff criteria by the administration, many deserving OBC students were denied admission in the last two years.

After a sustained struggle by the students and a section of faculty members, the casteist recommendations of Aditya mukherjee Committee were rejected in the Academic Council meeting held on 18th March.  It was decided in the AC meeting that a committee of the Deans of all schools would be constituted to deliberate and evolve a mechanism that would ensure the fulfillment of 27% OBC seats. It was also agreed upon by the members of the AC that Dean’s Committee would study and seek help from the admission policy adopted by the HCU, where OBC reservation has been properly implemented. However, the feudal and casteist administration, which is hell bent on scuttling the OBC reservation, is trying its best to undermine the decisions taken in the AC meeting by delaying this process, and by maintaining a calculated silence on the entire issue. So far not a single meeting of Dean’s Committee has taken place.

The intention of the JNU administration to subvert the proper implementation of OBC reservation once again in this year admissions becomes shockingly clear when we read the Minutes of the AC meeting. It says, “After discussing the matter in detail, the council desired that the Admissions Branch may prepare a detailed Status Note on the experience of past three years in the matter keeping in view recommendations of the [Aditya Mukherjee] Committee  as well as by ascertaining the position prevailing in HCU and other central universities which may then be placed before the Standing Committee Directive on Admissions and Dean’s Committee to evolve a mechanism which will ensure filling up of 27% reserved seats in admissions for OBCs”. It is obvious from the minutes that even after the recommendations of highly casteist Aditya Mukherjee Committee was rejected by the of the AC meeting, it is still being brought back through the back door. Moreover, though the AC meeting gave the Dean’s Committee the powers to determine the new criteria, the Minutes deliberately keeps it vague as to who will be the final authority to take the decision. In addition, while the AC meeting agreed to pursue the reservation model implemented by the Hyderabad Central University because of its success in ensuring 27% OBC reservation, the JNU administration has now inserted in the Minutes ‘other central universities’ as well, in order to dilute and delay the entire exercise.

Going by the JNU administration’s dismal record of denying social justice by scuttling OBC reservations in the last two years, it is not difficult to understand the motive of these new tricks. To ensure that the JNU administration does not get away with undermining and violating the OBC reservations for one more year, we must demand the withdrawal of the concocted Minutes of the AC meeting and the immediate convening of the Dean’s Committee to decide on the proper cut-off criteria. We appeal to the student community to unite for another struggle against this casteist administration to ensure reservations and to uphold social justice.

Oppose War Criminal and Murderer Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse’s Visit to India! Fight Against the Expansionist Indian State and its Support to the Genocidal War against Eelam Tamils!

It has been a year since the fascist Sinhala ruling class of Sri Lanka led by Mahinda Rajapakse carried out one of the worst genocides of the 21st century, by decimating the national liberation movement of Tamil Eelam. While the people of Tamil Eelam continue to be forcefully detained in camps, the main perpetrator Mahinda Rajapakse has arrived in Delhi to thank the Indian state for its support to the genocidal war. This visit of Rajapakshe and his killer gang must be opposed also because another purpose of the visit is to invite more investments to the island state in the name of reconstruction. Seven pacts have been signed by the two parties to this effect today. Most of these are planned to be opened in the north and east of Sri Lanka, the area under Tamil Eelam, from where millions of Tamils have been evicted. This scheme of colonization is aimed at permanently closing down all possibilities for the restoration of displaced Tamils in their original homes. Unless prevented through struggle, the land belonging to the Tamils will be colonized by Sinhalese settlers, as well as by Chinese and Indian corporations. Indian state is very supportive of this project, as it perceives this as an opportunity for its expansionist dreams. It also fits into the Indian ruling class’s ambitious plan to become a South Asian power by containing China. This visit is important not only for the Rajapakse regime but also for the Indian state, which is waging a war on the people codenamed Operation Green Hunt, after drawing inspiration from the war in Sri Lanka.

The people of Tamil Eelam have been repressed and discriminated by the national chauvinist Sri Lankan state ever since 1948, when the British colonialists transferred power to its local Sinhalese agents. The Sinhala ruling class tried to justify this oppression by referring to a mythical past and made efforts to colonise the Tamil nation. These efforts were initially resisted by the Tamils through non-violent protests, but were repressed brutally by the state. Many state-sponsored genocidal attacks over the years led to an armed struggle for national self determination and for an independent Tamil Eelam in 1970s, continuing for more than forty years.

Unable to crush this movement, the Rajapakse government started an all-out war against the Tamil national minority in 2008, this time with the direct guidance and help of the imperialist forces. The war continued for over a year and it ‘ended’ after the killing of more than 80,000 Tamils, using banned chemical weapons like the thermobaric bombs and nerve gases and after displacing half a million. Murderer Rajapakshe cleverly used the US-led global ‘war against terror’ to justify the genocide with the aid of the US, India, China, Israel and many European powers. In complete disregard for the protests of the democratic voices against this war all over the world, it went ahead with the massacre. It bombed schools, hospitals, civilian areas, closed down UN offices, stopped all media entry to the ‘war zone’, and embargoed all humanitarian aid. Israeli planes, Chinese bombs, Indian intelligence and US tactics were unleashed on the people. After displacing over 500,000 Tamils, they have been put in different camps in north and east under inhuman conditions and constant surveillance. Torture, killing, molestation and rape have become a part of the daily routine in these camps, hidden from the outside world.

Tamil areas are now permanent settlements of the Sri Lankan Army, terrorizing even the very few who were released from the camps. Out of those, hundreds have gone missing.  Extra-judicial killings, abductions and kidnapping are a reality that the people of North and East have been presently forced to live with. Even in the country’s capital Colombo, every Tamil has to register in police station and can be picked up at anytime. Not only the Tamils but anyone who questions the Rajapakse family’s fascist rule is branded as a traitor of the state and are executed. Mahinda Rajapakse, his brothers and son are thus running a dictatorship with impunity, after recently extending their ‘right’ to rule by orchestrating the farce of parliamentary elections. 

Though Rajapakse does not miss a forum to talk about devolution of power, reconstruction, etc., the reality is quite opposite. Taxes are levied on relief materials with the exception of those that come in the name of the president or his son. This too can be delivered only by them, making it impossible to reach on time to the Tamils dying in the camps. The ‘development’ and ‘resettlement’ works are monitored by the specially appointed President’s Task Force, which has more power than any government agency and decides everything including the organizations that can work in those areas. Hence it is not surprising that the Red Cross, human rights groups etc. have been forced to wind up, while Indian business ventures are allowed to come up. In the name of High Security Zones, special economic zones are being created in the Tamil inhabited areas. The Tamils from the East, especially from Sampur area, have been denied permission to go back to their homes. Killinochi and Mullaithivu are still not open to the UN agencies for de-mining, because the Sri Lankan government wants to hide the mass graves existing in the region. In Mullaithivu alone, over 40,000 people were killed in a single week in May 2009 by using chemical weapons.

The ongoing colonization policy of the Sinhala State: The chauvinist Sinhalese state has started the colonization project in Tamil areas after the war in the name of ‘development’, a process similar to what Israel is doing in Palestine. As a part of this policy, it has re-named railway stations and other places of Eelam in Sinhala language, destroyed places of worship to establish new businesses managed by the Sinhalese. Buddhist monasteries in North and East are being built with state patronage. In Eelam’s Vavuniya Open University, many courses are now being offered only in Sinhala, and the same courses in Tamil are available only in Colombo, thereby cunningly denying the Tamil students of education in their own language. From filing a complaint to application for visa, there are reports of Sri Lankan officers denying paperwork unless the applications are in Sinhalese language. These show a continuation of the age-old policy of repressing the national minority.

‘China is a friend, India is a relation’! The reason for India’s support to the genocidal war is now clear from the investments it has begun in Sri Lanka in the name of rehabilitation and development. India-funded road projects, supposedly for the benefit of the Tamils, ends well before reaching Batticaloa. It is reported that the proposed industrial zone in Tricomalee harbor will once again evict the already displaced Tamils. Apart from the electricity and vehicle markets, Indian industries are to take over a major part of the service sector. All these and many more projects are to be sealed in the three day tour of the killer and his gang. India’s arrival in Sri Lanka, this time portrayed as a ‘benevolent’ neighbor, was flagged off by the celebration of the IIFA in collaboration with FICCI, amid the horrors of Sri Lanka’s frenzied slaughter last year.

Eelam is now being fast converted into a Sinhalese colony and a battle ground for Indian and Chinese corporations. However, the Tamils continue to struggle against these policies. Let us not forget that it was these centuries-long acts of repression, colonization and discrimination that led to the armed liberation struggle for a free Tamil Eelam. The Sri Lankan state has not learnt its lessons. As this new phase of repression intensifies on the people of Eelam, they will once again rise up in revolt to fight for their rights, their freedom and their nation.     

Stand by the Struggle for Justice of the Victims of Bhopal Gas Disaster! Demand Punishment of Anderson and others Responsible for the Genocide! Fight against Indian State’s Anti-People ‘Developmental’ Policies!

The Indian judiciary, in yet another instance of making mockery of justice, passed a verdict on the Bhopal toxic gas leakage 26 years after the incident which killed more than 25,000, besides inducing genetic mutations and deformities with the number still on the rise. The eight accused, one of whom is deceased, were sentenced to a mere two years in prison for ‘causing death due to negligence’ besides being fined a paltry amount. The Union Carbide's subsidiary in India has also been found guilty, but is let off with a fine of Rs 5 lakh. Even after such a watered down ‘punishment’ for the worst industrial genocide of human history, which amounts to a blatant denial of justice, the seven Indian Union Carbide India Ltd (UCIL) officials convicted in the case have also been granted bail and released by a trial court in Bhopal. All the officials who were accused in the Bhopal catastrophe including Keshub Mahindra, the former chairman of the Union Carbide India Ltd, a unit of US based Union Carbide Corporation and current chairman of Mahindra & Mahindra Company have been let off lightly. In fact, there was not even a word on Warren Anderson, the then Chairman of Union Carbide Corporation of U.S., the man primarily responsible for the crime.

The entire course of investigation and trial of the disaster has been a process of shielding the culprits rather than to punish them and to bring justice and relief to the victims. It took the CBI almost 3 years to even file a charge-sheet! After the CBI filed criminal charges of culpable homicide against 10 officials including Warren Anderson in December 1987, the charges were greatly diluted in 1996 by the Justice A.M. Ahmadi Bench of the Supreme Court dated 13 September 1996, only allowing charges that carried the maximum punishment of a mere two years. The way Anderson, a US citizen, has been allowed to move scot free by the Indian state shows the total subservience of the ruling classes to their imperialist masters.  After his first arrest in 1984, he was released on bail within 6 hours after signing a bond of 25,000 rupees and flown out on a government plane, never to be seen in India again. Ever since he was declared a fugitive in 1992 by the Bhopal court, the cases were separated to ensure that Warren Anderson was not made a party to the case in which eight of his Indian junior officers have been convicted. It took the Government of India 19 years to even move a formal request for his extradition in May 2003, which was predictably turned down by the US. Indian government never afterwards made any effort to bring him to justice.

Ever since the transfer of power in 1947, the ‘developmental’ policies followed by the Indian state be it in the form of big dams, a skewed mining policy, privatization of natural resources, etc. have all contributed to the destruction of millions of livelihoods for super profit for a few. The Bhopal Gas Disaster, rather than being an ‘accident’ as has been portrayed by the government and the court, is yet another fall-out of the Indian state’s anti-people ‘developmental’ policies. With the subsequent adoption of the so called New Economic Policy and shift towards complete ‘liberalization’ after 1990s, there is an attempt on the part of the ruling elite, irrespective of the party in power, to privatize almost every sector in pursuit of raw materials, new markets and cheap labour. In order to attract foreign investment from US and Europe, the Indian government is even ready to sacrifice the lives of thousands of the poor and marginalised people. Such policies which involve drastic ‘cost-cutting’ measures by MNCs and big corporations, relegating questions of the safety of the workers and the inhabitants, creating many more potential Bhopals. In fact in one his press conferences Anderson shifted the blame on the people, saying “It is their country, their company, their people.”

This mockery in the name of justice also exposes the Indian state, the running dog of imperialism, and its treatment of non-violent struggles, which in its quest for justice have knocked on the door of every institution in the country in the past few decades and have in turn been humiliated. While we condemn the callous attitude of the Indian state towards the victims and demand punishment for Warren Anderson and others responsible for such horrific acts, we reiterate that the fight against this imperialist path of ‘development’ has to be strengthened through the revolutionary movement. And with the peoples’ participation and struggles lies the road towards building an alternative to the present model of development which has brought nothing but death and destruction to the people of the country.

Condemn the Zionist attack on unarmed activists carrying aid to Gaza! Raise voice against the Imperialist Occupation and inhuman Gaza Blockade! Stand with the struggling people of Palestine! Expose Indian state’s military nexus with Israel!

Just 2 days after Israel attacked a flotilla carrying activists with humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza strip that left around 19 dead and many more injured leading to worldwide condemnations and protests, Israel carried out yet another air strike in Gaza on Tuesday killing 3 more people. This is not the first time that Israel has violated international laws, the United Nations’ Charter, UN Declaration of Human Rights or even basic political rights of the Palestinian people to further its heinous political designs. Apart from daily bombing and killing Palestinians and demolishing their settlements, Israel has also targeted United Nations Head Quarters in Gaza, UN run schools, international activists and journalists in the past. Israel has even opposed an international probe into the flotilla massacre just as it has done in the past. Most recently it had refused to cooperate with the U.N. investigation into Israel's 2009 war in the Gaza Strip-a war that left over 1500 killed-more than 50% being women and children and a war in which deadly chemical substances like white phosphorous, which induce genetic mutations and deformities, were used.

Palestine for almost a century now has been used a pawn for furthering imperial designs of various colonisers - the French, the British and now the United States. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, whereby Britain declared support for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, laid the foundation for the ethnic cleansing that was to follow. The UN Mandate that led to the creation of Israel, to ensure an ally for the US in the Middle East, was the beginning of a genocide for the people of Palestine with thousands killed and millions brutally evicted from their homelands in 1947-48 to make way for the Jewish settlers in one of the most barbaric instances of ethnic cleansing of our times. Israel has further gone ahead to occupy more land far exceeding the UN Mandate. Apart from the military oppression and a virtual holocaust that Israel has been waging on the people of Palestine, since 2007 after Hamas came to power through the people’s mandate it has also imposed a continued inhuman blockade on Gaza leading to severe food and medical shortages, even as the Israeli settlements continue. Each and every so called peace agreement has paved the way for more Israeli settlements, more Israeli control. The history of the Israel-Palestine conflict is painful history of Palestinians struggling to retain lesser and lesser portions of their lands, of Israel repeatedly illegally occupying their territories, and of Israel forcing millions of Palestinians to live in dehumanising conditions in walled, heavily armed ghettos.

Many countries, apart from offering token condemnations and protests, have continued to remain mute spectators and have been supporting American imperialists who have backed Zionist Israel in the region. The UN has also been acting as an agent of the axis of American and Zionist states. Western intellectual discourse and thereby the media tends to dwell more on constructions of “Islamic terrorism” in the context of US led “War on Terror” which obscures the real question of Palestine — that of its liberation. What is happening in Palestine now is only a part of the reality that is unfolding in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan with the escalation of war by Obama, who apparently come to power on a massive anti-war sentiment and has also been awarded the Nobel peace prize!

Learning from its imperialist masters, the Indian state too administers military occupations in Kashmir and North East and has also been complicit in the genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka. The Indian state has also been working closely with Israeli military and intelligence agencies in order to crush various people’s movements fighting against imperialist plunder of resources. The Indian state’s military nexus with the state of Israel also exposes its hollow claims of its commitment to ‘world peace’. In fact, is ‘peace’ possible when people are being denied the basic right of self-determination and national identity? We condemn the barbaric acts of violence by Israel, and stand in solidarity with the fighting people of Palestine.

Resist the Arbitrary and Undemocratic Hike in Hostel and Mess Charges! Defeat the Neo-liberal Agenda of the Administration!

The administration has once again come up with a number of anti-student decisions, arbitrarily imposing an increase in the mess charges, establishment charges, mess security etc. It has also introduced many decisions which were rejected by the students in the last semester, such as the centralized mess bill system, centralized allocation of single-seaters in the hostel, and so on. While the administration has shown keenness to put more financial burden of running the infrastructure on students, there is an apathy to address the severe lack of student’s basic necessities like hostel accommodation and other amenities in the hostels. In doing this, the student community has not been allowed to represent its point of view.

In the last IHA meeting held on 4 February 2010, ratified by the Executive Council meeting subsequently, the administration has decided to increase the price of extra food items served in the mess, to increase the mess advance to Rs.1500, and to hike mess security from Rs.850 to Rs.1200 and increase of establishment charge from Rs.200 to Rs.300 with retrospective effect.

We all know how in early  2009, the administration similarly decided to hike prospectus fee, levy user-charges in Koyna Hostel and to rent out PSR. This is a renewed attempt by the administration to levy charges from the students at the ‘market rate’, withdraw subsidies and commercialise the student facilities. Even though under pressure from the resistance of the student community, many of the proposals were put in the cold storage in the last two years by the administration, it is once again enforcing it now. It is notifying the hikes during the vacation with the aim of keeping the larger student community in the dark, so that these provisions can be pushed through without any resistance from the students.

In the name of creating a ‘World Class University’, the present VC and his administration has been relentlessly pursuing a privatisation agenda, and these latest hikes are a part of it. At the same time, it has blocked all measures of social justice, be it OBC reservation or faculty reservation, and undermined all democratic bodies in the campus. Till today, even after two months, it has not convened the meeting of the Deans Committee which was set up during the Academic Council meeting to decide on the mode of OBC reservation in the coming semester. At a time when it considers the progressive student movement to be under attack from Lyngdoh and in the absence of a functioning JNUSU, this privatisation drive has been further intensified. But as the agitation against privatisation, commercialisation and user charges in the last few years have showen, the students have refused to bow to administration’s pro-market and neo-liberal policies.

In last night’s All Organisation meeting, it has been decided to oppose these moves by the administration, beginning with a signature campaign and a protest demonstration. We must once again come out in large numbers and protest unitedly against the latest attack by the administration on our rights, and force it to reverse its anti-student decisions

Join Protest Demonstration
In front of Ad block 3pm, 7th June (Monday)

Punish the Indian Army personnel responsible for the fake encounter of 3 Kashmiri youths!

Kashmir has witnessed massive protests in the last few days against the cold-blooded murder of three Kashmiri youths by the Indian Army in the last week of April. Thousands of people from Nadihal and adjoining villages in Baramulla district came out protesting with the exhumed bodies of three youngsters who had ‘gone missing’ last month. As has been suspected by the people of Kashmir, the three were killed in cold blood and passed off as ‘Pakistani militants’ by the Army. The Army on 30th of April claimed that it had foiled an infiltration bid from across the border by these “unidentified militants”. The army also claimed to have recovered five AK-47 rifles and Pakistani currency from them. However, according to the locals and their families the three- Shahzad Ahmed (27), Riyaz Ahmad (22) and Mohammad Shafi (23) of village Nadihaal of Rafiabad were abducted from their village on April 27 and later killed. The murky details of the case are now slowly coming to light and an Army Major, two Subedar Majors and a sepoy along with jawans of the Territorial Army have been found guilty of murder and criminal conspiracy by a state police enquiry. The arrested persons told the interrogators that one Major Singh was involved in the encounter and paid them Rs. 50,000 each for getting civilians who could be shown as militants. In the subsequent crackdown on the protesters, over a dozen have been injured and many more arrested. Many pro freedom leaders including Syed Ali Shah Geelani have been arrested in an attempt to dampen the protests. A call for observing a general shutdown against the visit of the Sonia Gandhi has also been given. 

This comes a year after the Shopian incident, where two women -one of them pregnant- were raped and murdered by the personnel of Indian army. The state government and the central government had subsequently shielded the personnel responsible for the act and denied that there was a rape or murder and instead said that the women drowned in the drain which had just ankle-deep water outside the army camp! Even the doctor who confirmed the incidence of rape was suspended from the hospital and charge sheeted.
This is not new to the history of Kashmir which has seen thousands of such cases in its decades-struggle for freedom from oppressive Indian occupation. Over the past 20 years, the Indian state’s fascist war in Kashmir has taken more than 70,000 lives, thousands have simply ‘disappeared’, thousands of women have been raped and widowed. The valley has been systematically turned into a graveyard for Kashmiris, with torture chambers, check points, army camps and bunkers. Th state has filled the valley with spies, SPOs, vigilante gangs, funded NGOs, and embedded journalists in order to continue its brutal suppression of Kashmir’s aspiration for national self-determination. According to the Indian National Human Rights Commission, there were 1,039 cases of human rights violations, including, rapes, terrorizing, abduction & killing of women, children and youngsters and communally motivated violence by the security forces from 1990-1999, an average of 109 per year. These are just the official figures and the real numbers would be even higher as most of the cases go unreported or covered up. Army personnel shoot, rape, maim with impunity thanks to the draconian laws like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, PSA, Disturbed Areas Act. An army official recently justified all these measures calling them necessary and argued against soldiers being “dragged” to the courts as it would hit the “troop morale”. There is such a heavy concentration of armed forces that around 8,00,000 soldiers are fighting supposedly 150 militants! Any semblance of democracy remains a far cry in the valley with the army calling all the shots.

We must demand the punishment of army personnel responsible for the fake encounter, and condemn the draconian measures taken against the protesters. The people of the valley have militantly fought against state repression and Indian occupation of their homeland. We must uncompromisingly stand in support of the struggle of Kashmiris for self-determination and Azadi.