The System of Corruption cannot be crushed without smashing the Corrupt System! Defeat Liberation -AISA’s Revisionism and Strengthen the Revolutionary Movement!!

 “As the free action of the sun’s rays is the most effective purifying and healing remedy against infections, disease and germs, so the only healing and purifying sun is the revolution itself and its renovating principle” - Rosa Luxemburg, ‘Struggle against Corruption’, The Russian Revolution

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AISA finally broke its silence on the second phase of Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption charade, with a pamphlet on 26th August, and subsequently, with another pamphlet and public meeting yesterday. What we witnessed in the past three days was a desperate justification of Liberation’s participation and support of the Anna Hazare’s mass deception, avoiding the disturbing questions raised by DSU on CPI(ML) Liberation and AISA’s eagerness to unite with this reactionary right-wing movement. AISA is forced to admit that it agrees with many of DSU’s ‘apprehensions’ (DSU of course, does not have mere apprehensions, but a clear opposition to this ‘movement’). But it has ignored or dismissed the criticisms made by DSU as “mindless rhetoric” and “meaningless allegations and debates”. AISA says that the ONLY purpose of DSU in making a critique of the Ramlila roadshow is to attack it and its parent organisation. DSU is not the ‘conscience keeper’ of AISA nor is it particularly fond of AISA/Liberation’s degenerate revisionist politics to be preoccupied with its acts of “omission and commission”. Starting from April this year when the first episode of the Anna Hazare spectacle was staged at Jantar Mantar to the last few weeks, DSU has ‘intervened’ and ‘engaged’ with the mobilisation around Lokpal – not in support of it like AISA-Liberation, but resolutely against it. And thanks to the political consciousness of the JNU students, most of the students refused to throng the Ramlila Maidan or rejected the call of ABVP in the garb of ‘Students for Corruption’ to garner support for Jan Lokpal bill on campus.

Liberation-AISA claims that it “has identified the need for a left-led movement on corruption long time back”, and with this understanding, have been campaigning from January this year against “Corruption and Corporate Loot”. Had DSU been ‘obsessed’ with only critiquing AISA/Liberation, we would have critiqued its fallacious political understanding on corruption and corporate plunder at that time itself. However, DSU is not bothered about the machinations of a self-proclaimed ‘Marxist Leninist’ group which is desperately trying to drum-up support for its fledgling project of revolutionising the society through the parliament! But when AISA/Liberation tries to hobnob with the communal-fascist forces from Ramlila Maidan to Delhi University (AISA marched with ABVP in Delhi University shouting ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ in support of Anna Hazare), surely, can they fault us for posing the uncomfortable questions? We still ‘engage’ with AISA unlike ABVP, because we know that ABVP calls for a different ‘engagement’.

AISA/Liberation’s hypocritical and opportunist stand on Anna Hazare’s charade and the Lokpal Bill: Liberation says it “supported this specific demand (for a Jan Lokpal), welcomed the mass upsurge, but also pointed out that corruption cannot be eradicated by a single legislation” (Kavita Krishnan, kafila.org). It simply means the opportunism of running with the hare and hunting with the hound. They support, join and fuel the Anna Hazare frenzy, but seek to distance from it when confronted. It is a fallacy when Kavita Krishnan asks whether this movement can take a right-wing turn. It is already right wing and fascist, but AISA/Liberation will not recognise it until the Sanghi brigade solemnly declares its presence with their flags and banner! AISA is also saying that Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption drive had a limited agenda. They have nothing else to say about this movement, though. This movement does not link corruption to neoliberal policies, which AISA considers to be its root cause. Yet, since day one they were supporting and have been a part of this so-called movement. In April at Ranchi, Liberation General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya sat on a hunger strike in solidarity with Anna Hazare’s fast at Jantar Mantar. At other places, Liberation and AISA activists likewise sat in a one-day hunger strike in solidarity with Anna Hazare’s fast. On 27 August AISA called for Bihar Bandh demanding Jan Lokpal Bill. Thus, Liberation has been justifying its participation in this mobilisation by arguing that it was ‘broadening’ Team Anna’s agenda and bringing a ‘radical left’ orientation to it with its rhetoric—namely, calling neoliberal policies of privatization as the root cause of corruption. But what has happened in the last few months is the complete opposite. In the name of broadening Anna Hazare’s agenda, Liberation dropped its ‘radical left agenda’, its red flag, slogans, banner and stood behind ‘Team Anna’ and Jan Lokpal.

The bogus corruption ‘exposure’ campaign: AISA claims in its pamphlet that “Through our campaign, we have constantly exposed the real face of corruption, in the process exposing not just the Congress but also the BJP which champions the same economic agenda”. Is it really a secret for the masses of the country that the ruling classes and their parliamentary parties, be it Congress, BJP, CPI(M) etc. are corrupt to the core? Is it claiming that the 2G scam, CWG scam, scams by ‘Bellary’ brothers, the ‘cash-for-vote’ scam, Hawala scam, and hundreds of other high-profile scams committed by the ruling classes were ‘exposed’ by Liberation? The contradictions within the ruling-class parties have led to these damning exposures. As for the daily incidents of governmental corruption, the common people have suffered from it for too long to be waiting for any ‘exposure’ by Liberation-AISA. Indeed, the ruling classes, their political parties and the Indian parliamentary system run by them does not have an iota of trust or legitimacy among the vast masses of the country. The drumming-up of the Anna Hazare campaign is to restore trust in the Indian state, its parliamentary democracy and legislative system. This anti-corruption charade asks the people of the country to hope that the parliament and the ruling classes would legislate ‘strong’ laws to persecute itself for the crimes of corruption (it reminds one of the UN’s Expert Panel on Sri Lanka which recommends the Rajapakse government to probe into its own war crimes against the Tamil freedom fighters)! Clearly, Liberation/AISA makes too much of its inconsequential and populist ‘campaign against corruption’.

AIS/Liberations empty rhetoric of ‘engaging’ with the masses is nothing but a caricature of the Marxist concept of Mass Line: AISA tries to hide the rank opportunism and compromised politics it displayed by endorsing the media-generated Anna-frenzy and the Jan Lokpal Bill with the excuse of ‘engaging’ with the ‘masses’ flocking the Ramlila Maidan and in other urban centres. In practicing its frivolous ‘mass line’, AISA/Liberation has bungled in identifying the ‘mass’ because it has completely abandoned the class line befitting a working-class party. Alienated from the masses and devoid of a political line like many of the armchair intellectuals who are confused by seeing this ensemble of people, AISA/Liberation believes that a gathering with a right-wing, pro-establishment agenda is a good thing. Instead of dissuading the people from joining the reactionary ‘movement’ of ‘Team Anna’, Liberation-AISA fuels it with petit-bourgeois platitudes. When the Left organisations were stopped from even distributing their pamphlets at the Ramlila grounds, when they are not allowed to address the audience, or be part of the how did Liberation “engage” the crowd thronging in to join Anna in his spectacle?

AISA/Liberation’s campaign is an end in itself: Can they fight corruption through mere campaigns, without being part of “REAL struggles on the ground”? And how do they intend to struggle on the ground: with the ‘Anna model’ of legalistic, ‘peaceful struggles’? They claim that “Throughout these months, AISA has taken on the issue of corruption head on, consistently mobilising public opinion on a positive radical left agenda”.  What is this ‘positive radical agenda’? Caught in the labyrinth of parliamentary politics, Liberation has forgotten that India has witnessed many movements against corruption in the past. None of these movements eradicated corruption. What they did instead was a change of governments.  Not accidently, all these movements against corruption (during JP’s call for Total Revolution, or during VP Singh’s campaign against Bofors scam) strengthened the fascist forces. AISA has written that “the root cause of corruption lies in neoliberal policies of privatization”, as though there was no corruption earlier. In this half-baked formulation, it has refuses to identify corruption as a symptom of the semi-feudal semi-colonial relations of exploitation and oppression. AISA-Liberation has today been forced to say that corruption cannot be eradicated by a single legislation. But what other strategy does Liberation have instead? More than one legislation to fight corruption? More importantly, how does Liberation intend to strike at the so-called root of corruption? By asking the state to pass more laws against neoliberalism?

From when for a ‘Marxist-Leninist party’, corruption has become a central issue? AISA headlines its pamphlet as “Mindless rhetoric CANNOT wipe out REAL struggles on the ground”. We agree. The mindless rhetoric of “anti-corruption campaigns” cannot replace the struggle for revolutionary social transformation. But it is Liberation which is completely cut-off from the real struggles of the masses and has been rejected by the struggling people everywhere. The only thing Marxist-Leninist about Liberation is its name. Otherwise, it had long transformed itself completely into an NGO, and replaced class struggle with parliamentary politics (where they have aligned with feudal and reactionary forces like Nitish Kumar’s erstwhile Samata Party, social-fascist CPM etc)  and  made alliances with various kinds of NGOs and NGO-led ‘movements’ which in fact serve the imperialist agenda of neo-liberalism. On the one hand, AISA-Liberation sees great possibilities in this corporate funded, RSS backed, managed and controlled anti-corruption drive. On the other hand, when the people of Lalgarh, Nandigram, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Orissa and other places are waging uncompromising struggles against the onslaught on their lives and livelihood through state repression and corporate loot of land, forest and other resources, AISA-Liberation distances itself from these movements and people by saying the Maoists have ‘hijacked’ them. When the people of Kashmir are on the streets demanding azadi, AISA-Liberation distances itself from the national liberation struggle by branding it Islamist and fundamentalist. Instead, it only pays lip-service against ‘human rights violation’. Kavita Krishnan has written that “The people saying “I am Anna” or “Vande Mataram” are not all RSS or pro-corporate agents”. But when people in Kashmir utilise Allah ho Akbar as a rallying call for their national liberation struggle, Liberation and its rainbow coalition partners in ‘civil society’ brand this movement as an Islamist movement. However, they have absolutely no problem joining hands with the same right-wing forces on the issue of corruption. Likewise, AISA-Liberation sees no problem in being part of the anti-corruption drama that is funded by Jindal, Ambanis, Tatas, Ford Foundation, Lehman Brothers etc.

AISA/Liberation’s Lokpal: They expect that the Lokpal should not just to punish government officials but also the corporations. They ask “Why should the Tatas, Ambanis and other corporate honchos NOT be punished for looting public resources? Their role in keeping the regime of corruption going must be nailed down and penalised” (28.8.2011). Wise words and lofty wishes indeed, but pathetically empty! The AISA wish-list goes on, “NGOs, corporate houses and the media should also come under the ambit of the Lokpal”. Since wishes are horses for AISA/Liberation, they should also consider the demand to bring the embassies of US, Britain and Israel under Lokpal. Who doesn’t know that these are the base-camps of the multinational corporations plundering the Indian people and their resources? This will serve Liberation/AISA well in advertising its commitment to ‘anti-imperialism’! Above all, why should Lokpal itself be left out of the purview of Lokpal? After all, who will guarantee that the very institution of Lokpal too will not become corrupted tomorrow, even with the “sufficient checks and balances” suggested by AISA? Moreover, it is a common knowledge that the bulk of the expenses of all parliamentary parties are met by black-money made through corruption, and this is how they generate the crores of rupees spent on election campaigns for the parliament to the panchayat. Being a parliamentary party sworn to the Indian Constitution and its electoral system, why should the CPI(ML) Liberation, or for that matter any other parliamentary party, be spared from the scrutiny of Lokpal? As a revisionist party which has become ideologically corrupt to the core, can anyone believe if Liberation/AISA makes the claim that they never indulge in corrupt practices and underhand financial dealings to raise their party funds? Of course, Liberation can very well point out that it is not corrupt simply because it never got a chance to be corrupt – being always out of power and deprived of ministerial berths – even though such an argument will not be all that convincing for the sceptics. Finally, by demanding that the Parliamentary Standing Committee also include RSS, VHP and other Sangh outfits under the ambit of Lokpal, AISA/Liberation can pat itself on its back for putting forward a satisfactory, foolproof and exhaustive wish-list!

Lenin must have turned in his grave when AISA redefined the present era as the “era of scams, corruption and blatant state-sponsored loot of public resources” (26.8.2011). Never mind if the communists all over the world have characterised the present era as “the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution”! AISA/Liberation’s abandonment of Marxism-Leninism is nothing but a clear indication of its abandonment of class struggle itself. They have conveniently forgotten that the defining principle of Marxist philosophy and politics is class struggle, not corruption.

AISA maliciously and deviously (mis)quotes and distorts the statements in the press release of CPI(Maoist), and then expects DSU to respond to it. AISA thereby is trying the old trick of identifying CPI(Maoist) as the ‘parent’ organisation of DSU, and thus acting in a similar manner to the state and its agents in the campus like ABVP, NSUI and SFI. Instead of spreading canards against DSU and the revolutionary movement, AISA-Liberation should consider ‘intensifying’ the struggle for the Jan Lokpal bill and take the baton of the Anna Hazare ‘movement’, now that it has been shelved with mutual agreement of the parliament and ‘Team Anna’!

Let us not allow the Indian state to kill Perarivalan, Saanthan and Murugan! Abolish death penalty! Release all Political Prisoners Unconditionally!!!

After an official communication from the Rastrapathi Bavan, the Vellore prison authorities have fixed September 9 as the date of the execution of Perarivalan, Saanthan and Murugan, who were falsely implicated in the Rajiv Gandhi murder case. Arrested weeks after the incident under TADA, the lower court condemned them to Death sentence along with 23 others in 1997. The supreme court in 1999, reconfirmed their sentence of four –Perarivalan, Saanthan , Murugan and Nalini, while acquitting the rest of all charges. It is to be noted that the judgment that reconfirmed the death sentenced was passed with a two-one majority, one of the judges have not just differed with the punishment but had acquitted them of the charges. The only ‘evidence’ against them is their confessions that were taken in police custody, under the provisions of the draconian TADA. For the sole crime of upholding their politics the three have been fabricated in the case which has no grounds and have been kept in solitary confinement for the last 20 years, with the fear of being hanged any moment. This is nothing but pre-planned cold blooded murder of three innocent lives. 

The Indian state has chosen to kill three innocent lives in order to save its own skin. The evidences of the genocide of the Tamils by the Sri Lankan government and India’s active support to it is a well established fact. The killing of lakhs of Tamil, the use of Chemical weapons, the rapes, the cold blooded killing and many other gross facts of the war was exposed through the Channel four video – “Sri Lanka’s killing field” and other reports. It led into huge outcry world wide and the demand for punishing the Sri Lankan state for war crimes intensified. India which had been an active partner in the genocide has now come to rescue its partner and itself by killing these three innocent lives.

The barbaric capital punishment, which has been abolished in 130 countries, is justified and upheld by the Indian state as the ‘deterrent against terrorism’. In reality, the state always uses capital punishment to repress those who dare to dissent and fight for their rights. Those fighting for their national liberation, land, livelihood and dignity and those who uphold the politics of the people have always been the target of the state. Perarivaran, Murugan and Sanathan are similar targets. It’s because they dared to uphold their politics that they were implicated and now the fascist state faced with crisis wants them to be executed.

This order has only intensified the struggle world over, against this state killing of Perarivalan, Saanthan and Murugan. People all over Tamil Nadu in particular are fighting against their killing as well as to abolish capital punishment. Protests have erupted all over Tamil Nadu since the day the black order has been pronounced. Three women lawyers have sat on an indefinite hunger strike, rails were blocked at various places including Salem, Kovai and Chennai. District collectors of Salem and Kovai were barricaded in their office by more than hundred law students who were later arrested. The movement in Tamil Nadu is being led by lawyers and students were the first to come out in protest against the genocide in Eelam. The Madurai high court has yesterday announced indefinite boycott. The lawyers have also given a call for a mass mobilization in front of high court on Tuesday. There is a call for a protest demonstration outside the Vellore Prison on 30. 08.11. Yesterday, Senkodi a woman lawyer has self immolated before the Tahsildar office in Kanchevaram, demanding the release of the three in death row; she succumbed to her injuries on the way to hospital.

           Let us intensify the protest against the fascist design of the state to kill Perarivalan, Saanthan and Murugan. Let us intensify our struggle to ensure the release of all political prisoners and for the abolition of capital punishment.

Martyrs are not buried, they are sown! Oppose the fascist repression by the Indian State on the People of Kashmir! Stand in solidarity with the Azadi of Kashmir!!

The 64 years of Indian occupation of Kashmir have been synonymous with death, destruction and pillage. In a glaring testimony to the gruesome brutalities of the Indian state in Kashmir, the recent report of the J&K State Human Rights Commission revealed the existence of 2156 bullet ridden bodies in 38 mass unmarked graves in the districts of Baramulla, Bandipore, Handwara and Kupwara. This excludes 574 bodies that were buried as unidentified but later identified as those of locals. All these bodies had earlier been handed over to the locals by the police for burial by classifying them as ‘unidentified militants’ killed in gunfire. However, in a vindication of what the Kashmiri people have been saying for years, the probe admits that these graves contain the dead bodies of enforced disappearances of people who were later executed in custody. Many of these bodies were defaced and some were even charred pointing towards the use of torture before their execution.

For the people of Kashmir, the state report however does not come as a surprise. A number of reports have time and again pointed to the existence of mass graves all over the valley, so much so that it had become difficult for the state to deny it anymore. The pro-azaadi leadership of Kashmir has pointed out how it is precisely to cover up such killings that the State Human Rights Commission has now come out with its own report, with figures far less than the original. Pointing to the active complicity of the Indian state in the ‘disappearances’ and the killings, they have already pointed to the meaninglessness of any state initiated probe into the matter. 

The Indian state is not even making any pretence of providing justice. The puppet chief minister Omar Abdullah has categorically denied the possibility of any kind of immediate probe into the matter, knowing well that the elapse in time will make any probe later redundant as the chances of DNA extraction would reduce greatly. What he instead wants is the setting up of a ‘truth and reconciliation’ committee. The people of Kashmir and the democratic and progressive people elsewhere do not need any such spurious committees to ascertain the crimes of Indian state in Kashmir. Right from the historically denied right to self determination for the past 64 years, to the more than 80,000 killings, thousands of ‘disappearances’, the presence of 8 lakh armed personnel, fake encounters, rapes, torture chambers are facts that cannot be ‘reconciled’ with. The comprador ruling elite of Kashmir and their Indian masters, might want the people to ‘reconcile’ with their demand for azaadi, but for the people of Kashmir the political right to self determination including secession is non-negotiable. On the other hand, the absurdity of NGO-ised form of political intervention which reduces the entire question of Kashmir to mere human rights violation limits is such that it limits itself to demanding ‘justice’ from parties actively complicit in the genocide of Kashmiris.

The history of Kashmir is not merely one of state repression, it is also one of the indomitable spirit of the Kashmiri people in their struggle for freedom. The Kashmiri people are today fighting one of the most valiant liberation struggles and all democratic people should stand in solidarity with them.

The Lokpal Bill: Anna Hazare and His Weapon of Mass Deception

Curtains are finally down on the prolonged drama billed by the corporate media as “Anna’s August Revolution”. Anna Hazare has now declared that his next “crusade” is for ‘clean politicians’! Obviously, it was only a matter of time before the farce was over, even though the cheerleaders of Anna Hazare might not have bargained for such an ignominious grand-finale. Let us look at the script staged by ‘Team Anna’ in their ‘struggle’: first, they demanded the enactment of the Jan Lokpal bill by 15 August. The government introduced its own version of Lokpal bill in the parliament, and in protest Anna Hazare decided to go on an ‘indefinite fast’. The deadline was extended to 30 August for the passage of the Jan Lokpal. From a Ramilia Maidan hurriedly-refurbished by the government, ‘Team Anna’ boastfully declared that they would not withdraw the fast until the Jan Lokpal bill is passed by the parliament. Then in a dramatic turn ‘Team Anna’ agreed for a modified version of the government-introduced Lokpal Bill in place of the much-touted Jan Lokpal bill, after it was conveyed that the “sense of the parliament” was in agreement with the need to curb corruption! Team Anna quickly dropped its core demand – bringing the Prime Minister, higher judiciary and the Members of Parliament under the purview of Lokpal. A new demand was put on 26 August: the parliament must pass a resolution accepting three minor provisions – the inclusion of lower bureaucracy in the Lokpal Bill, setting up of Lokayuktas at the state-level, and creation of ‘Citizen’s Charter’ in government departments! After day-long ramblings in the ‘talking shop’, the parliament neither voted nor passed any resolution in favour of ‘Team Anna’, merely concluding in a vague and deceptive language that “the sense of the parliament” was in agreement with the demands.

After 12 days of high-drama covered 24×7 by the corporate media and punctuated by bhajans, film songs, shouts of ‘Vande Mataram’, ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, singing of the ‘national anthem’, pious sermonising and frantic flag-waving, ‘Team Anna’ meekly climbed down from its hobby-horse yesterday, accepting the government’s version of the Lokpal bill with minor modifications. Manmohan Singh’s letter conveying the Indian state’s “agreement in principle” was enough for the ‘upright’ Anna and his team to withdraw their agitation. Prashant Bhushan, who termed this act of deception by the government as a ‘betrayal’, was soon found gloating about ‘a great victory’. Notwithstanding the great postures by ‘Team Anna’ and the Parliament, both these great ‘warring blocs’ were happily nodding to each other in agreement soon enough.

While the idiot box is bragging about “the beauty of compromise” and celebrating “the victory of Indian democracy”, the people of the country who followed the unfolding of this juggernaut are in no illusion that the ‘civil society’ fight against corruption – beginning with the ‘bang’ of Anna Hazare’s one-night stay in Tihar, has ended with a whimper. The ‘compromise’ is on the expected lines, and so is the eagerness of a wide spectrum of political forces lining-up to celebrate the ‘victory’ of this anti-corruption charade. It was curious to behold the united colours of ‘anti-corruption’. Members of ‘civil society’, RSS pracharaks, sants and saints, ‘Left’ intellectuals and socialites, ‘Marxists’, ‘Marxist-Leninists’, socialists, Lohiaites, Gandhians, NGOs, Bollywood stars and politicians of various hues – all were jostling for space on the dais of Ramlila Maidan. As if the distinctions of class, caste, religion or politics had finally dissolved in the Great Melting Pot of Ramlila Maidan! In the midst of this great euphoria taken to a feverish pitch by the corporate media, many have conveniently ignored and veiled the fact that this ‘movement’ was meticulously planned and led by the right-wing forces masquerading as ‘civil society’. But it is not easy to forget that the worldview of the leading figure is a brazen and unapologetic Hindu-fundamentalist brahminical Indian society in the model of Ralegaon Siddhi.

It is not for nothing that Narendra Modi, the mass-murderer and the emerging leader of the communal-fascists, who has the blood of thousands of Muslims on his hand, has high-praise for Anna Hazare’s ‘movement’. To him, ‘Team Anna’s anti-corruption ‘movement’ has strengthened India. Donning the sheep’s skin, the wily fox wants us to believe that the Anna-farce has reinforced the confidence in the strength of “non-violence”. We have to be wary of a ‘movement’ whose key figures such as Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi set the agenda backstage with the likes of RSS’s Govindacharya and Gurumurthy, and whose most public face, Anna Hazare himself, praises Modi, and who in turn are given an approving nod by Modi. Its rhetoric of ‘people’s power’ notwithstanding, ‘Team Anna’ aims to reinstate the ‘supremacy’ of the Indian state – an apparatus of brutal and dictatorial class rule which stands unmasked in front of the exploited classes of the country. Indeed, this Jan Lokpal ‘movement’ has done all it could to strengthen the ruling classes mired in crises, and brought to the centre-stage the ‘civil society’/NGOs which were fast losing their relevance with the intensification of the class war. Anna Hazare’s charade has consolidated the Hindu right-wing forces, providing an opportunity to activate their structures at an all-India level. It has brought much-needed respite for the crisis-ridden UPA government and a welcome distraction from the burning issues of the day. For all the ruling-class parties – Congress, BJP, CPI(M) and others – it was an opportunity to display their loyalty to India’s parliamentary ‘democracy’ and to ‘defend’ its constitution, which they otherwise violate without batting an eyelid. CPI(ML) Liberation too, displaying once again their political bankruptcy, revisionism and opportunism, tried to gain mileage by hopping onto the frenzied mobilisation and agenda of the right-wing.

In such an atmosphere of media-created hysteria, it is a responsibility of those who are on the side of the oppressed and exploited people to expose the status-quoist, statist, reactionary leadership and goals of this ‘movement’, and to warn about the dangers lurking under its ‘benign’ face and ‘noble cause’. It is not surprising that Anna Hazare, his casteist-communal-reactionary worldview and his anti-corruption ‘crusades’ have been rejected by the vast majority of the oppressed people – be it the workers, peasants, religious minorities, adivasis, Dalits and oppressed castes, the progressive and democratic sections of the intelligentsia, students and youth. They will continue to do so in future as well, unmasking the quagmire of manufactured ‘dissent’.

Neither defending the parliament nor tailing the Anna trail is an option! For a completely exposed Indian regime – a joint dictatorship of feudal forces, comprador bourgeoisie and imperialism over the majority of the people – corruption is the rule rather than an aberration. When corruption is the law of the land, more laws can only lead to more corruption. India has no dearth of laws – and when the progressive and democratic forces are fighting against draconian laws like UAPA, AFSPA, NSA, etc. and laws on death penalty and sedition which gives the state unrestrained powers, the clamour for another draconian law in the form of Lokpal is bound to be counterproductive. Once enacted, it will prepare grounds for persecuting the lower bureaucracy, while the real culprits will continue to expropriate the surplus of the labouring classes with impunity. Corruption at the ground level can only be challenged by the collective assertion of the masses, while the prevailing system of legalised corruption cannot be crushed without smashing the corrupt system.

Of Lies and Fascist Propaganda: Unite Against the Lumpenism and Vandalism of ABVP Goons in the Garb of 'Anna Supporters'!!

25 August 2011

Any fascist politics is built on lies, propaganda, and charades. This is a crucial element which shrouds the real character of fascism, violence and hate mongering. Remember their ideologue Joseph Goebbels and his famous quote, ‘If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it…It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State’. Anna Hazare’s drive against ‘corruption’ is a crafty tactics used by the ruling classes to divert people from real and burning issues. The corporate media presents this sham as a mass movement. Using this ‘movement’ the state is going to push for more centralization of authority, privatization and corporate loot. But despite its concerted effort, the ruling classes have failed to manage a consensus on Hazare and his rabidly right wing team. Voices of criticism rejecting this movement are already in the public domain. It is increasingly becoming difficult to hide its fascist, casteist, communal character. People are already predicting the outcome of the shadow boxing between the government and ‘Team Anna’. The draconian nature of the Jan Lokpal is being exposed by many. The public meeting organized by DSU on Wednesday in Tapti Mess also intended to expose the reality of this corporate funded, media backed right wing road show.

As soon as the meeting began, the agents of Team Anna, none other than ABVP, came to Hazare’s rescue. It will be foolish to expect that the communal fascists will understand the democratic ethos of JNU. They have always tried to violently destroy it. On Wednesday too, around 15 ABVP goons gathered in front of Tapti hostel and began to shout slogans upholding Anna Hazare and calling DSU anti-national. They then entered the mess saying this was their democratic right. From the beginning, they made their intention clear. They came with the deliberate aim to ensure that the students do not hear anything against their new Demigod and they tried to achieve this by disruption and cacophony. Like the ideal banar sena they climbed on tables and started shouting. The students appealed to them to remain calm and ask questions, if they had any, at the end. But they had not come to ask questions; they were there to disrupt and vandalise. Then, students and SIS security pushed this handful of goons outside the mess, where they continued with their lumpenism and vandalism, and even broke the glass-panes of the mess door. The meeting went on and was conducted successfully.

Next day Goebbels struck again. ABVP under the bogus name of ‘Students against Corruption’ brought out a pamphlet which was full of their characteristic lies. The primary lie being, the Indian flag was torn in the mess and people walked over it! They simply concocted the story to hide their own facts of hooliganism and vandalization of hostel property. They knew the mess was packed with over 200 students who have all seen what really happened. Yet they dared to float such a brazen lie, primarily in the desperation to save themselves and secondly because lie always constitute their fascist politics. Through its false propaganda, ABVP wants to whip up a nationalist frenzy now to divert the debate over the real character and intentions of Hazare’s movement. ABVP after all is the trusted agent of the state and the powers that be. It has always acted on behalf of the ruling class to throttle voices of democracy and dissent, and it always resorts to hiding its real agenda through the garb of nationalism. When JNU Forum Against War on People had organized a cultural programme in April 2010, ABVP indulged in a violent disruption. Then too, ABVP followed the same set of lies and propaganda. In order to support Operation Greenhunt, ABVP spread the lie that the cultural programme was a celebration of the killings of jawans! Time and again, ABVP has indulged in rampant violence. In JNU, ABVP goons have physically beaten up students, specifically targeted Muslim and Dalit students and abused them on lines of caste and religion, heckled Kashmiri students and harassed women students. Last semester, they tried to whip up a communal frenzy during the world cup cricket. But then what else can be expected from them? They are the forces who were behind the Gujarat pogrom, the Kandhamal killings. They are mass murderers and the hands behind the Samjhauta Express Blast, Malegaon blast, Ajmer Sharif Dargha blast, Mecca Masjid blast. These mass murderers and communal fascists have always tried to the progressive and democratic politics which JNU stands for. But students of JNU shall always collectively resist these fascist forces and their lumpen agents.

JNU Administration has always shielded and patronized ABVP lumpens. For not only is there a perfect match between the communal-casteist Administration and ABVP, but also because the ABVP is the Administration agent and stands hand in glove with the state’s agendas. The Chief Proctor, a known sanghi himself, has repeatedly shielded and emboldened the ABVP history sheeters. During the cricket world cup last semester, ABVP indulged in large-scale violence particularly targeting Muslim and Kashmiri students. ABVP also attacked a public meeting held by an organization at Ganga dhaba, where it also threatened and abused the speakers. Inspite of many other such instances, the Chief Proctor has not taken punished these history sheeters and does everything in his powers to embolden them. Yet, no matter how well the Administration protects ABVP, the progressive and democratic students of this campus have always shown them their place.   

DSU Public Meeting: Manufacturing Dissent, Making Mahatmas: Manu, Market, Media and the Anti-Corruption Sham

24 August 2011

 All historical struggles, whether they occur in the political, religious, philosophical or some other ideological domain, are in fact only the more or less clear expression of the struggles of social classes. – Engels

When two events occur in the same space and time, more often than not, there is a correlation between the two. On the one hand the Indian Army, paramilitary and police forces — acting so plainly and clearly on behalf of the Indian ruling classes and multinational corporations—which continue to mount a war on the people of central and eastern India in order to facilitate a naked appropriation of the region’s resources is given marching orders to fight the most dispossessed yet resilient masses. Then there are 80% of the country’s population forced to eke out a living on a mere Rs.20 per day and over half of the children suffer from the permanent malnourishment because of the genocidal famine conditions their families have been placed under; land acquisition of a mammoth scale affects millions of people whose sole means of livelihood is being alienated from them; thousands of small peasants are forced to find ‘escape’ from an endemic agrarian crisis by committing suicide; over 2700 bodies of Kashmiris murdered by the Indian army once again reveals a Kashmir under occupation by India and the crushing of its struggle for national liberation—to name but a few instances revealing the brutal and systemic exploitation, oppression and occupation. And people are waging resilient struggles in many parts of the country against the ruling classes. On the other hand a base, distasteful drama is unfolding in front of us—the drama of an ‘anti-corruption drive’, which is supposed to serve India a ‘second independence’. Needless to say, although this latter ‘struggle’ seldom refers to the first set of struggles, events and phenomena, there is so simple a connection between the two that the silence over the relation between the two sets is nothing but deliberate.

The ‘Second freedom struggle’: An attempt of the ruling classes to consolidate themselves. The Indian ruling classes today face an immense crisis, and are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain the mask of ‘world’s largest democracy’. Given the onslaught on the people and their livelihood—through the acquisition of resources such as land, forests and other means of livelihood; the steep price rise of basic commodities; the privatisation of health, transport, water, electricity and education — the state faces the resistance of militant peoples’ movements. And everywhere, the state is responding to this discontent and resistance with brute force. In addition to this central crisis, the ruling classes were reeling under the exposure of a series of scams such as 2G, Commonwealth Games, Adarsh Housing, etc. involving unimaginable amounts of money. It is precisely these circumstances that have given rise to an ‘anti-corruption drive’ led by the so-called civil society and made it possible for the corporate media to project a reactionary like Anna Hazare as a hero in the eyes of the urban middle classes. Sweeping under the carpet more urgent structural issues affecting the vast majority of people and their very survival, ‘Team Anna’ has projected corruption as the central issue plaguing Indian society. The anti-corruption drive and the Jan Lokpal have been likewise offered as the solution to all the problems. By seeking a solution within the existing system and by demanding a more coercive institution within it to check ‘corruption’, the Anna Hazare-led mobilisation has appeared in the political scene as a much-needed respite to the crisis-ridden ruling classes. This ‘second freedom struggle’ led by ‘Team Anna’ is nothing but the mobilisation of a section of the ruling classes aiming to rid themselves of the deep contradictions and the crises that threaten them to sweep off their feet. Through a draconian bill (government’s Lokpal bill and the ‘Jan’ Lokpal bill are the two sides of the same coin), the ruling classes are aiming for further centralisation of authority. No legislation can provide an answer to the deep-seated exploitative structures of the society and the social relations which are the root cause of so-called corruption.

Corruption: A Mere Symptom of Structural Exploitation and Oppression. Through its exclusive focus on corruption, Team Anna in effect blinds us to the system where wealth created by peasants and workers is appropriated by the ruling classes. No doubt, a bribe running into crores is mind-boggling. Yet, we are asked to ignore a simple fact—the amount of wealth appropriated by the corporations in the first place, which enables them to provide bribes of such an amount. Corruption itself is not a new phenomenon in India; it has been endemic to the exploitative and oppressive semi-feudal semi-colonial system which concentrates wealth and power in the hands of a few. But just as imperialist globalization has heightened the exploitation of the masses, resulted in the intensified feudal appropriation of the rural labouring people, massive corporate loot of resources, the selling of the country’s land and other natural resources at ridiculously low prices to corporate houses already reaping benefits in the form of tax holidays, the scale and intensity of corruption has also increased in proportion. A disease cannot be cured by suppressing its symptoms; rather, the symptom subsides only when the disease is cured. Similarly, corruption will only disappear with the revolutionary transformation of society.

A Special Drama, its Sponsorship and Mobilisation: Corporate Funding and RSS Backing of the Anti-Corruption Drive. That the anti-corruption drive is a diversionary tactic of the ruling classes is clear not only from its programme and its goals, but also from its funding. It was clear from its very inception that this drama is funded by the corporations and business houses –Ambanis, Tatas, Jindals to real-estate developers – that are involved in the most massive of scams. It is now also public knowledge that among the list of sponsors funding the key figures of this drama are the likes of Lehman Brothers and Ford Foundation. Hazare claims to have the full support of army and the police: the two most corrupt institutions of the country. Moreover, the chief engineer of this Gandhian and so-called non-violent mobilisation is the fascist RSS. The same fascist force that killed thousands of Muslims in the Gujarat pogrom, massacred Christians in Kandhamal, and organised the Samjhauta Express, Mecca Masjid, Malegoan and Ajmer Sharif blasts is now mobilising for this ‘peaceful’ second freedom struggle. As usual, the rhetoric of nation and nationalism is deployed to serve the interests of the ruling classes. The imagery, the slogans, the objectives of the movement are all brazenly replete with right-wing ideology which are proudly casteist and communal. The lead actors of this drama have notorious histories of being anti-reservation and pro-sangh parivar. The corporate media is therefore comfortable in exalting this movement with its ceaseless hyperbole. They have projected this movement as ‘unprecedented mass movement’. Last time it was the anti-reservation reactionary movement which had caught its attention. When huge masses had hit the streets of Kashmir demanding azadi, or in Lalgarh, Odisha, Chhatisgrah against corporate loot, the media remained silent.

AISA-CPI(ML) Liberation: The cheerleaders of ‘Team Anna’. As far as AISA-Liberation is concerned, history is repeating itself, but this time as a farce. AISA was formed in the context of the anti-Mandal agitation—not as a progressive force in support of reservations, but using all the tricks in the book to oppose the Mandal recommendations through a sleight of hand. Liberation’s Vinod Mishra, who opened up the portal through which the party forever exited its role as a communist vanguard, and instead became a trickster serving the ruling classes, went to extent of stating at the juncture of AISA’s unholy birth that ‘just as we do not approve of those politicians who want to take revenge on the present-day progeny of Babar, we also reject those theoreticians who would punish the present-day offsprings of Manu for the crimes of their ancestors’. This is evidence not only of the party’s characteristic double-speak, but is also blatantly right-wing — in short, Muslims are being called ‘Babar ke aulad’; reservations are seen as crimes against ‘upper’-castes; and the caste system itself is projected as a crime that occurred only in the past. Thus, while AISA in fact rode on the crest of the anti-Mandal mobilisation to consolidate itself in campus-spaces in pockets of north India, it is trying desperately to repeat its ‘success’ formula — this time, by wedding itself to this RSS engineered and corporate funded anti-corruption drive of ‘Team Anna’. Indeed, they cry foul of the ‘undemocratic’ Annas for not allowing them enough space to participate! Although in JNU they have maintained a crafty silence on Anna Hazare till now, the degeneration of AISA became blatant when on 16th August, they joined hands with ABVP in Delhi University’s north campus in a ‘spontaneous protest’ against Anna Hazare’s detention, shouting together ‘patriotic’ slogans like ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’!. When they filled the walls of DU with anti-corruption slogans, these were all appropriated by ABVP by a simple brushstroke — in each case, by simply replacing AISA’s insignia with its own. The justification put forward by Liberation/AISA and some ‘enlightened’ intellectuals for joining the cacophony of ‘I am Anna’ is to save it from RSS and to replace ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ with ‘Inquilab Zindabad’! Social-democrats of Germany with their ambivalent policy towards the Nazis in 1920s and early 1930s ultimately prepared the grounds for the rise of Hitler and the crushing of the German communists. The convergence of the communal-fascists and the ‘Marxist-Leninists’/civil-society/NGOs therefore speak volumes not only of AISA /Liberation’s political bankruptcy, but is also a wake-up call for the progressive, democratic and revolutionary forces to prepare for a new phase of battle.

Hazare is a convenient blindfold for the middle classes. Many of the people who are out on the streets now, genuinely want an end to the brazen corruption and the scams. But Hazare and his team have been entrusted not to raise the real questions but to shroud the real struggles. The end to corruption can only take place when the current economic policies are repealed, when the MoUs signed with various corporate giants are scrapped. And the Indian state, a loyal lapdog of imperialism will never change its policies on its own. To end corruption, the corrupt system needs to be overhauled. And that is what the revolutionary armed movement which is spreading like prairie fire across the country is fighting for. It is the resilient struggle of the revolutionary masses and not the corporate-funded, RSS-backed and media-hyped theatrics that will resolve the burning problems afflicting the people of this country.

DSU Hindi Pamphlet on the 'Anti-Corruption Crusade'

Reject Anna Hazare’s Reactionary Politics! Stand in Solidarity with the Revolutionary Movement for Social Transformation!

21 August 2011

Since April this year, the tug-of-war between the Indian government and the so-called civil society on the Sarkari versus Jan Lokpal has been covered to its minutest details by the corporate media, hailing Anna Hazare’s ‘movement’ as a ‘crusade against corruption’. This well scripted drama, backed by multinational corporations, the corporate media and the RSS, is unfolding in Delhi and other big cities of India and within television screens.  With the intensification of class struggle in the context of the severe economic crisis faced by global capitalism, the contradiction of the Indian ruling classes has taken on an ominous proportion. With the increasing onslaught of the India state on the people in the form of forcible acquisition of their resources, the rising cost of essential commodities and the violence against the struggling people, the legitimacy of Indian ruling classes is currently at its lowest. These circumstances have made it possible for a downright reactionary like Anna Hazare—whose sole mettle lies in his cunning—to play a hero’s part in the eyes of the urban middle classes. Anna has emerged as the savior of the crisis-ridden ruling classes. His movement against corruption has been termed as a panacea to all that India is suffering from.

This farcical debate will end in a consensus, create a new institution—yet another in the innumerous ones garlanding the brute business of the state—and proclaim that an end to all of the country’s problems has been reached. The “second freedom struggle” is declared successful! But those who are falling head over heels to support Anna Hazare seems to ignore the fact that the ‘crusade against corruption’ amounts to nothing more than getting a bill passed in the Parliament. The proposed Jan Lokpal bill is the latest among a number of such legislations initiated by the ‘civil society’ in the past - Employment Guarantee bill, Right to Information bill, Forest Rights bill, etc. Far from providing any solution, these supposedly ‘pro-people’ bills have been used as instruments for perpetuating the present exploitative system.

The entire argument forwarded by the Anna led civil society, about corruption, and its solution is faulty. Scams and corruption have always been endemic to the system in India. However, with the ruling classes of India embracing the neo-liberal policies of imperialist globalization, the number and magnitude of scams has increased by leaps and bounds. The current situation is such that “kickback” is almost an official aspect of all policy implementation. What is otherwise known as corporate ‘lobbying’ is virtually an integral part of every measure of the state, be it the devising of schemes, the implementation of policies or the legislation of laws. It was to enhance and safeguard the interests of these very corporate forces that every sector of the economy was thrown open to the market; the logic then flaunted was that this would lead to greater ‘efficiency’ and ‘development’. The implementation of neo-liberal policies has heightened exploitation of majority of the people and resulted in massive corporate loot of resources, huge subsidizing of corporate houses with public money in the name of tax holidays and other benefits, selling off of the country’s mineral wealth and land at ridiculously laughable rates. While these policies have led to a concentration of huge amounts of wealth in the hands of a miniscule minority, the majority of the country’s people live under Rs.20 a day. With the backlash against the people and their means to even basic subsistence intensifying, so has their resistance. The market provided neither of the two. The only thing they ensured efficiently was spiraling corruption and huge siphoning of public money. To bridle corruption therefore, one needs to change the basic policies that the government is pursuing under the direction of its imperialist masters. And since that does not feature even remotely in the discourse on corruption pursued by the middle class, it only shows its futility and hollowness.

How will a nominated body like Jan Lokpal define ‘corruption’? Will the crores of tax holidays that are legitimately given to the corporate giants as part of the MoUs be seen as corruption? Will he deem the money pumped into Salwa Judum by Tata-Essar as corruption? Anna Hazare proudly proclaims that the army and police are giving full support to his movement. The army and police are the two most corrupted institutions of the state and neither this ‘movement’ nor the proposed Lokpal will ever look into the corruption practices of these two. The Jan Lokpal will never question the scams that are bred through policies like NREGA, Antodaya Yojana, which are implemented with the target to breed corruption, so that the money meant for the poorest of the people are siphoned to increase the purchasing power of the rural elite. Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption rhetoric is therefore old wine in new bottle. With the help of a pliable media, he is trying to harness the insecurities faced by the middle-classes as a result of the imperialist economy’s worldwide crisis. His aim is to blindfold them with the promise of yet another institution, showing the false hope that their comfort-cushion will remain intact. Beyond the glitz of Jantar Mantar and Ramlila Ground, however, the life-and-death issues of the working people battling against the acute agrarian crisis and a regime of corporate plunder are growing unnoticed. And a large section of them are challenging the very institutions of exploitation – the Indian Parliamentary system and the Indian state – which Anna Hazare’s ‘bloodless revolution’ so desperately wants everyone to repose faith in. Anna hazare wants us to turn our faces away from the people’s real problems and real struggles. The reality that the exploited people of the country wants a complete overhaul of the present system is too stark to be hidden by illusions of godmen and tricksters.

Anna Hazare is no threat to the present exploitative order, but its ally. This is why the state is handling him with kid’s gloves, providing him with all the facilities to ‘protest’. A day before Hazare’s declared fast, he was arrested, only to be released the next day, to continue with his spectacle.The BJP and sangh parivar is rallying strongly behind this movement. Anna Hazare after all is their old ally. He sung praises for Narendra Modi and openly supported Raj Thakerey. His ‘model village’ in Ralegan Sidhi in Maharashtra is based on the strict belief of force and punishment, rampant use of Hindu religious symbols, evocation of communal-fascist fervour, ‘pure’ morality and caste hierarchies. His politics is based on marginalisation of women, Muslims and dalits from the core of his ‘regeneration’. Slogans of ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ expose the true political colour of this bandwagon, joined not only by the likes of Baba Ramdev, Ravi Shankar and the corporations, but also by those who claim themselves to be left, progressive and even ‘Marxist-Leninist’!

The same government which has the track-record of highest custodial killings, which has deployed over a million of paramilitary forces armed to the teeth to ensure a massive loot of resources, which has ruthlessly fired on peasants fighting against land grab, suddenly took a humble bow in front of Anna Hazare. Right now, when all this drama is trying to capture people’s attention, the army is marching to Chhattisgarh and Odisha to fortify the enormous loot of resources and livelihood of people and to crush the revolutionary movement which is spreading like wildfire in India. We must decide whether we want to be part of the reactionary ‘movement’ of Anna Hazare and his fellow ‘anti-corruption crusaders’, or resolutely stand by the revolutionary movement of the exploited people of this country fighting for a complete social transformation.
 

Oppose the Death Sentence of Perarivalan, Murugan and Chinna Santhan! Abolish Capital Punishment! Fight and Defeat the Indian State’s Crackdown on People’s Movements!

17 August 2011

On 10th August 2011, Indian President rejected the Petition by Perarivalan, Murugan and Chinna Santhan filed under Article 72 of the Indian Constitution, who have been falsely implicated in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. Arrested three weeks after the incident along with scores of others under the draconian TADA, 26 people were condemned to death by a trial court in Chennai on 28th January 1998. The next year in May 1999, the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence on four of them, while acquitting the rest. The death sentence of one out of the three, Nalini was later commuted to life imprisonment. After the Home Ministry sent its recommendations to the president twice in June 2005 and February 2011, the President has finally rejected their petitions and the three are now supposed to be hanged to death. In another glaring example of Indian state’s deepening fascist tentacles, the Home Ministry has also asked the president to reject the petition of Afzal Guru, who was falsely implicated in the 2001 Parliament attack case. 

The entire course of ‘investigations’ has been marked with no evidence connecting any of the accused to Rajiv Gandhi’s death. K. Rahottaman, the chief investigation officer of the case, himself accepted the lack of any direct evidence. ‘Confessions’ obtained in police custody of 17 of the accused, legally permissible under TADA, were all that the Indian state could furnish to prove their alleged culpability. Not surprisingly, most of them retracted their statements later in the court, and pointed to the use of torture by the police in obtaining these so-called confessions. The police even killed one of them the next day for the fear of him retracting his ‘confession’. The courts, however, blatantly rejected all these charges of force, torture and illegal detentions. The entire proceedings were held ‘in camera’, out of public scrutiny. This case once again, more than anything else brings to light that how despite glaring loopholes, the courts uncritically uphold the police version in prosecuting political activists. Even in Afzal Guru’s case despite accepting that there was NO evidence connecting him in any way to the Parliament attack case, the court went on to absurd propositions to claim that he should still be given capital punishment only to satisfy the ‘collective conscience’ of the society. 

Neither Perivavalan, Murugan, Santhan nor Afzal have pleaded for clemency, but for justice. It is justice which the Indian state, even as its celebrates its 64th year of so called ‘independence’, has been unable to provide to the masses of the country. Unable to hide behind the veneer of its so called ‘democracy’ anymore, it has resorted to worst forms of oppression. Arrests, illegal detention, torture, fake encounters, custodial killings, rapes are repeatedly meted out to people who challenge the policies of the state and fight for a better society. Capital punishment by the state which in itself is a barbaric act, and has been abolished in more than 130 countries, is summarily used by the Indian state to thwart people’s aspirations. But the people’s struggles for their land, livelihood, dignity and nationhood will intensify despite these fascist assaults by the Indian state and its imperialist masters!

Joint Struggle Committee's Reporting on the Mass Deputation to the CJI

17 August 2011

The Joint Struggle Committee (JSC) congratulates the student community for ensuring a successful university strike today, and for participating in large numbers in the mass deputation today to the Chief Justice of India. Hundreds of students participated in the mass deputation today, asserting the determination of the JNU student community to restore JNUSU, which is the bedrock of the campus democracy. The JSC also conveys its sincere thanks to the JNUTA and the JNUKA for becoming a signatory to the Joint memorandum. Though the JNUOA could not sign the memorandum officially, due to some reasons they have conveyed there support to the JSC in this struggle.

While hundreds of students shouted slogans against the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations and demanding the lifting of the stay on the JNUSU elections, a delegation of the JSC submitted a Joint Memorandum (which was addressed to the CJI) to the Deputy Registrar of the Supreme Court. This memorandum, which was released by the JSC to the student community last night in the form of a pamphlet, clearly articulates our demands that the CJI should take all steps to expedite our case, towards lifting the stay on the JNUSU elections. In the days to come, the JSC will be taking an appointment to meet the CJI.

In the days to come, JSC will keep the student community informed about all developments  regarding the JNUSU elections. We appeal to the student community to strengthen all joint initiatives of the JSC in the days to come against Lyngdoh recommendations and towards lifting of the Supreme Court stay order and conducting of the JNUSU elections.

(DSU is a part of the Joint Struggle Committee to fight the imposition of LCR on JNU).

Observe UNIVERSITY STRIKE on 17 August! Join MASS DEPUTATION TO THE Chief Justice of India to Stop Delaying the Hearing on Lyngdoh!

16 August 2011

The JNUSU elections were stayed in 2008 with the ‘pretext’ that the notorious Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations were not being followed in JNU! The court in its judgment imposed a conditional stay on the JNUSU elections saying JNU can go ahead with its elections only if they follow Lyngdoh Recommendations! No one except the casteist and elitist agents of the administration called Y4E was ready to accept that. For the past three years the JNU students are fighting a pitched legal and political battle against both the stay and the undemocratic LCR to reclaim our Union; the progressive students of this campus want JNUSU elections according to JNUSU constitution. Because in JNU, elections are never a ritual and the JNUSU is not a seat of power. Both are platforms of struggle and ideological battle. It was because of our sustained struggle that the Supreme Court had questioned the constitutional validity of the LCR and observed it amounts to judicial legislation. This is a big achievement for the entire students’ movement across the country which on a whole is suffering the assault of Lyngdoh. Its stated aim to ‘curb money muscle power’ is after all simply a smoke-screen. The real aim of the Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations is to throttle the voices of democracy and arrest the protests generating among students against the privatization of education. 

Lyngdoh Committee wants to produce titular and toothless student unions. It wants elections to be depoliticized. Thus in its recommendations it has clearly provided for direct administrative interventions. In the name of ‘grievance redressal cell’, it has empowered the administrations to dissolve elected unions or cancel individual candidature unilaterally even after the elections. In universities like Kumayun University, the administrations effectively use this as a means to dissolve elected unions whenever the SU confront the administration on genuine issues. Furthermore it limits the span of elections to mere ten days, ensuring that not much wide debates can take place. It has put age and repetition bar on the candidates to restrict maximum participation of students. It has a restriction on pamphlets, public meetings during elections again to curb the debates and ideological churning of students through which matured votes are cast. Lyngdoh Committee flaunted its claim to stop money and muscle power in students politics. The lurid show of money or the oppressive lumpenism of criminal elements backed by the ruling class parties are going on unabated despite LCR in various campuses. In fact by curtailing political debate the elections as per Lyngdoh throw open more scope for students union elections to be reduced to a managerial affair where money and muscle power becomes more central.

The legacy of broadest possible participation in election and the democratic struggles that the JNUSU had fought is what the state through Lyngdoh Committee wants to strike at. And we need to strike back. The state which is right now at a spree to privatize education rabidly will want to dissolve any militant voice of protest coming from the students. It wants to throttle the voices that are raised against oppression, exploitation, deprivation of all kinds. And that’s all the more reason why we should intensify our struggle to reclaim JNUSU elections according to JNUSU constitution. There can be no short cut or piecemeal solution to this. It is about reclaiming our right and legacy to fight the forces of privatization, casteism, elitism, communalism which wants to turn education into a market commodity and wants students to remain in their self-contented worlds unconnected from all the people’s movements and struggles that are going on elsewhere. The preamble of the JNUSU constitution itself defies such attempts and pledges to connect with people’s struggle going on everywhere. Let us intensify our struggle to reclaim not just the election but also the struggle enshrined in our elections and our constitution!

Condemn the Brutal Lathi-Charge and Arrest of Protesting Students in Calcutta! Expose and Oppose Mamata-led TMC’s Anti-People Policies! Stand in Solidarity with the Lalgarh Movement!

One year ago, the Secretary of the People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) Sidhu Soren was killed in a fake-encounter by the joint forces in Jangal Mahal as a part of Indian State’s ongoing war against the people. Rallies, protest demonstrations and public meetings were conducted in West Bangal to commemorate the martyrs of people’s movements in Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh.  In Bengal alone, hundreds of people have been killed by the police, paramilitary and Harmad forces under the social-fascist regime of CPI(M) in the last three years. Rallies were held in Jhagram against the presence of joint forces in Junglemahal and the continuing incarceration of leaders of people’s movements. To remember the martyrs, more than 150 students led by United Students’ Democratic Front (USDF) marched to College Square in Kolkata on the occasion of the first death anniversary of Sidhu Soren. The students wanted to put a memorial plaque for the martyrs of Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh, and to demand the immediate release of all the political prisoners languishing in various jails in Bengal. But the police force under the same Mamata Banerjee who once claimed to be in solidarity with the struggling people, and who promised to release all political prisoners unconditionally, unleashed wanton lathi charge against the protesting students, injuring many of them seriously. Moreover, 12 of the students were arrested.

From the continuing presence of joint forces and more arrests, to the muffling of dissenting voices – it is the same story of state repression in TMC-governed West Bengal. The Trinamool Congress in the past few years had tried to capture the imagination of the people by capitalizing on popular demands like the withdrawal of joint forces, release of political prisoners along with saying no to land grab and corporate industrialization. However, after the much hyped election campaign, Trinamool Congress has already backtracked from all its ‘electoral promises’. Now in power, much like its predecessor, TMC has resorted to the use of brute force against any kind of protest. Joint forces have once again started to operate with impunity in Junglemahal. Adivasi villagers and political activists continue to be arrested after branding them as ‘Maoists’. Sidhu Soren’s house was ransacked a few days ago by these forces. More than 2,000 political prisoners –the highest in any state– continue to languish in prison. In violation of Supreme Court’s recent judgment on the Salwa Judum, Mamata Banerjee is now planning to recruit 10,000 adivasis of Junglemahal into a vigilante force! Construction for a permanent CRPF base in Junglemahal, for which 143 acres of land have been acquired in Salboni, has also begun.

Trinamool Congress’ about-turn does not come as a surprise. As a junior partner of the UPA, the same UPA which CPI(M) also allied with both electorally as well as militarily, TMC is not an alternative to the struggling people of Bengal. Contrary to TMC’s own claims, the challenge to the 34 year social-fascist rule of CPI(M) did not come not from the Trinamool but from the people of Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh. CPI(M) was defeated by the intensification of the class struggle led by the revolutionary force. The TMC made electoral advantage out of the people’s struggles. It is a known fact that as a part of their election propaganda all ruling parties try to cash in on people’s real grievances, but historically all of them have betrayed the people once in power. The continuing state repression and muffling of dissenting voices in West Bengal exposes precisely this – the façade of parliamentary democracy. The fight against state repression can only be fought by strengthening the revolutionary movement. DSU condemns the lathi-charge and arrest of the students in Calcutta, and demands their immediate release. We express our solidarity with the revolutionary struggle of Lalgarh and the people fighting against Green Hunt in Bengal and other parts of the country.

Another Kashmiri Woman Raped by the Indian Army! Oppose Sexual Violence on the Women of Kashmir fighting for Azadi!

Kashmir in the past few days has seen thousands of people taking to the streets and staging demonstrations against the rape of a 30 year old woman by the mercenary forces of the Indian state. On 19th of July, a 30 year old woman from the Gujjardara Manzgam village in Kulgam district area of South Kashmir was abducted by Indian Army personnel, taken to a nearby hutment and gang-raped repeatedly for two days on gunpoint. She was found unconscious, lying near a stream on the 21 July. As the valley witnessed shutdown for the third consecutive day against the incident, the Indian state has once again resorted to brute force against the protestors. Hundreds of people staging massive pro-freedom demonstrations were teargassed and lathi-charged by the CRPF. An undeclared emergency is imposed in many parts of Kashmir, mobility of the people has been curtailed, and more than a dozen civilians have been injured. Pro-freedom leadership has also been put under house arrest.

The Indian state has once again gone into a denial mode, shielding the perpetrators. Despite the initial ‘assurance’ by the puppet chief minister Omar Abdullah of action against the guilty army personnel, the army has refused to comply with the investigations. They have even gone to the extent of insidiously trying to prove the woman as ‘mentally disturbed’. The house of the victim has been converted into a police camp with more than 40 policemen guarding it. The assaulted woman is not allowed to meet any visitors or journalists. In an act of intimidation and further humiliation, police have released a video clip of the victim.

All this is not new to the people of Kashmir. Sexual violence on the women of Kashmir has been systematically and deliberately used by the Indian state or its armed forces in an attempt to crush the morale of the people. A 1994 United Nations publication (E/CN.4/1995/42) says that “during 1992 alone, 882 women were gang-raped by Indian security forces in Jammu and Kashmir”. Two years ago in Shopian, two women –one of them pregnant– were raped and murdered by the Indian army. The Indian state even then had shielded the personnel responsible for the act, denying rape or murder and instead asserted that the women had drowned in ankle-deep water and that too just outside the army camp! Even the doctor who confirmed the incidence of rape was suspended from the hospital and charge-sheeted. From Kushnanposhpora to Shopian to now Kulgam, rape has been systematically used as a weapon of war by the Indian state in Kashmir. The relatives of the victim thus have already pointed out to the meaninglessness of any investigation.

The people of Kashmir have faced the worst forms of state repression in the past more than six decades of their freedom struggle against Indian occupation. Their nation has been occupied and converted into the biggest prison on earth with more than 8 lakh army personnel who shoot, maim and rape with impunity thanks to draconian laws like ASFPA. They have lost 70,000 fellow Kashmiris, thousands of them have simply ‘disappeared’ only to be unearthed years later in mass graves, their women have been raped by the Indian state’s mercenaries. But despite the all the brutalities and the army rule, Kashmir has refused to bow down before the Indian state. People have braved curfews and shoot-at sight orders with nothing but their courage and a vision for an independent Kashmir which no repression can deny. DSU stands in solidarity with and offers its red salutes to the freedom struggle of Kashmir.