Documents: Discussion between Orissa Govt and the Maoists
PDF Copies of the Documents
1. Discussion_with_Maoist_Interlocutors
2. Discussion_with_Mediators1
3. Discussion_with_Mediators2
Radical Notes
JournalArchive for State Repression
The Arup Bhuyan Verdict – A Departure?
The Supreme Court’s verdict of February 03 in Arup Bhuyan vs State of Assam is significant at the time when the Indian state seems to be on the prowl looking for victims to assert its exceptional sovereignty. On the one hand, it rekindles the ‘liberal’ hope which wanes every time Sen-s are put behind the bars. In fact, by raising this hope, such judicial correctives help, in an inverted manner, in consensual containment of protests that might add up to form a threat to the state’s sovereignty. But on the other hand, they give an opportunity to consolidate critical voices within, strengthening the struggle for showing the limits of the present system and providing a relief to the struggling masses.
In this particular case in review, the appellant disputes the allegation of his association with ULFA, which was made on the basis of his confession before the police, in which he identified the house of a deceased. Such non-judicial confessions are generally not valid because of the involvement of tortures etc, but in TADA cases they are considered admissible. Going with the convention of rejecting such confessional statements before the police, the court has questioned their admissibility even in these ‘exceptional’ cases. It says, “in the absence of corroborative material, the courts must be hesitant before they accept such extra-judicial confessional statements.”
However, the major portion of the verdict is directed against the TADA Court’s conviction of the appellant under Section 3(5) of the TADA which makes mere membership of a banned organisation criminal.
Here, Justices Katju and Misra have simply extended their own arguments presented in another recent case – State of Kerala Vs Raneef, 2011 (1) SCALE 8. The accused was asking for bail in this case where he was booked for giving medical treatment to one of the assailants. The accused person’s association with an Islamic organisation was taken as incriminating evidence. The judges opined that as that particular organisation was not a terrorist organisation, the accused could not be penalised for his membership. However, what makes this verdict consequential for the Feb 3 judgement is its clear opinion against the doctrine of “guilty by association”, which has become the cornerstone of recent criminal legislations and anti-terrorist measures. The judges in the previous verdict concurred with three famous American judgements:
1) Scales vs. United States 367 U.S. 203 where Mr. Justice Harlan of the U.S. Supreme Court observed:
“The clause does not make criminal all association with an organization which has been shown to engage in illegal activity. A person may be foolish, deluded, or perhaps mere optimistic, but he is not by this statute made a criminal. There must be clear proof that the defendant specifically intends to accomplish the aims of the organization by resort to violence.”
2) In Elfbrandt vs. Russell 384 US 17-19 (1966) Justice Douglas of the U.S. Supreme Court observed:
“Those who join an organization but do not share its unlawful purpose and who do not participate in its unlawful activities surely pose no threat, either as citizens or as public employees. A law which applies to membership without the `specific intent’ to further the illegal aims of the organization infringes unnecessarily on protected freedoms. It rests on the doctrine of `guilt by association’ which has no place here.”
3) In Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee vs. McGrath 341 US 123 at 174 (1951) Mr. Justice Douglas of the U.S. Supreme Court observed :
“In days of great tension when feelings run high, it is a temptation to take shortcuts by borrowing from the totalitarian techniques of our opponents. But when we do, we set in motion a subversive influence of our own design that destroys us from within.”
The judges thus summarises their views on the doctrine of ‘guilty by association’ that they presented in State of Kerala Vs. Raneef:
“Mere membership of a banned organisation will not incriminate a person unless he resorts to violence or incites people to violence or does an act intended to create disorder or disturbance of public peace by resort to violence (See : also the Constitution Bench judgment of this Court in Kedar Nath Vs. State of Bihar, AIR 1962 SCC 955 para 26).
In the present Arup Bhuyan judgement, the judges have continued exploring the international cases. The following para is crucial in this regard:
In Clarence Brandenburg Vs. State of Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969) the U.S. Supreme Court went further and held that mere “advocacy or teaching the duty, necessity, or propriety” of violence as a means of accomplishing political or industrial reform, or publishing or circulating or displaying any book or paper containing such advocacy, or justifying the commission of violent acts with intent to exemplify, spread or advocate the propriety of the doctrines of criminal syndicalism, or to voluntarily assemble with a group formed “to teach or advocate the doctrines of criminal syndicalism” is not per se illegal. It will become illegal only if it incites to imminent lawless action. (emphasis mine)
The judges conclude:
“We respectfully agree with the above decisions, and are of the opinion that they apply to India too, as our fundamental rights are similar to the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution. In our opinion, Section 3(5) cannot be read literally otherwise it will violate Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution. It has to be read in the light of our observations made above. Hence, mere membership of a banned organisation will not make a person a criminal unless he resorts to violence or incites people to violence or creates public disorder by violence or incitement to violence.”
The importance of these two judgements lies in the fact that through them the Supreme Court has initiated a significant departure from the tenor set by the two earlier landmark cases which were fully in consonance with the policing needs of the neoliberal policy makers – Kartar Singh’s case, 1994(3) SCC569 (which upheld the TADA Act) and PUCL Vs Union of India, 2005 SCC(Crl)1905 (which upheld the POTA provisions).
In his book published in 2008, one of the doyens of the Indian judicial system, Justice Chinnappa Reddy wrote:
“The Fundamental Rights guaranteed by the Constitution under Articles 14, 21, and 22 are undoubtedly negated by some of the provisions of the new POTA as well as the provisions of TADA which are capable of much mischief. It is to be hoped that very soon the Supreme Court will take a second view at any new enactment containing similar provisions.”
Considering their views in these two recent cases, Justices Katju and Misra have definitely taken a second view at the old enactments and case laws.
Manufacturing Sedition from Political Dissent: The Judgment against Binayak Sen
P A Sebastian, Analytical Monthly Review
Introduction
There have been moments when an event catches the public eye, and suddenly illuminates a process of decay and disintegration that has been proceeding in the background, slowly, step-by-step. The outrage and national attention focused on the conviction of, and imposition of life sentence on, Dr. Binayak Sen for “Sedition” is such a case. The process in question is the utter collapse of the majority of the Indian Judiciary into an agency of the political police.
Our reality is that the supposed “rule of law” has decayed into a sinister farce over vast areas: most notably Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, and much of the northeast. A police state regime that arose on the frontiers is slowly, step-by-step, extending itself into the core. The rot of corruption and injustice has now reached the heart. The immense significance of the judgment against Binayak Sen is that it strikes directly at whatever hope remains for a peaceful means of arresting, or even reversing, this deadly process.
Our responsibility is to insist on the right of political dissent, though without illusions. So long as the regime maintains the forms of the electoral exercise, of democratic rights, and of argued “judgments” in its courts, we must, as best we are able, strive to expose the substantive reality.
From this perspective we sought an informed legal opinion on the written judgment issued against Binayak Sen by second additional sessions’ judge, Raipur, B P Verma. P A Sebastian, a Mumbai-based lawyer and democratic rights activist, and a leading figure of the International Association of People’s Lawyers, its Indian constituent, the Indian Association of People’s Lawyers, and the Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights, Mumbai, has provided for us the following analysis.
The charge against the accused in the case of Piyush Guha, Binayak Sen and Narayan Sanyal is that they have aided and abetted the Communist Party of India (Maoist), which has been banned under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
The case starts with the arrest of Piyush Guha, a tendu leaf trader. The prosecution says that on 6 May 2007 the police superintendent, Raipur sent a wireless message to all the police stations under him that the police should closely search suspicious persons, suspicious vehicles, hotels, lodges, rest houses and dhabas. They were also directed to search thoroughly the street vendors, detain all suspicious characters and legally proceed against them. In the course of carrying out such a search, B S Jagrit, the inspector of Raipur police station, was told by an informer to keep an eye on all those walking towards the railway station. Then he says that he suddenly spotted Piyush Guha. The police stopped and questioned him on the basis of suspicion, but not receiving satisfactory answers, the police called one Anil Kumar Singh, a passer-by, and took both to the police station and opened the bag of Piyush Guha and found in his bag three magazines, a newspaper and three letters among some other things. Anil Kumar Singh, the passer-by, deposed before the court that he heard Guha say to the police that Binayak Sen used to meet Narayan Sanyal, one of the three accused, in jail and collect letters from him. Binayak Sen passed on the three letters concerned to Guha, who, in turn, passed on them to the CPI(Maoist).
The whole case revolves around this story which has many loopholes. Piyush Guha was produced before a magistrate on 7 May 2007 under Section 167 of the CrPC [Criminal Procedure Code]. He stated before the magistrate that he was actually detained on 1 May 2007, not on 6 May as claimed by the police. He was kept in illegal custody, blindfolded and incommunicado for 6 days in violation of CrPC, which stipulates that an accused should be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours of his arrest. He further said that he was picked up by the police not from the road leading to Raipur railway station as stated by the police but from Mahindra Hotel. The statement of Guha that he was picked up by the police from Mahindra Hotel is supported by the affidavit of the government filed in the Supreme Court while opposing the bail application of Binayak Sen.
However, the judge accepted the police claim that the statement in the Supreme Court (SC) was a “typographical error”. Here are two statements which are different from each other. Both of them were made on oath. A word, a figure or a few letters can be treated as typographical error. It goes against common sense and rationality to say that an important statement made in the SC on oath is typographical error. The second additional sessions’ judge, Raipur, B P Verma, has done a disservice by this statement to the Indian judicial system, which is already sinking under the burden of corruption and other misdemeanours.
The prosecution states that the police recovered three letters written by Narayan Sanyal and addressed to his party comrades from the bag of Piyush Guha. The only evidence produced by the prosecution in this respect is the deposition by one Anil Kumar Singh, the “passer-by” mentioned above. He said that the police called him by gesture and introduced to him a person called Piyush Guha. The police told him that Guha was a suspected person. Then they opened his bag and recovered some CPI(Maoist) literature and three letters, which later on the police claimed were written by Narayan Sanyal. Anil Kumar Singh further said that he overheard Guha say to the police that those three letters were given to him by Binayak Sen. The narration of the event shows that he did not know when the police took Guha into custody. When he saw Guha, he was already in police custody. He did not know whether the police had picked up Guha on 1 May and planted the letters and other articles on him. Yet the whole case rests on this Anil Kumar Singh assertion that he heard Guha say to the police that Binayak Sen had given him the letters. This hearsay has no evidentiary value. The statement made in police custody is not admissible against the accused. Once the police fail to prove that they caught Guha from station road, the whole edifice of the case falls.
Besides, Binayak Sen visited Narayan Sanyal with the permission of the senior superintendent of police. The prisoners are permitted to write letters. The restriction is that the prison authorities will read the letters and censor them, if necessary, before they are sent out. So the presumption is that the letters did not contain anything objectionable unless one concludes that the jail authorities collaborated with Sanyal to carry on illegal activities, in which case the judge should have asked the government to take legal action against the jail authorities. The judgment does not say whether the content of the letters was objectionable or not. No action could have been taken against the accused unless the content was unlawful. A discussion about the central point is missing in the judgment. Carrying letters from prisoners is not unlawful in itself.
Some of the things which the judge says are strange, and they do not go well with a supposed judicial mind. The judge refers to several people as Naxalites and treats them as criminals. There is no law in India or anywhere else in the world which defines the term “Naxalite” and treats them as criminals. However, the burden of the judgment is the term “Naxalite” and the inherent criminality of the term “Naxalite”. The judgment keeps on saying that Binayak Sen and Piyush Guha knew Naxalites and met them. The judgment uses interchangeably the terms “Naxalite” and CPI(Maoist) and concludes that Sen and Guha aided and abetted the CPI(Maoist), which is a banned organisation.
The judgment repeats that some letter or letters recovered from Sen’s house address him as “comrade”. The learned judge takes it for granted that “comrade” meant that Binayak Sen was a member or supporter of the CPI(Maoist). The English dictionaries state that “comrade” means an intimate friend or associate or companion. Does the judge know that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash Chandra Bose and Jayaprakash Narayan were addressed as “comrades”? Clement Attlee, the former prime minister of England, was addressed as “comrade”. One can rest assured that he does not know. Can India afford to have such judges to decide the fate of human life? The judgment is arbitrary to the extreme. It does not define the terms; it does not set up a nexus.
Just one instance will demonstrate the whimsicality and ideological bias of the judge: “Amita Shrivastav was a teacher in Daga Higher Secondary School two years ago. She came to the school through Ilina Sen who is acknowledged by Binayak Sen as his wife. She worked in the school for seven months and then stopped coming to the school. Amita had a CD related to the Second World War Nazi camps. This was shown to the students in the school. Later it was found that Amita was connected to Naxalites and had absconded”. It is really shocking that the judge interprets anti-Nazism as Communism. How did the judge know that she was connected to Naxalites and she had absconded? How did he know that she had not been abducted and killed by some criminals like Salwa Judum?
The judgment is full of such absurdities. Two examples will further illustrate the point. One case is the way he deals with a telephone conversation between Bula Sanyal and Binayak Sen. Bula Sanyal is the sister-in-law of Narayan Sanyal. The judge concluded from this that there was contact between Binayak Sen, the family of Narayan Sanyal and CPI(Maoist) supporters. Narayan Sanyal being a Naxalite the judge inferred that his whole family consisted of supporters of CPI(Maoist). Sen’s conversation with one of the family was sufficient proof that he was also a CPI(Maoist) activist. The contentions of this sort are really asinine.
The judge accepts the police version of Salwa Judum and says that it is not a state organised vigilante squad and is a spontaneous reaction of the tribals against Naxalites. The judgment indicates that “terrorism and oppression of the Naxalites increased so much that it became a question of life and death for the tribals of the area. Such reasons led to the launching of anti-Naxalite Salwa Judum campaign”. The judgment tries to explain what the ‘Salwa Judum’ means. “‘Salwa’ means peace and ‘Judum’ means meeting at one place for some specific purpose”. The judge makes reference to some articles seized from Piyush Guha and states that “they have demonstrated opposition to Salwa Judum and praised People’s Liberation Army and paid homage to the killed Maoist comrades”.
On the basis of such facts and logic, the judgment pronounces that Piyush Guha, Binayak Sen and Narayan Sanyal have committed sedition.
The accused have been punished under Section 124-A of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with sedition. It says that “whoever by words, either spoken or written . . . brings or attempts to bring into hatred, contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards, the government established by law in India, shall be punished with imprisonment for life. . . .” A literal adherence to the Section makes every opposition to the government an offence punishable with life imprisonment. The Comptroller and Auditor General’s report states that the Indian state has lost 1.76 lakh crore because of the fraudulent dealings in the allotment of 2-G spectrum. A writ petition pending in the Supreme Court alleges that Rs 70 lakh crore has been deposited abroad to evade tax. These are enormous sums which could have made a difference to the quality of life which the Indian masses lead. Free education and free medical treatment are constitutional mandates. However, they have not been implemented on the plea that there was no money. If one articulates such matters, it naturally brings the government established by law into contempt and hatred and causes disaffection towards the government. It means that the vast majority of people can be prosecuted and jailed under this section. But where do we keep them? The whole country will have to be converted into the prison camp. Is this not an irredeemably absurd idea?
The constitutional validity of the Section 124-A the IPC has been challenged in the Supreme Court and the Court has repeatedly said that the sedition as defined under Section 124-A can be constitutionally tolerated only if the prosecution proves that the statement of the accused has led to violence. The judgment in this case does not even discuss the content of the letters allegedly recovered from Piyush Guha and whether he delivered them to the CPI(Maoist). If he delivered them to the party, the prosecution had to further prove that the letters led to such and such specific incidents of violence. The judgment is absolutely silent on such points. The judgment manifests the misuse and abuse of Section 124-A of the Indian Penal Code. A law which is so susceptible to misuse and abuse in raw hands or biased minds should be deleted from the statute book of India, which claims to be the largest democracy in the world.
This judgment is one more symptom of the ideological degeneration of the Indian judicial system. The judgment in the Babri Masjid case resorted to rule of faith in place of rule of law. In this case, the judge says that Piyush Guha has to prove that he was arrested from Mahindra Hotel on 1 May, not on 6 May and the letters were planted on him new through the prima facie evidence was in favour of Guha. The judge shifted the burden of proof to the accused, which violated the basics of the criminal justice system. The judgment indicates that the Indian judiciary is moving backward.
This article was first published in the January 2011 issue of Analytical Monthly Review
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Rapists roam free while victims and activists are jailed
ML Update, CPI-ML (Liberation)
Peasants, agricultural workers and women of Mansa district, Punjab observed New Year’s day this year with a protest gathering at the police headquarters in Mansa. Braving a severe cold wave, thousands of people gathered to protest a shocking situation where the rapists of a dalit minor girl roam free, while the woman activist who prevented the cover up of the rape case is in jail on false charges of ‘attempt to murder.’
In mid-December, a 17½ year old girl from a poor Dalit family was lured by a havildar in Mansa to his house on the promise of employment, and subjected to gang rape by him along with three others including a local advocate, a trader, and a financier. When neighbours heard her cries and called the police, however, the police deliberately suppressed the rape case and instead booked both the victim and her rapists on charges of ‘loitering.’ Cases of rape and SC/ST atrocity were registered only two days later, after intervention by CPI(ML) and AIPWA activists. However, three weeks after the incident, the accused (apart from the havildar) were yet to be arrested, and, being influential locally, were bringing to bear all sorts of pressures and threats on the victim. Two other of the rape accused were arrested only on 4 January, following the protest rally at Mansa and the intervention of the central team of AIKM and AIPWA leaders, while the financier accused of rape is still at large. Worse still, the very same activists including AIPWA National Council member Jasbir Kaur Nat and National President of the All India Kisan Mahasabha Ruldu Singh, who helped book the rape case are now behind bars along with several other peasant leaders, on a patently false charge of ‘attempt to murder.’ The pretext for this was the fact that they raised slogans in Court against the main accused in the murder of a popular peasant leader, leading to a minor skirmish when police assaulted them.
In the same area of Punjab some years ago, the dalit activist and singer Bant Singh had his limbs chopped off for supporting his daughter to pursue a rape case. The recent instance of rape of a dalit girl and victimisation of activists who pursued justice highlights the continuing strength of feudal survivals in Punjab. It also underlines the increasingly repressive response of the Akali Government in Punjab where every mass movement – of agricultural workers for homestead land, of peasants against debt – is me with mass arrests of leaders, activists and masses. What is happening in Punjab is also not very different from what is being seen in the rest of India – where scamsters, rioters and rapists roam free while activists like Binayak Sen are jailed.
Punjab is no exception. Just recently, in BSP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, a 17-year-old OBC girl who accused the BSP MLA Purushottam Narain Dwivedi of rape is in jail on charges of ‘theft.’ The incident exposes the reality behind Chief Minister Mayawati’s claims of social justice.
Meanwhile in Bihar, the BJP MLA from Purnea was stabbed to death by a woman who had filed charges alleging rape by the MLA and his associates some months ago. Police had taken no action on her complaint, and she had been pressured into withdrawing charges later. It is apparent that the woman was driven to take the desperate step because the chances of securing justice against a ruling party legislator were bleak. It is shocking that the BJP MLA’s supporters lynched the woman, critically injuring her, and that BJP leaders including the Deputy CM of the state have aggressively slandered the woman’s character while defending their MLA as a man of impeccable morals!
The recent instances in Punjab, UP and Bihar are a reminder of the sorry state of affairs in India when it comes to justice in cases of violence against women in general and women from oppressed communities in particular. According to NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) figures, the conviction rate in rape and molestation cases in India is a mere 27 per cent – about one in four cases. Likewise, the conviction rate for cases of atrocities against SCs and STs is abysmally low – less than 30 per cent against the average of 42 per cent for all cognisable offences under IPC.
The national capital itself is witness to horrifying cases of rape, gang rape and other forms of violence on women. According to official figures, a rape takes place every day in Delhi, and 400 rape cases were registered in Delhi in 2010. The prevalent police attitude to such crimes can be gauged by the comment of celebrated police officer K P S Gill after the Dhaula Kuan rape case some years ago: Gill blamed women’s ‘provocative’ clothes for the rise in rape crimes in Delhi! The low conviction rates, trials that drag on for years, and insensitive police investigators who blame women themselves for such crimes, all empower rapists and molesters with a sense of impunity, the more so if the woman are from marginalised and oppressed communities, such as dalit and tribal women, or women from the North Eastern states.
The CBI’s closure report in the case of murder of a teenage girl Arushi Talwar is yet another reminder of the apathy that marks investigations in cases of violence against women. The CBI had been called in after the Noida police botched up the investigation, but the CBI pursuit of the case also relied more on ‘confessions’ obtained from domestic servants through third-degree methods like narco tests than any professional investigative practices, and now the CBI has attempted to close the case file itself. If justice is so elusive for urban girls from reasonable well-off families like Arushi and Ruchika, whose cases got great media attention, one can only imagine what happens to cases of women from socially and economically weaker backgrounds. And if this is the state of affairs in rape cases where politically powerful people are not implicated, what of the cases where police and army forces are implicated in rape and violence against women? The young Manipuri woman Thangjam Manorama, raped and murdered by Indian army personnel in 2004 is yet to get justice. The rape and murder of two Kashmiri women — Asiya and Nilofar — in Shopian, Kashmir, last year had been subjected to a spectacular cover-up by the CBI, with the latter claiming that the two women ‘drowned’ in a stream six inches deep. In Chhattisgarh where Binayak Sen has been sentenced to life on no evidence, adivasi women who filed charges of gang rape against top Salwa Judum personnel live in terror, because their rapists are free while the women themselves along with their kith and kin are threatened that they will be branded as ‘Maoists’ and arrested or killed in fake encounters.
Justice in violent crimes against women is non-negotiable. We must demand speedy passing of the Sexual Assault Bill, as well as fast-track courts to ensure speedy justice in such cases. Above all, we must build more and wider struggles to challenge the impunity and apathy that has become the hallmark of cases of rape and violence against women.
Videos: Dismantling Democracy in the University (March 4, 2010)
Following is the video of a seminar organised by Correspondence and Kudos, the Literary Society of Hindu College (University of Delhi) on 4th March, 2010 with the aim of initiating a discussion on radical student and university politics.
Statement on the Binayak Sen Judgement
We are deeply anguished by the convictions and sentences of Dr. Binayak Sen, Piyush Guha, and Narayan Sanyal by the additional district and sessions judge of Raipur for sedition. We also note that in a separate case, Asit Sengupta was convicted and sentenced to eight years imprisonment for his work as magazine editor and publisher. Sanhati strongly condemns their convictions and sentences.
Convicting Dr. Sen of sedition and treason against the country, when he has devoted his life to service for the poorest citizens of India, yet again illustrates the disdain of the state towards its citizens and democracy. The real crime of Dr. Sen in the eyes of the government has been his protest against the state-sponsored vigilante force of Salwa Judum, and his efforts to bring to light the atrocities committed by this vigilante army on the indigeneous population of Chattisgarh. The state has attempted to make an example of Dr. Sen to all dissenting against its policies or protesting repression. Nevertheless, the state will fail in its attempt to create a fear psychosis among political and social activists; its efforts will only lead to the strengthening of resistance against state repression.
The charge made out by the prosecution against Dr. Sen was that he was responsible for passing letters from Narayan Sanyal lodged to Piyush Guha. Examination of witnesses and evidence presented by the defence demonstrated that the meetings in prison between Dr. Sen and Narayan Sanyal, the jailed Maoist leader, followed all legal norms and were based on the capacity of Dr. Sen as a physician and a human rights activist. When the accusations against Dr. Sen could not be supported by evidence in court, the government brought up other trumped-up charges and falsified evidence, much of which was glaring in its absurdity. That the court chose to overlook all this, has exposed the nature of our judicial system to the entire world.
It is necessary at this juncture to also mention that numerous undertrial political and social activists are today incarcerated in various prisons in India or languishing in jail for prolonged periods without trial, charged under various draconian state or central laws. These laws, and various draconian provisions of the criminal penal code, are being used to clamp down upon resistance movements against various anti-people policies pursued by the Indian state. The charges against Dr. Binayak Sen, and the travesty of justice in the name of his trial, have brought this hard truth to the fore.
We strongly condemn the convictions and sentences against Binayak Sen, Piyush Guha, Narayan Sanyal, and Asit Sengupta. We demand that the injustice meted out to them in the name of dispensing justice be rectified immediately. We also demand that the state immediately stops the systematic usage of various draconian laws and charges of sedition against activists to silence all voices of dissent.
Halt the Repression and End the Attack on Democratic Rights
Campaign for Survival and Dignity
The conviction of Dr. Binayak Sen and his co-accused, Narayan Sanyal and Piyush Guha, is yet another sign of how little democratic freedoms appear to matter to the government. On the basis of what appears to be non-existent evidence, a trial court has convicted all three of (among other charges) sedition, the “crime” that Gandhi once referred to as the “prince of all political sections designed to suppress the liberty of the citizen.”
Meanwhile, literally tens of thousands of other people languish in prison, and many tens of thousands more face ongoing criminal charges, for equally ridiculous and flimsy reasons. Hundreds of adivasis are in prison in Dantewada and other areas of Operation Green Hunt without even being charged. Protesters who do nothing but demand respect for the law find themselves in jail; at this moment, around 2,000 members of the Satyashodhak Grameen Kashtakari Sabha (a member organisation of the Jangal Adhikar Sangharsh Samiti, affiliated to the Campaign) are in jail in Nandurbar District, Maharashtra, for demanding basic amenities like ration cards and respect for forest rights. Avinash Kulkarni, Bharat Powar and a number of other forest movement activists spent almost six months in jail in Gujarat, and still face charges of, inevitably, sedition and waging war against the state (see earlier press statement).
Even as democratic rights are thrown to the winds, we find the laws being violated and land and resources being grabbed on a massive scale across the country. The state machinery has turned itself into a mercenary cabal, sold to the highest bidder; on POSCO, fully two and a half months after the Enquiry Committee found gross violations of law, nothing has been done. Huge sums of money are being funneled into land-grabbing schemes across the country.
It is not seditious, apparently, to have brazen contempt for justice and people, or to engage in daylight robbery of the country’s money; but it is seditious to talk of rights and law. This is the farce enacted by a government that never tires of talking of the “rule of law.”
Mullivaikkal – Before and After
Thozhar Thiagu
“Mullivaikkal May 19 was a deluge in the history of Eelam Tamils. It has drowned everything. It has overturned all our old beliefs and ideals. We have no other option than to develop new viewpoints in accordance with the new situation.”
I heard an Eelam Tamil elder speak in these terms during my recent visit to North America. He did not even call himself an Eelam Tamil, but identified himself only as a Lankan Tamil.
Ideological Split
Not only this elder, but several others have come to the conclusion that such ideals as Tamil homeland, retrieval of sovereignty and Tamil Eelam liberation may altogether be forgotten and that it is enough we do our best to help the suffering people there. A section of the Tamil diaspora has discernibly changed to this new viewpoint. Though we cannot say whether they constitute a majority or not, sure they are not few.
There are still many who believe in the liberation of Tamil Eelam, and are doing their best for the cause. But even with them there is a lot to discuss.
The ideological split among the Eelam Tamil diaspora can also be seen to be reflected to some extent with the overseas Tamilnadu Tamils. No doubt Tamils living in Eelam would also be split along these lines. The extensive and intensive degree of disillusionment is, I fear, likely to be higher particularly among the Eelam Tamils languishing in prisons, barbed-wire concentration camps, and out there in open- air- prison-like circumstances under military watch. My fear was vindicated when I spoke with some who had recently been there.
Talk of setback as self-consolation
It must be accepted that the Sinhalese supremacists have not only succeeded in recklessly exterminating thousands of Tamils and crushing the Tamil Eelam liberation force, but rudely shaken the faith and conviction of the Eelam Tamils in particular and the world Tamils in general in the objective of Tamil Eelam liberation. If without grasping fully this significance of the Mullivaikkal holocaust we just seek self-consolation by describing it as “a small setback”, “a temporary setback”, etc., we shall not be able to take a single step towards emancipation.
If you can feel the distress of the Eelam Tamil people and the suffering they are still undergoing, you will understand that all those who say “no liberation, suffice it to be alive peacefully” cannot be brushed aside as cowards and traitors. Though there are of course a few cowards who fall at the feet of the enemy and traitors who betray the cause exploiting the difficult situation we are in, to dismiss everyone as such will not help. It must be seen that even some who in the past worked with dedication for the liberation of Tamil Eelam have now suffered a loss of faith.
While accepting the justification for the mental depression that all is over with May 19, is what is put forward as the new viewpoint correct? When I posed this question and provoked a discussion it turned out that none of these say they did not want Tamil Eelam, but have only concluded that it was no longer possible.
Cruelties continue
If all is over, what is it all that is over? Is Sinhalese supremacist chauvinism over? Are its national oppression and repression over? No. Not only have the high security zones established in Tamil areas not been dismantled, but new military camps are coming up. While more than one lakh Tamils are still held in concentration camps, most of those released from these camps are yet to be rehabilitated. Attempts are on to settle Sinhalese in Tamil homeland areas.
Many leading members of the liberation movement have been tortured to death after their surrender. Even those belonging to the art-and-literature wings have not been spared. The world knows what happened to Natesan and Pulithevan. The Sinhalese government is yet to respond to the question mark around the fate of Balakumaran, Pudhuvai Rathinadurai, Yogi and others. Apart from those killed, more than ten thousand young men and women are detained without any judicial trial. UN experts have confirmed the authenticity of the video pictures of Tamil youth, naked, blindfolded, hands tied, kicked down and shot dead. A TV channel of London has broadcast scenes of Tamil youth being brutally tortured to death.
The Permanent People’s Tribunal sitting at Dublin has ruled the Rajapkshe gang to be guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity on the basis of incontrovertible evidence. Though the UNO failed to stop the 2009 May holocaust, its General Secretary has belatedly appointed a three-member committee to report to him on the war crimes in Sri Lanka. The indecent ways the Sinhalese Government resorted to against this committee showed that it will go to any extent to cover up its crimes. While justice has not yet been done for what happened, nor have the cruelties stopped, what is the meaning of telling Tamils that all is over? It can only be: “Quit the aspiration to live as rightful humans. Get used to live as slaves.”
Some have taken the stand that they would help the people of Tamil Eelam as far as possible without bothering about political rights, liberation and other such things. They have also established some organisations for this purpose. It can never be denied that everything should be done to help the suffering people. Only, it is incorrect to give up political efforts for this purpose. To provide help in a political vacuum is to seek to cook in a vessel with a hole in its bottom.
Man-made deluge
If it was a deluge it should have drowned everyone and everything. But the May 19 deluge was a disaster only for the Tamils! For the chauvinistic minded Sinhalese it was cause for joyful celebration! How then can it be compared with a natural deluge? If at all, it can be called a man-made deluge. It was a deluge created by the Sinhalese government with the collusion of the Government of India and the help of the governments of China and Pakistan in order to destroy the Tamils.
What are the lessons learnt by Tamils at the cost of losing the lives of many thousands of Tamils? In the first place, it is now too evident that in the island of Lanka under Sinhalese rule Tamils cannot exist, leave alone enjoy their rights. It is obvious enough that united Sri Lanka was the system that massacred Tamils.
The need for a separate state of Tamil Eelam has not lessened a wee bit, it has only increased. Secondly, the illusion of the people of Tamil Eelam in general about India is gone with a bang. The belief that the Government of India would protect Tamils has been belied. The Tamil race has been made painfully to realise that India would kill, not save.
Contradiction to be solved
The question that begs our answer is: how to solve the contradiction between the objective need of the Tamils for a separate state of Tamil Eelam and the subjective condition that many of them are disillusioned and dejected? Whether the dream of Tamil Eelam is going to be realised or not depends on solving this contradiction.
Some propose a simple solution. They say: The National Leader of Tamil Eelam is not dead, he is alive somewhere. He is devising some plan to resurrect the Eelam war. Very soon, after three months or three years, armed struggle will be resumed. Such slogans as “The leader will come and secure Tamil Eelam” and “Eelam War V coming soon” appear to be born of subjective wishes and emotions and not based on an objective assessment of real conditions.
Is the Leader alive? If yes, what is he doing? We are not in a position to answer these questions. To wish, to believe, to think it well and good that he be alive is quite different from asserting that he is alive. Likewise we are not in agreement with those who combine their inner desire with the ‘evidence’ released by the Sinhalese government to indulge in propaganda about the death and also the manner of death of Prabhakaran. We have already put forward our standpoint in this regard.
As far as we are concerned, whether Prabhakaran is alive or dead is not a question of opinion or faith. It is a question of fact, as to what happened or did not happen. This fact like so many other facts drowned in Mullivaikkal will one day come out fully. Let us until then put off this question and do our duties. Without playing the game of speculation on the basis of uncertain data, let us act with clarity on confirmed facts. Let us not fall a prey to the enemy’s scheme of engaging our and the world’s concentrated attention to the question of Prabhakaran’s fate with a view to obscuring a full view of the Mullivaikkal massacre.
It is interesting to note that Comrade Rudhrakumaran, the Prime Minister of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam, in response to a question whether the Leader was alive, said, “Time alone shall answer certain questions.”
Will Eelam War V break out?
But whether Eelam War V soon breaks out or not does not solely depend on the question whether the Leader is alive or not. If there be a historical necessity that the next stage of the Tamil Eelam national struggle should be in that form, it must happen so, must be made to happen so, irrespective of whether the Leader is there or not. If that cannot be the form of struggle, it will not happen that way even if the Leader is there. He himself would not try to make it happen so.
The central question is: are the main factors that prevailed in the first four phases of the Tamil Eelam liberation war – the preparedness of the people of Tamil Eelam with regard to their being and consciousness, the strength and cohesiveness of the liberation movement, the relative positions of friendly and hostile forces – still there without a basic change? In the present situation of the Tamil Eelam people a conventional or a guerrilla war relying upon them is unthinkable. As of now even peaceful and moralistic struggles are hardly possible.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam which functioned cohesively for nearly thirty years, earned great and rare victories to make an indelible mark in history and rose high in glory to the admiration of the world thanks to the active support of the masses, the supreme sacrifice of thousands of martyrs, and the staunch and able guidance of the leadership – that LTTE, it cannot be denied, seems to have suddenly vanished.
The character of the LTTE
Why so? What were the subjective factors behind this? We do not have sufficient data clearly and categorically to answer these questions. But the objective factors – the world situation, the role of India and other foreign powers – are well-known. Whatever the cause the effect is obvious.
The LTTE is a military organisation with a political objective. Instead of a political party establishing a military wing for itself, here a military organisation established a political wing for itself. Why so? The brutal military repression by the Sinhalese supremacists is the answer.
Whether a military force builds a political movement, or a political movement builds a military force depends on the historical circumstances of the particular nation, not on the likes and dislikes of the leadership. In the Russian revolution the party came first. The Red Army was formed only after the triumph of the political revolution. In China a section of the Kuomintang army broke away and founded the Communist Party. In Ireland it was Irish Republican Army that established the political wing Sin Fein.
Command structure smashed
For any organisation of a military nature the command structure is very essential. The command structure of a liberation force is its heart, just as its political ideology is its brain. During the earlier phases of the Eelam War, whether the LTTE won or lost, its command structure remained more or less intact; it did not suffer a collapse or even a serious damage. But, the painful fact is, this time, the end of Eelam War IV has, in addition to causing a holocaust for the masses, totally smashed the command structure of the liberation force. This, of course, is our reading.
Not only from a military point of view, but even from a political one, the Sinhalese supremacists remain a potent force not just internally but at the South Asian and the international levels as well. The condition of the forces of Tamil Eelam liberation is quite the opposite. No need to panic at this reality. It is also true that it is not everlasting. But only by recognising this to be the present situation and grasping it can we fight for change.
The responsibility of Tamilnadu
Why could not the Mullivaikkal massacre be prevented? In a situation where the people of Tamil Eelam could not protect themselves the responsibility and the capability of protecting them belongs to the people of Tamilnadu. But as one understands it, either the people of Tamilnadu failed to carry out this responsibility, or they were unable to do it in spite of their best efforts.
If the population of world Tamils is ten crores, the Eelam Tamils are only less than half a crore. The Tamilnadu Tamils number more than six crores. Tamilnadu is the first and foremost homeland of Tamils. If Tamilnadu fails to save Tamil Eelam then who else will? In this sense the loss of Tamil Eelam is the loss of Tamilnadu. And why did Tamilnadu lose? Because it is itself a slave nation – this is the correct answer historically.
Tamilnadu sans sovereignty was unable to save the Eelam Tamil nationality. Though there are several factors, such as denial of linguistic rights and denial of riparian rights, to show the subjugation of the Tamil nation under Indian imperialism, it was our miserable inability to stop the war of genocide on Eelam Tamils that was the most telling reminder to us of our slavery.
Why did we lose?
But this should not be mechanically understood to mean that Tamilnadu can help Tamil Eelam only after its own liberation. Even when a nationality is in slavery it can grow strong and powerful and consolidate itself, by realising its slavery and fighting it. A people united and fighting for a just cause can achieve what even a state cannot.
What is the real status of the Tamil nationality that waged a passionate struggle to stop the war on Eelam Tamils. The social division of castes is an old fact. It was in spite of this that the Tamil people fought for their language in 1965, for Eelam now (2008-09). But they could not overcome their division into political parties. Though the treachery, fraud and betrayal of Karunanidhi have so blatantly come out in the open, there has been no rebellion in the DMK against his leadership! Or, the DMK has not broken up into pieces! It is possible to this day for Karunanidhi to enact dramas as if he is toiling for Eelam Tamils!
Jayalalitha, in order to turn the pro-Eelam mentality of the people of Tamilnadu into votes for her harvest, declaimed in her election campaign that Tamil Eelam was the only solution and promised to secure the same; but now she is conveniently looking the other way, busy with something else! She can aspire to take the hand bloodstained from its collusion in the massacre of Tamils! If Jayalalitha, as per her wish, can tomorrow carry the Congress on her shoulders, will the AIADMK disintegrate?
The bitter truth is: the election parties which came together in the Lankan Tamils Protection Movement subjected pro-Eelam politics to power-seeking politics instead of vice versa. Our experience shows that no power-seeking political party was prepared to forego office or boycott elections for the sake of Eelam people.
How in these circumstances can anyone mobilise the people of Tamilnadu for a militant mass struggle and paralyse the Government of India? No wonder the spontaneous struggles of students and lawyers beyond this party sphere, the self-immolation by Muthukumar and others, and the token struggles put up by Tamil nationalist forces failed to bite New Delhi.
The understanding of Tamil Eelam nationalists
Had the people of Tamilnadu rallied in a strong nationalist movement with the single objective of national liberation irrespective of party affiliations – just like the Kashmiri people now – it would have pulled back India from the Eelam massacre, and also created a situation in favour of the Eelam people on the world arena. The Tamil nationality has no sovereignty, nor has it been mobilised into a national movement towards sovereignty. Which is the main reason why Tamilnadu could not prevent the massacre of the Eelam people. The Tamilnadu Tamils and the Eelam Tamils must realise this truth.
Without learning and teaching this lesson written in Eelam Tamils’ blood on the wall of history, the Eelam dream will never be realised. In this respect it is the Tamil nationalist organisations organisations of Tamilnadu that have been very clear from the outset. This cannot be said, without qualification, about the Tamil nationalist organisations of Tamil Eelam. When in 1972 Selvanayagam, the father of Tamil Eelam, came to meet Thanthai Periyar, the latter said, “You say you have been enslaved? We Tamils are already mere slaves in India. What help can a slave render another?” The Tamil Eelam nationalists should then itself have understood the real status of Tamilnadu. Did they? Even if they did, did they work out an approach on that basis? The reply has mostly to be in the negative.
Both the leaders and the public of Tamil Eelam are used to see Tamilnadu as India and Tamils as Indians. Even the intellectuals of Tamil Eelam in general do not recognise the existence of Indian oppression to Tamils just as Sinhalese oppression to Tamils of Tamil Eelam.
The Tamil nationalism of Tamilnadu
The Tamil nationalism of Tamilnadu is older than that of Tamil Eelam. In 1925 Thanthai Periyar founded the Self-Respect Movement. In 1938 he raised the slogan: Tamilnadu for Tamils! Though Bharathiyar, V.O. Chidambaram, Thiru.V. Kalyanasundaram and others of the same kind were basically Indian nationalists, there were strong aspects of Tamil nationalism in their speeches and writings. The Naam Thamizhar party of C. Pa. Aadhithanar, the Thamizharasu Kazhagam of Ma. Po. Sivagnanam and the Thamizh Thesiya Katchi of E.V.K. Sampath contributed to the development of Tamil nationalism upto some extent unto some point. Even the Dravidian movement, before its degeneration due to power-seeking politics, took forward a more or less Tamil nationalism in content though in the perverted Dravidian form.
There is no big indication that the Tamil nationalist movement of Tamil Eelam acted with an awareness of such a long history of Tamil nationalism in Tamilnadu. A few like Poet Kasi Anandhan may have understood the correlation between Tamilnadu and Tamil Eelam due to their direct role in the Tamil nationalist movements here and there. But they are only exceptions.
Tigers’ understanding
Only because the Liberation Tigers and Leader Prabhakaran correctly understood Indian imperialism and its interest in preventing the emergence of Tamil Eelam, they could maintain vigilance against its machinations, and were able to break through the vicious net thrown by the Indo-Sri Lankan Agreement.
During a press meet in Jaffna, when asked about Karunanidhi and MGR, Prabhakaran replied to the effect: “We are well aware that the Government of Tamilnadu has no sovereignty. Also that the Chief Minister does not have the power to help us on his own accord. But we believe they have a moral responsibility to reflect the sentiments of the people of Tamilnadu.”
This is the correct view.
But did this view and the conclusions derived from it reach all levels of the movement? Especially the political essayists? We do not know. The public of Tamil Eelam were also groomed with illusions about India. There prevailed a narrow understanding of Tamilnadu politics as a Karunanidhi versus MGR affair. Even though a few of the Tamil nationalist leaders of Tamilnadu were popular in Eelam they were identified more as friends of Tamil Eelam than as Tamil nationalists.
The Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement of 1987, the subsequent invasion of the Indian army in the name of the Indian Peace Keeping Force and the atrocities it committed dealt a strong blow to the Eelam people’s illusion about India. The sacrifice of Thileepan, the death by cyanide of the twelve including Pulendhiran and Kumarappa, the fast unto death of Mother Bhoopathy … all these clearly showed India’s enmity.
The hostile attitude of India did not stop with the withdrawal of the IPKF. It continued to provide the Sinhalese government with armaments and military training. But even then the policy of appeasement towards India did continue. We need not of course say that we consider India an enemy state. But we need not have hesitated to say that the Government of India treats the Tamils as an inimical race.
Israel and Eelam
It is one thing to reassure that India need not be afraid of Eelam, but another to assure that Eelam will help India’s activities. The line separating these two approaches is clear though thin.
A bizarre consequence of the approach of committing Eelam to the intentions of the Indian state is the assurance that ‘Eelam would serve India as Israel serves the United States of America’. We know how Israel served and continues to serve the US. To bully the oil-rich Arab nations, and, more importantly, to frustrate the liberation of Palestine. In short, Israel is the West Asian henchman of the US.
If Eelam is going to serve India the same way, it means it would serve as India’s South Asian henchman. If Eelam is going to help contain those opposed to India, it means it would serve to oppress Kashmir, the north-eastern nationalities and the tribal people of Dhandakaranya.
To extend this logic to the end, it means it would help stop Tamilnadu’s national liberation. If Eelam is going to work out like this, will not the people of Tamilnadu ask: Why then should we support Eelam?
The correlation of the struggles for Tamilnadu and Tamil Eelam
We do not refute the historical differences between Sinhalese oppression and Indian oppression. Similarly we do take into consideration that the liberation struggles of Tamilnadu and Tamil Eelam are in different stages of development. But there is no justification for failing to understand, ignoring or not taking into account the need for the development of Tamil nationalism in Tamilnadu and its correlation to the liberation struggle of Tamil Eelam.
When as a rejoinder to the question, “What has Tamilnadu done for Tamil Eelam?” I asked, “What has Tamil Eelam done for Tamilnadu?” many of the Tamil Eelam friends were startled. I posed this question only in order to make them sharply understand that Tamil Eelam nationalists should be interested in the Tamil national struggle of Tamilnadu.
View of Tamilnadu politics
Post-Mullivaikkal, of course, Tamil Eelam people hate India. But this is not enough. They should understand the imperialist character of the Indian state, identify the forces fighting it and find solidarity with them. In particular they should come out of the myopic understanding of Tamilnadu politics merely as a Karunanidhi-Jayalalitha contest. Should not be spending their valuable time in trying to solve the riddle: who is going to be the next Chief Minister of Tamilnadu? Should not be yearning for some favourite of theirs to occupy the CM’s chair and deliver liberation by parcel!
Under the present Constitution of India, whoever may be the Chief Minister of Tamilnadu, he can only be the Varadharajaperumal of Tamilndu – this should be understood by one and all. When we say that the Chief Minister of Tamilnadu failed to save the people of Tamil Eelam, we do not mean he could have done it by invoking the legal powers of a Chief Minister, but failed to do so. We only mean he failed to fight Delhi in reflection of the sentiments of the people of Tamilnadu. For instance, he could have thrown away his chief-ministership and come to the streets in protest against Delhi’s role in the massacre of Eelam Tamils. He could thus have pressurised Delhi, thereby stopping or curtailing its anti-Tamil attitude. What a Chief Minister can do at the most is to come forward to resign and fight. Without doing so Karunanidhi stuck to office and this was his betrayal. If the maximum utility of a post of office is just to resign, why so much anxiety about such a post?
Power-seeking politics
What is the use of the Members of Parliament resigning their posts? What is the use of Ministers in the Government of India quitting office? What is the use of pro-Eelam parties boycotting elections? All these questions were raised then itself. These steps would have aroused the masses and brought pressure to bear upon the Government of India.
Members of Parliament should have resigned as decided upon by the All-Party meeting on the 14th of October 2008. Even if some parties had backtracked other parties should have carried out the decision to resign. The Union ministers belonging to the DMK and the PMK should have resigned. It was unpardonable to stick to office till the last while at the same time claiming to oppose the war. If those political parties, which purportedly opposed the war of genocide, had boycotted the polls and declared elections to be unnecessary until the war is stopped, it would have isolated the Congress. At least the pro-Eelam parties should have taken this stance, even If the other parties were reluctant.
To shun this path and to insist that pro-eelam parties should have formed an alliance among themselves would lead us nowhere. The explanation offered by the leader of the Viduthalai Chiruthaikal Katchi, Thol. Thirumavalavan that only due the absence of such an alliance he had to join the Congress-DMK combo is unacceptable. Why did not his party reject all alliances and fight the elections independently? No convincing explanation from him. He could have simply boycotted the elections? Why not?
Why did not these political parties take such steps as mentioned supra? Because they follow power-seeking politics. The leaderships of these parties are not willing even to put off their power-seeking politics for a brief while for the sake of preventing the massacre of Eelam Tamils.
The composition itself of these political parties from top to bottom is of this kind. After carrying loads all along there cannot be a sudden metamorphosis into war-horses. A clear understanding of nationalism is needed not only for leading, but even for supporting, a national liberation movement. Tamil nationalist phrase-chanting such as homeland, sovereignty and self-rule at the same time as serving Indian nationalism in deeds would help neither Tamilnadu nor Tamil Eelam.
Two liberation struggles
Only when we grasp the dialectical correlation between the liberation struggles of Tamil Eelam and Tamilnadu, world Tamil unity becomes meaningful and useful. These two liberation struggles are distinctly separate, but closely connected; capable of objectively helping each other, but not conditional upon each other. We ought to see this correlation not as existing in a static situation, but as moving in constantly changing internal and external conditions. This understanding is essential in the first place for at least the leading fighting forces on the two fronts. Then this should sink into the collective consciousness of the world Tamils. Intellectuals on both sides should take the initiative for this.
Though both the liberation struggles of Tamil Eelam and of Tamilnadu are historical necessities, they are in different stages of development. Therefore the ways and forms of helping each other are also bound to differ.
Though the Tamil nationalist movement of Tamilnadu is older it has fallen behind. The Tamil nationalist movement of Tamil Eelam has overtaken it. In Tamilnadu we are fighting for making the masses of Tamil people realise the need for Tamil nationalism. Tamil nationalism will never be able to become a political force for liberation unless it is grasped by the masses. This does not mean that we are in the propaganda stage. Struggles for the demands of the Tamil people are the main means to make the masses realise the need for Tamil nationalism. The Tamil nationalist organisations should be built strong and solid in order to direct such struggles along the direction of the goal of Tamil national liberation. Tamil nationalist media should be strengthened to fulfil these tasks.
The Tamil Eelam national liberation struggle started as a moralistic one, developed as an armed struggle, transformed from a guerrilla war into a conventional war, and eventually met with a huge military defeat. The people of Tamil Eelam should rise again from this defeat and continue the struggle in new forms. In this the world Tamils should help them.
Isolating the Sinhalese state
How? The people of Tamil Eelam stand bereft of any space to fight by any means. If this space has to be created for them severe pressure has to be brought upon the Sinhalese state.
Arraign the criminal who committed genocide! Institute an enquiry through the UNO into the war of genocide against the Eelam people! Set free all the imprisoned militants! Release those still in the barbed-wire concentration camps! Dismantle the High Security Zones! Rehabilitate all the Tamil people! Return all their land, properties and industries! Compensate fully the losses suffered by the Tamil people due to war! Stop Sinhalese settlements in Tamil homeland areas! Secure the democratic rights of the Tamil people! For such demands should the Tamils of Tamilnadu and of the diaspora should fight for. Though this is only a moralistic and peaceful struggle, it should not be a mere token struggle.
If our struggle is to have an impact on the Sinhalese state, we should isolate Sri Lanka on a global scale. We should see to it that economic. Politico-diplomatic and cultural sanctions are imposed on Sri Lanka.
The United States Tamils Political Action Council (USTPAC) is already in the thick of the struggle for boycotting goods from Sri Lanka. Along with overseas Tamils from Tamilnadu and Eelam a Jewish woman Dr. Ellyn Sander is playing an active role in this movement. It is a welcome sign that the European Union is seeking to annul the GSP Plus trade concessions to Sri Lanka.
Hope and encouragement
The role played by the Tamil movie artists, the May 17 movement and Save Tamils in dampening the International Indian Film Festival Awards (IIFA) function in Colombo is encouraging. The campaign for boycotting the Tamil Writers’ Meet at Colombo has gained notable success. Though all these are encouraging they are not enough. We should intensively and extensively increase our efforts a hundred times. The slogan and the campaign BOYCOTT SRI LANKA should be very soon developed to a level where there is none to refute or oppose it. We can mobilise the active support of democratic forces all over India.
The Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam
The Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) democratically elected by the Eelam Tamils at the world level is functioning well, uniting and coordinating various hues of Tamils and Tamil organisations behind the objective of a separate state of Tamil Eelam. The TGTE would hopefully fulfil the task of earning the recognition and support of the international community for the demand of a separate state of Tamil Eelam. The pro-Tamil Eelam forces of Tamilnadu should take the initiative in a planned manner to mobilise support for the TGTE and its endeavours in Tamilnadu and at the Indian level. We should help the Eelam Tamils living here as refugees play their role in the formation and activation of the TGTE.
The TGTE and the LTTE
To consider the TGTE as a reproduction or re-edition of the LTTE and comparing the two with the same yardstick are wrong. In this respect we should be very cautious.
The LTTE was born, grew up and did its duty in a historical stage of the Tamil Eelam liberation struggle, a stage when armed struggle was the main form. In a new stage of struggle – a stage when political struggle, based on the transnational existence of the Tamil Eelam people and the international influence of Tamil nationalism, has emerged as the main form – the TGTE has been born to fulfil the tasks peculiar to this stage.
Separate Tamil Eelam is the objective of the LTTE; the same is the objective of the TGTE. It is in this sense that we can consider the TGTE to be a historical continuation of the LTTE. As the tasks to be fulfilled by them are basically different, they are bound to differ in all respects, namely the forms of organisation, the methods of struggle and the tactics. If we fail to understand this difference the result would be confusion confounded.
Impact on Sinhalese
The campaign to isolate and pressurise the Sinhalese supremacist state should make the Sinhalese people, the social base of Sinhalese chauvinism, think and rethink, and should seek to turn them around against their state, and help the growth of genuine democratic forces among the Sinhalese people. What is more, this would sharpen contradictions within the Sinhalese ruling class. Conflicts would break out. The ruling fascist clique would more and more be isolated. All these would combine to create and expand a democratic space for the Tamil people. The suppressed and repressed Tamil people would utilise this space to take the field.
Like the Intifada of the Palestinian people, like the present uprising of the Kashmiri people, the Eelam people would also rise up and fight. Will this struggle be sufficient to secure victory? Or will armed struggle be necessary once again? We cannot judge at once. Moreover it does not depend merely on the Eelam people or the liberation forces that lead them. One thing is certain: whatever may be the form, it would not be possible once again to brand that struggle as terrorist to isolate and crush it.
Future prospects
We think this may be the future path of the Tamil Eelam liberation struggle. Even if it is different let us approach it with an open mind to grasp it and act. But let us be very clear about what is to be done at present. Let us extensively take forward the campaign to isolate the Sinhalese state!
Let Tamil Eelam understand Tamilnadu just as Taminadu understands Tamil Eelam. If the global Tamil community realises its historical responsibility and acts systematically, on earth will rise a Tamil state; then another. On the world stage will fly two Tamil flags. The contribution of the Tamil race to the progress of mankind will go two steps up.
The author is the General Secretary of the Tamil National Liberation Movement, Tamilnadu. Your comments may be mailed to thozharthiagu@gmail.com
AFSPA 1958: Film Screening and Discussion (December 7)
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?
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.
“Yes, I am a traitor, if you are a patriot”: Nazim Hikmet
from Traitor
Yes, I am a traitor, if you are a patriot, if you are a defender of our homeland,
I am a traitor to my homeland, I am a traitor to my country.
If patriotism is your farms,
if the valuables in your safes and your bank accounts is patriotism,
if patriotism is dying from hunger by the side of the road,
if patriotism is trembling in the cold like a cur and shivering from malaria in the summer,
if sucking our scarlet blood in your factories is patriotism,
if patriotism is the claws of your village lords,
if patriotism is the catechism, if patriotism is the police club,
if your allocations and your salaries are patriotism,
if patriotism is American bases, American bombs, and American missiles,
if patriotism is not escaping from our stinking black-minded ignorance,
then I am a traitor.
Write it over three columns, in a pitch-black screaming streamer,
Nazim Hikmet is continuing to be a traitor, STILL!
July 1962
Courtesy: Eleven Eleven Journal
Nisan Sammelan 2010, Bhubaneswar: A Report
Satyabrata
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.”
Jalandhar Convention on War against People and the Role of Democratic Forces
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.
Birendra Nayak on People’s Movements in Orissa
Birendra Nayak, Prof. of Mathematics, Utkal University, has been studying the movements in Orissa for the past 30years. In this interview, he talks to Correspondence and Radical Notes about the limitations of the very many struggles in the region and future possibilities.
Part – 2
Part – 3
Seven Decades of Kashmir, 1940-2010
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.
Protest Against Operation Green Hunt in New York, August 13 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.
Sanhati’s statement on the killing of Azad
We strongly condemn the heinous killing of Cherukuri Rajkumar aka Azad, spokesperson and Politbureau member of CPI(Maoist), and Hemchandra Pandey, a freelance journalist. Although the Andhra police claimed that they were killed in an alleged encounter in the hills of Adilabad in Andhra Pradesh, multiple reports strongly indicate that they were abducted by the Special Intelligence Branch (SIB) of Andhra Police from Nagpur, Maharashtra and then murdered, before their dead bodies were left in Adilabad. We join all democratic-minded people in demanding a thorough enquiry by an independent citizens’ group into the incident which would provide a clear picture of the sequence of events that led to their illegal abduction and killing and which should lead to the prosecution of all personnel involved in the crime. Simultaneously, we demand the immediate disbanding of all such quasi-secret branches of the security establishment, whose sole aim seems to be silencing the voices of resistance.
These killings are occurring with the Operation Green Hunt in the background, in the name of battling the influence of CPI(Maoist) in the forest areas of East-Central India. But, in reality, the Green Hunt is a militarized project of the central and state governments for grabbing land, by breaking and clearing people’s resistances, for eventual exploitation of natural resources by multinational corporations. During this operation, that has been on since October 2009, there has been complete blackout on the information of what is happening in these remote areas, with sometimes news leaking out of incidents of severe state repression in the hands of the joint state and central forces, threatening the life and livelihood of people in this region. Any attempts by civil liberties activists or independent journalists to access these areas have led to detentions and even arrests. In the last few months, several activists belonging to different kinds of resistances in these regions and also in urban areas have either been killed or imprisoned under draconian laws.
Foreseeing the disastrous impact that OGH would have on the common people in those regions, from the very beginning, different sections of the civil society have called for a dialog among the state and different facets of the resistance, including the CPI(Maoist) and different people’s organizations involved in struggles in the adivasi regions. Several attempts to make any progress in these efforts have failed, with different politicians, bureaucrats and security officers continuously attempting to scuttle discussions on these possibilities. In recent days, a glimmer of any headway had risen due to the civil society initiative represented by Swami Agnivesh, with the Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Azad, as spokesperson of CPI(Maoist) responding to him via letters detailing the suitable conditions under which dialog can begin. It is reported that Azad was on his way to consult other members of CPI(Maoist) in order to decide future steps for going ahead with this current initiative, when he was allegedly abducted and killed by the SIB – thus throwing the possibility of talks into complete disarray. Such an act – the murder of a spokesperson of the political organization with which dialog is supposedly being planned – at this crucial juncture by security agencies thus raises serious doubts regarding the sincerity of the state to the process of resolving the conflict through any dialog. Any confidence that the common people would have had in the process is completely shattered.
What happens now ? With sections of media commentators encouraging more pinpointed decapitation of the rebel leadership, and reports of strongly-worded rhetoric from CPI(Maoist) leaders, the possibility of an immediate resumption of the process leading to any dialog seems to be receding, with the spectre of Operation Green Hunt continuing to haunt the lives of people.
Meanwhile, the multitude of protests across the country, after the inception of Green Hunt, has certainly brought to the forefront the single-most important issue confronting us – a debate on the development paradigm to be followed which would lead to justice and prosperity for the vast majority of the people, currently reeling under neo-liberal economic policies of the governments. This is the burning question and this would inevitably be the central issue during any dialog if it was to occur – in which, people from all segments of the society, specially the marginalized, could significantly contribute. This fundamental debate the ruling class certainly does not desire and that is possibly why the state continuously dithers and tries to stall, by various mischievous means, any progress leading to any form of dialog, trying to scuttle, divert and divide people’s movements on questions like violence/non-violence etc. Therefore, the burden of responsibility lies with the civil society to continue to remain focused and united in demanding an end to the military campaign of the state, while vigorously campaigning for a genuine national debate on questions related to development. We remain committed to this process.
PUDR Statement on the killing of Azad, spokesperson of CPI(Maoist)
Peoples’ Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) strongly condemns the killing of Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad and a free lance journalist Hemchandra Pandey at Adilabad District in Andhra Pradesh on 2nd July 2010. It has been claimed by the Andhra Pradesh police that Azad and one Sahadeva were killed in an encounter near Sarkepalli village in Jogapur forests in Wankhidi mandal, Adilabad, while some other Maoist members escaped. However, the police version is contradicted by media reports which claim that both Azad and Hemchandra Pandey (Sahadev) were picked up by the Andhra Pradesh police from Nagpur at 11 am of 1st July 2010 and brought to Adilabad and killed there. It has also been reported in the press that villagers deny having heard of any gun shots between 10pm to 2am in the night of the alleged encounter. Also it is strange that no policemen was injured in a 4 hrs long encounter. Thus, the police version of the incident is full of contradictions. And the killing could be a part of the official policy to use encounters as a means to eliminate unwanted voices through extra judicial killings.
In its directive of 1996, NHRC had clearly stated that all cases of encounters are cognizable offence until the police version is verified by an independent investigating agency and that ‘whenever information is received of encounter and death is ascertained as a result of firing by the police during the encounter, prima facie the ingredients of culpable homicide under appropriate sections of the IPC are satisfied and a magisterial inquiry shall be instituted against the encounter’. An Andhra Pradesh High Court’s ruling on encounter killings states that ‘the state is responsible to register an FIR against the encounter killing and the plea of self defence be proven before the court of law by the involved security personnel’.
In the light of all of this, PUDR demands registration of an FIR and initiation of investigation into the incident of killing of Azad and Hemchandra Pandey, without any delay. We also demand an independent magisterial inquiry as per the NHRC guidelines.
Moushumi Basu
Asish Gupta
Secretaries, PUDR
4th July, 2010
On arrest of Dr. Nisha Biswas and other civil rights activists in Lalgarh
We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, are shocked by the arrest on 14th June of Dr Nisha Biswas, Scientist – Central Glass & Ceramic Research Institute Kolkata, Manik Mandal, writer, Kanishka Choudhary, school teacher, and ten other persons by the W Bengal police from Lalgarh area, where they had gone at the request of the local people to investigate human rights violations by police and paramilitary. At the time of their arrest they were charged with violation of Sec 144 (anticipated major public nuisance or damage to public tranquility), a bailable offence. However, when produced in court on 16th June they were charged with several other false cases, such as waging war against the state, criminal conspiracy, and unlawful assembly, and remanded to 14 days jail custody. At a hearing on 25th June, a police application requesting her transfer to police custody- on the spurious charges based on a photograph in her camera- was rejected by the court and her bail hearing is due on 6th July.
We believe that this is not an isolated incident, but part of the repression and reign of terror let loose by the central and state governments over the past few years in the tribal parts of central India to crush dissent, and the accompanying attempts to delegitimize and criminalize all dissent and opposition to its policies.
On one hand, the state has launched an armed offensive in the forested tribal areas of Chhattisgarh, Orissa and West Bengal, in the name of countering the `Maoist menace’, to actually destroy the numerous resistance movements against forced acquisition of their land for mining and big industry, against displacement from their land and homes and loss of their livelihoods. This has been accompanied by the increasing use of extra-judicial killings and arbitrary arrests of villagers and leaders, and extra-legal measures that curb ordinary freedom of expression. Lalgarh area of W Bengal has been a site of intense police repression for more than a year now and under Section 144 for as much period. Civil society persons have not been allowed to visit the area and attempts to do so have been met with detentions and arrest. In Chhattisgarh there has been use of the draconian CSPSA to stifle opposition and of non-state actors like Salwa Judum that terrorises and kills villagers, destroys their homes, perpetrates sexual violence against women, and forces them into camps, or to desert their home and hearths and flee to neighbouring states.
On the other, the state has been suppressing in several ways efforts of civil liberties/democratic rights activists to expose the lawlessness and brutalities being committed in these areas by the security forces and to inquire into issues of violation of people’s rights in the process of `development’ of these areas. These tribal areas have been rendered out of bounds for people from outside the area, in violation of all Constitutional provisions regarding freedom of movement and of expression. Any person or group of persons visiting these areas, or talking about or writing about the situation there, or raising questions about the deployment of paramilitary forces in such large numbers is harassed, intimidated, or arrested and labeled as `Maoists’ or `Maoist sympathizers’, thus criminalizing all such democratic rights activities. Starting with Dr. Binayak Sen in Chhattisgarh, a large number of civil liberties activists across the country have been illegally arrested and implicated under false charges of `waging war against the state’ and accused as `Maoists’. Just over the past three months 14 people – trade unionists, forest rights activists and ordinary people – from Gujarat have been arrested under an omnibus FIR.
The recent arrest of Nisha Biswas and others, and the shrill tirade against writer Arundhati Roy, are part of this trend of targeting civil and political rights activists and urban intellectuals, and discrediting them for raising questions, for sincerely carrying out their democratic responsibility of drawing attention to violation of Constitutional and legal safeguards.
We are also deeply concerned by the extreme intolerance being displayed by the state and sections of urban society towards Arundhati Roy for her views on development, displacement, on the situation of the tribals, the violation of their Constitutional rights, and the military offensive of the state. Freedom of expression and vigorous discussion and debate are indispensable for a true democracy. Instead of carrying forward an informed debate on the issues raised by her, attempts are being made to stifle her voice by vicious abuse, public threats of arrest and much more. It is very disturbing that sections of the media too have been (ir)responsible and complicit in this matter, by false reporting of Ms Roy’s statements to suit their requirements. We also take this opportunity to condemn the statement reportedly made by a BJP leader of Chhattisgarh that Ms Roy ‘should be publicly shot down’. That such public incitements to kill a person are ignored by the state machinery exposes the extent of double standards and hypocrisy that characterize our political institutions and leaders. Such intolerance to Ms Roy’s writings and speeches not only makes a mockery of the claims of this country to being a `great democracy’ that grants immense freedom of expression to its citizens, it also poses a grave threat to the spirit of critical public discussion and debate warranted on crucial issues such as development and marginalization.
We are also extremely disturbed and anguished by the reports of rape and other forms of sexual violence by the security forces and Salwa Judum against innocent village women in Chhattisgarh as `punishment’ for alleged support to `maoists’. We ask of the political leadership – in this `war against the Maoists’, for that matter in any place whether it be in Kashmir or the north-east, why are women systematically targetted for sexual violence by the security forces? As already stated above, any attempts to bring this to light and extend assistance are also prevented by intimidation of the affected women. By not taking any action ever against the perpetrators the entire state machinery is accessory to these gruesome acts.
In this situation, we demand:
1. The immediate release of Dr. Nisha Biswas and others arrested along with her.
2. The witch-hunt against Ms Roy be ended.
3. Strict measures be taken against the security forces to put an end to the sexual violence being perpetrated by them against women.
4. We once again demand immediate withdrawal of the armed offensive against the tribal population. Instead, as expected of a democratic government, the government should move towards addressing politically the long-standing grievances of the tribal population, which have been explicitly pointed out and discussed by the government’s own report.
We strongly urge all other democratic minded women’s groups and organizations to join us in this urgent appeal to the Indian government and the respective state governments.
29 June 2010
Women Against Rape and Repression (WARR)
Women Against Rape and Repression (WARR) is a network of individuals and women’s and human rights organizations from across India. It is a non-funded effort initiated by women, and is concerned with atrocities and repression against women by state and non-state actors, especially in conflict zones.
Contact: women-against-sexual-violence@googlegroups.com
Endorsed by:
Organizations
1. AIPWA (Delhi)
2. Alternative Law Forum (Karnataka)
3. Anhad (Delhi)
4. Chhattisgarh Mahila Adhikar Manch
5. Committee Against Violence On Women -India
6. Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights (Maharashtra)
7. Healthwatch Forum (Uttar Pradesh)
8. Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan (Madhya Pradesh)
9. Madhya Pradesh Mahila Manch
10. Manasa (Karnataka)
11. MARAA (Karnataka)
12. Narmada Bachao Andolan
13. National Alliance of People’s Movements
14. PUCL-India
15. SAHELI
16. Samanatha Mahila Vedike, Karnataka
17. SANHATI
18. Stree Jagruti Samiti (Karnataka)
19. Vidyarthi Yuvjan Sabha,
20. Women in Governance (WinG) -India
21. Women against Militarisation and State Violence Programme (The Other Media, Delhi)
Individuals
1. Ajay Kishore Shaw
2. Anand Bala
3. Anand Patwardhan
4. Anu Fern
5. Asha K.
6. Bishakha Datta
7. D.P.Duvvuri
8. Daniel Mazgaonkar
9. Dipak Ray Choudhary
10. Dipankar Basu
11. Helam Haokip
12. Dr Indira Chakravarthi
13. Dr Imrana Qadeer
14. Irfan Engineer
15. Dr Janaki Nair
16. Dr Jesse Ross Knutson
17. Jyoti Punwani
18. Kamayani Bali-Mahabal
19. Khadijah Faruqui
20. Dr K.J. Mukherjee
21. Dr Leena Ganesh
22. Dr Manali Chakrabarti
23. Manasi Pingle
24. Milind Champanerkar
25. Dr Mira Sadgopal
26. Dr Nandini Manjrekar
27. Dr N. Raghuram
28. N. Vasudevan
29. N. Venugopal Rao
30. Nandini Chandra
31. Niekesanue Sorhie
32. Piya Chatterjee
33. Prasad Chacko, Gujarat
34. Prarthana
35. Priti Turakhia
36. Priyanka Srivastava
37. Rahul Banerjee
38. Rahul Varman
39. Rajashri Dasgupta
40. Rakesh Ranjan, Delhi University
41. Ranjana Padhi
42. Renu Khanna
43. Ruchi Shroff
44. Sandy Singh
45. S Srinivasan
46. Sanober Keshwaar
47. Shripad Dharmadhikari
48. Snehal Singhvi
49. Dr Uma Chakravarti
50. Uma V. Chandru
51. Vivek Sundara
52. Dr Y. Madhavi
