Organized by Coordination Committee for Oppressed Nationalities (CCON)
Speakers: Prof. Bimol akoijam, CSSS/ JNU, Satya Sivaraman, Journalist, Santhosh, Visiting Faculty, SAA/JNU, Someetharan, Jaffna Based Documentary Film Maker.
Followed by Documentary Screening on Mullaitivu Saga, 45 min , a English Documentary on the ‘final’ brutal military operation of the Srilankan army and A Book Release of In the Name Of Peace: The IPKF Massacre of Tamils in Srilanka
Tamil Eelam Movement: The Contemporary Crisis and Its Significance
When the Sri Lankan Government declared on May 19th 2009 that the war against the Tamil Tigers is over, thereby claiming that the Eelam struggle was finished, it received compliments from a curious combination of international forces. India and Pakistan welcomed Sri Lanka’s victory against ‘terrorism’. Israel and Iran congratulated Rajapaksa for upholding democracy. The Turkish government expressed opinions signaling that the PKK would meet a similar fate like the LTTE while quite a few military analysts in India and Colombia considered the possibility of finishing off the armed struggles waged by the Maoists and the FARC respectively in a ‘Sri Lanka style’ solution. The big powers, USA, France, Russia and China also expressed their solidarity with the victorious Lankan government. The pro-US Colombian government and the supposedly anti-imperialist Cuba and Venezuela conveyed their admiration for Rajapaksa’s firmness in dealing with ‘seditionists.’ Most of the above mentioned countries have also directly and indirectly provided material support to Sri Lanka.
INTELLECTUALS AND THE WAR: Indeed, some of the intellectuals who support these so-called anti-US countries, considering them to be truly ‘revolutionary’, have even characterized the Eelam struggle as being funded by imperialist powers. This despite the fact that the LTTE was banned and continues to faces a ban in the US, Canada and the European Union and that quite some Tamils who have been suspected of aiding the Tigers have been arrested by these governments. This despite the fact that the US, Israel and many countries of the West have supplied the Sri Lankan government with economic and military aid. This despite the fact that none of those countries that had no qualms in going to war with undemocratic regimes in Iraq earlier and now in Libya raised a finger while over 50000 civilians were butchered by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces between January and May 2009. Media houses like The Hindu and NDTV that put up a sham liberal facade propagated this blatant lie of ‘terrorism promoted by foreign powers’, besides even positively projecting Sinhalese chauvinist-triumphalism after the massacre of the Tamils. Recent cables released by Wikileaks shows how the Indian Government opposed foreign powers preventing the Sri Lankan state’s war against the Tamils and also how the Sri Lankan government was desperately trying to get greater aid from the US in their war on the Tamils.
While the silence in intellectual circles on the genocide in Sri Lanka is grossly disproportionate to its intensity, the talks and debates on Sri Lanka in the mainstream Indian media and academia focuses on either peace or reconciliation or both. What is conveniently forgotten is the struggle of a people for freedom and justice. The ‘left’ intellectuals affiliated with the CPM and few other parliamentary left parties, who have no qualms in shouting their support for the Palestinian liberation struggle, are happy to denounce the equally genuine demands of the Eelam Tamil people and to distort the truth of their oppression. That they hold similar positions on the other national-liberation struggles in the subcontinent is testimonial to their commitment to the oppressed peoples. Even those who recognize the war-crimes of the Sri Lankan government are rather silent on the political demand for self-determination of the Eelam Tamils and slip into a human-rights discourse instead. The tragedy that befell the Tamils then becomes a ‘soft-story’ discussion for the NGO’s and status quo intellectuals.
The truth is this. The war in Sri Lanka is not about human rights violations alone. It is primarily about political rights of the Tamils as a nation to secede and form an independent state. Unless that is recognized, all appeals for peace and co-existence are just mere shams to cover the naked racist oppression that exists in Sri Lanka, the brutal face of Sinhala majoritarian chauvinism. The Lankan emperor is wearing no clothes – but why do so few have the courage to point that out?
A BRIEF HISTORY OF BLOOD: As soon as Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948, it passed the Citizenship act, which in effect disenfranchised more than 10 lakh plantation Tamil workers in the island. Following the Sirimavo-Shastri pact of 1964, over 5 lakh of them were expatriated – the remaining were to get Sri Lankan citizenship only in 2003. In 1956, the notorious ‘Sinhala Only’ act, that made Sinhalese the sole official language was passed. Tamils staged peaceful protests and the response was state-sponsored riots which led to over a 150 deaths. Large scale riots against the Tamils occurred again in 1958, again as a response to non-violent protests of the Tamils. When the Federal Party declared civil disobedience, emergency was declared in many Tamil areas and the army was deployed to crush protests. Sinhalese academics in this period wrote ‘historical works’ that received official support which sought to obliterate the historical presence of the Tamils in the island. A sample – “The history of Sri Lanka is the history of the Sinhalese race… Buddhism is the golden thread running through the history of the Race and the Land…” (DC Wijewardena, The Revolt in the Temple)
Anti-Tamil riots occurred with varying frequencies in the 60’s and the 70’s. The Republican constitution of 1972, plucked away the few minority rights that the Tamils had. By officially privileging the faith of the majority, it made complete Sinhala-Buddhist supremacy a reality. The Tamils, deeply conscious of the oppression that they faced as a collective, realized that future in an united Sri Lanka would only spell doom for them. The Tamil United Liberation Front, which was formed on 1976, passed the Vaddukkodai resolution under the aegis of S.J.V. Chelvanayakam that year which stated that the struggle for “the Free, Sovereign, Secular, Socialist State of Tamil Eelam, based on the right of self determination inherent to every nation, has become inevitable in order to safeguard the very existence of the Tamil Nation in this Country.” The constitution promised a socialist-democratic state, committed to abolition of casteism and religious discrimination.
THE RISE OF ARMED STRUGGLE: The Tamil youth, who were the worst to be affected by the language policy of the government, and the rural populace who were under constant economic pressures, began losing faith in the peaceful methods of the TULF. The LTTE which was formed in 1976, gained popularity after the assassination of Jaffna mayor Alfred Duriappah. The burning of the Jaffna library, which contained numerous valuable historical manuscripts of the Tamils, by Sinhalese policemen in 1981 convinced the radical youth that the Sinhala chauvinist government was bent on erasing them totally and that armed struggle was the only way to secure justice. The horrible Black July riots of 1983 by Sinhalese mobs, policemen and the army, that was given a free hand by the state and which caused the deaths of over 4000 Tamils and the displacement of hundreds of thousands led to the intensification of Tamil armed resistance and its greater acceptance among the Tamil populace. The LTTE, with its programme for a Socialist Tamil Eelam, consciously promoted the involvement of women, dalits and backward castes in its ranks and reached out to a wider audience than the other parties.
INDIAN INVOLVEMENT: Other militant groups also emerged in this period. The TELO was openly favoured by the Indian government. After its decimation by the LTTE, the RAW chose the EPRLF, who were content to be happy stooges of India. Only the LTTE maintained its independent agenda and refused to be a junior partner of any power. Thus, when following the Indo-Sri Lanka accord the Indian Peace Keeping Force entered Sri Lanka, they launched their brutal assaults on the LTTE and the Tamil people. The IPKF also trained mercenary squads from the EPRLF in the name of ‘Tamil National Army’ to create terror among the local people. Yet, the Tigers were able to secure a decisive victory over the Indian army owing to their mass support and the usage of guerrilla warfare. After that defeat, India has supplied arms to Sri Lanka and also training to its armed forces, albeit covertly, mostly owing to fear of a backlash in Tamil Nadu.
CONSOLIDATION AND CRISIS: After a series of military successes, the LTTE consolidated its rule in the North and Eastern regions of Sri Lanka, having almost 15000 sq km under its control. When it entered into a Ceasefire agreement with Sri Lanka in 2002, it was functioning as a de facto state. It ran schools, hospitals, relief teams, judiciary and police. But by this time, various international powers starting stepping up their covert and overt support to Sri Lanka, especially after the media-generated paranoia on ‘terrorism’ after 9-11. The LTTE was banned in various countries and people suspected to be its members/sympathizers were arrested in India, the USA, France etc. While the movement of men and material for the LTTE was clamped down, the governments of China, Israel, Russia, Pakistan, Libya and Iran gave extensive military support to Sri Lanka.
The defection of Karuna, the Eastern Commander of the LTTE, in 2004 which was partly engineered by the Lankan government came as a major blow to the Tigers. The December 2004 Tsunami also greatly damaged human resources and infrastructure in Tiger controlled areas. With Rajapaksa’s election in 2005 the ceasefire began to deteriorate. On July 2006, the Sri Lankan military started its full scale offensive against the Tamils with blessings from various international powers. Numerous atrocious acts like the Chencholai orphanage bombing of August 2006 which killed 61 Tamil children were committed by the Lankan armed forces with impunity.
Towards the last stages of the military operations in Mullaitivu, the Lankan armed forces violated all established conventions of war. Chemical weapons and cluster bombs were used on civilian populations. Non-combatants were subject to tortures and sexual abuse. Media freedom was curtailed and vigilante groups were propped to violently snuff out any democratic voices. The murders of journalists Taraki Sivaram, Lasantha Wickramatunga and P. Devakumaran are ghastly examples. When the Lankan government declared on May 19th that the war was over and that peace was ahead, it failed to mention the bloody trail that it had left behind.
POST-WAR SRI LANKA: The Permanent People’s Tribunal in a hearing on January 2010 found the Sri Lankan government guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Chomsky compared the Sri Lankan war on the Tamils to the atrocities in Rwanda. Despite claims to champion ‘peaceful co-existence’ the Sri Lankan government has been consistently pursuing militarization and colonization of Tamil areas since May 2009, especially in the absence of an organized resistance from the Tamils. Summary executions by mercenary gangs and the army, abductions, illegal detentions and rape are commonplace. Suicide rates among Tamils are one of the highest in the world and many suffer from psychological traumas.
Demographics of the region are changed by state supported Sinhalese settlements and establishment of army camps in Tamil areas. Many Tamil lands have now been used for foreign projects under the guise of government schemes. The assaults on the cultural level are also happening side by side. Besides wanton destruction of Tamil Churches and Temples, there are attempts to change the names of Tamil localities into Sinhala, thereby denying them their local history. Desecration of statues of Tamil martyrs has been accomplished with systematic efforts. In July 2010, the army demolished the Tamil war heroes cemetery in Thenmaradaachi, Jaffna, in order to build an army base over it. The purpose of this is two fold: one, to show the Tamils once and for all who their superiors are. Two, to erase all memories of resistance from the thoughts of the Tamils. Despite all this, dreams persist, words are spoken and stories are told.
CCON feels that at a stage where various national-liberation struggles are being brutally suppressed and are undergoing strategic and ideological changes, it is imperative for us to learn from various movements. And since the so-called ‘Sri Lanka solution is being upheld by various oppressor countries, we feel it is necessary to discuss how this ‘final solution’ turned out to be and what it signifies for the Tamils and other oppressed nationalities.
Chinese Working Class Rising Like Phoenix from the Ashes:
Problems & Prospects of the Working Class Movement in China
Speaker : Jackson
(A Political Activist from China) Venue :Activity Centre, Above Spic Macay Canteen, Arts Faculty, D.U. Date :Wednesday, 23rd February 2011 Time :1.30 P.M. Onwards
As you are aware Shri K.G. Kannabiran, former President PUCL, eminent lawyer, writer and the most active civil liberties activist, passed away on December 30, 2010. The PUCL is organizing a condolence meeting to pay our tributes to the doyen of civil liberties movement.
Day and Time: January 8, 2011 (Saturday) at 5:00 p.m.
Venue: Gandhi Peace Foundation,
223, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg
New Delhi – 110002
You are requested to join us in paying respects to him.
The Road to New Democracy in Nepal: Problems and Challenges
The Anuradha Ghandy Memorial Committee
cordially invites you to
3rd Anuradha Ghandy Memorial Lecture
Speaker: Baburam Bhattarai
(Senior Member of the Politburo, UCPN (Maoist)
and former Finance Minister of Nepal)
Friday, 14th January 2011
6.00 pm
Venue: Rama Watumull Auditorium (K. C. College)
Dinshaw Wacha Road, Churchgate, Mumbai, 400020
Baburam Bhattarai, one of the leading personalities of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) is, in his own words, “a typical representative of a Third World educated youth of peasant background, who finds the gross inequality, oppression, poverty, underdevelopment and exploitation of the overwhelming majority of the population in a class-divided and imperialism-dominated world just intolerable, …”. Along with Prachanda, since 1996 he has been at the helm of one of the world’s most significant mass movements for freedom and democracy. A “highly intellectual politician”, he is the author of a large number of books and articles, among which are The Nature of Underdevelopment and Regional Structure of Nepal: A Marxist Analysis (2003), and “Let’s Give No Legitimacy to the Beneficiaries of the New Kot Massacre” (Kantipur, the Nepali language daily, June 6, 2001) which immediately made historical waves.
Introduction to the Lecture Series: Anuradha Ghandy (1954-2008) was a leading organizer and thinker of the revolutionary movement in India. Early on, she developed a sense of commitment to the poor; she joined them in their struggle for bread and roses, the fight for a richer and a fuller life for all. Tragically, cerebral malaria took her away in April 2008. The memorial lecture is instituted in her memory to celebrate the spirit that made her selflessly adopt the cause of the damned of the Indian earth—the exploited, the oppressed, and the dominated—as her own. She was a role model in whatever she did, whether it was teaching sociology to post-graduate students at Nagpur University, or as a founder-member of the Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights, Mumbai, or as head of the Central Mahila Sub-Committee and member of the CC of the CPI (Maoist) —bold, courageous and decisive, yet kind, gentle and considerate.
Date: 7th December 2010, Tuesday
Venue: M.N. Sreenivas Hall, Delhi School of Economics,
Department of Sociology, University of Delhi
Documentary Film: “AFSPA-1958” is a documentary film Script and Directed by Haobam Pebam Kumar a well-known documentary film maker. AFSPA 1958 was awarded INTERNATIONAL FIPRESCI CRITICS JURY AWARD (MIFF2006);INTERNATIONAL JURY AWARD (MIFF 2006);THE JURY PRIZE (10th Ismailia International Film Festival 2006);A.C.T. Award to AFSPA 1958 for the Best Film that deals with women problems, subjects, concerns and rights in the official competition of the 10th Ismailia International Film Festival 2006;BEST DOCUMENTARY AWARD (SIGNS 2006, Kerala/India);BEST DOCUMENTARY AWARD (6th KARA International Film Festival, 2007, Pakistan) ; Awarded the Swarna Kamal for the Best Non-Feature Film in the 56th NATIONAL FILM AWARDS FOR THE YEAR 2008 It tries to capture the everyday life of the people in “disturbed area” in the case of Manipur who lives under one of the most draconian law enacted by the post- independent India. It shows some of the experiences, life, pain, helplessness, anger, resistance, rejection, and calls for support to the progressive peoples from the story of atrocities, humiliation, insecurity of life and dignity. It documented after 2004, July 10, Miss Manorama who was taken away by the Assam Rifles from her residence after giving an arrest memo to her family. She was raped and murdered. 11 women protested without any cloths, a student leader Mr. Chitarenjan performed self immolation; many students from Manipur University were badly beaten up in front of Governor’s house, people lived under curfew for months, a long mass protest by the people in Manipur and unending non violent protest (hunger strike till justice) by Irom Sharmila Chanu to repeal AFSPA. For the first time in the history of post independent India, national security legislation was forced to review under a commission appointed by Prime Minister and resulted no result.
Abstract: AFSPA is essentially one of the colonial acts like Indian Forest Act 1927, Indian Penal Code, Indian Land Acquisition Act, the Criminal Tribe Act 1871 etc. It is originated from Armed Forces (ordinance) 1942 and passed as Armed Forces (Manipur and Assam) Special Power Act in 1958 in parliament. After the implementation of this act in certain regions or people of the state, it can be stated that laws are made on the basis of race, religion and people. The idea of rule of law without any difference on the basis of sex, race, color, and people of a modern democratic state has been compromised by this very implementation of this act in the last 5 decades in some part of this country. Why such kind of law can exist so long? What is the politic of this act? How AFSPA can be understood in an academic and public discourse? How can we imagine the society under AFSPA-1958?
2.30 pm: Documentary Film: “AFSPA-1958”
Discussion:
3.40 pm: Indian State, AFSPA-1958 and Rule of Law
by
Dr. Sudha Vasan
Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, DU
4.10pm: Human Rights and Security Law in India (AFSPA)
by
Colin Gonsalves
Supreme Court Lawyer and Human Right Activist
You are requested to kindly witness this documentary film and take part on the discussion.
6th December 1992 marked the demolition of the Babri Masjid situated at Ayodhya by Hindu communal hordes led by Hindutva leaders, while the central security forces looked on without intervening. The Central Govt. of Congress led by P.V. Narasimha Rao and the state BJP Govt. led by Kalyan Singh stood by and allowed the demolition. Narasimha Rao’s first public statement promised the country that the Govt. would rebuild the mosque; a sentence which the Central Govt. ceased to repeat in the space of just a few days. Anti-Muslim violence under the patronage of the police followed in Mumbai, where the Sri Krishna Commission report remains unimplemented till date.
Later the Supreme Court refused to answer a Presidential reference to ascertain whether any Hindu religious structure was demolished to build the Mosque. Criminal complaints filed against the Hindutva leaders for the demolition continue to lie pending before various special benches of the state High Court.
Now the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has passed a judgment which legalizes the illegal act of smuggling of idols under the central dome of the Babri Masjid which for centuries had been a functional mosque .It has condoned the act of physical demolition of the Mosque by holding that the area under the Central dome of the Mosque had all along been the birth place of Rama. Not only that the Lucknow Bench has even endorsed the VHP’s plan of a ‘grand temple’ at Ayodhya entertaining VHP functionaries as a Party and their design of ‘grand temple’ as a legally valid cause. While the religious demolition of the Babri Masjid took place in 1949, its physical demolition in 1992, this court judgment has effected its legal demolition. Worse, it has opened wide the doors to avenging missions of Hindu communalists to reverse perceived ‘wrongs’ of history targeting the minorities.
Not only this .The current High Court judgment has passed comments of far reaching significance on archeology and history with dangerous consequences regarding use of these disciplines.
The Babri Masjid demolition and the aftermath till date puts on agenda the entire question of Hindu communalism in India. Congress practices a ‘soft’ Hindu communalism while wearing the mask of secularism while the Hindutva organizations like BJP, VHP, and RSS take aggressive Hindu communal position. The communal conspiracies of the rulers divide the people’s movements and turn the focus away from the real issues before the people.
To discuss all these aspects, especially the Allahabad High Court judgment, Delhi Committee of CPI (ML) New Democracy is holding a meeting
on 6th December 2010
from 5.30 pm
at Gandhi Peace Foundation
where several distinguished speakers will place their views. We hope you will be able to spare your valuable time to attend the same.
On the 21st of November, 2010, a meeting was organized in Bhubaneswar by the leading leftist cultural magazine in Oriya, Nisan. The meeting was supported by several other left, Lohiaite and Gandhian groups. It was held under the banner of Nisan Sammelan — 2010 with a discussion on “CULTURAL RESISTANCE: WAR ON PEOPLE IN CORPORATE INTEREST.” Twenty-six tribal organizations participated in the meeting with each of them discussing problems that they are facing in the ongoing struggles in their regions. Incidents of police atrocities, rape, false arrests were made public in the meeting. The police in their bid to stop the tribals from reaching Bhubaneswar harassed them at several railway stations. A group comprising of thirty members which was supposed to come from Kashipur was arrested.
The groups unanimously decried the attempts by the State and capitalists to displace or alienate them from their resources and they shared their experiences of struggle in front of a gathering of about 5000 people. The tribal organizations called for intensifying solidarity efforts and a close coordination among various organizations to confront the state which has instrumentalised itself as the blatant political wing of corporate capital, branding all struggles for popular self-determination as Maoist.
The invited speakers included writer-activist Arundhati Roy, revolutionary Telugu poet Varavara Rao, Oriya novelist and short story writer Bibhuti Pattnayak, veteran journalist Rabi Das, poet Kumar Hasan, poet Rajendra Panda, advocate and human rights activist Biswapriya Kanungo and noted Gandhian Prafulla Samantara .
ABVP goons being chased away
Arundhati Roy while arriving at the venue was greeted by about 7-10 ABVP cadres with black flags protesting against her visit. Tribals, with their lathis chased them away. It is noteworthy that all prominent local and national bourgeois newspapers have presented this local communal hooliganism against the Kashmiri struggle as a major incident.
Arundhati Roy
In her speech Arundhati Roy, after facing the ABVP cadres outside, talked about patriotism nurtured in the struggles of indigenous peoples led by the anti-hegemonic forces of various ideological hues. Varavara Rao too spoke about the relevance of tribal struggles and drew an analogy between such struggles and anti-US imperialist struggles of the oil rich regions of the Middle East. He said that the tribal struggles were results of oppression of the state which wanted to take away whatever means of livelihood they had. He asked not to analyse these struggles just on the basis of their formal contours, rather they must be understood in terms of what provokes them. He spoke about the relevance of revolutionary violence which he interpreted to be a tool to fight structural violence of the system.
Varavara Rao
The speakers revealed the truth of peoples’ struggles and their spirit against the state’s insistence to “massacre every revolt that makes sense.”
A Conference on
Rural Labourers in Neo-liberal India
18-19 December 2010
XIMB (Xavier Institute of Management – Bhubaneswar), Orissa, India
Supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada
and XIMB, Bhubaneswar, Orissa
Neoliberalism has affected India’s rural areas and the agrarian sector particularly harshly. Not only are peasants being dispossessed of their rights to land, water and forests, and of their meager entitlements from the state. But also rural labourers are being subjected to ruthless levels of exploitation on the farms and in agro-industrial units where they produce commodities for the rich domestic elite and for export to rich (and imperialist) countries. While the story of dispossession of peasants has (rightly) attracted much attention in recent times, what has often been neglected is the issue of the production of commodities, the associated process of exploitation, and therefore, the life of the labourers.
Without land or other forms of property and with dwindling welfare benefits from the neoliberal state, rural labourers find themselves in a precarious situation and form a major part of the ‘Republic of Hunger ’. They work as long as they live, and they live as long as they work. Many are footloose labourers constantly in search of work. In many places, employers even take away labourers’ freedom to sell their labour power, in order to cheapen the only commodity they possess and to discipline them. This is the case with bonded and child labourers. As well employers make use of gender and caste/tribality to lower wages of low-caste, women and tribal labourers and to pit one group of labourers against another. These social distinctions are no less used by political parties of the rich property-owning classes to divide and disarm the rural working class electorate. But at the same time, rural labourers (and poor peasants), in spite of them being geographically scattered, are engaged in an ‘uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight’ against exploitation and oppression.
The topic of rural labour in imperialized, poorer countries such as India indeed cries out for serious critical scrutiny. This must place rural labour (including semi-proletarian labour) at the center of our attention in terms of primitive accumulation which produces it and the capitalist accumulation process which exploits it, and in terms of its democratically organized struggles against capital and the neo-liberal state.
Papers are invited which speak to one or more aspects of the situation described above in the specific context of India . Specific topics of interest include:
1. ‘Primitive accumulation’ in relation to labour
2. Rural migrant labourers (working in villages and/or in urban areas)
3. Labour process in export-oriented agricultural production sites
4. Labourers in floriculture and aquaculture
5. Contract farming and rural labour
6. Rural reserve army of labour and neo-liberal accumulation
7. Technological change, rural labour and politics of production
8. Ruralization of capital in the age of ‘new’ imperialism and its effect on labour
9. Environment (e.g. climate change issues, including heat wave) and rural labour
10. Life and livelihood of the unemployed in the villages
11. Poverty/hunger of rural labour households
12. Credit relations (formal and informal) and rural labourers
13. Female labourers, neoliberal state and neoliberal capital
14. Capital and dalit/adivasi labour
15. Rural labouring bodies in pain: capital’s corporeal effect on labour
16. Reduction in state welfare provision and its impact on labourers
17. Government rural wage-employment generation programmes (e.g. NREGS)
18. Development NGOs and rural labour
19. Representation of rural labour in media and popular culture
20. Struggles of rural labourers and poor peasants against capital, landowners, and neo-liberal state
21. Rural labourers in progressive art and media
The original deadline for the submission of abstracts has passed. Though 5th December remains our deadline for receipt of the completed-papers from the authors whose abstracts have been accepted, some slots are now available with us for considering directly-submitted completed-papers from those that did not submit abstracts or whose abstracts did not get accepted; the deadline for these is 15th November.
JOIN A DEMONSTRATION ON NOVEMBER 8TH 2010 (MONDAY) AT JANTAR MANTAR (NEW DELHI) AT 2:00 PM
Dear Friends,
At a time when US imperialism has escalated the war against Afghanistan and is even extending this war by assaults by NATO forces led by it against northern districts of Pakistan, leader of warmongers, looters and exploiters of the world people, President of USA, Barack Obama, will visit India in early Nov. 2010. Since Obama came to power, US forces have increased their numbers several times over in Afghanistan. There are innumerable proven instance of deliberate targeting of innocent civilians by these forces in the name of “targeted” attacks on “enemy”. In essence, US imperialism under Obama administration is continuing the Bush era attempt of a permanent base in Afghanistan from where it will interfere in central Asia. India should be in the forefront of opposing the US move. Let us use the opportunity of Obama’s visit to strongly demand that US and NATO forces immediately withdrawn from Afghanistan.
It was 2001 that US imperialism under Bush had launched its current war, which the world people were told was against ‘terrorism’. War was launched first against Afghanistan and later against Iraq. In reality wars were launched to further the quest of US imperialism for hegemony over the world’s oil resources and also to establish military dominance over the world.
In essence, the Obama administration is continuing the aims of Bush era but it has changed rhetoric. US under Obama has made a mockery of his promises of withdrawal of forces from Iraq, keeping a huge army stationed there in the name of ‘aid’ to local troops. While Afghanistan is the main theatre of war, US continues a sharply aggressive stance on West Asia and Central Asia. On Palestine, Obama has no policy different from the earlier one and continues backing Israel against the just fight of the Palestinian people.
The current world economic crisis began in US and the US economy continues to be in the grip of severe unemployment. One of the chief ends of the Obama visit is to push further opening of the markets of our country. He is expected to give a massive push for opening of the retail sector to US MNCs like Wal-Mart, which will directly affect the livelihood of a large section of our people, and which step the Indian people have resisted all along. All this even as Obama administration seeks to protect US markets back home. Obama is championing opposition to outsourcing by US companies; those companies which outsource are to face stiffer taxes. It is also no secret that Obama is going to use the occasion of his visit to push for fresh defence deals with US, aiding the powerful weapon industry. Ahead of Obama visit Indian government has signed the international nuclear liability treaty to dilute the liability of suppliers as stated by Nuclear Liability Act 2010. This is in accordance with the demands of US companies. Let us not forget that Obama administration, like previous US govts, has refused to reconsider the issue of extradition of Warren Anderson, guilty of Bhopal Gas Tragedy, for trial in India.
Obama is coming at a time when ruling classes of India have hitched themselves firmly to the chariot wheel of US imperialism. They aspire to the junior hegemons under US in Central Asia. Ruling classes of India are committed to bowing to the diktats of US imperialism in the economic spaces too. As it is the people of India are reeling under the pro imperialist policies of India’s ruling classes especially the new economic policies being implemented since 1991. The result is visible in the severe price rise which is burdening the common people including the working class. Severe agricultural crisis has gripped the country. Land acquisition by the state for cooperates; MNCs and SEZs have devastated last sections of the peasantry and tribal. Privatization and liberalization are putting health and education further out of reach of common masses. People all over country are resisting these policies in various ways. The furtherance of pro imperialist policies, which is what the Obama visit will signify, will increase the burdens on the common people.
On the occasion of President Obama’s visit to India, let us unitedly demand
US imperialism, Get out of Afghanistan.
Send back Warren Anderson to face trial in India
CPI(M-L), CPI(M-L) New Democracy, CPI(M-L) New Proletariat, Democratic Students Union, Indian Council of Trade Unions, Indian Federation of Trade Unions, Inqlabi Majdoor Kendra, Krantikari Yuva Sangathan, Mool Pravah Akhil Bharatiya Nepali Ekata Samaj, Pragatisheel Mahila Sangathan, Progressive Democratic Students Union, Revolutionary Democratic Front, Trade Union Centre of India, CPDM, Bahujan Vam Manch
DEMOCRATIC FRONT AGAINST OPERATION GREEN HUNT, PUNJAB HOLDS A MASSIVE CONVENTION AT JALANDHAR!
BUILD A BROAD SPECTRUM OF RESISTANCE MOVEMENTS!
OPPOSE NEO-LIBERAL POLICIES AND SUPPRESSION OF PEOPLES’ MOVEMENTS THROUGH ARMED FORCES!
On 17th October, when people were celebrating Dussehra to mark the victory of Good over the Evil, the Democratic Front Against Operation Green Hunt, Punjab, held a massive Convention in Desh Bhagat Yadgar Hall, Jalandhar on “War against the people & Role of Democratic Forces.” It was addressed by noted pro-people thinker and Booker Award winner writer Arundhati Roy and Gandhian social activist Himanshu Kumar. Hundreds of people from all walks of life – University Professors, Research Scholars, Students, Artists, littérateur, cultural activists, press-persons, farmers, agricultural and industrial laborers, trade unionists, thinkers etc., participated from all across Punjab and Chandigarh. The Convention Hall having a seating capacity of 900 was overfilled and hundreds of people were left to hear the programme from outside the Convention Hall.
The Convention Hall was tastefully decorated with flex-hoardings having appropriate messages. The theme hoarding had the poem by Pastor Martin Niemoller – ‘FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE COMMUNISTS’, with a painting depicting peoples’ struggle in the background. Two others were having poems by two noted peoples’ poets of Punjab Sant Ram Udasi- MAGHDA RAHIN VE SURJA (Shine O Sun brightly) and Pash- ASIN LARANGE SATHI (Comrade! We will fight). There were quotations from Shaheed Bhagat Singh, ‘HAWA MEIN RAHENGI MERE KHIALON KI BIJLIAN’ (I may or may not live, but my ideas will remain galvanizing the air eternally)
The Convention was presided over by a presidium consisting of Dr. Parminder Singh (Professor Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar), Prof. A.K.Maleri (Ludhiana), Sh. Yash Pal (Retired Teacher and Editor VARG CHETNA), Prof. Ajmer Singh Aulakh (Noted pro-people Punjabi Dramatist), Com Gandharav Sen Kochhar and Sh. Naunihal Singh(both from Desh Bhagat Yadgar Committee, formed to honor the martyrs of Gadar Movement).
Arundhati Roy opened her speech with the remark that the Indian state has been waging a war against its own people in many parts of the country such as North East, Kashmir, Punjab and many other places for the last 60 years using military and the police to ruthlessly suppress them. She paid rich compliments to the poor people and tribals living in the forests of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Andhra, West Bengal and Maharashtra, who were fighting valiantly to save their lands, forests, water and mineral wealth from being plundered by the world’s richest companies. Preaching non-violence to the tribals of Chhattisgarh is immoral. To those, who accuse the tribals of being violent, she asked: ‘When people are forced to die of hunger, when they are uprooted after depriving them of their lands and livelihood, in the name of development, is it not violence?’ Is it not ironic to advise those, who have empty stomachs and empty pockets, to follow the Gandhian tools of Hunger strike and boycott of foreign goods?
She said that to oppose operation Green Hunt, one need not go and fight in the jungles of Dantewada. Fighting against injustice at our own place is also an important contribution to this cause. Struggles against SEZ and the exploitative Commission Agent (ARHTIYA) system in Punjab are part of the fight against operation Green Hunt. She called upon the intellectuals and toiling sections of the masses to build a broad spectrum of resistance movements against the neo-liberal policies of the State and its onslaught on the peoples’ movements in the form of armed operations such as Green Hunt.
Commenting on the ongoing events in the states under operation Green Hunt, she said that there is a strong link between development and genocide. There is genocide under the façade of development. When the people are uprooted from their lands, culture sources of livelihood, they are doomed to die. In India Crores of people suffer from the AIDS of malnutrition. Malnutrition not only leads its victim to death, but casts its agonizing shadow on the next generations also.
She said while the Naxals are fighting a protracted war against the capitalist system and big corporates, the Indian state was fighting war against its own people. She suggested having diverse methods of resistance in a wider struggle to challenge oppressive policies of the state.
She said the Green Hunt began in Punjab earlier than Chhattisgarh, with the advent of “Green Revolution”. Green Hunt is infact the phenomenon to deprive the people of their land and the resources attached to it such as water, forests, mines etc. Green Revolution and the farmers’ suicides in its aftermath is pointer to this. About 1,80,000 debt trapped farmers have committed suicides in the country. She deplored the Punjab Govt for having branded the 17 organization of farmers and agri-labourers as Naxalite front organizations. Those who raise their voice against injustice are branded as Naxalite. If the rulers continued to follow the policies of privatization and liberalization, then they shall have to deploy army in the whole country. In two decades of neo-liberal policies, the number of people below poverty line have increased manifold, while 100 people own 25 percent of national wealth.
She said the Indian democracy has become shallow. Democracy doesn’t mean mere periodic elections. Democratic rights of the people are being trampled under the foot. Indian Constitution has lost its meaning as the judiciary, media and Parliament have all been made to serve the corporates and monied people. Media is in the hands of corporates. Courts have gone beyond the reach of common man and have become a tool to endorse neo-liberal anti-people policies of the State.
There was a lively discussion on her speech and she answered most of the questions raised by the participants.
Noted Gandhian Himanshu Kumar, who had gone on a cycle-yatra of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra, after addressing 16 conventions against Operation Green Hunt throughout Punjab on the invitation of the Democratic Front, shared his assessment of the situation prevailing in those states. He said the situation was explosive everywhere. There were many Dantewadas in the making due to anti-people policies of the rulers. He said in Gujrat, the Forest Rights Act envisages grant of land up to 10 acres on lease to tribals in the forest areas. But Modi Government has not granted even an inch of land to them. But the same Govt has gifted away 1,02,000 acres of land to 176 corporate houses. A functioning university has been closed to provide land to Tata’s Nano plant. A hundred people of this country control 25 percent of its wealth. Our Prime Minister says the people are becoming violent. But the question is why after six decades of independence, there is violence. Are only the Naxalite responsible for this violence? In fact the development model, being implemented by the rulers is resulting in the poor becoming poorer and the rich becoming richer. Development has become synonymous with depriving the poor of their livelihood resources, such as land, water, forests, mineral wealth etc., to fill the coffers of the rich. It will definitely breed violence. Instead of following the principles of social justice and equity, we are following the law of jungle, where might is right. This situation has to be changed. Quoting Gandhi and Vinoba Bhave, he said that if injustice and inequity persists in the society, violence is inevitable, because the victims of injustice and inequity cannot be expected to take the things lying down; they will definitely revolt to change the system, to assert their rights. He said injustice must not be tolerated. It should be resisted at all costs. Non-violence should never become an excuse to run away from the fight against injustice.
Both the speakers were presented with the portraits of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, a poster with Pastor Niemoller’s poem, and a set of three books- ‘History of Gadar Party’, ‘History of Naujwan Bharat Sabha’ and ‘Dialogue with the Revolutionaries’. Mrs. Veena wife of Himanshu Kumar, who spent 18 years with him at Dantewada, serving the tribals was also honored.
After the convention Arundhati Roy held an interaction with Research Scholars and students from three universities of Punjab and prominent historians in the Gadar Museum Hall. She along with Himanshu Kumar and his family and Sanjay Kak, went around the museum evincing keen interest in the revolutionary history of Punjab, particularly the Gadar movement.
At the end of the convention the participants passed resolutions with raised hands demanding an end to Operation Green Hunt; withdrawl of military and para-military forces from the tribal areas; disbanding Salwa Judum and such other fascist organizations; recognizing the rights of tribals over their forests, lands, water and natural resources; stopping SEZ and uprooting of tribals in the name of development; roll-back neo-liberal policies of privatization, globalization and liberalization; repeal black laws such as Armed Forces Special Power Act, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act etc.; stop false encounters and implication of innocent people in false criminal cases; revoke the ban imposed on CPI Maoist and its front organizations; allow the pro-people press-persons and democratic organizations to visit tribal areas; hold judicial inquiry in the killing of Maoist leader ‘Azad’ in a fake encounter; stop the conspiracies to foist false cases on Arundhati Roy, Himanshu Kumar, Nisha Biswas, and other noted intellectuals; punish the murderers of peasant leader Sadhu Singh Takhtupura and Pirthipal Singh Alisher and the killers of peasants at Khanna Chamiara in Punjab; Stop implicating leaders and activists of mass organizations of farmers, agri-labourers, employees, unemployed youth in Punjab and other states in false criminal cases and torturing them; Close all the interrogation centers such as the one at Amritsar known as Joint Interrogation Center.
Mining Zone Peoples’ Solidarity Group
PUBLIC RELEASE AND PRESS CONFERENCE ON
Report By International Group Challenging Government’s Claims About Purported Benefits of POSCO Project
Wednesday, October 20, 2010; 11 AM – 1 PM (lunch will be served)
Indian Women’s Press Corps, 5 Windsor Place, New Delhi
Pohang Iron and Steel Company (POSCO)’s proposed project in Orissa is the largest foreign direct investment project in India to date. It comprises a steel processing plant and a captive port in Jagatsinghpur district, and iron ore mining in Keonjhar and Sundergarh districts. The MoU for the project was signed in June 2005. The government of Orissa has pulled out all stops to get the project going and appears to have the support of the center, but the project has been stalled because of strong resistance from the local residents, a resistance that the government has tried to bypass and crush in myriad ways. The resistance has survived into its sixth year.
Based upon new research into livelihood, governance and environmental issues in Orissa’s Jagatsinghpur, Keonjhar, and Sundergarh districts, a US-based group of academics and professionals are poised to publish a startling new report that:
- challenges the purported benefits such as tax revenues and employment growth of the POSCO project,
- points to gross violations of the law by the State and Central governments, and
- raises troubling questions about the state of Democracy.
The report will be released at the press conference on Wednesday.
Speakers:
Girish Agrawal, California-based Lawyer and Civil Engineer, and one of the authors of the report
Shankar Gopalakrishnan, Campaign for Survival and Dignity
Professor Manoranjan Mohanty, Delhi Solidarity Group
Professor Amit Bhaduri
The Mining Zone People’s Solidarity Group is an international research group focused on India, with core interests in new economic policy. We have been following the development of several large projects in India. Between February and September 2010, MZPSG has investigated claims made by the Central and Orissa state governments, POSCO, and allegedly neutral research bodies such as NCAER about the benefits of the proposed POSCO integrated steel project and captive port in Orissa.
INSURGENT METAPHORS by Pothik Ghosh
published by Aakar Books
to be launched on October 1, 2010
Time: 2.00-5.00 pm
Venue: Room No 308, Indian Social Institute (ISI),
10, Institutional Area, Lodi Road, New Delhi
(Near Jor Bagh Metro Station)
Marxism’s cultural turn, which has been prominent in its operation over at least the past four decades, continues to belie the hope it had initially held out. The idea that such a move would eventually pull Marxism out of its ‘ontological crisis’ is on the verge of a miscarriage. That is certainly the case in sub-continental South Asia. Unsurprisingly, therefore, ‘culturally-turned’ Marxism survives as the sign of the very crisis it was meant to surpass. Its canonisation within the academia, and beyond, as a mere analytic of culture has led to the blurring of politico-ideological lines. The quietist impulse that this theory of the science of revolution has, as a consequence, come to share with so-called poststructuralism implies its complete detachment from all notions and conceptions of class and class action.
The 13 essays that comprise this book are envisaged as a small attempt from South Asia – where communitarian postcolonialism and ‘Marxist’ culturalism constitute the most respectable trend in radical theory – to remedy the situation.
A collection of provocative essays on culture in the best tradition of Marxism. By showing how the encounter of culture and class with the moments of critique and autonomy pertains to ever-changing situations, Ghosh highlights the importance of contingency and indeterminacy of any critique and autonomous culture, thereby introducing within Marxism a certain self-reflexivity and open-endedness that makes the proposed theoretical frame special.
Anjan Chakrabarti, Professor, Department of Economics, Calcutta University
The essays in the book cover issues that are of great importance to the praxis of revolutionary transformation at a moment when communist revolutionaries are a major internal security obsession. Readers who persevere will find in this intellectually stimulating endeavour much food for thought because it offers a new vantage point to look at social existence and the need to transform it.
Gautam Navlakha, Democratic rights activist and Editorial Consultant, Economic and Political Weekly
Can history be made as we please? Insurgent Metaphors is that book which has had the ambition to imagine Akhtaruzzaman Elias, Brecht, Augusto Boal, Kafka, Ramvilas Sharma, Ritwik Ghatak and Walter Benjamin in one room, not as competitors, but as texts that talk with each other about our times. The uniqueness of Ghosh’s approach to class derives from the heteroglossia and polyphony of his critical voice. This is why it is important that we listen to him.
Ashok Bhowmick, eminent artist and critic
Pothik Ghosh was educated in Allahabad and has worked as a professional journalist in Calcutta, Lucknow and Delhi. Active with various Left groups, he is currently based in Delhi and is one of the editors of Radical Notes. His monograph, Loss as Resistance: Towards a Hermeneutic of Revolution, too has just been published by Aakar Books as part of the Radical Notes booklet series.
AN EXHIBITION on the HISTORY OF KASHMIR.
Venue: Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University
Date: 21 September 2010
Time: 11.00 AM to 3.00 PM
It has been more than three months since Kashmir has erupted to protest against the murder of civilians by the Indian army. The current phase of protests started on June 11th, when a teenager was killed by a smoke shell fired by Indian security forces. People of Kashmir came out on the streets, en-masse, to demonstrate against this killing. Instead of punishing the culprits who were responsible for this murder, protesters were met with live bullets, tear gas shells, batons, curfew and scores of arrests. According to the Government’s own estimate eighty one people have died since June 11. This includes a numbers of teenagers and even an eight year old child. However, vicious repression unleashed by Indian forces, under impunity granted by the infamous Armed Forces Special Powers Act, has failed to intimidate the Kashmiri people; in fact every act of brutality has brought increasing number protesters on the streets. The latest stage of this decades-old
conflict between the people of Kashmir and the Indian state has only been escalating, with civilian deaths at the hands of the armed forces being reported almost daily.
Today Kashmir has forced us to think critically about Indian democracy. The erosion of democratic space won’t stop at the border of Kashmir; it will engulf us – if it has not done so already. At this crucial juncture it has become imperative for the entire civil society; particularly students to engage themselves with the debate on Kashmir and its future. However, we must remember that the recent protest and repression in Kashmir is not an isolated event, it has a long history of seventy years. If we fail to contextualise the issue then a debate today will be rendered useless. This is particularly important because the mainstream media houses, as usual, are doing their best to trivialise the issue by dissociating it from the historical background.
To start an informed debate on Kashmir and Indian democracy, we invite you to an EXHIBITION on the HISTORY OF KASHMIR.
A Few facts about Kashmir:
700,000 Indian troops are posted in the valley
One soldier for every 14 Kashmiri, biggest militarized non-war zone of the world
80,000 people have been killed, 81 in last three months
International People’s Tribunal found 2700 mass graves where victims of fake encounter killings were buried
Kashmir University Students’ Association has been banned, 15 students were arrested under UAPA for protesting against the recent killings.
JOURNAL OF CRITICAL POLICY EDUCATIONAL STUDIES (UK)
CULTURAL LOGIC (USA/CANADA)
KRITIKI (GREECE)
RADICAL NOTES (INDIA)
The venue of the Conference will be the city of Athens and possibly the surrounding areas.
Conference and Local Organizing Committee Coordinators:
Dave Hill, (Middlesex University, UK)
Peter McLaren, (UCLA, USA)
Kostas Skordoulis, (University of Athens, Greece)
Keynote Speakers:
To be announced, to include Dave Hill, (Middlesex University, UK), Peter McLaren, (UCLA, USA), Ravi Kumar (Jamia Milia Islamia University, Delhi, India). There will also be keynote speakers from Greece. Key women Marxist writers are being invited as Plenary speakers.
Important Dates
Participants should submit an abstract of 300 words by: 15 December 2010.
Notification of acceptance of paper presentation by: 15 January 2011.
Full papers should be submitted by: 30 May 2011.
The papers will be peer reviewed and published in the Conference Proceedings.
Selected papers will be published in Special Issues of JCEPS, Cultural Logic and KRITIKI.
Presentations
There will be 6 plenary presentations (two per day), each plenary session lasting one hour. Other papers will have 30 minutes (inclusive of the paper presentation plus discussion)
Conference Fee
The Conference fee is 300 Euros. (approx $380, or £245). The fee covers participation in the conference, the book of abstracts, coffee/tea/refreshments during conference breaks and participation in the conference dinner in a traditional taverna.
Participation of unemployed, and of colleagues from the third world is free/ no fees.
Further Information about the Invited speakers will be announced in the second circular. As will the contact address and registration details for the conference. Though in the meantime it would be interesting to see who might intend to offer papers… send me a provisional (non-binding) indication of interest if you like? (dave.hill35@btopenworld.com and dave6@mdx.ac.uk ) (It’s not mandatory to let me know in advance… … paper abstracts can be submitted until 15 Dec 2010.
Protest Against the Indian Government’s “Operation Green Hunt”
Where: At the Consulate in New York City (3 East 64th Street)
When: On August 13 at 11 a.m.
Contact: communications [at] sanhati [dot] com
NEW YORK CITY – Sanhati, and other organizations and individuals, are organizing a protest against the Indian government’s insidious war, named “Operation Green Hunt,” which has been unleashed on the inhabitants of the forested regions of East-Central India. The protest will approximately coincide with Indian Independence Day (August 15) to emphasize that the promises of independence have remain largely unfulfilled for a large section of the population, including the tribal peoples.
In its current phase, this war is concentrated primarily in the forested regions of East-Central India, stretching from the states of Chhattisgarh to Jharkhand and West Bengal. This region is home to significant amounts of natural resources.
Big corporations, both Indian and foreign, are plundering these natural resources for quick profits and plan to continue doing so while paying almost no attention to the enormous environmental and human costs inherent in their ventures. The state and central governments continue to welcome these big corporations with open arms by signing an unknown number of memoranda of understanding with them—whose details have been kept secret. A recent report by the Ministry of Rural Development, on the other hand, described these trends as one of the biggest land grabs since the time of Columbus.
Yet these forested areas house not only natural resources. This region is home to a large section of India’s roughly 100 million Adivasis (i.e., the tribal population). Using all means at their disposal, the Adivasis resisted the government’s efforts to forcibly drive them from their ancestral lands. Drawing on the Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, which is devoted to Adivasi rights and provisions for their protection, Adivasi activists challenged the government’s expropriations.
Instead of addressing the genuine grievances of the Adivasis, the Indian government has cracked down on their legitimate protests in violation of the letter and intent of the Indian Constitution. Peaceful resistance movements across this region have been met with police brutality and military might; this forced the arming of a section of the resistance movement. State-assisted vigilante groups like the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh and Harmad Bahini in West Bengal were a response of the state to the armed resistance of the Adivasis.
When that failed, Operation Green Hunt—a further escalation and militarization of the State’s response—emerged. Such militarization is facilitated by the Indian government’s military cooperation with the United States and Israel.
Sections of civil society have been urging the central government to stop Operation Green Hunt and begin negotiations with the diverse people’s organizations opposing the looting of natural resources. The response of the government to the idea of dialogue has in general not been encouraging in view of the plans of increased militarization, human rights abuses committed by the security forces, suppression of dissenting voices, and abductions and killings of the leaders of people’s organizations.
In this context, Adivasis in India, and all the people who are with them in this struggle for freedom from exploitation and oppression, need your support. Join us to protest against Operation Green Hunt and the increasing violence of the Indian State on democratic movements on August 13, 2010 at 11 a.m. in front of the Indian Consulate in New York City.
Oppose the biggest land grab since Columbus!
Oppose Operation Green Hunt!
Oppose the war on people!
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Sanhati (www.sanhati.com) is a forum of activists, professionals, workers, academics and intellectuals that stand in solidarity with peoples’ struggles against corporate capital and for the upholding of democratic rights in India. The group strives to be an integral part of the international search for alternatives to the capitalist social order.
Contact: communications [at] sanhati [dot] com
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Background Note
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India Shining, so claimed the BJP-led government. Today, the Congress-led regime might boast that it successfully increased annual economic growth from 5.6% to 8.3% in the last six years, while criticizing the previous BJP-led alliance.
Between the 5.6% and 8.3%, there lurk other stories. About three-quarters of India’s people live on less than Rs. 20 per day, while almost half of the women in India are still illiterate and about 80% of households do not have access to safe drinking water.
Between 1997 and 2006, there lurk other stories. Nearly 170,000 farmers committed suicide by drinking pesticide because they could not keep up with demands to repay their loans. In addition to the agrarian crisis, whatever little access the poor had to common property resources has come under increasing attack by the Indian government in the guise of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and other “development” projects related to mining, industrial development, information technology parks, and so forth.
Immeasurable stories such as these are grafted onto the underbelly of neo-liberal economic “development” in India. A recent report, penned by the Indian Ministry of Rural Development, described these trends as the biggest land grab since Columbus. In truth, it wouldn’t be hard to keep citing official statistics revealing not only the shadows within the Shining India myth, but huge pockets of darkness. To be perfectly honest, none of this is new. If there is one image of India that has persisted in the Western media, it is the image of bone-thin, bare-bodied children with swollen bellies, scavenging for food-crumbs in trash-cans next to stray dogs and wild birds.
But something has changed in the last five years.
India, like many other parts of the world, has seen the emergence of a whole spectrum of mass movements challenging the global neo-liberal onslaught in many different ways. These movements are not attempts to “brainwash” the masses by English-spouting city-bred students or intellectuals with romantic dreams of social change. On the contrary, these movements are being led by the very people who have been persistently excluded from reaping the benefits of development and growth – in short, the people who live in the pockets of darkness within the so-called shining India.
The proverbial aam aadmi has spoken. The oppressed of India have shown an unwillingness to stay oppressed for eternity, despite the policy of the government to “kill the poor and not the poverty.” These struggles are primarily about defending their lands, rivers and homes from corrupt officials and swindlers. Moreover, these movements have demonstrated that not only has the government failed to deliver on the promises of the basic rights of the Indian constitution itself, the interests of the most economically disadvantageous people have seriously been compromised by its almost total and unconditional submission to the interests of corporations like Mittal, Vedanta, Tata, Essar, Salim, Jindal, and POSCO.
Instead of improving governance while addressing dissent and discontent in an inclusive way, as be-fitting any democratic government, the Indian government has unleashed severe state violence. The government of India has launched an insidious war nicknamed Operation Green Hunt. While the terror initiated by the government since 2009 is by no means unique in view of the history of the state repression across India (e.g., West Bengal, Orissa, Kashmir, the Northeasten states, Punjab, and Andhra Pradesh), Operation Green Hunt is unprecedented both for its array of military force and its media mobilization.
Since last year, more than 100,000 military and paramilitary troops have been sent into Adivasi (i.e., indigenous) areas. Moreover, it was recently announced that 36 battalions of Indian Reserve Forces will be added to the 105 already raised, along with 16,000 more “Special Police Officers” (civilians trained and armed by the government) bringing their total strength to 30,000. Through this new military campaign, which almost brings to mind histories of colonial occupation of land, the military “occupiers” are to gradually spread into one “sanitized” area after another.
Some additional relevant facts:
Twenty Warfare Training Schools are being built in India.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently spent $18 billion in the US to buy huge amounts of military supplies and munitions. This included state-of-the-art global positioning systems and night-vision-capable automatic rifles.
Drones are being purchased from Israel and the Israeli Mossad is training Indian police as snipers. The aim of the training is to enable assassination of the leaders of diverse mass movements. The recent murder of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) spokesperson Azad, who was also the party’s emissary for negotiations on a ceasefire, clearly reflects one aspect of the government’s modus operandi (i.e., targeted killings).
According to numerous reports, dozens of indigenous people are being killed each week in the Adivasi regions.
The Communist Party of India (Maoist) has been declared India’s “gravest internal security” threat and has been banned. Bans have also been imposed on other democratic organizations on the claim that they are frontal” organizations of CPI (Maoist) and the witch hunt against these civil rights activists continues unabated.
The last few months have seen the arrests of increasing numbers of media personnel, journalists, writers, and intellectuals who have shown the slightest sympathy to people’s struggles in the Adivasi heartland. The discussions within the ranks of the police forces in the state of Chattisgarh as to whether the Booker Prize winning writer Arundhati Roy is to be charged under an “anti-terrorism” law following the publication of her essay Walking With the Comrades is a case in point.
The state of Gujarat has joined Operation Green Hunt by alleging that “Maoists” are attempting to expand their networks into Gujarat and in particular the tribal regions of South Gujarat. Several activists have been arrested. This witch-hunt of the Gujarat police amounts to a systematic effort by the state government to suppress all manner of dissension and opposition.
Operation Green Hunt includes widespread incidents of rape committed by the security forces. Recently, about 50,000 women tried to march into Jhargram town in West Bengal to protest against these rapes (see photograph above). The marchers included school students in uniform, teachers, housewives and even many elderly women. Widespread rape is a progeny of Operation Green Hunt.
The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), one of a number of anti-democratic Acts, continues to give Indian troops immunity from civil legal action and promotes human rights violations. The Naga People’s Movement for Human Rights has aptly observed that this Act is a systematic tool of the Indian government that contributes to terrorizing and dehumanizing civilian populations. This Act also protects security personnel in Kashmir guilty of killing and torturing the people of the valley.
The Indian state, in other words, has declared war on its own people. It has declared war precisely on those sections of the population who have always been at the receiving ends of multiple forms of systemic and institutional oppression. Instead of addressing the genuine grievances of Adivasis facing forcible displacement and dispossession, the Indian government has cracked down on their legitimate protests in flagrant violation of the letter and intent of the Indian Constitution.
Foreseeing the disastrous impact that Operation Green Hunt will have on the common people in those regions, different sections of civil society have called for a dialog between the state and various sections of the resistance, including the CPI (Maoist) and different people’s organizations, involved in struggles in the Adivasi regions. Several attempts to make progress in these efforts failed, with different politicians, bureaucrats and security officers continuously attempting to scuttle negotiations.
A glimmer of hope had risen due to the civil society initiative represented by Swami Agnivesh, with the Union Home Minister and Azad, as spokesperson of CPI(Maoist), responding to him in a letter detailing the suitable conditions under which a dialog might begin. It is reported that Azad was on his way to consult other members of CPI (Maoist) in order to decide future steps for proceeding with this initiative when he was allegedly abducted and killed, thus throwing the possibility of negotiations into disarray. The murder of a spokesperson of a political organization, with which dialog is supposedly being planned at this crucial juncture, raises serious doubts regarding the government commitment to such a dialog.
In this situation, the activists in India need your presence support. Join us to protest against Operation Green Hunt and the increasing violence of the Indian State on democratic movements on August 13, 2010 at 11 a.m. in front of the Indian Consulate in New York City. We have chosen August 13, as this date roughly coincides with Indian Independence Day, when the country became a sovereign nation-state following its colonial occupation by Great Britain. We would, therefore, like to record our protest and remind the public that the promises of the Indian independence have not only remain unfulfilled, but the current Indian government has resorted to military repression to quell democratic dissent in a way uncannily similar to the erstwhile British “overlords.” We invite all in diaspora, the international community of media activists, human rights workers, academics and intellectuals and artists to join us.
The country is in the midst of a civil war. In the estern part, West Bangal, Odisha, Jharkhand and especially in Chhattisgarh, violence, both by Mioists and by the state, has erupted resulting in heavy loss of life of poor people, especially of adivasis.
People, who believe in peace and non-violence, are facing the question : what can be done right now? (At the present moment, we are not discussing the causes like exploitative, iniquitous model of development etc. which has led the country to the present crisis). Out of the meeting with Gandhians like Amarnath Bhai at Sevagram on April 9 and jurists like Justice PV Savant, scientists like Prof Yash Pal, Dr. P.M. Bhargava, Dr. Vandana Shiva, social activists like Swami Agnivesh during Independent People’s Tribunal in Delhi on April 10 and 11 and the senior journalist Kuldip Nayar, an idea has emerged: 50 persons, who are known in the country for their integrity and who believe in peace and non-violence, should take out a peace march in Chhattisgarh as early as possible. These 50 peace marchers will be joined by others also.
The Peace-March will start form Raipur (Capital of Chhattisgarh) on May 5, 2010.
Peace marchers are requested to reach Raipur by noon of May 5.
The details of Peace March, assembly point in Raipur etc will be communicated soon.
Those, who have already given their consent to participate in the Peace March, include Prof. Yash Pal (Former UGC Chairman), Dr. P.M. Bhargava (famous bioscientist), Narayan Desai (Veteran Gandhian and Chancellor of Gujrat Vidyapeeth), Kuldip Nayar (Senior Journalist), Justice Rajender Sachchar (former chief justice of Delhi High Court), Amarnath Bhai and Lavanam (Veteran Sarvodaya leaders), Ms. Radha Bhatt, President, Gandhi Peace Foundation, Prof Anil Sadgopal (Educationist and President of All India Forum for Right to Education), Arvind Kejariwal (Magsaysay Awardee), Prof. Jagmohan Singh (Historian and Nephew of Bhagat Singh).
Lovers of peace and non violence who want to end civil war in the country and , wish to join Peace March should contact Kuldip Nayar (Ph. 09818309444) e-mail kuldipnayar09@gmail.com) or Dr. Banwari Lal Sharma (0532-2466798, 09235406243) e-mail azadi.bachao.andolan@gmail.com)
Public Meeting
Indian State’s War on People and the Assault on Democratic Voices
3PM-8PM, 24TH APRIL 2010
Gandhi Peace Foundation, Deen Dayal Upadhyay MARG, ITO, DELHI
SPEAKERS: Randhir Singh, Justice Rajender Sachar, PK Vijayan, Madan Kashyap, Sumit Chakravorty, Neelabh, B D Sharma, S A R Geelani, Aparna, Kabir Suman, Darshanpal, Arundhati Roy, Ravinder Goel, Karen Gabriel, N Venuh(NPMHR), S R Sankaran(to be confirmed), Kalpana Mehta, Rajkishore, Varavara Rao, G N Saibaba, Mrigank, Ish Mishra, Radhika Menon, Shivmangal Sidhantkar and others
Operation Green Hunt is an unprecedented military offensive on the people: Indian government has been at war with the people of Kashmir and the North East for decades. In the name of ‘national security and integrity’ and ‘national interest’, the government has been trying to crush the democratic aspirations of these oppressed nationalities with state terror. Through Operation Green Hunt, the government has brought its war on people to the heart of India. If the total number of government forces presently engaged in this Operation is taken in its entirety (including the paramilitary forces and the state police) it comes close to a quarter of a million (2.5 lakh). This is more than double the US forces presently deployed in the occupation of Iraq —approximately 1.2 lakh— and bigger than the armies of Australia, Netherlands and South Africa put together. The war preparations alone speak volumes about the real intentions of the government. Air Force helicopters equipped with guns are used against the adivasis, airstrips are constructed in Raipur and Jagdalpur, tens of Jungle-Warfare schools are established to train the forces in special operations, new barracks and bases to station armed forces are prepared all over the war zone, and public buildings such as schools, panchayat houses and health centres are converted to camps for the Security Forces and torture chambers. In the name of fighting Naxalites/Maoists, new armed forces such as the CoBRA, Jharkhand Jaguar, C-60, etc are raised with public money to unleash terror on the adivasis. With a heinous intent, special emphasis is given by the government to recruit adivasi youths into government forces and state-sponsored vigilante gangs to instigate a bloody internecine war. To top it all, army commanders are deputed to oversee the war operations while the US is providing ‘advisors’, military intelligence, satellite surveillance and overall ‘tactical guidance’.
The hidden objective behind this unprecedented military offensive is to crush all forms of people’s struggles and revolutionary movements so as to clear the way for the giant multinational companies, with whom hundreds of MoUs have been signed by the government. Till September 2009, MoUs worth of Rs.6,69,338 crores have been signed in the adivasi regions of these states (which is 14 percent of the total pledged private investment in the entire country). Arcelor Mittal alone is planning to invest $24 billion for the production of iron-ore in the mineral-rich regions of Jharkhand and Orissa. Likewise, the financial worth of the unexplored bauxite deposits of Orissa alone is estimated to exceed $4 trillion. The powerful foreign and Indian corporations are lying in wait for the government clears the land of the adivasis and smash their resistance, so that they can move into the land with earth-diggers and empty the land out of its minerals. The stage has been set to undertake what has been termed by a Government-appointed committee as the “biggest land-grab after Columbus”. The target this time is not the indigenous inhabitants of North America, but the adivasis of central and eastern India.
The ongoing War on People leaves a trail of devastation and death: In the wake of this war imposed by the government on our own people the death-count in mounting. In a region where 40 people are said to be killed every week on an average (Outlook, 22 February 2010), what the corporate media has missed or has deliberately overlooked is the sheer number of adivasis who died in the hand of the government’s armed forces. Whereas the government has claimed success in killing around 170 ‘Maoists’/‘Naxalites’ during the joint operations under Operation Green Hunt till now, whereas the media quoted the Maoists saying that none of the killed were the members of their organisation. There are reasons to believe that a great part of the dead were unarmed and defenceless villagers killed in cold blood by the joint forces in fake encounters. The killing of adivasis in Gompad, Singanmadugu, Tetemadugu, Dogpadu, Palachelim, Palad, Kachalaram and scores of other villages in Chhattisgarh seems to have followed such a pattern.
An attack on democratic voices: By these acts of fascist repression, the government has made it very clear that the Naxalite movement is not the only target of its war operations. Any movement, organisation or individual that fights for people’s demands and against government policies, is to be branded as a part of the Naxalite/Maoist movement and suppressed by the government through Operation Green Hunt. Swapan Dasgupta, the editor of the journal People’s March in Bengali and owner of Radical Publications was arrested. He died in police custody on 2nd February 2010 even before his trial began due to police torture. He has become the first martyr to fall under the draconian UAPA. Lalmohan Tudu, president of People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) in Lalgarh was picked up from his house and shot dead by the paramilitary forces on 23rd February, 2010. On 20th November 2009, Wadeka Singana, the president of the Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangh (CMAS), Narayanpatna in Orissa along with another activist was shot dead by the police during a rally to protest against the atrocities committed on women by the government’s armed forces. Two of the CPI(ML) leaders Ganapati Patro and Tapan Malik have been arrested on numerous trumped up charges. In Kalinganagar 28 platoons of special police were used to attempt to forcibly acquire land for a road in service of Tatas. When the Bisthapan Birodhi Janmanch Sukinda led adivasis protested, police firing on 30th March 2010 led to bullet injuries to 16 tribal people. Repression is intensifying in the anti-land acquisition movements of Niyamgiri and Jagatsinghpur and against movements under Lok Sangram Manch in Rayagada of Orissa.
The Vanavasi Chetna Ashram of Himanshu Kumar, a Gandhian social activist working in Dantewada for the past 18 years among the adivasis and fighting against the atrocities of Salwa Judum, was razed to the ground on 17th May 2009. In three eastern districts of Uttar Pradesh no mass activity is allowed by declaring these districts as ‘Naxal-infested.’ Two PUCL activists, Sheema and Vishwa Vijay were arrested in Utter Pradesh. Hundreds of leaders of farmers’ organisations in Punjab were arrested to prevent their democratic right to protest against state killings of farmers and other leaders. Thousands have been imprisoned in jails all over the country and tortured for allegedly being Naxalite/Maoist ‘sympathizers’. People’s organisations like PUCL, IAPL, PUDR, RDF, PDFI, CRPP, APDR, DSU, etc. and their activists have been falsely implicated by the government. This is an attempt to unleash state terror in order to curtail our democratic rights and to silence all voices of dissent against this genocidal Hunt of the Adivasis. A climate of undeclared emergency now prevails in the country in the wake of this war on people and the assault on democratic space by the Indian State.
The Home Minister, who has been campaigning desperately to mobilise support for this US-dictated war on the poorest of the poor, has even gone to the extent of denying the existence of Operation Green Hunt! Similarly, he continues to utter the rhetoric of ‘Talks’ while refusing to take a single step towards creating a conducive atmosphere for any negotiation to take place. Such, lies, hypocrisy and double-talk by Chidambaram with the support of the Arnab Goswamis, Rajdeep Sardesais and his other wily allies in the corporate media, has not been able to hide the truth of this war. Even the Supreme Court of India, while hearing a petition on the ‘disappearance’ of 12 adivasis from Gompad village of Dantewada district during Green Hunt, castigated the government’s offensive. The court observed, “Some of the reports appearing in the media are disturbing. Over two lakh people have been displaced in this fight… Where will they go? What will they grow?” (IBN Live, 17 February 2010).
The resistance to the government’s war on people is growing: The millions of adivasis under direct attack from the state’s offensive are using all means to defend themselves and their jal-jangal-jameen. The democratic and progressive sections of the country have also come out against the government’s war on the people in the last few months. Individuals and organisations within India and abroad have in one voice condemned the government’s genocidal war. Hundreds of protest rallys, dharnas and demonstrations are being organised in different parts of the country and outside. Peasants, workers, employees, intellectuals, artists, writers, civil rights activists, students etc. have registered their strong protest against the government, and demanded an immediate halt to the Operation Green Hunt. The need of the hour therefore is to unite and build the broadest possible solidarity among the people against this war and intensify the resistance. Only an unceasing wave of mass resistance can stop government’s assault on struggles against sale of the country and plunder of resources and suppression of democratic struggles.
A memorial meeting for Com. Pyla Vasudeva Rao
Date: April 20 2010 (Tuesday), Time: 5:30 PM o
Venue: Gandhi Peace Foundation, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg (near ITO)
Veteran communist revolutionary of India and one of the foremost leaders of the glorious Srikakulam Armed Struggle Pyla Vasudeva Rao breathed his last at 10:00 AM on April 11, 2010 after fighting cancer. He was 78 years old at the time of his death; of these he had party life of 58 years of which the last 42 years were spent in underground.
Born in 1932 in Rittapadu village of Srikakulam dist, Com. Pyla joined the united Communist Party in 1953 when a party unit was formed in his village. Taking up a teacher’s job on the Party’s instruction, many of his students joined the revolutionary communist movement. He became a professional revolutionary in 1962 and also a member of the district committee of the party.
In response to the clarion call of the Great Naxalbari Peasant Armed Struggle, the Srikakulam Girijan Armed Peasant Struggle started on 25thNovember 1968 and on the decision of the party, Com. PV went underground. As a member of the Srikakulam leadership, Com. Pyla became part of the CPI(ML). He participated in the 1970 CPI(ML) Party Congress (first after Naxalbari). In Srikakulam movement he worked alongside Comrades Panchadi Krishnamurthy, Vempatapu Satyam, Adibhatta Kailasam, Subbarao Panigrahi and others.
Between 1969-70 many important leaders of Srikakulam leaders were martyred and the movement suffered huge losses and setbacks. CPI(ML) PC was reorganized of which Com. Pyla became the secretary. Opposing the line of individual annihilation, Com. Pyla resigned as PC secretary and joined with other Srikakulam comrades to revive CC led by S.N. Singh. Since then he was a member of the Central Committee of the Party. In 1974, APRCP led by Com. CP Reddy merged with the CPI(ML) led by Com. SN Singh and Srikakulam movement became part of the state movement. Com. Pyla was elected state committee secretary in 1976 when Com. P. Ramanarasaiah was killed in a fake encounter.
He was re-elected to the CC in the 1980 Special Congress. For long the Party in AP was identified with his name.
Com. Pyla consistently practiced and supported the revolutionary mass line and struggled against rightism and revisionism. He was an ardent votary of an armed agrarian revolution and of building areas of sustained resistance. His death comes at the time when the peasants of India are rising in many parts against the decadent rule of the ruling classes, against landlord oppression and forcible displacement. Srikakulam Armed Struggle continues to inspire the revolutionaries and struggling people of the country. Srikakulam Armed Struggle which reached the highest point in terms of resistance and people’s participation among all the struggles inspired by Naxalbari continues to serve as a beacon light for the present revolutionary movement. Com. Pyla as one of the leaders of that movement continues to live in the memory of the revolutionaries and the struggling people of the country.
