DSU Hindi Pamphlet

28 January 2011

Whatever Happened to the 'Other Binayaks'?

Whatever Happened to the ‘Other Binayaks’? Civil Society’s Failure to Stand by the People Targeted by the Indian State

The Indian ‘civil society’ –constituted by the articulate section of the middle class and representing a wide spectrum of ideological affiliations– has been shocked by the recent conviction of Dr. Binayak Sen. There have been vocal protests all over the country against the unfair implication of Dr. Sen in charges under the draconian UAPA as well as Chhattisgarh Public Safety Act, and the recent court verdict handing him a life imprisonment. For the so-called civil society, the defense of Dr. Sen stems from his untiring service to the people as a highly respected and socially committed medical practitioner who have spent an entire lifetime amongst one of the most marginalised and exploited sections of India – the adivasis of undivided Bastar. He took up the responsibility of fighting for the democratic rights of prisoners –including the Maoist political prisoners– imprisoned in the jails of Chhattisgarh, and demanded that the state provided them with all the rights they are entitled to, including the right to a fair trial and timely medical treatment. In the last few years, when the Indian state launched Salwa Judum to crush the growing revolutionary movement in central India, being a democrat and a prominent activist of the country’s civil rights movement, Dr. Sen was among the first to oppose the fratricidal war instigated by the ruling classes to further its own vested interest. He exposed the fiction propagated by the state and a pliant media that Salwa Judum was a ‘spontaneous movement’ of the adivasis against the Maoists. For becoming a formidable impediment to its nefarious designs, the state decided to crack the whip on Dr. Sen by framing him in cooked-up charges, and threw him in prison.

In its opposition to Dr. Sen’s conviction, the ‘civil society’ has missed the woods for the trees: Barring a section of the diehard reactionaries, there is a general consensus in the civil society that Binayak Sen’s arrest and the sentence against him is without any basis and is therefore entirely unjustified. The corporate media which is otherwise complicit in its silence to such witch-hunt, and more often justifies state repression by parroting stories concocted by the police, has also given space to the defenders of Dr. Sen. The widespread protests and a strong opposition in the ‘public sphere’ against his life imprisonment too is a sign of growing dissatisfaction with the blatant violation of the democratic rights of the citizens by the Indian state, particularly in the context of its ongoing war against the people. The civil society has consequently voiced its concern over ‘the death of democracy’, ‘the trial of Indian democracy’, ‘miscarriage of justice’ etc. by citing Dr. Sen’s fate. However, a close look at the recent programmes and utterances of this so-called civil society or the civil-society organisations make it very clear that barring a few honourable exceptions, they have failed to address the fundamental questions raised by Dr. Binayak Sen’s conviction and life imprisonment.

The civil society has failed to highlight the causes Dr. Binayak Sen fought for, or to emphasise the context in which he has been wrongfully targeted. By separating Dr. Sen’s lot from that of the people he worked with, or by underplaying the demands of the people which Dr. Sen gave voice to, the majority section of the civil society has ended up complementing the work of the state. While the state has removed him physically from the people, the Indian civil society has removed Dr. Sen from his cause, his mission and his political conviction. Dislocated in this way from his context, Dr. Sen is then presented to us merely as an individual, as a charismatic figure and a cause-célèbre, far removed from peoples’ movements and their aspirations. What remains to be fought, then, is the mere ‘human rights’ of Dr. Sen, and what becomes the casualty in the process is his politics. He would have never been found to be involved in anti-state activity if he were a good doctor working among tribal for their welfare. The struggle for the freedom of Dr. Binayak Sen will be grossly flawed and inadequate if the political content of his decades-long work is erased, removing him from the adivasis, the working people, their movements.

This becomes all the more obvious when we notice the deafening silence and utter failure of the same civil society in addressing the unjust punishment of Binayak Sen’s two co-accused in the same case. It has been conveniently overlooked that along with Binayak Sen, Narayan Sanyal and Piyush Guha have also been given ‘life term’ in the same case and by the same judge on similarly framed-up charges. Narayan Sanyal, the co-accused of Dr. Sen is in Raipur jail for the last five years, the prosecution having failed to conclusively prove his involvement in any ‘illegal’, ‘criminal’ or ‘violent’ activity. There is no proof whatsoever that he was guilty of the numerous charges slapped on him by the police. Setting aside the uncomfortable issues of proof and evidence, the trial-court judge simply observed that he is a ‘Maoist ideologue’, and that it is enough to keep him in jail for life! The question is, can anyone be punished –let alone life imprisonment– merely for upholding an ideology? Has the belief in Marxism or Maoism itself become a criminal offence? What happened to the constitutionally guaranteed right to political freedom? The civil-society has not raised these questions so far. The truth, however, is simple: the state and the ruling classes can and will take away even the right to follow an ideology if it talks of the liberation of the oppressed people. If Binayak Sen represents the progressive and democratic stream of the Indian democratic rights movement, Narayan Sanyal represents the revolutionary movement inspired by Naxalbari which has taken firm roots among the oppressed people of Bastar. That is why even at the age of 76 years Narayan Sanyal is a threat to the state, as is every genuine revolutionary. From hundreds of ‘encounter’ killings, illegal detentions and torture to imprisonment of nearly ten thousand ‘Maoists’ in various Indian jails –an unprecedented number of political prisoners in India– the state is cracking its whip. The so-called civil society has been on the whole silent on the state’s persecution of revolutionaries, barring a few exceptions like the cold blooded killing of Azad and Hem Chandra Pandey, when the state’s acts became too blatant to defend.

Piyush Guha, unlike Binayak Sen and Narayan Sanyal, has no political or ideological affiliation. Even today, the police have not presented any palpable evidence against this small-time tendu-leaf trader from Bengal, which the court chose to overlook while pronouncing his punishment. The alleged ‘courier’ of ‘Maoist leaders’ was kept in illegal custody and tortured for five days and imprisoned for the last three and a half years. Even though there are obvious disparities in the story made up by the police to justify his arrest, there is hardly any protest from the majority of the Indian civil society against his wrongful conviction as well. Piyush Guha is just one among thousands who have been made to undergo state repression after being presented as ‘Maoists’ or sympathizers, even though they have never been found to be involved in a criminal activity. Barring a few civil rights organisations such as Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) and Bandi Mukti Committee (BMC) of Bengal, the rest of the civil society has maintained a calculated silence on the two convictions.

And similar are the stories of many others. Earlier this month, Sudhir Dhawale, the well-known Dalit rights activist and editor of Marathi magazine Vidrohi was arrested at Gondia and charged with sedition (Sec 124) and under Section 17, 20 and 39 of the UAPA. He was returning after addressing ‘Ambedkar-Phule Sahitya Sammelan’ near Wardha. The Maharashtra police has linked him up with Maoists, and as ‘evidence’ produced seized literatures which are nothing but the writings of Marx, Lenin, Ambedkar, and Bhagat Singh. Likewise, Asit Sengupta, the editor of the internationally reputed journal ‘A World to Win’ was illegally detained and later arrested by Chhattisgarh police in January 2008. On the same day when Binayak Sen, Narayan Sanyal and Piyush Guha were given life imprisonment, Asit Sengupta was convicted and sentenced to eight years of imprisonment for his work as an editor and publisher. Kopa Kunjam, an activist of Vanvasi Chetna Ashram (Dantewada) who was working to resettle displaced adivasis in Netra village has been falsely implicated in a murder case. Similarly, nine activists including Kartam Joga of the Adivasi Mahasabha who were campaigning against land-grab in Lohandiguda have been implicated and jailed in fabricated charges.

The spokesperson of PCPA in Lalgarh, Chhatradhar Mahato and its treasurer Sukhshanti Baskey were arrested and imprisoned for more than a year. The police have taken recourse to slapping false charges including the draconian UAPA and tried to make malicious propaganda against them to establish their charges, all of which were later found to be baseless. Similarly Prasun Chatterjee and Raja Sarkhel of the Gana Pratirodh Mancha were arrested under UAPA and are still languishing in jail. The police charged them of being Maoist sympathizers. In West Bengal the first custodial death under UAPA was also recorded as Swapan Dasgupta, the editor of Bengali People’s March who was booked under UAPA and was suffering from cancer died due to criminal negligence of the Police who refused to transfuse him blood citing ‘security reasons’! More than 200 people including many women have been picked up from different places of the Jangal Mahal in the last two years and booked under UAPA or with the charges of sedition and ‘waging war against the state’ for daring to resist the decades-long repression and poverty that has been normalized in region for years. A similar kind of state repression prevails all across Jharkhand, Orissa, AP, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh. In Orissa alone there are 700 people in different jails including 120 people in Rourkela and 200 people in Koraput

The ‘civil society’ is silent on the ongoing fake-encounter killings: The killing of Lalmohan Tudu the president of PCPA, Sidhu Soren Secretary of PCPA along with five others by the police in fake encounters took place in West Bengal last year. In Metla forest in Lalgarh five people were shot dead by the CRPF and it was staged as an ‘encounter’. Wadeka Singhana, the president of Chasi Mulia Advasi Sangha was killed in cold blood along another activist of the organisation in 2008. Around 130 people have been killed in ‘encounters’ in Orissa. The Andhra Police also staged the notorious and cold blooded fake encounter of Maoist spokesperson and PB member Azad and a journalist Hem Chandra Pandey. The Supreme Court recently was forced to raise serious doubts on this particular encounter as the ‘evidence’ provided by the police were flimsy.

Thus, while a section of the ‘civil society’ and the corporate media does choose to rightly highlight one blatant and obvious case of state repression like that of Dr. Sen, no such concern is visible for thousands other less-known people who are undergoing imprisonment or are already dead. The civil society has been silent on not only of the Maoists, but also of the religious and national minorities. The state had blindly hunted down innocent Muslims, linked them up with non-existent ‘terror modules’, invented ‘masterminds’ and persecuted the entire community as potential ‘terrorists’. Countless Muslims have been harassed, tortured, illegally detained, implicated and in cases like the Batla House fake encounter, even killed. Many RSS leaders like Indresh Kumar, who have been clearly named by Aseemanand are still at large while the incarcerated innocent Muslims are still languishing in jail. The same is true for civil society’s position on the oppressed nationalities, where their movement for self-determination including secession from India is being crushed by most authoritarian means by the state. Repression of their political movements – be it in the North East or Kashmir - is however reduced by the civil society to violation of human rights or demand for withdrawal of draconian laws, etc.

The civil-society presents the conviction of the three merely as an aberration, where one reactionary judge in a lower court can be blamed for meting out an unacceptable verdict. This however is yet another evidence –for those who still justifies the present oppressive system– of the fascist nature of the Indian state or its various organs. Sandwiched between a fascist state and people’s heroic resistance, they have played time and again an opportunist politics of creating a false and impossible dream of ‘democratising the state’. The parliamentary ‘Left’ parties like CPI(M) have also revealed their fascist colours by becoming the most faithful ally of UPA and BJP in this war against the people. CPI(M) thus wants ‘proportionate punishment’ for Binayak Sen and has justified his earlier denial of bail. But when these murderers speak anything on Binayak Sen’s arrest, it tantamount to nothing but crass hypocrisy. Their electoral ally CPI(ML)Liberation however has no other choice but to celebrate such double-speak. Liberation (and AISA) which on papers ‘condemn’ CPI(M)’s gross carnages in Singur, Nandigram, Lalgarh or off late in Netai have allied with same CPI(M) in Bihar elections and saw ‘new possibilities’ in such opportunist alliance. So they have no other options but to welcome, as they did in their last pamphlet, the opportunist stand of CPI(M) on Dr Sen! And that is the reason why Liberation cannot speak beyond Binayak Sen. Because then they have to accept how inherently fascist this Indian state is; how entrenched feudal forces are and how futile parliamentary politics is! Then they also have to stand unconditionally with the resilient masses who are fighting this fascist brahminical system tooth and nail. But that is a politics Liberation has left behind way back. It thus finds its alliance with the social fascist CPI(M), the reactionary Nitish Kumar, and with the apolitical civil society and NGOs.

It is time the ‘civil society’ realize that there is no ‘democracy' for the vast majority in India. The state repression is not rooted in undemocratic functioning of today’s UPA government, or any government of the day. In the name of dialogue and peace, what they have practiced is nothing but NGO-styled strategic intervention. Peace or dialogue can never be talked about in abstraction. People on the other hand are struggling against a system of inequality, oppression by the ruling classes of India. We hope that the Indian civil society will to overcome its limitations and will try to integrate more closely with the ongoing peoples’ movements in the country.

DSU Hindi Pamphlet

19 January 2011

Revolution and Counter-Revolution: Indian State Bares its Fangs as the Class Struggle Intensifies in Orissa!

“Once they (Vedanta Aluminium Ltd.) get the final clearance and come here for mining, we will have no option but to fight them tooth and nail… We have started preparations for the confrontation and that is when the government will declare us Maoists and unleash CRPF troops on us. But we have nothing to lose. We will fight it out and die but will not let go of our forest…”

 

- Lenju, activist of Niyamgiri Surakhya Samiti in an interview to Frontline, 5-18 June 2010

Lenju was among the nine people gunned down by the armed forces in Badangmali of Rayagada district last week. After staging this ‘encounter’ on 9 January 2011, the police claimed that nine ‘Maoist ultras’, including four women, were killed and advertised it as the biggest ‘catch’ in its ongoing war against the Maoists in Orissa. The police identified the dead as Ravi, Rajendra, Lenju, Ramesh Kulsika, Rinky, Nirmala, Mamata Sipka, Karuna and Kamala. However, not even a single policeman got injured after this ‘fierce encounter’ that supposedly lasted for six to seven hours! In spite of the one-sided reports in the corporate media which uncritically blurted out the police version of the ‘encounter’, anyone who is aware of the realities of India would know that it was not encounter but cold-blooded murder. Like Lenju who was a member of Dongria Kondh tribal community and a leader of the Niyamgiri movement fighting against Vedanta’s incursions, all the dead were activists or supporters of the anti-displacement movements in Rayagada and its adjoining districts. 

This was preceded by another ‘encounter’ staged on 2 January 2011 in Tamka forest of Jajpur district. Five people, including four women – Sabitri, Sujata, Baby and Janga – were killed by the police. The usual claims of heroic success against the Maoists were made. All five of them, however, were picked up by the police from different villages on 20 December 2010 and made to undergo two weeks of illegal custody and torture before being shot. Among them Janga, of merely 12 years in age, was a resident of Baligotha village near Kalinga Nagar. In April 2010, the police attacked her village and razed it to the ground. Though there was no proof of ‘illegal activities’ against any of them, the murderous gang of police executed the five without taking the ‘trouble’ of carrying out constitutional and legal niceties, such as arresting or producing them before a court of law. The only crime of the five villagers was to oppose the forced displacement of people to make way for mining. The ‘encounter’ was staged just a day before the 5th anniversary of the Kalinga Nagar killings where 14 adivasis where shot dead in January 2006 for protesting against the proposed Tata steel plant. It was meant to be a lesson to the people that the state would not hesitate to replicate the mass murder of Kalinga Nagar if they did not submit to the wishes and interests of the ruling classes.

In 2008, Sirimajhi Paleka was gunned down by the police in Birubai village of Rayagada district in a fake encounter for allegedly belonging to the ‘Surya dalam of CPI (Maoist)’. When this concocted story was challenged in the Orissa Human Rights Commission, no proof could be provided by the police for his alleged involvement, nor could it give any justification for the ‘encounter’. It was impossible to believe that any encounter really took place when none of the 50 policemen who supposedly took part in the exchange of fire were injured, the OHRC observed. It ordered the Orissa government to provide Paleka’s widow compensation and a pension. As for the punishment of the guilty policemen, not a word was heard. 

None of the perpetrators of state violence has been brought to justice, nor will they ever be in the given political and judicial system. Because the police and armed forces merely implement what the state wants them to do, and thereby receives its full protection. This makes it amply clear to the people that the state, being an instrument of class oppression, sanctions the murder of the vocal members of the exploited classes. This is what happened in Narayanpatna on 20 November 2009 when the police shot dead two members of Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangha, including its president Wadeka Singana during a peaceful protest demonstration. Therefore, the oppressed masses at times decided to respond with retaliatory violence, much like when a policeman was killed by the people after four persons died in police firing in Gochapada of Kandhmal district on 13 September 2008. And these are but a few recent and more blatant instances of state violence. It is estimated that in the last four decades since 1969, 130 people have been killed in fake encounters in Orissa. Of them, 23 have been killed in the last two months alone, for being part of various anti-displacement and democratic movements. At least three adivasis have been killed in police custody after undergoing torture in October-December 2010.

 The intensification of state violence in the last few years signifies a sharpening of the class contradictions, where Orissa has become one central arena of class struggle. This shows the growing influence of the communist movement among the oppressed classes, and the proportionately growing desperation of the ruling classes to crush it by unleashing state terror. Threatened by the growth of the revolutionary movement, the Indian state has abandoned all its democratic pretence, treating all peoples’ movements in a dictatorial manner. In this way the ruling classes are desperately trying to preserve the age-old exploitative social and economic relations, be it the feudal land relations or the stranglehold of the comprador big bourgeoisie and international finance capital over Orissa’s people and resources. However, these relations are constantly being attacked by the revolutionary and democratic peoples’ movements, be it in Narayanpatna where adivasis have reclaimed thousands of acres of land occupied by big landlords of Orissa and Andhra, or in other regions where the exploitation and incursion of extractive industries have been stalled by the people.

It is the same forces of domination that kept the vast majority of the people of Orissa in poverty, misery and subjugation over the years, and fulfilled the needs of a handful of rich and powerful belonging to the ruling classes. Post-liberalisation, multinational companies of various imperialist countries have entered Orissa with renewed vigor, expecting super-profits from the plunder of resources. For instance, out of the total mineral resources of India, Orissa contains 99 percent chromate ore, 92 percent of nickel ore, 65 percent of graphite and pyrophylite, 66 percent of bauxite, 32 percent of manganese, 28 percent of iron ore, and 24 percent of coal deposits. Posco of South Korea therefore has plans to construct a mammoth $12 billion steel plant near Paradip port, which would be the largest single investment in India's history. Arcelor-Mittal likewise has announced plans to invest in another mega steel project amounting to $10 billion. Russian major Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Company plans to set up a 10 MT steel plant. Anil Ambani's Reliance Industries is putting up the world's largest power plant with an investment of US $13 billion at Hirma in Jharsuguda district. The 1.4 million tonne alumina project in Kalahandi district undertaken by Vedanta Resources is the largest investment in aluminium in the country. Profit and not the people are at the centre of these projects.

The Indian state, which is the joint dictatorship of the feudal forces and comprador big capitalist class, is now being boldly challenged by the oppressed masses all over Orissa, be it in Narayanpatna, Kalinganagar, Kashipur, Gandhamardan, Malkangiri, Koraput or Rayagada, etc. And the people here, as elsewhere in the country where the revolutionary movement led by the Maoist revolutionaries is taking shape, are not only fighting to defend what they have – jal, jangal, jameen – they are also fighting to build what they aspire for: a real democracy. Organs of peoples’ power are taking shape in many parts of Orissa which are restructuring the society in a revolutionary way, and are putting up the most resolute fight against feudal oppression and corporate plunder.

These areas of revolutionary class struggle, spread over nearly half of the 30 districts of Orissa, are now being identified by the state as ‘Naxal affected’. The most blatant instances of state violence in the name of fighting Naxalism are taking place in these areas, and it is here that the counter-revolutionary war waged by the state on the revolutionary and democratic masses and their movements is most intense. Here everyone who is not with the state is a potential target of ‘encounters’. But inspired by the revolutionary spirit of Naxalbari and guided by a communist consciousness, the oppressed people of Orissa are boldly carrying forward the banner of class struggle. It is time that we too choose our sides.

What Really Happened in Netai! What Really is Happening in India!!

14 January 2011

 

What happened in Netai, West Bengal a few days back murdering 8 people and injuring several, is a blatant instance of state-sponsored brutality perpetrated by CPI (M) goons. In Netai like hundreds other camps set up in Jungal Mahal area, a Harmad camp was set up in the house of a local CPI(M) leader, Rathin Dandapat, who is a school teacher too. The Harmad Vahini had been forcing villagers, especially young boys to join their camps and go through necessary training by the Kansai river-side camp. They even issued diktats that any family which won’t send at least one person to the camp would be shot dead. They were also forcing women to come and cook for the camp inmates. The day before the Netai incident the harmads had given the villagers an ultimatum by going to ten houses threatening them and even beating up three persons as consequence of not sending family member to the camp. Police and local CPI(M) leaders by that time made it amply clear to the villagers that Harmads have their tacit and direct support. The day of the incident, villagers saw Harmads patrolling the area with arms in broad daylight. They informed police but as police did not turn up, thousands of villagers gheraoed Dandapat’s house and started protesting. The CPI(M) goons in the presence of local CPI(M) leaders started firing indiscriminately from the rooftop and from the back. Police who were stationed hardly three miles away reached the scene 6 hours later.

CPI(M)’s social fascist root goes back in history. In the name of countering Maoists, the torture and murder of hundreds of protesting people have been made a everyday reality by the Harmad Vahini in Jungal Mahal with the support of CRPF, para-military and police. In the past as well, CPI(M) never shied away from crushing and massacring any resisting voice. The memory of atrocities committed by CPI(M) through police and its private militia in Singur and Nandigram is still afresh. The people will not forget that the CPI(M) as a faithful party of the Indian ruling classes was instrumental in the execution and imprisonment of hundreds of youths during the Naxalbari revolutionary upsurge of 1960s-70s bravely fighting the Indian state. In Marichjhapi, CPI(M)-led government left a whole refugee population in isolation and destitution to die in an island by cutting off all supply of food and drinking water. In recent times, CPI(M) goons ransacked, demolished settlements, killed people forcing others to flee in the name of ‘re-capturing area’ like in Singur and Nandigram. Even before Manmohan-Chidambaram model of displacement in the name of development started in full throttle, CPI(M)-led West Bengal government launched the biggest ever eviction-drive of working people in India in 1996 called ‘Operation Sunshine’. Slums were burnt down, hawkers’ stalls on the pavement were demolished and hawkers were arrested indiscriminately in the name of beautification, leading to massive displacement and loss of sources of livelihood. This is the past record of the ‘party of workers and peasants’! Only a resolute peoples’ resistance forced a withdrawal of the operation later.

Opportunistic alliance is one which sides with ruling-classes, imperialist interests and against the people. CPI(M) in their recent history has made this amply clear that they can be with anybody but with the people. They came out from UPA pretending to oppose ‘Nuclear-Bill’ as a part of their so-called anti-imperialist struggle. However be it through sanctioning of several SEZ projects in West Bengal or supporting draconian laws like AFSPA in Tripura, CPI(M) has always maintained its allegiance to the Market-guru Manmohan or the war-monger Chidambaram. On the other hand, their ‘fight’ against communalism does not stop them, in the name of third front, to share platform with Jayalalitha and Chandrababu Naidu, part of NDA and allies of communal-fascist RSS-BJP.

The political bankruptcy of CPI(ML) Liberation has once again come to the fore in recently concluded Bihar elections. Its general secretary Dipankar Bhattyacharya saw a ‘new possibility’ in allying with CPI(M) in Bihar. We would like to ask AISA, the student wing of Liberation, is it not crass opportunism to oppose CPI(M) in the campus and in West Bengal while allying with CPI(M) in Bihar for electoral considerations? Does it not prove that in shedding crocodile’s tears for the people, or AISA’s ‘struggles against imperialism, against repression’ and ‘corruption’ etc. are no different from SFI’s hollow politics of rhetoric and hypocrisy? Is it not NGO-ised ‘intervention’ in the name of revolutionary politics?

These forces in their politics of revisionism, opportunism have resorted to continued lies and deceit. In anticipation of an election result like Bihar, where their alliance have miserably failed to provide any genuine alternative to the people they are now up in arms to delegitimize genuine people’s struggle for an alternative. They wilfully ignore the condemnation and criticism of Mamata and TMC made by the PCPA and the Maoists for not taking a position against operation Greenhunt and withdrawal of security forces from the Jungal Mahal region. In quoting several PCPA and Maoist activists out of context, what they try to perpetuate the bogey of TMC-Maoist alliance, and regain their own lost ground in parliamentary opportunism by delegitimizing aspirations for peoples’ democracy and for a classless society.

The violence in West Bengal and anywhere in this country must be understood in its true context of relentless class struggle for peoples’ emancipation. In thirty years of uninterrupted run CPI(M)-led West Bengal government has done nothing but to create a politically privileged cadre-base which has intimidated people, oppressed any dissenting voice, repress any resistance, and intensified the existing oppressive social relations. It has played the role of a faithful running dog for US imperialism. It has given Monsanto to direct its agricultural policy which is nothing but corporate-farming against the interest of small-land holding peasants. It has no problem in letting the US-army to use West Bengal airfields for military purposes. It has brought in comprador TATA and has given all forms of subsidy without disclosing terms and condition to the people. It invited blacklisted Salem group to Nandigram with dire consequences. In manufacturing consumer goods like cars, motorbikes etc. they propagated ‘development’, which for the people is nothing but forced eviction. The police, company goondas and Harmads have evicted peasants from even thrice-cropped lands, brought to them nightmares of displacement and corporate-loot of resources. CPI(M)’s policy is no different from Chidamabaram’s ploy to sell the country to Vedanta, Essar, Posco and thereby satisfy his imperialist masters. CPI(M) is party to the same enemy which the people of Jharkhand, Chattishgarh, Bihar, Orissa, Kashmir, North-East etc. are fighting against. People of Jungal Mahal are fighting the same battle against a fascist state and its brutal repression; for democracy and freedom. The people have given clear indication that the social-fascist CPI(M)’s days are numbered. Thus, ‘Netai’ is another glowing chapter in people’s heroic revolutionary struggle, with which we stand in full solidarity.

Aseemananda’s Confessions: The Deepening Tentacles of the Hindu-Fascist Terrorist State!

12 January 2011

8th September 2006. Four bombs exploded at the Hamidia Masjid,  Bada Kabrstan, Mushawart Chowk in Malegaon killing 31. The Maharashtra ATS arrested nine people, all of them muslims, eight being ex-SIMI members. All of them were booked under the draconian MCOCA.18th February 2007. Just before the peace talk with Pakistan, two bombs went off in two coaches of Samjhauta Express, with  almost all passengers being Pakistani nationals, killing atleast 68 people. The authorities immediately ‘found’ the hands of ‘’Pakistan based organizations like Harkat-ul-jihadi (HUJI) and Lashkar-e-toiba (LeT)’’. The US of course attested to such claims.  17th May 2007. 4000 muslims had assembled in the Mecca Masjid Hyderabad when an explosion killed 14 people. Immediately a local muslim organization Ahle Hadess was held responsible and within a week hundreds of muslim boys were arrested, rounded up and tortured. When the police failed to substantially link them up with the case many of the detainees were chargesheeted with trumped up bogus cases to keep them in jail. 11 October 2007. At Ajmer Dargah during the month of Ramzan in the evening, a powerful bomb went of killing atleast 3 people injuring dozen the state once again put the blame on muslims organizations. 29th September 2007. Two more bombs went off in Malegaon and Modasa killing four more people.

The Indian state has indicted more than thirty innocent  persons belonging to the muslim religious minority community for being involved in these four bomb blasts alone. But in the recent revelations by Swami Aseemanand of the RSS made it clear that behind all these blasts that took more than 100 lives is the communal fascist sangh giroh. In his confession before the magistrate Aseemanand revealed “after the combined meeting, Joshi, Pragya. Riteshwar and I met. I suggested 80% of the people in Malegaon were muslims and we should explode the first bomb in Malegaon itself. I also said that during the partition, the nizam of Hyderabad had wanted to go with Pakistan so Hyderabad was also a fair target. Then I also said that since hindus also throng the ajmer sharif dargah in large numbers we should also explode a bomb in ajmer which would deter the hindus from going there. I also suggested the Aligarh muslims university as a terror target…Joshi suggested that it was basically Pakistanis who travel on the Samjhauta Express and therefore we should attack the train as well”.

There had been a series of bomb blasts in the civil areas in India, particularly in the last four years. Every time the state machinery imagined and propagated the alleged hands of ‘foreign backed Islamic terrorists’. The brunts however were always faced by the muslims. Hundreds of them have been arrested, illegally detained for months, brutally tortured, kept confined without trials and even sentenced or killed in fake encounters. Draconian laws like POTA, MCOCA, GujCOCA, UAPA were evoked to fortify these arrests. Organizations like SIMI was banned without a trace of evidence to show that it was involved in any 'illegal' activity. Its members were extensively targeted with hundred still languishing in various jails. The arrested people were all indicted on the basis of ‘police confessions’ which were completely trumped up. The confession of Aseemananda however is a confession in front of the magistrate that cannot be retracted, and is admissible as a valid proof of criminal conspiracy. IFor anyone who was in doubt, it clearly exposed the involvement of RSS in four of the major bomb blast cases. In Kanpur in August 2008, two Bajrang Dal activists Bhupendar Singh and Rajeev Mishra were killed while the bomb they were making accidentally exploded. The Kanpur SP admitted to the press that the material used (Amonium Nitrate) in making these bombs were the same as the bombs that were used in the Delhi blasts in September that year. These links were conveniently silenced. So what we witness now is certainly just the tip of the iceberg.

The  very fact that even after a magisterial confession, the police is still reluctant to arrest Indresh Kumar, member of the RSS central committee and one of the key figures involved, whereas on the other hand the police confessions formed the only basis for thousands of arrests of muslims only goes to show the communal character of the Indian state. This definitely is not just the work of a handful of RSS ‘miscreants’ or fanatics. Aseemanand's confessions rather reflect the communal and saffronised character of the state machinery in general. The police, the court/tribunal court, the CBI, the ATS, the army and lastly the corporate media were all working in tandem to ‘prove’ how the ‘global Islamic terror networks’ are 'breeding' and repeatedly striking the Indian (read hindu) masses. This of course was being orchestrated by the Indian state with the complete sanction, backing and assistance of ‘war on terror’ campaign spearheaded by US imperialism. The authorities here asserted the functioning of the various ‘terror modules’ and how the arrested people were located at its various nodes. The corporate media faithfully propagated the false stories. The judiciary obliged with it blindly. Aseemananda’s confessions therefore clearly show how irrespective of the party in power, the sangh giroh is embedded in the very structures that run the state. From the Bombay pogrom to the Gujarat carnage, from the repression on muslim organizations to numerous false encounters like Batla House, the Indian state machinery has always functioned as an instrument of the Hindu fascist programme.

Parliamentary parties of all shades starting from the self-proclaimed largest secular party Congress was not unaware of all this. They are the same people who have shielded and sheltered the communal-fascists for many decades even amongst their own ranks. At a time when Congress is being cornered with rampant corruption charges, electoral defeats in some of states and a receding muslim support base, this sudden urge to prove its secular credentials is nothing but a ploy to divert attention from its own complicity in the profiling of all muslims as ‘terrorists’ and 'anti-nationals'. The official ‘Left’ too is not free of its complicity. Let alone its policies, but also its rhetoric seems to converge with the other mainstream parties; so Buddhadeb Bhattacharya expressed how he feels ‘madrasas are nothing but dens of ISI’. All the parliamentary parties had either upheld or remained silent on the highly communal judgment in the Babri message case. This terror acts too are being projected as a handiwork of a few sanghi fanatics rather than exposing the complicity and involvement of the entire state machinery in perpetrating the terror and then implicating hundreds of innocent people as well as profiling the entire muslim population. And these orchestrated bomb-blasts are only one aspect of the Hindu majoritarian Indian state and communal-fascist RSS-brigade: we must not forget that the real perpetrators of the attack on Indian Parliament in 2001 and Mumbai attacks in 2008 are still being shielded by the state and US imperialism.

Paying lip service and token condemnations will not defeat the communal-fascists. These terror attacks are only a part of the larger repressive apparatus of the Indian state to crush the oppressed sections to pursue its imperialist agenda and therefore its patronization of the communal-fascists is natural. The fight against them fascists has to be strengthened by connecting it with the larger anti-imperial and anti-feudal struggles. An overhauling of this brahminical hindu fascist state backed by its imperialist masters can only ensure dignity and justice to all oppressed masses.

Oppose CPI(M): The Gang of Social-Fascist Mass-Murderers!

Social-Fascist CPI(M) Massacres Again! Resist Fascist Indian-State’s Continued War on People!

9 January 2011

In its continued war on the people by the Indian state, the Orissa police have gunned down 9 villagers in the in Kasipur of Rayagada district. The police have made the usual claim of shooting down ‘hardcore’ Maoists, and recovering a huge cache of arms and ammunition, while the local villagers have complained of a false encounter. We must condemn and resist this latest onslaught, and expose the unabated massacre of people and later branding them as ‘Naxalites’, ‘Maoists’ or ‘terrorists’.

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In the latest incident of brutal state violence in West Bengal, at least 8 people have been killed and more than 20 people are injured by the CPI(M)’s notorious mercenary Harmad Vahini in the village Netai in Lalgarh. Villagers of the adjacent areas have been compelled by the CPI(M) and its Harmad Vahini to be part of their killer gang, and help their ‘recapture’ of Lalgarh. The CPI(M) goons camping in the local CPI(M)leader’s house with direct support the state government instructed all the villagers to send one person from their family to join Harmad Vahini and go through necessary arms-training. They also forced one woman from every family to take turn and cook for the people in the camps. They even issued direct threats to kill them if they disobey the diktat. Facing the situation villagers made several requests to the local authorities and even CPI(M) leaders. Instead, three villagers were beaten up by the harmads for not turning up for the training. The Harmads even took rounds and knocked on every door to remind the villagers of lethal consequence if anybody disobeyed the order. Following this, the next morning, more than thousand villagers marched to Rathin Dandapat’s house now converted into a harmad camp, and staged a protest outside. The Harmad goons showered bullets on the villagers from the rooftop and also from behind, killing 6 of them on the spot. Later, two others succumbed to their injuries. All of these protesters were unarmed and most of them were shot in the back.

The CPI(M), isolated and exposed by the fighting masses of Singur, Nandigram and now Jungal Mahal, have been resorting to state-sponsored violence much like Salwa-Judum  for a long time. In the name of ‘recapturing areas’ and ‘tackling Maoists’ they have killed hundreds of villagers and struggling peasants in Lalgarh. Working under the protection as well as active assistance of the central paramilitary forces, CRPF and the police, this killer gang of the CPI(M) is unleashing a reign of terror in Lalgarh and adjacent areas where numerous Harmad Camps have been formed keeping the 2011 assembly elections in mind. With regard to the incident in Netai, villagers informed local police about the camp set up in Dandapat’s house and alerted of heavily armed CPI(M) goons to be seen on the roof. However, the police who were barely 3 kilometers away from the scene never turned up on time. They came almost 6 hours after the massacre. In the Jungal Mahal area, police, CRPF and Harmads work hands in gloves. Police and CRPF often use Harmads and local leaders as the informers and as extension of their operation against villagers in the name of hunting down Maoists. Their atrocities include fake encounters, killing villagers and staging it as Maoist violence, intimidating the supporters of the PCAPA and the revolutionary movement. The Netai incident is just another addition to the list of state-sponsored brutalities which the deprived sections of West Bengal have been experiencing for decades, while the people of Lalgarh continue to bravely resist these Harmad Camps and the Joint Forces.

In a ridiculous exchange between Chidambaram and Buddhadeb, a letter from the home minister regarding CPI(M)’s Harmad Vahini has recently captured media headlines across India. To please its political ally Trinamool Congress(TMC), the Congress-led UPA in the centre pretended to oppose CPM sponsoring private militia through a letter from the Home Ministry. On the other hand, Buddhadev made a hue and cry about the use of the term ‘harmad’ while being completely silent on the issue of the existence of such a militia. Chidambaram pretends to be ignorant of Salwa-Judum styled private militia groups killing people in central India and his own offensive against the people in the name of Operation Green Hunt. On the other hand CPI(M) breeds its own ‘Salwa Judum’ in West Bengal while opposing Salwa-Judum in Chhattisgarh. The masks and deceptions of the parliamentary parties including the official left in India were exposed once again in this entire episode.

With their so called ‘differences’, parliamentary parties are united in suppressing the democratic aspirations of the people. Both CPI(M) and Congress-led UPA are nothing but the faithful servants of corporate sharks and of imperialism. The logic behind the murders, crushing of dissenting-democratic voices and launching an all-out attack against the revolutionary movement in the name of ‘internal security threat’ is the same. It is the same logic which makes them nurture harmads. This is the logic of imperialism – to pave way for TATA, Salem etc. at the expense of the people. While CPI(M) in the centre opposes Nuclear-liability Bill in the name of anti-imperialism; they are the most dedicated lackey of imperialism inviting US-based companies like Monsanto to guide agro-industry and agricultural policy in West Bengal. They are also quite instrumental in realising Manmohan-Chidambaram’s neo-liberal agenda by initiating SEZ projects in West Bengal even if it implies starvation, more deprivation and displacement for suffering, toiling masses of this country. TMC is the latest puppet of suppressing popular resistance to facilitate corporate loot. CPI(M) and TMC in a characteristic fight over body-counts have now reduced the murder of fighting masses to a mere tool of manoeuvring votes. While TMC is a part of UPA and is yet to clarify its stand on Operation Greenhunt, Mamata does not lose one opportunity for petty-politicking when it comes to the brutality of social-fascist violence like in Netai committed by CPI(M). PCPA has been trying to draw attention to the ‘mushrooming’ of Harmad camps in Jungal Mahal area. The so-called ‘intellectuals’ are lining up with TMC in the name of ‘change’ nor TMC took any concrete steps to force the state-government to withdraw from such state-sponsored violence. TMC’s sole agenda now have become to nurture anti CPI (M) sentiment with the view of recent assembly election in 2011. Therefore while Harmad camps are being rapidly set-up in these areas killing people on an everyday basis, the TMC have done nothing except lip-service.

 

The ongoing revolutionary and democratic movement of the oppressed masses of India is a resolute struggle to demolish all the homegrown lackeys of imperialism. The struggle led by PCAPA in Lalgarh is a part of this heroic movement, and is going on for more than a year by defeating all efforts by the ruling classes to crush it. Resorting to brutal violence and political trickery might delay, but will never be able to suppress the revolutionary upsurge of the oppressed people.

Condemn the Murder of Villagers Protesting against Harmad Camp in Lalgarh by the Social-Fascist CPI(M)!

7 January 2011

In the latest incident of brutal violence in West Bengal, at least 6 people have been killed today and more than 20 people are injured by the CPI(M)’s notorious mercenary Harmad Vahini in a village called Netai in Lalgarh. Villagers of the adjacent areas have been under intense intimidation and threat by the CPI(M) and its Harmad Vahini. Today a large number of villagers came out in protest and gheraoed a Harmad Camp demanding that it be demolished. The Harmad goons who were occupying the house of a CPM leader indiscriminately showered bullets on the unarmed villagers, killing 6 of the protestors instantly. Phulkumari Maity, Sourav Ghorai, Shyamananda Ghorai, Kablu Patra, Dhiren Sen were among those who died while many are still critically injured.

The CPI(M), isolated and exposed by the fighting masses of Singur, Nandigram and now Jungal Mahal, have been resorting to state-sponsored violence much like Salwa-Judum  for a long time. In the name of ‘recapturing areas’ and ‘tackling Maoists’ they have killed hundreds of villagers and struggling peasants in Singur, Nandigram and in Lalgarh. Working under the protection as well as active assistance of the central paramilitary forces, CRPF and the police, this killer gang of the CPI(M) is unleashing a reign of terror in Lalgarh and adjacent areas where numerous Harmad Camps have mushroomed.  Their unrestrained violence and white terror has even forced the warmonger Chidambaram to recently appeal for ‘restraint’. Their atrocities include fake encounters, killing villagers and staging it as Maoist violence, intimidating the supporters of the PCAPA, the revolutionary movement, etc. Today’s incident is just another addition to the list of state-sponsored brutalities which the deprived sections of West Bengal have been experiencing for decades, while the people of Lalgarh continue to bravely resist these Harmad Camps and the Joint Forces.

In a ridiculous enactment of the theatre of the absurd with Chidambaram and Buddhadev in the main roles, a letter regarding CPI(M)’s Harmad Vahini has recently captured media headlines across India. To please its political ally Trinamool Congress(TMC), the Congress-led UPA in the centre pretended to oppose CPM sponsoring private militia through a letter from the Home Ministry. On the other hand, Buddhadev made a hue and cry about the use of the term ‘harmad’ while being completely silent on the issue of the existence of such a militia. Chidambaram pretends to be ignorant of Salwa-Judum styled private militia groups killing people in central India and his own offensive against the people in the name of Operation Green Hunt. On the other hand CPI(M) breeds its own ‘Salwa Judum’ in West Bengal while opposing Salwa-Judum in Chhattisgarh. The masks and deceptions of the parliamentary parties including the official left in India were exposed once again in this entire episode.

With their so called ‘differences’, parliamentary parties are united in suppressing the democratic aspirations of the people. Both CPI(M) and Congress-led UPA are nothing but the faithful servants of corporate sharks and of imperialism. The logic behind the murders, crushing of dissenting-democratic voices and launching an all-out attack against the revolutionary movement in the name of ‘internal security threat’ is the same. It is the same logic which makes them nurture harmads. This is the logic of imperialism – to pave way for TATA, Salem etc. at the expense of the working people. TMC is the latest puppet of suppressing popular resistance to facilitate corporate loot. CPI(M) and TMC in a characteristic fight over body-counts have now reduced the murder of fighting masses to a mere tool of maneuvering votes. While TMC is a part of UPA and is yet to clarify its stand on Operation Greenhunt, Mamata does not lose one opportunity for petty-politicking when it comes to the brutality of social-fascist violence like in Netai committed by CPI(M).

The ongoing revolutionary and democratic movement of the oppressed masses of India is a resolute struggle to demolish all the homegrown lackeys of imperialism. The struggle led by PCAPA in Lalgarh is a part of this heroic movement, and is going on for more than a year by defeating all efforts by the ruling classes to crush it. Resorting to brutal violence and political trickery might delay, but will never ever be able to suppress the aspiration of the people. 

Long Live the Heroic Struggle of the People of Jangal Mahal!