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An update on news and ideas from the revolutionary left in India.

Produced by: Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation international team

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Websites: [mlint.wordpress.com] and [www.cpiml.org]

Emails: [cpiml_elo@yahoo.com] and [cpimllib@gmail.com]

Table of Content

1. The AMRI Disaster: The Killer Fumes of Corporate Greed
2. Corporate Retail: Government Claims – and the Reality

3. Guarantee Land Reforms and Land Rights, Extend MNREGA to Agriculture, Stop Rural Loot

4. CPI(ML) Protests Against FDI in Retail

5. Let Us Make 2012 A Year of Heightened Struggles and Powerful Initiatives

6. Hooch Horror in Bengal

7. CPI(ML) Statement on Mullaperiyar Dispute

Politics in India

The AMRI Disaster: The Killer Fumes of Corporate Greed

- ML Update, 13 – 19 December, 2012.

The morning of December 9 came as a huge shock to Kolkata and the entire country. More than 90 lives – including elderly patients in various stages of treatment and recovery – were lost in a fatal disaster in the AMRI hospital in Dhakuria in south Kolkata on that fateful morning. The disaster was triggered by a major fire that broke out in the basement of the super-speciality hospital in the pre-dawn hours, but it was the toxic fume engulfing the multi-storey building which claimed most of the lives. Every report emanating from the site of the disaster since then has compounded that shock and turned it into utter shame and indignation. The disaster can only be called a huge corporate crime with the state being equally complicit.

Consider these facts. The fire broke out at around 3 AM, but it took the hospital authorities nearly two hours to inform the fire-brigade. The reason behind this inexplicable delay lies apparently in another case of fire which had broken out in the basement of the same building two months ago on October 8 – the security guard who had then promptly informed the fire-station had incurred the wrath of the hospital administration and was suspended for two weeks. So this time round the staff apparently tried to douse the fire themselves before informing the fire-brigade. Valuable time had already been lost and the fire-brigade found itself ill-equipped when it finally reached the spot after negotiating the narrow and overcrowded approach roads in this busy neighbourhood of the city.

The fire-alarm system of the hospital did not work as it was apparently disabled by smokers! It now also turns out that the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH), the apex agency that grants accreditation for hospitals, had refused to renew the hospital’s accreditation because the hospital did not conform to expected safety standards and fire-fighting norms. The basement of the hospital had been turned into a veritable dumping place for all kinds of inflammable materials and radiotherapy instruments. Reports have it that the hospital had been warned by the fire-fighting department during an inspection in the month of July and the hospital authorities had promised to clear the basement in two months. There was never a follow-up to check if the ‘promise’ had been kept. According to the NABH CEO, the hospital also did not have the required safety certification from the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board for two new machines it had recently procured for its radiology unit.

Having systematically violated all relevant rules and standards, the AMRI management also exhibited a flagrant disregard for basic human values even in the face of the macabre dance of death. The local people who were the first to rush to the spot and extend a helping hand risking their own lives were not allowed in. Family members of patients who desperately tried to rescue their dear ones were stopped and asked to first clear all dues! While some members of the AMRI staff also died in the tragedy, most top members of the AMRI management were conspicuously absent from the scene, issuing empty condolence statements and trying to silence the angry people by announcing some token compensation for the dead.

How did an irresponsible entity like AMRI that had Advanced Medical Research as a part of its name (probably with a view to claiming more benefits and concessions from the state) but epitomized nothing but corporate greed and arrogance come to be treated as a ‘premier super-speciality healthcare provider’? Indeed, the rise and expansion of AMRI since the middle of 1990s symbolized the changing complexion of the healthcare ‘industry’ in the era of neo-liberalism – where healthcare became an expensive consumer product traded in a thoroughly corporatized and commercialized environment. The site where AMRI made super-profit by fleecing patients earlier housed a state-run polyclinic where the common people could expect quality medicare at affordable rates. In the 1990s, the state-run polyclinic gave way to AMRI – a public-private partnership project in which the state government initially held 51% share.

Over the years, the share of the state came down progressively to less than 2%. Meanwhile the head of one of the private groups owning and controlling the hospital, Mr. Shravan Todi grew very close to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] leadership and the Left Front government, even becoming a formal member of the CPI(M), and AMRI grew into a hospital chain with the state government providing heavily subsidized plots in prime locations. The AMRI is also co-owned by the Emami group of the Goenkas – also known to be close to the (CPIM). The bonhomie between the likes of Shravan Todi and the CPI(M) was of course nothing exceptional – it was of a piece with the kind of cosy ties that had evolved between the CPI(M) leadership and business establishments in different sectors, be it the jute and hosiery barons, private players in the power sector like the Goenkas or tycoons like the Tatas, Ambanis or the infamous Salim group of Indonesia.

The managers of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) dispensation and the dominant media in West Bengal today are pointing fingers at the CPI(M) leadership for the growth of the greedy corporate culture epitomized by the AMRI. But we remember it very well that before Singur and Nandigram, the same media had been busy lauding the CPI(M) rulers for their pro-business attitude, marketing ‘brand Buddha’ as the most wonderful communist model in India! Also, the TMC-led Kolkata Corporation and fire service too can hardly wash their hands off their share of responsibility for the tragedy. And we are also acutely aware of the fact that under neo-liberalism all shades of governments in India have been busy promoting corporatization and commercialization in every sector of the economy and public service. The AMRIs are the norm in this policy environment. It is another matter that when things go horribly wrong, the rulers desperately seek to disown such erstwhile ‘success stories’ and treat them as villainous aberrations!

For the people of Kolkata and the whole of India, the lessons of the AMRI disaster are pretty straightforward. If we want to avoid a second disaster, we must free healthcare services from the killer fumes of corporate greed. The right to health and education must be upheld as fundamental rights of the people and the business-politics nexus must not be allowed to play with these rights.

Struggles in India

Corporate Retail: Government Claims – and the Reality

- Liberation, January, 2012.

In the face of immense opposition to its decision to permit 51% FDI in multi-brand retail, the Government has had to out its plans on hold. However, this is only a temporary setback, and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government is committed to introduce this policy at all costs. In order to do so, it has been peddling many myths about foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail. It has brought out full-page ads in papers extolling FDI in retail. Unwittingly, these ads acknowledge people’s concerns of job losses, of kirana store owners being put out of business, of multinationals gaining full access to and control of India’s retail sector, of farmers being exploited – but attempt to dismiss these concerns as ‘myths.’ The UPA Government, as well as corporates and neoliberal ideologues, are telling us that if companies like Walmart, Carrefour, Tesco etc. are given more space in India’s retail sector, they will create ten million new jobs; ensure low prices for consumers; and a better deal for farmers. Shankar Gopalakrishnan examines these claims, in the light of the international experience and the facts on the ground.

In the flood of official (and media) propaganda in the wake of the government’s (temporarily stalled) move to permit FDI in retail, the actual reality of what this will mean is being lost. For this it is necessary to look at this issue logically, rather on the basis of hype. Commerce Minister Anand Sharma’s letter to political parties offers a good place to start.

He claims corporate retail fuelled by FDI will result in investment in cold chains and therefore in lower prices by eliminating middlemen, corporate retail will not threaten small retailers who find innovative ways to coexist and that it will generate employment. In addition he claims corporate retail will benefit farmers and producers by ensuring a remunerative price. Not one of these claims is justified by the available data.

In the sector that requires cold chain infrastructure most – fruits and vegetables – data from developing countries often shows that prices in supermarkets are generally higher than from existing retailers. Certainly, there is no data that shows consistently lower prices from corporate retailers. Thus in Thailand, they are estimated to be 10% higher. In Argentina, data showed consistently higher prices for fruits and vegetables in supermarkets (the difference being about 14% through the 1990′s), though this difference was falling. In 2000, in Mexican supermarkets, prices of lemons, tomatoes and oranges were significantly higher than in traditional markets, while in all other fruits and vegetables they were identical or slightly higher. In Vietnam, in 2002, it was found that prices in supermarkets across all categories were around 10% higher. The concentration of power in the hands of a few companies by no means leads to lower prices. In the US, supermarkets raised tomato prices by 46% between 1994 and 2004 while real prices paid to producers fell by 25%.

In the Indian experience, the entry of corporate chains into wheat and grain procurement has coincided with increased speculation and increased prices.

The Minister and the government here are playing a simple verbal trick. The fact that some retailers “continue to coexist” does not in any way mean that most small retailers will not be pushed out of business. Indeed, the data is exactly opposite to the claim that there is no evidence of harm to small retailers. In Brazil for example in fruits and vegetables, share of street markets declined by 27.8% between 1987 and 1996, in dairy sales, share of dairy stores fell by 27.8% and open air markets by 53.3%.In Argentina number of small stores dropped by 64,198 between 1984 and 1993 – 30% of the shops in the country, employment in retail sector dropped by 26% in the same period. In Indonesia between 2002 and 2003 – just one year – number of ‘traditional’ grocery stores fell by 154,148 stores, or 9%10

What about the oft-cited example of China? This example is irrelevant because Chinese food retail entirely different. From 1959 till the late 1980s, private retail trade was essentially banned in China’s cities, and all retail was taken over by public state owned enterprise. In 1992 (with the rise of supermarkets just beginning), state-owned large networks accounted for 41.3%, cooperatives/collectives 27.9%, and private enterprises (i.e. small retailers mostly) 20% of market – hence completely incomparable to Indian situation.

In all situations big retailers begin with the rich segment of the population but do not remain confined to them – they always attempt to expand into smaller towns, reaching out to poorer segments. In Latin America, Asia and Africa in general there has been a trend from supermarkets occupying only a small niche in capital cities serving only the rich and middle class to spread well beyond the middle class in order to penetrate deeply into the food markets of the poor.

Most purchase for corporate retailers occurs through contract farming. This actually has negative impacts on most farmers. All studies of contract farming and corporate food retail state that small and marginal farmers are unable to access the supply chain. More than 90% of India’s rural population has less than 2 hectares of land and 79% are either landless or own less than 1 hectare. Practically all of these people will be excluded from corporate supply chain; most of them are net purchasers of food and will be affected by increased volatility of prices. Those left out of sourcing may find themselves competing for a much smaller market and essentially being driven out of existence. Thus, in Argentina, the number of dairy farms fell from 40,000 in 1983 – around the time when corporate transformation of the supply chain began – to 15,000 in 2001.

There is no reason that purchases by a small number of companies is going to lead to higher prices for producers. An Oxfam study shows that real export prices for South African apples fell by 33% from 1994 – 2004, and Florida tomato growers found their real prices falling by 25% over same period – while consumer prices in the US rose by 46% at the same time. Data currently says that four or five companies control 40% of the international trade in several types of produce, including grains, edible oils, coffee, cocoa and bananas. The same study by Oxfam shows that conditions for agricultural workers in supermarket suppliers is very bad, because of the intense pressure placed on farmers to reduce prices, guarantee ‘quality standards’, handle last minute changes in contracts and absorb discounts, promotions, etc. passed on to them.

The growth of corporate retail not only will not address the key problems plaguing India’s economy today – it will greatly exacerbate many of them. In particular, the crisis in agriculture, environmental destruction, declines in land productivity, urban unemployment, price volatility and unequal access to resources would all be worsened by unchecked growth of corporate retail.

Red Light for Walmart in New York – Why Red Carpet in India?!

When the debate over FDI in retail was at its peak, the US Ambassador in India, speaking at a public gathering, chose to contribute to the debate. The fears expressed by Indians were misplaced, he said – FDI in retail was just what the Indian economy needed.

Well, he should perhaps have begun by convincing fellow Americans, before attempting to convince us here in India! After all, Walmart has been struggling in vain since 2005 to open an outlet in one of the USA’s most prominent cities – New York City!

Local people and unions in NYC are unwilling to allow Walmart into their city because it is notorious for killing jobs; putting mom-and-pop (family-run) stores out of business; destroying communities by driving down wages and driving up real estate prices; disallowing unions; and extremely exploitative working conditions.

Yet, the UPA Government is keen to invite Walmart, which is unwelcome in its own home country, to

put small stores out of business, kill jobs and employ people in sweatshop conditions in India!

Do We Want A ‘Walmarting’ of India?

Walmart is run by the Walton family – which is the richest family in the world. Is it fair to force small Indian family stores and street vendors to compete with the richest in the world?

In India, there are around 1.2 crore (12 million) shops, employing 4 crore (40 million) people. Most of these are small, self-employed establishments. The retail sector is also the refuge of those unable to find employment elsewhere, allowing them a chance to eke out a living by running small shops, pushing handcarts or selling vegetables on the street. Even if we accept the government’s claim that FDI in retail will create a crore jobs, should we not ask how many jobs and means of survival it will jeopardise and destroy in India? Moreover, the quality of jobs in the corporate and MNC retail chains are notorious the world over for being the worst paid and exploitative, with the least workplace democracy.

Checks and Balances?

The Government promises to provide certain checks and safeguards, like restricting foreign retail chains to 51 cities in India and requiring them to source 30% products from the Indian small and medium enterprises (SMEs). But the fact remains that even if the MNC retail chains are initially limited to the bigger Indian cities, it is not difficult to see that they will skim off the cream of the Indian retail market.

Also, a token 30% reservation would not save the Indian SMEs from the adverse impact of unequal global competition. We have all witnessed how, with the entry of Pepsi and Coke in the soft drink sector, all Indian companies were swallowed up or pushed out.

Struggles in India

CPI(ML) Protests Against FDI in Retail

- Liberation, January, 2012.

On 29-30 November, the party held countrywide protests, and extended active support to the all-India Strike called by traders’ organisations.

 On 30 November in the national capital, the effigy of the Prime Minister was burnt at Parliament Street. On 1 November, the party and All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) activists participated in the bandh by distributing leaflets in the marketplaces, holding mike meeting and raising slogans against FDI in retail in Narela, Wazirpur, Govindpuri, Mayur Vihar, Shahdara and Mandawali.

On 30 November, a protest march was held at Ara, in which leaflets were distributed exposing the pitfalls of FDI in retail. On 1 November, CPI(ML) and AISA helped to implement the bandh throughout Bhojpur, marching with banners on the streets. Protestors stalled the 512 Down Buxar-Patna passenger at Ara railway station for an hour, till they were arrested and held at GRP thana, where they continued to address the crowds at the railway station.

AICCTU held a protest march and meeting in Gaya on 1 November in support of the bandh. At Patna, the party held a protest march, ensuring closure of shops, and blockading Dak Bangla crossing to hold a protest meeting there.

On 29 November in Tamilnadu, the party held protests all over the state. Notable were protests at Coimbatore; Chennai; Pudukottai; Tirunelveli as well as Kanyakumari; Villupuram and Salem. In Tiruvallore, the police did not let the demonstration take place. A massive protest demonstration was held on 1 December 2011 at Puducherry town.

In Bhilai, Chhattisgarh, CPI(ML) and AICCTU held an effigy burning protest and public meeting at Ghadi Chowk, Supela on 30 November.

Struggles in India

Guarantee Land Reforms and Land Rights,

Extend MNREGA to Agriculture, Stop Rural Loot

- Liberation, January, 2012.

(excerpts from Comrade Dipankar’s concluding address at the 4th National Conference of All India Agricultural Labour Association [AIALA] in Patna on 22 November 2011)

Land Reforms and Land Rights:

As far as land is concerned, the government now only talks of land acquisition and land market. Peasant organizations have rightly rejected this policy and called for protection of agricultural land as well as forest and coastal land from corporate invasion or state-led acquisition of such land in corporate or commercial interest. The agricultural labour movement in the country must also come out boldly against the state-corporate drive for land acquisition and insist on land reforms and land rights.

Today governments of various hues are not only abandoning land reforms but are also systematically trying to rob the rural poor of whatever gains they have made through years of struggle. The new Trinamool Congress (TMC) government of West Bengal has even termed the agricultural labour or poor peasant or tenant a land robber – it calls the rural poor’s hold on land achieved through years of struggle an act of land robbery! We must resist and defeat this eviction drive and move forward to force these governments to carry out land reforms and guarantee the land and shelter rights of the landless rural poor. The fight for homestead land has already started gathering momentum in many states and we must intensify this battle.

Improve MNREGA, Extend it to Agriculture:

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) has been the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s biggest talking point in recent years. Ground reports from almost all states however continue to confirm that the Act has made very little difference to the rural employment scene. Reports of all kinds of irregularities abound and rural labourers are often denied their due wages, and delayed payment of wages has become the normal practice. Now by making the Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) [Who will be the millionaire] winner from Bihar the brand ambassador for MNREGA, the UPA government has also inadvertently revealed the true nature of the Act. The message has gone out that MNREGA too is more a case of chance like the Kaun Banega Crorepati game show where a fortunate few can gain something, and it does not provide effective guarantee of an assured right.

This conference has rightly demanded improved MNREGA terms – more workdays, better wages, prompt payment. A concerted move is underway to truncate and even scuttle the Act. We must resist this move and fight for expansion of MNREGA schemes. It is time MNREGA is also extended to agriculture. At a time when the small and marginal farmers have been hit hard by the agrarian crisis, and agricultural employment and wages are also adversely affected, extension of MNREGA to agriculture could provide some relief to the crisis-ridden peasantry and also bolster agricultural employment and wages.

Rural Labour in the Battle against Rural Loot:

Corruption has emerged as a major concern for the whole country and the rural poor are its worst victims. The mega corporate scams and huge corporate exemptions devour up funds that could be allocated for rural development while the corrupt system entrenched in blocks and panchayats claims the lion’s share of funds flowing through the panchayats. Mega corruption and mass pauperization go hand in hand. This is why the battle against loot and corruption must be treated as a key task for the agricultural labour movement in the country. It is important to force the government to enact strong anti-corruption legislation, but we must carry the anti-corruption battle beyond the limited agenda of Lokpal and Lokayuktas to the point of reversal of pro-corporate policies and overthrow of the anti-people nexus that retards and obstructs any real rural development.

AIALA has now spread to nearly twenty states. It has developed a two million-strong steady membership base. But the real strength of AIALA will always lie in its ability to develop a vibrant organizational network at panchayat level that can subject the panchayats to mass supervision and intervention, and wage determined struggles against the forces of loot and oppression. May this 4th National Conference of AIALA mark an important milestone in this cherished direction.

Struggles in India

Let Us Make 2012 A Year of Heightened Struggles and Powerful Initiatives

- Central Committee, CPI (ML), December, 2012.

As the first year of the second decade of the twenty-first century draws to a close, we can see a welcome upswing in popular struggles across the world. Reeling under economic recession, corporate loot and dictatorial rule, the people have clearly started fighting back across the world. History will remember 2011 as the year of the Arab Spring and also as the year of the ‘Occupy’ movement. The impulses behind the Arab Spring and the ‘Occupy’ movement are still very much alive and so the ongoing battles will surely be carried forward into the coming year. The same holds very much true for our own battle in India against corruption and corporate loot and for securing the rights of the people in various fields of life.

The present crisis of global capitalism is turning out to be quite deep and enduring. It has simultaneously hit both US and Europe, the two biggest centres of global capitalism. And it has hit the financial sector as well as several major manufacturing industries. The dominant capitalist model of neo-liberalism, based on the free-market mantra of deregulation and privatization, seems to have reached a dead-end. The combined effect of growing relocation of industries and outsourcing of labour-intensive production and labour-displacing technological innovation has pushed unemployment levels unbearably high in most advanced capitalist countries.

Global capital is trying to overcome this crisis by grabbing as much natural resources as possible precipitating a mad corporate rush for every conceivable resource – most notably, land, water, forests, minerals, and oil and gas. Together with this drive to grab ever greater share of resources, imperialism is also waging its relentless war on resource-rich countries, ostensibly in the name of combating terrorism and promoting democracy and human rights. After Afghanistan and Iraq, the war is now clearly, though in an undeclared manner, spreading to Iran and Pakistan and also increasingly to Africa as indicated by the US-NATO intervention in Libya. But equally clearly, the war is also running into increasing opposition both in the occupied/invaded countries and also in the heartlands of global capitalism, the US in particular.

Globalisation is thus emerging as a dialectical process. Alongside the globalization of corporate loot and imperialist war, we now also see the other dimension of globalization – globalization of capitalist crisis and globalization of people’s resentment and resistance. The global environment today stands in a refreshing contrast to the kind of situation we faced till recently when the US and other Western powers seemed to be dominating the world on their own terms. For communists and progressive forces the world over, the possibilities of a renewed advance are surely knocking on the doors.

This may sound rather wishful in the Indian context if one goes by recent electoral outcomes. But in a situation of growing systemic crisis and heightened popular activism, it is terribly wrong to try and assess political reality merely in terms of elections. For example, election results may suggest that the CPI(ML) has little base left in Bihar, but then the great success of the November 21 rally in Patna and the response evoked by the series of mass initiatives preceding the rally have clearly shown that the party surely retains its capacity to mobilize the masses and intervene in ongoing political developments. In fact, all through 2011 we could sense the potential of expansion and powerful intervention that we possess not just in Bihar and our major areas of work in other states but also in many developing areas and emerging sectors. In 2012 let us better our efforts to realize this great potential.

The Left movement in India is passing through a challenging phase. For every section of the Left, it is time for some reality check. The CPI (M)’s fabled electoral strength has received a body blow in West Bengal and with it, its stature as the leading Left current has eroded considerably. And this has happened not just because the party had spent too many years in power in West Bengal, but because the party’s line of implementing the neo-liberal agenda in practice while claiming to oppose it in theory has run into a serious crisis.

The Maoists too have suffered a major setback in West Bengal, and it clearly shows that unless they rethink their strategy, they will not be able to break new ground or hold on to their bases merely on the basis of their military strength. After the disastrous experience of Andhra Pradesh a few years ago, the Maoists have suffered a similar debacle in West Bengal. Their theory and practice of political intervention by military means has been exposed quite thoroughly and it is clear that military strength is no substitute for either mass work or independent political initiatives.

The initiative we took to unite various fighting forces of the Left on a common platform is making steady progress. With the CPI(M) and the Maoists both facing major challenges, we must sharpen the ideological-political debate to assert the correctness of our revolutionary communist line even as we intensify our ongoing national campaign against corruption and corporate loot and for democratic rights of the people. Let us make 2012 a year of heightened struggles, greater political initiatives and closer interaction with fighting Left and democratic forces.

2012 will also be the year of preparation for the Party’s next Congress. The Central Committee has decided to hold the 9th Congress in early 2013. Let us make the most of the coming year to prepare the Party in every way for the Ninth Congress. The central committee (CC) has already outlined some key points in this regard with special emphasis on organizational expansion and consolidation and ideological-political mobilization of the entire party. As we prepare for the Ninth Congress, we will also seek and welcome creative ideas and inputs that we can get from our friends and well-wishers.

This December 18 marks the thirteenth anniversary of our beloved leader Comrade Vinod Mishra (VM). Comrade VM had led the Party from its early underground days when the Party was confined to a few pockets to its all-round growth as a revolutionary communist party with an all-India presence and comprehensive practice. He had led the Party in combining serious mass work with vibrant political ideas and initiatives, in waging sustained ideological struggle against sectarian and dogmatic ideas as well as against parliamentary cretinism and all kinds of opportunist ideas and practice, in imparting strategic thrust and national vision to day-to-day grassroot-level work in remote areas. He dreamt of the CPI(ML) emerging as the biggest communist party and leading the communist movement forward to the ultimate victory of revolution.

Today as we begin preparing for the Ninth Congress and the challenging possibilities of “Left resurgence through people’s resistance” knock on our doors, let us learn once again from Comrade VM’s teachings and rededicate ourselves to the realization of his unfulfilled tasks and dreams.

Politics in India

Hooch Horror in Bengal

- ML Update, 20 – 26 December, 2012.

On the heels of the Advanced Medicare and Research Institute (AMRI) fire has come another terrible tragedy – the hooch (illicit liquor) tragedy at Sangrampur of South 24 Parganas, that has claimed 190 lives till date including that of an 8-year-old child, and the death toll continues to mount.

This latest tragedy highlighted the ruling TMC Government’s callousness once again. As the tragedy began to unfold, the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s first response was to disclaim the Government’s responsibility by blaming the deaths on a ‘social evil’! In other words, according to her, the Government had no responsibility to ensure that the lucrative business of bootlegging does not flourish and endanger lives!

Subsequently, as the death toll arose and angry people demolished the illegal hooch ‘theks’ and ransacked the houses of their owners, the Government was forced to change its stance and order an enquiry. However, the Chief Minister is yet even to pay a visit to Sangrampur, even as the appalling state of healthcare contributes to the death toll. This apathy is in stark contrast to Mamata’s show of promptitude in the case of the AMRI fire, and is a measure of how much her Government really cares for the rural poor!

The hooch kingpin running the illicit liquor trade in the area is one ‘Badshah’, known to have enjoyed CPIM patronage in the earlier regime, and having shifted loyalty to the TMC with the change of guard. He is still absconding. In any case, Badshah is only the tip of the iceberg. There are estimated to be 27,000 illicit liquor brewers in the state – a whole illegal industry that thrives with the patronage of power.

The government, doing nothing to ensure even prompt and adequate medical care, has merely announced Rs. 2 lakh compensation for the victims’ families, and even that is yet to materialize.

Politics in India

CPI(ML) Statement on Mullaperiyar Dispute

- ML Update, 20 – 26 December, 2012.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) [CPI(ML)] expresses grave concern over the alarming escalation of the controversy over the Mullaperiyar dam. CPI(ML) appeals to the people of Kerala and Tamil Nadu to maintain patience and peace, rebuffing attempts to whip up competitive chauvinism and violence.

The people living in the area downstream from the dam in Kerala are apprehensive that the 116-year-old dam might burst, endangering the habitations in the region. These long-standing safety concerns have been heightened in the wake of recent tremors in the region. On the other hand, people of Tamil Nadu fear the denial or reduction in water supply in case of construction of a new dam at Mullaperiyar and any change in terms and conditions of the 999-year agreement between both states.

Four districts of Tamil Nadu have been traditionally dependent on the water rights they have long enjoyed from the dam, and there is a fear that any change in arrangements might endanger agriculture and the livelihood and survival of lakhs (100, 000s) of peasants and labourers. These concerns assume even greater proportions in the backdrop of the deepening agrarian crisis and shrinkage of cultivable land in Tamilnadu.

Continuity of the existing water rights for the people of Tamil Nadu, and safety for the people of Kerala are both genuine concerns that must be recognised in their full gravity and adequately addressed in a manner that generates confidence among the people.

A large share of responsibility for the present crisis and impasse falls on the Central Government and Central Water Commission, which have failed to act for over four decades, in spite of conflict brewing on this issue since the 1980s. The matter is now subjudice, with the Supreme Court having appointed an Empowered Committee to look into the issue. The Supreme Court must facilitate an expeditious resolution of the dispute.

We call upon the Prime Minister to use his office to facilitate dialogue between both states, generate confidence and allay apprehensions, in order to arrive at a mutually acceptable resolution. We appeal to the Governments of Kerala and Tamil Nadu to abjure any hardening of positions, and work towards a reasoned and mutually favourable solution.

In the meantime, the respective state governments must take urgent steps to ensure the security of Tamilians in Kerala and Keralites in Tamil Nadu. There have been disconcerting reports of chauvinistic attacks on Tamil labourers and Ayyappa devotees in Kerala, and similar targeting of Malayalees and their shops and business establishments in Tamil Nadu. We appeal to common people in both states to resist forces that are fishing in the troubled waters and fuelling discord among people who have a long history of living in harmony.

Table of Contents

1. ‘Liberation’ of Libya: Challenges for the Arab Spring and American Autumn
2. Scrap AFSPA! End the Repressive Rule of Armed Forces in the North East and Kashmir!

3. Occupy Wall Street: Revolt of the Ninety Nine Per Cent

4. Dethrone UPA Scamsters, Unmask NDA Pretenders: Intensify the Battle against Corruption

5. Bharat Sanchar Nigam limited (BSNL): Grave Yard For Workers

6. People’s Rights Over People’s Resources! Left Resurgence Through People’s Resistance!

7. Maruti Workers’ Strike

8. New Mining (MMDR) Bill: Promoting ‘Profit-Sharing’ or Land Grab?

9. Communal Violence Bill

10. Obituary: Gursharan Singh

International

‘Liberation’ of Libya: Challenges for the Arab Spring and American Autumn

- ML Update, 25 – 31 October, 2011.

It was Iraq in 2006. It is Libya today in 2011. In 2006 Bush Administration had celebrated the conquest of Iraq by exhibiting the mutilated body of Saddam Hussein as a prized trophy. The spectacle of celebration of Libya’s ‘liberation’ is turning out to be remarkably similar. On 20 October 2011 the world came to know about the ruthless elimination of Libya’s deposed ruler Muammar Gaddafi. He was captured alive – and unlike in the Saddam case there was no pretence of a trial – only to be murdered brutally and his blood-streaked body was put on display in a commercial freezer at a shopping centre in Misrata town. Around the same tIme his son Mutassim was also captured and killed in Sirte, reportedly the last stronghold of the Gaddafi regime. While Obama Administration and NATO immediately hailed the ‘liberation’ of Libya, American and French flags could be seen being waved on Libya’s streets alongside Libyan flags.

It is indeed a queer irony of history. On the one hand, the Arab Spring that had started in Egypt and brought an end to the three-decade-old reign of Hosni Mubarak has reached the American soil in the form of the Occupy Wall Street movement, on the other hand the US-NATO war campaign is desperately trying to subvert and subjugate the Arab Spring to its strategic objectives and calculations. Libya is strategically no less important than Iraq – both for its oil reserves and its standing as the geo-political gateway of Africa. The post-Gaddafi transition in Libya will be as messy as post-Saddam Iraq providing enough opportunities to the US and other NATO powers to tighten their grip on Libya and use it as a launching pad for a veritable invasion of Africa and for toppling other regimes in the Middle-East.

There can of course be no denying the fact that in recent years the Gaddafi regime in Libya, like the Saddam regime in Iraq, had lost its legitimacy and momentum. There was a period in the 1970s and 1980s when Gaddafi led the building of modern Libya – he nationalized the oil economy in this former British colony, built the infrastructure of a modern country, stood by Palestine against Zionist aggression and occupation, and extended full support to the anti-colonial anti-racist assertion all over Africa. But over the years Gaddafi earned increasing notoriety as a ruthless dictator. Meanwhile, the sanctions imposed in the wake of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing incident (in which Libya was falsely blamed) had also crippled the Libyan economy considerably. In the wake of the collapse of the USSR and more recently, the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, Gaddafi was known to have developed a working relationship with Britain and other Western powers perhaps in the vain hope that Libya would be left alone.

Mired militarily in Afghanistan and Iraq, and faced with a stubborn recession at home, the US has been looking for a different tactic to cater to its strategy of global domination. It has chosen to ride piggyback on the Arab Spring. Using the local resistance and opposition to dictatorial and unpopular regimes in the Middle-East, the US is seeking to effect regime changes and acquire greater economic and political control over the process of transition. The tactic seems to have worked quite effectively so far in Libya. Apart from gaining control over oil and gas and other key natural resources including land, the US also looks to counter the growing economic presence of China in Africa. It is well known that while the US is busy spreading its military tentacles all over the world, China has deepened its economic role in Africa through growing infrastructure projects and other related investments.

The ‘liberation’ of Libya would surely encourage the US to intensify its scramble for Africa. Towards the end of the second term of Bush Presidency, the US had established a unified military command called AFRICOM to direct US’ military role for all the 54 countries of Africa. Fully operational since 1 October 2008, AFRICOM is aimed at protecting US national interests ‘from transnational threats emanating from Africa’ and remaining ever prepared ‘to prevail against any individual or organization that poses a threat to the United States, our national interests, or our allies and partners’. With Libya secured, the US is already busy strengthening its military role in Africa in the garb of ‘humanitarian intervention’ and ‘peaceful engagement’ in countries like Congo, Uganda, recently bifurcated Sudan and several other African countries.

This US-NATO game plan clearly poses a frontal challenge to the spirit of both Arab Spring as well as American Autumn. While the Arab people want to run their countries independently and democratically, the Occupy Wall Street movement has come out against both corporate greed and plunder and US military bases and interventions across the world. The OWS movement is informed by a painful realization that the working people of the US are reeling under the burden of not just economic recession and enormous bailout packages handed out to Wall Street but also the crushing weight of the Empire what with the growing cost of US military expeditions the world over. The spirit of the OWS movement is thus directed as much against Wall Street as the Pentagon. But while acknowledging the frustration of the American people and the stubbornness of the recession, the Obama Administration continues to fuel the US war machine. The democratic aspiration underlying the Arab Spring and the American Autumn will therefore have to squarely challenge the US imperialism’s entire design of global domination.

Condemn the Heinous Killing of Muammar Gaddafi

(Party General Secretary’s statement – 21 Oct)

Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has been killed at the hands of NATO-backed fighters. Reportedly, he offered no resistance when discovered in hiding, and even requested his captors not to shoot. Yet he was shot dead in cold blood.

It is ironic that such a blatant war crime is being welcomed by the imperialist US and its allies, as a harbinger of democracy in Libya! The US-NATO aggression on Libya is yet another instance when the imperialist quest for oil and strategic dominance in the region is being dressed up as an altruistic support for democratic regime-change.

After its costly military misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US is trying a new tactic in Libya to usurp the spirit of the Arab Spring, capture precious resources like oil and strengthen its geo-political stranglehold in this region of strategic importance. The US-NATO gameplan in Libya must be condemned and resisted as strongly as the whole world has rejected the US-led war, occupation and intervention elsewhere in the world.

Struggles in India

Scrap AFSPA! End the Repressive Rule of Armed Forces in the North East and Kashmir!

- ML Update, 1-7 November, 2011.

On November 2, 11 years back, a young woman in Manipur, disturbed by the terrible Malom massacre in which the Assam Rifles killed 14 civilians, went on a hunger-fast in mourning and protest. Some days later, on November 5, she decided to begin an indefinite fast – to be broken only when the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958 (AFSPA) – instrument of the humiliation and repression imposed on Manipur and the North East – was scrapped.

The writ of AFSPA runs in most of the North East states, as well as in Kashmir – in all regions where there is heavy deployment of armed forces in the name of combating insurgency. The very presence of such huge contingents of armed forces in civilian areas, of course, brings severe repression and rights violations in its wake. What the AFSPA does is to provide a cloak of impunity to the armed forces in case of any act of violence meted out by them to civilians. It gives the armed forces a licence to kill civilians on ‘suspicion’, and it protects the armed forces from prosecution in case of any such acts of violence on civilians.

Irom Sharmila has been virtually imprisoned in hospital in Imphal, to prevent her ongoing fast from reaching the national capital and generating greater awareness among the general public and pressure on the central government. In 2004, following the rape and murder of a young woman, Thangjam Manorama, by jawans of the Assam Rifles, a huge protest movement erupted on the streets of Manipur. The Meira Paibi women of Manipur protested without clothes outside the army headquarters in Imphal, with banners saying, ‘Indian Army Rape Us.’ In an effort to contain those protests, the UPA Government set up the Justice Jeevan Reddy committee to look into the AFSPA.

The Jeevan Reddy Committee did recommend that the AFSPA be scrapped. But the UPA Government has taken no action on that recommendation. Even now, as the support for Sharmila’s fast and the demand for scrapping AFSPA has gained momentum, the UPA Government continues to say that a ‘consensus’ is required in order to heed the demand. In other words, by ‘consensus’ the Government means that the Army itself must be willing to do away with the AFSPA! The Government ought to ensure that its laws and its armed forces do not overstep the constitutional boundaries. Instead the Government is retaining the AFSPA – a blatant violation of all constitutionally guaranteed civil rights – and justifying it in the name of the Army’s own sentiments and opinions!

In Kashmir, in the wake of an uproar over the discovery of over 2000 mass graves in which it is suspected that victims of custodial ‘disappearances’ lie buried, and an incident of custodial killing of a worker of the ruling National Conference party, the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has offered to lift AFSPA from some of areas of Kashmir. This is a highly inadequate offer. Not only must the AFSPA be scrapped since its very existence is in violation of constitutional principles; in both Kashmir and the North East, the culture of impunity must be ended and security personnel responsible for custodial or fake ‘encounter’ killings of civilians must be brought to book.

As we salute the courageous struggle of Irom Sharmila and express solidarity with her ongoing fast, we must demand the immediate scrapping of AFSPA. The scrapping of AFSPA can only be a first step in restoring peace and justice to the North East and Kashmir. The truth about custodial disappearances, rapes and ‘encounter’ killings must be established and the guilty punished. And above all, the army deployment in civilian areas must be withdrawn so that the people of these regions can breathe free and without fear.

International

Occupy Wall Street: Revolt of the Ninety Nine Per Cent

- Liberation, November, 2011.

After the Arab Spring and (South) European Summer, now it is the turn of American Autumn to unfurl the banner of resistance. The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) or the “99 per cent” movement (a reference to the deprived Americans who find the going increasingly tough even as the top 1 per cent control 40 percent of US wealth) is fighting, in the words of its website, “against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations. Inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Spain, Greece, Italy and the UK, it aims to expose how the richest 1% of people who are writing the rules of the global economy are imposing an agenda of neoliberalism and economic inequality that is foreclosing our future.”

The protest was not planned by any political party or group, nor was it proposed by some charismatic personality. It had its origin in a suggestion mooted by a Canadian anti-consumerist online magazine that was endorsed by a group of computer hackers and then spread via Twitter and Facebook across America. The whole thing is run by consensus through a loose, horizontal system comprising a General Assembly, a number of Working/Volunteer Groups and a Direct Action Committee comprising, for the most part, the original organizers of the protest and other full-time activists.

Given the fact that both Republicans and Democrats coddle Wall Street and rely on campaign contributions from top corporate honchos, and with hardly any organised Left or consistently democratic political formation in sight, it is but natural that any genuine mass struggle against corporate power in the US would be avowedly independent, non-party (and also non-political, as many participants in the current movement insist). The spontaneous evolution from grassroots, the broad-based non-party character and the method of direct democracy have no doubt helped earn the trust of people from myriad political/apolitical trends and ensured their active and energetic participation.

At the same time, in the absence of a well-knit and ideologically coherent leading body the OWS runs the risk of losing focus, failing to formulate specific demands and appropriate policies at different junctures. Thus it is that the otherwise excellent Declaration of the New York City General Assembly does identify the class enemy – which by itself is a very big thing, particularly in the American context – and vividly expresses the grievances of broadest cross-sections of people; but does not specify any immediate demands (say higher taxes on the rich or a financial transactions tax or a cap on executive pay) nor declare how, through which steps or measures, the angry protesters propose to achieve their goal.

However, one should understand “the inevitable confusion of the first start” and “give the movement time to consolidate”, as Frederick Engels advised a comrade in New York way back in 1886, when the American working class was embarking on the path of organised agitation. Today’s multi-class popular struggle too is young and unique and needs time to learn from experience. We have reason to be hopeful, for the OWS has already proved itself the most sustained popular agitation since the one against Vietnam War and earned the support, according to a Time poll, of some 79% of the people of America and evoked tremendous international response.

Whatever be the immediate outcome of this particular battle, with the economic outlook darkening further the war will rage more fiercely on. Let us express warm solidarity to the American “99 per cent” exactly the way the people in Italy, Greece and other countries have done – by intensifying our own ongoing battle against our increasingly unjust social order.

Struggles in India

Dethrone UPA Scamsters, Unmask NDA Pretenders: Intensify the Battle against Corruption

- Liberation, November, 2011.

With Finance Minister (FM) Pranab Mukherjee formally distancing himself from the March 25, 2011 note sent by his ministry holding former FM P Chidambaram responsible for not stopping the 2G scam, Chidambaram has described the whole thing as a closed chapter. But the Finance Ministry note and Pranab Mukherjee’s subsequent clarification has not only made Chidambaram’s culpability clear but also exposed the complicity of the entire government in the scam as well as in all the ugly cover-up bids that have followed. Pranab Mukherjee has described his ministry’s note as nothing short of an inter-ministerial background paper based on inputs from the law ministry as well as the prime minister’s office PMO even though he says he does not agree to all the inferences contained in the note.

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) ministers know that they must swim or sink together and so it is not difficult to understand how the instinct of political survival has prevailed over both Mukherjee and Chidambaram prompting them to reach a truce. But the Finance Ministry’s note does not disappear with the Finance Minister personally distancing himself from some of the observations and inferences. From the day the lids blew off the 2G scam, anybody familiar with the parliamentary mode of governance could guess that a scam of that magnitude involving such a key sector and major players could not just be a matter of omission or commission by just the telecom minister alone. It could only be a case of ‘collective responsibility’, the cardinal principle that is so often invoked by governments in parliamentary democracy.

Manmohan Singh always knew that action against any individual minister would trigger a chain reaction. That is why he delayed taking action against A Raja for as long as he could. With Raja in jail, Dayanidhi Maran, his predecessor in the telecom ministry has already followed suit, and whatever Mr. Pranab Mukherjee may now say in defence of his ‘valued colleague’ Chidambaram, we all know it very well that A Raja has also been insisting that Chidambaram be summoned as a witness! Manmohan Singh and his ministers may now bend all rules and subvert all norms of propriety to save their skin, but as far as public perception is concerned the Congress party and the UPA government just cannot go out of the coverage area of the tainted network of 2G scam.

Even as prices soar and scams multiply under the UPA regime, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) is making a desperate bid to regain power. While Narendra Modi, the director of the 2002 Gujarat genocide, now talks of ‘Sadbhavna Mission’, Advani is on a yatra for ‘clean politics’ even as two BJP chief ministers have had to resign in the wake of disclosure of massive scams, one of whom is now in jail.

Bihar chief minister (CM) Nitish Kumar flagged off Advani’s rath from Bihar. It is a grand convergence of political opportunism – while Advani seeks to appropriate the legacy of Jayprakash Narain by launching his yatra on JP’s birthday from his place of birth, Nitish Kumar sees this as an opportunity to project himself as an anti-corruption crusader and push up his brand value within National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

This is an outright mockery of the legacy of the 1974 JP movement and an insult to the spirit of the ongoing anti-corruption movement of the Indian people. The JP movement was about dethroning the corrupt and not replacing one set of corrupt with another. BJP’s former Karnataka CM Yeddyurappa has been arrested even in the midst of Advani’s ‘anti-corruption’ yatra. And before Nitish Kumar certifies Advani’s mission of ‘clean politics’ he owes an answer to the people of Bihar and India about the credentials of his own government. The treasury fraud has grown to Rs 16,000 crore and the Bihar Industrial Area Development Authority (BIADA) land allotment scam has just hinted at the kind of corruption and nepotism that is thriving under Nitish Kumar.

While intensifying the battle against the scamsters of UPA, consistent fighters against corruption will also have to reject the BJP-NDA politics of pretension and hypocrisy with the contempt it deserves.

Politics in India

Bharat Sanchar Nigam limited (BSNL): Grave Yard For Workers

- Liberation, November, 2011.

Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Kapil Sibal, a staunch proponent of no-loss theory vis-à-vis the 2G scam, has unveiled the New Telecom Policy (NTP) 2011. This has come out in the midst of charges against the erstwhile Finance Minister P Chidambaram for his complicity in 2G scam, differences within the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) cabinet on the issue and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raids in the former Information Technology (IT) minister Dayanidhi Maran’s houses and offices. The policy’s rhetoric about ‘maximizing public good’, ‘enhancing equity and inclusiveness’ and ‘furthering the national development agenda’, however, cannot protect the UPA from the continuing loss of credibility and public anger against the mega scams and cover-ups.

The concluding paragraph of the draft policy, which is available for public feedback, says that ‘direct revenue generation would continue to remain a secondary objective’. Before one could appreciate the UPA policy’s priority for service to the people over revenue, the next sentence promptly hastens to emphasize ‘the predominant role of the private sector’. Thus as a policy, private sector will be boosted to spread its greedy grip on the telecom sector and consequently the government would get no revenue!

In the earlier paragraphs, the policy explains how it intends to tend the private sector by pressing the government into its service, by evolving a framework for finance sector, facilitating access to financial resources on favorable terms and fiscal incentives required by indigenous manufacturers of telecom products and Research and Development (R&D) institutions, promoting domestic production of telephone equipments, providing preferential market access for domestically manufactured telecommunication products including mobile devices, One Nation–One License etc. Now who else can be these ‘domestic’ forces other than Tata and Reliance?

Quite understandably, the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) president is happy about the “declaration that revenue generation will be a secondary objective, and the government’s intention to ‘rationalize’ taxes and levies.” The business interests in the country do not find anything in NTP to raise new concerns and it is a welcome framework for them. The policy promises to abolish national roaming charges for mobile services. If the roaming charges are abolished, the corporates in the telecom sector would lose revenue to the tune of approximately Rs.20,000 crores, so the policy is silent about any time frame for this.

The policy lists the achievement of the earlier telecom policy put forth in 1999. What it avoids to mention is the corporate plunder in the sector in these 11 years of consistent implementation by UPA and National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regimes in the centre. Behind the façade of this declared policy for the telecom sector, the ministry has an undeclared policy for the 3 lakh employees in the government telecom sector, which is being implemented over a period of years. Measures to systematically weaken the Public Sector Unit (PSU) include 7 years delay to allow the PSU in mobile services, abolition of access deficit charges that the private players were paying for the PSU, universal service obligation fund (USO) being stopped. Apart from this, the policy for the work force is being implemented piecemeal, and indirectly, through various dubious methods. These measures together are spelling doom for the livelihood of employees in the government telecom sector.

The 2G scam is notorious for the huge loss to the exchequer. Kanimozhi, Raja, Maran, Chidambaram and Manmohan are implicated in this scam. But in truth they are all guilty of an even bigger crime – of rendering the lives of 3 lakh BSNL employees and their families vulnerable.

BSNL is a disturbing example of how an army of lakhs and lakhs of PSU employees, who are known for their glorious struggles against the anti-worker measures of the different central governments, are facing a large scale assault, which is a culmination of calculated deprivation and denial of their hard-won rights in a phased out manner, which were hardly met by serious protests.

BSNL has entered into an agreement with Swan Telecom, an Anil Ambani group company in 2008 for infrastructure sharing, as soon as it was allocated 2G spectrum. When 2G scam and the cover ups have hit a new low with the UPA government running out of ideas to defend its actions on the issue, a Congress Rajya Sabha MP has recently sent a letter to the UPA government asking how BSNL has entered into an infrastructure sharing contract with Swan Telecom, when the company does not entertain such a contract with any other company. The UPA Government asked for an explanation from the Ministry. The Minister for State Milind Deora has informed the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on September 7, 2011 that it is true that the company has entered such an agreement and that there is no irregularity.

This contract would enable Swan Telecom to use the infrastructure of BSNL which was raised by the sweat and blood of Indian working people over years, pay a meager sum as charges, and mint profits. When competition is God in capitalist society would any company share its infrastructure with a competing company? Would Reliance share its infrastructure with any government company?

This is only one of the examples for the policy pursued by the PSU to augment its growth! Thus the policies only help the private players in the sector and stunt growth of the government company.

The cumulative result is loss, and the employees who are in no way responsible for this loss, have to bear the consequences. If they lost the right to bonus last year, this year medical allowance and LTC are withdrawn. Much more was lost before last year. Every employee would have lost somewhere from Rs.50,000 to Rs.1 lakh by way of delayed implementation of pay revision, promotion etc., and one can compute the amount of money the ministry has denied for the 3 lakh workers together. The management says that it is constrained to take such measures as the company has incurred loss over Rs.6000 crores. When the private sector in the telecom is making huge profit, how come a government company, which has such a mammoth infrastructure, would incur loss? If, as a policy, the company is left to its ruin to facilitate the growth of private sector, what can the government expect other than loss?

Now with the argument of loss, and in the absence any meaningful protest against the anti-workers measures all these years, the management has proposed Voluntary Retirement Service (VRS) for one lakh workers as recommended by Sam Pitroda, PM’s personal advisor. Here too, VRS is projected as a measure to save the company from making further loss, as the company has to pay 46.5% as salary for the employees. The ministry which is working overtime to facilitate the growth of private sector in telecom, is not able to accept the fact of employees are getting pay hike after 6th Pay Commission implementation. It is another issue that even these recommendations are yet to be completely realized for the BSNL employees. The ministry is thus trying to cover up its pro-corporate measures and its effective implementation of anti-workers measures all in the name of cost to the company.

This latest attack of VRS has shaken the work force and it is very unfortunate that the unions, including the left trade unions (TUs) in BSNL, while taking up token protests, are not gearing up for any meaningful struggle against VRS.

Thus one lakh permanent employment in a PSU, which is a very high order in these days of contractualisation, will be lost in the coming year. This would then be followed by the much-cherished plan of the ministry for calling up investment portals (IPOs) for the company. Subsequently Tatas and Ambanis will plunder the company with a wealth worth more than Rs. 1 lakh crores with no hindrance. The ministry already has a successful example in Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) formerly owned by the government of India, which has disappeared and is now known only as a company of Tata.

The TUs with strength of 3 lakh workers, who have a history of glorious struggles and a readiness to fight, can do wonders in reversing these policies and set a powerful example.

Now it is a question before the TUs in BSNL, whether to discourage the workers by citing examples of Air India, which is not paying its employees their monthly salary, or kindle the fighting spirit of the employees by invoking the example of the young workers of Maruti; whether to drive the employees to fill in the blanks as the management wishes or think of the larger interest of the country; whether to convince the workers about their existential crisis or to inspire them for a struggle against the policies; whether to keep blaming each other or to work for unity and turn the employees’ anger against the Ministry; and whether to resort to token protests or meaningful struggle.

Even at this stage, the work force of the PSU can rise up to save not only their livelihood but also the wealth of the country. One can only hope that the TUs rise to the occasion.

Struggles in India

People’s Rights Over People’s Resources! Left Resurgence Through People’s Resistance!

- Liberation, November, 2011.

(Resolution adopted at All India Convention of Left Coordination (AILC) at Jalandhar, 10-11 October 2011)

A year ago, in August 2010, we, representatives of Communist Party Liberation [CPI(ML)], Communist Party of India Punjab [CPM Punjab], Lal Nishan Party Leninvadi (LNP)-L and Left Coordination Committee (LCC), Kerala, had met in Delhi in an All India Convention and launched the All India Left Coordination (AILC) and adopted the Delhi Declaration as a common charter to advance the Left movement in the country. The Coordination was born out of the widely shared urge for a powerful, united intervention of the Left forces in the burning issues that face the country.

As we look back on the past year, we see that indeed, the AILC has moved forward and has been warmly welcomed by forces of resistance and well-wishers of the Left everywhere. We have held People’s Conventions at different centres in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Punjab, Maharashtra and Kerala, which have drawn a warm response. We have held countrywide protests against repression in Kashmir; sent a solidarity team to the struggle against the nuclear plant at Jaitapur.

In March 2011, following an intense countrywide campaign, we held a massive March to Parliament that expressed people’s anger against the United Progressive alliance (UPA) Government which is responsible for massive scams, soaring prices, widespread unemployment and relentless assaults on democracy. Recently in the month of August AILC has conducted a renewed countrywide campaign against corruption and for democracy.

We meet again here in Jalandhar at a time when the country has just witnessed a huge outpouring of popular anger and protest against corruption during the fast undertaken by Anna Hazare. While the immediate rallying point for this protest was the demand for a Janlokpal Bill, the protests have been fuelled by all-pervasive instances of massive corporate loot and obnoxious mega scams, the ugly cover-up bids and the arrogant and repressive response of the UPA Government. The scams resulting from the implementation of neoliberal policies of liberalization, privatization and globalization are of course no exclusive hallmark of the UPA government but a common denominator of the entire range of bourgeois governments in the country.

As billions of rupees are being plundered by corporates with politicians sharing the spoils, ordinary people reel under relentless price rise. The Government, far from protecting the poor, is hell bent on promoting price rise, and dismantling any fragile existing protection. Corporate plunder of land and minerals also results in massive eviction of peasants and tribals from their land and livelihood, and endangers the country’s food security. People’s protests against corruption, corporate land grab and loot all over the country are being sought to be suppressed with brute force. The recent defeat of the Communist Party of India [CPI(M)] led governments in West Bengal and Kerala, resulting from the stubborn attempts of these governments to implement the neo-liberal course, has further provided an impetus to the ruling classes to launch an all out ideological offensive against the entire left.

However, the rising tide of protests against the corruption, price rise, joblessness caused by liberalization, vindicates the need for a powerful political assertion of the Left. It is a challenge for fighting Left forces to intervene in this situation and work for a powerful resurgence of the Left as the most consistent and comprehensive stream of democratic movement and discourse in the country.

In this backdrop of an all-out offensive by the ruling classes and Central and State governments of every hue on people’s resources, democratic and civil rights, livelihood and survival, the AILC is meeting again at this Convention at Jalandhar. We believe that at this juncture, a powerful all-India assertion of fighting Left forces is called for to give a consistent democratic direction to the people’s awakening and movemental spirit.

On the burning issues that confront the Indian people today, the AILC calls for heightened initiative and vigorous struggles on the following key points:

Resist Corruption and Corporate Plunder:

In the backdrop of huge scams-Commonwealth Games (CWG), 2G, Krishna Godavari (KG Basin), Adarsh (housing scandal), Bellary (illegal mining) – we are witnessing a welcome popular upsurge against corruption. Three chief ministers – two from the BJP and one from the Congress – have already had to resign. Two former central ministers and two more MPs are in jail. The complicity of former finance minister (currently minister of home affairs) P Chidambaram in the 2G scam has been hinted by none other than the current Finance Minister. In the wake of all these disclosures, this government has no moral right or political credibility to remain in power. It should immediately resign and seek fresh mandate from the people.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is making a shameless attempt to cash in on the anti-corruption anger prevailing in the country and Advani is once again riding on his rath, this time from the birthplace of Jaya Parakash Narayan (JP) on his birth anniversary, and Nitish Kumar, chief minister of Bihar whose government too stands implicated in several major scams including a mammoth treasury fraud and a major land allotment scam is flagging off Advani’s yatra. This is a mockery of the spirit of both the JP movement of the 1970s and the prevalent anti-corruption upsurge of the Indian people. This convention denounces this crude and farcical BJP/ National Democratic Alliance (NDA) attempt to play the anti-corruption card and calls upon the people to reject both UPA and NDA on the issue of corruption, corporate plunder and anti-people neo-liberal policies.

The UPA Government’s draft Lokpal Bill is a joke, and its arrogant denial of scams and repression on anti-corruption protests proves that it has no intention of combating corruption. This Convention respects the people’s aspirations for a genuine anti-corruption Lokpal that can effectively ensure impartial investigation, exposure and prosecution of scams involving government personnel at every level from the lowest officials to the Prime Minister (PM), corporate houses as well as NGOs that indulge in corrupt practices.

At the same time, this Convention holds that the biggest instances of scams – 2G, mining and land scams, KG basin gas scam etc – all are a result of the neo-liberal policies that promote corporate plunder of the country’s precious resources. Policies of privatization hand over the precious resources like land, minerals, forests, water, spectrum etc. along with the huge infrastructure built and developed by the public sector, which belong to India and its people, to plundering, profit-hungry corporations. In the process, the country’s exchequer is looted, environment destroyed, and people robbed of land and livelihood. Every day, more than Rs 250 crore is gifted away to super-rich corporates in the name of tax waivers etc; and the same amount bleeds away daily through black money. Corrupt, pro-corporate policies rob us of these massive funds that could have been spent on public welfare such as education, health and food security that is desperately needed by people.

This Convention calls for an effective anti-corruption legislation that can ensure punitive and deterrent action against the corrupt at all levels; and that can effectively hit at the nexus between corrupt corporations, politicians and bureaucracy! The legislation must cover all posts from the patwari to the PM and all institutions from the army and the judiciary to the bureaucracy and Non Governmental Organizations ( NGOs). To hit at the root of growing corruption, this Convention calls for a sustained campaign and agitation to reverse the policy regime that promotes corruption and corporate plunder!

Resist Land Grab, Demand Protection of Agricultural and Forest Land and Coastal and Fishing Zones!

All over the country, land is being forcibly acquired in the name of development, robbing peasants and tribals of their means of survival. Very often this land is handed over to private corporations at throwaway prices, while land losers suffer displacement and impoverishment. Protests against land grab have been met with batons and bullets in many places. But land grab and repression have emerged as a major political issue, with parties facing electoral losses as a result, and even courts being compelled to take a note of the injustice being meted out to land losers. These pressures have forced the UPA Government to come up with the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Bill 2011 to replace the notorious 1894 Land Acquisition Act.

But the LARR Bill is nothing but a document to legalise land grab. If enacted in its present form, it would be of no use to prevent land grab in Singur, Nandigram, Jaitapur, POSCO or any of the recent or ongoing instances. Not only does it not have any will to prevent forcible land acquisition or protect fertile and forest land; its provisions for compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement are also extremely weak and inadequate.

This Convention calls for a countrywide assertion to reject the LARR Bill 2011, and demand a fresh legislation that will have adequate provisions to impose severe restrictions and safeguards against indiscriminate acquisition or purchase of fertile and forest land; prevent any forcible land grab (whether through acquisition or purchase) by making people’s informed consent mandatory; preventing any land acquisition for private companies; and ensuring adequate compensation and R&R for land holders as well as affected agricultural labour and other toiling people who lose their livelihood, both in cases of land purchased by private companies or land acquired by the government. Agricultural and forest lands, coastal areas and traditional fishing zones must all be declared out of bounds for acquisition by the corporate or the governments.

This Convention extends full support to the ongoing struggle in Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu against the commissioning of the nuclear power plant. The coastal areas in South India have already experienced the devastation of tsunami and no government can be allowed to invite Fukushima-type disasters on any part of India by reckless installation of nuclear power plants in coastal India. We also express our fullest solidarity with the ongoing struggles against nuclear power and land acquisition in different parts of the country, Jaitapur in Maharashtra and Fatehabad in Haryana being two most prominent examples.

Stop Price Rise:

Prices of food, essential commodities and fuel have been constantly on the rise, imposing an unbearable burden on the common man. The UPA Government for the past several years has been making promises to bring down inflation, but it is impossible to recall an occasion in these years when prices have ever dropped. With petroleum companies announcing a hike in petrol/diesel/kerosene prices every couple of months, the UPA Government tries to take refuge in the claim that global factors are responsible for the rise in prices. Nothing could be a bigger lie. The Government has deregulated prices of petroleum products and has given petroleum companies a free hand to hike prices to further enhance the profit margins; and now it pleads helplessness!

This Convention calls for countrywide protests against price rise, and demands that the UPA Government reverse deregulation, undertake nationalisation of wholesale trade in essential agricultural products, control black-marketeering, hoarding, and forward trading in food products, in order to control the prices of fuel, food and other essential commodities.

Along with food grains and essential items of consumption key services and public goods like education, healthcare and electricity are also becoming increasingly expensive thanks to the policy of privatization and commercialisation of these sectors. This convention strongly rejects this privatization drive and calls for an immediate halt to privatization and commercialization of all essential social services and public goods.

Ensure Food Security, Universalise Public distribution System (PDS):

India has the shameful distinction of being among the countries of the world with the worst record of malnutrition and hunger. As per the ‘Global Hunger Report’ about 20 thousand people in India die due to hunger and malnutrition every month. With rising prices, the ranks of the vulnerable, needy and hungry keep growing. But the UPA Government plays cynical number games to claim that the poverty is on the decline. Recently, the Planning Commission has insulted the poor by telling the Supreme Court that those who consume above Rs 26 per day in rural areas and Rs 32 per day in urban areas are not poor! The UPA Government’s ‘Food Security Bill’ not only fails to expand the existing rations system; it actually takes away several existing provisions! Further, it paves the way for replacing food rations with cash transfers – a move which can only benefit corporate and Multi National Corporations (MNC) retailers.

This Convention demands that the vast majority of India’s population excluding the upper middle class and rich, be entitled to PDS rations. Let us intensify countrywide agitation to demand 50 kg of food grains at subsidised rates, as well as subsidized supply of other essential requirements like dal, cooking oil, vegetables and milk for all such needy households. This convention demands universalisation of PDS and other essential social benefit schemes.

Make Right to Work a Fundamental Right:

Neo-liberalism offered many dreams to India’s youth – but after two decades all these dreams lie shattered, proving to be nothing but a mirage. Liberalised ‘growth’ has proved to be jobless growth, with job cuts and retrenchment galore. Those jobs that have been created are casual, contractual, highly exploitative and insecure and lacking in basic dignity and rights.

This Convention calls upon the country’s students and youth as well as workers to build a sustained movement to demand that the Right to Work be recognized as a fundamental right; that the government put a stop to exploitation of casualised and contract labour and violation of labour laws and ensure equal pay for equal work and fullest democracy at the workplace; and that in case of inability to provide dignified and secure employment, the Government be obligated to pay adequate and reasonable unemployment allowance.

Defend Democracy, Resist Feudal-Mafia Assault and State Repression:

Across the country, we are witnessing a virtual undeclared Emergency. People’s protests against land grab at POSCO, Jaitapur and at several other places in the country are facing severe repression. Activists heading struggles against land grab as well as plundering of forests and minerals; workers leading struggles in factories; agricultural labourers fighting for their genuine demands, dalits opposing social repression, youth agitating for jobs, anti-corruption activists and whistle blowers, human rights defenders – all are being branded as a threat to security, persecuted and put behind bars.

In the name of Operation Green Hunt, hundreds of adivasis are being killed in fake encounters and military operations, in order to facilitate corporate plunder in forest areas. People protesting such repression and plunder are jailed under draconian laws like sedition. In the North East (NE)and Kashmir, draconian laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and Public Safety Act (PSA) amount to virtual army rule. Rapes, massacres and custodial ‘disappearances’ abound in the NE states. Thousands of bodies have recently been unearthed from mass graves in Kashmir – suspected to be victims of custodial killings.

With the ascent of the Trinamool Congress (TMC)-Congress combine to power, there is now a growing assault on Left activists and the social base of the Left movement in West Bengal, including systematic eviction of share-croppers and occupiers of ceiling-surplus and other redistributed land. All over the country leaders and activists of people’s struggles are being systematically harassed and persecuted by the state and also subjected to feudal-mafia assaults, communal-patriarchal violence and organized attacks by the paid hirelings of capital.

The fight for withdrawal of false cases and release of political prisoners and bold mass resistance to every attempt to evict the people from their land and livelihood, in short the defence of democracy and protection of the dignity and rights of the people, has therefore become an urgent task for the Left on all fronts and in all states. This convention fully supports the demands of the working class including the new generation of workers engaged in insecure and low-paid jobs for security, dignity and democracy in the work place and extension of full trade union rights to all sections of workers and employees.

Comrades, we must make sure that we respond promptly and adequately to the challenges of the day. The more we step up our movemental role and initiative for the redressal of people’s problems the more will we be able to reach out to and unite with all genuine and fighting sections of the Left. Intensification of people’s struggle against the ruling classes, their state and the disastrous policies and draconian rule of their governments, and ideological-political struggle against the forces and trends of opportunism, class collaboration and capitulation as well as anarcho-militarism must go hand in hand. The time is absolutely ripe for us to move towards greater mutual cooperation and stronger political intervention. Let the motto of “People’s Rights over People’s Resources!” and Left Resurgence through People’s Resistance!” guide us towards forging closer unity among all fighting Left forces and powerful Left assertion against the ruling class parties of all hues.

Other Resolutions Adopted at the Convention:

1.The global economic crisis of 2008 was caused mainly by the greed and corruption of US financial institutions and corporations. But since the crisis, the corporations which profited from corrupt practices – both in the US and in India too – have gone unpunished and have even prospered further due to government incentives. The burden of the crisis has been outsourced by the US to its working people and to developing countries like India. This Convention welcomes the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement in the US which is a popular expression of protest against the citadel of US capitalism and imperialism. In India, too, the UPA Government’s policies have invited the global economic crisis onto Indian soil, resulting in ever-rising prices and slashing of jobs in many sectors. This Convention calls for intensified protest against the UPA Government’s policies which are forcing Indians to bear the burden of the US crisis.

2.This Convention calls for countrywide protests to expose the hypocrisy of Advani’s rath yatra and its claims of championing the values of anti-corruption and democracy. The BJP-NDA Governments all over the country are neck-deep in corruption and notorious for perpetrating communal genocide and brutal repression. This Convention expresses the confidence that the people of the country will reject Advani’s hypocrisy and hate-mongering.

3.This Convention expresses concern about the growing communal violence in the country, and condemns the recent instances at Bharatpur (Rajasthan) and Rudrapur (Uttarakhand). Holding the respective state governments responsible for this violence, this Convention demands compensation and security for the minorities who were at the receiving end, and punishment to the communal forces who were the perpetrators. This Convention demands immediate release of Sanjeev Bhatt, the Gujarat cop who blew the whistle and gave evidence of Narendra Modi’s direct role in communal genocide and fake encounters.

4.This Convention condemns the police firing on the jute farmers demonstrating for remunerative prices in Assam, in which four farmers were killed. This Convention also condemns the repression on farmers protesting against corporate land grab at Gobindpura, Punjab. This Convention demands punishment for the police personnel responsible for such repression on unarmed protesters, speedy redressal of the Assam jute growers’ grievances and a stop to forced land acquisition in Punjab.

5.This Convention demands the constitution of a Second State Reorganisation Commission to ensure a speedy and sympathetic resolution to the ongoing struggles for separate statehood at Telangana and Gorkhaland.

6.This Convention demands the swift fulfillment of the abandoned agenda of land reforms all over the country, and a guarantee of homestead land for all agricultural labourers, plantation workers working in tea gardens and cinchona and rubber plantations, and forest settlements.

7.This Convention resolves that the AILC will hold nationwide protests/demonstrations/rallies/dharnas during November-December 2011 on the issues of price rise, corruption, land grab, unemployment, food security, and state repression and take initiative to organize public opinion to stall any anti-people legislation during the forthcoming winter session of Parliament. In this direction, the AILC will extend full support to the initiatives of mass, class and sectional organisations of peasants, workers, women, student and youth.

Struggles in India

Maruti Workers’ Strike

- Liberation, November, 2011.

The prolonged lockout at the Maruti’s Manesar plant had ended on October 1 with a setback for the workers. In the agreement with the management, the workers agreed to sign the thoroughly illegal ‘Good Conduct bond’ that the management imposed as condition for entering the factory. The agreement obligated the management to take back the workers who were suspended or terminated. However, soon after, the management violated its side of the bargain, refusing to take back around a 1000 contract workers and several suspended permanent workers. Once again, the workers rose up in protest. This time, the workers went on strike, supported by comrades at the Suzuki Powertrain India Ltd.; Suzuki Motorcycle India Ltd., and other nearby Maruti-Suzuki plants.

Striking workers have been subjected to intimidation by goons sponsored by one of the contractors. The contractor’s men fired in the air and threw broken bottles at the workers. Though the main demand this time hinges on reinstatement of the workers, the matter at the core of the Maruti workers’ struggle is their legally mandated right to form a union of their own choice. And this question of industrial democracy touches a chord with workers not just in Manesar and Gurgaon, but the entire automobile industry and in fact the entire working class all over the country.

As the workers confront the Maruti management with its blatant violations of labour laws, Maruti has resorted to the usual arm-twisting and threats. A la Tata Nano, Maruti too hinted that they might pack their bags from Haryana and head for that dictatorial paradise – Modi’s Gujarat! The attitude of corporations pampered by governments is: ‘a subjugated populace and workforce (in addition to all kinds of freebies) is our basic requirement; fail to deliver on these and we will leave.’ In turn, governments at the states and Centre act as though the suspension of democracy is the birthright of the corporations and the very foundation of ‘investment.’ Even as the Maruti struggle is ongoing, the Prime Minister announced that the “government is working on streamlining labour laws.” The PM said, “There is a view that the labour laws are too rigid and are a constraint on our growth impulses,” and stressed that there is “a need to strike a balance between the needs of a growing economy and interest of the workers.” In other words, what the PM wants to do is to get rid of the very same labour laws which managements are currently violating!

A solidarity team of the Delhi State Committee of CPI(ML) comprising State Secretary Sanjay Sharma, All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) leader Santosh Roy, VKS Gautam and Mathura Paswan, All India Students Association (AISA) leader Sandeep Singh and Uma Gupta of Left and Democratic Teachers’ Federation (LDTF), Delhi University visited the striking Maruti workers on 12 October. Teachers of Delhi University visited the workers again, and sent a memorandum to the Haryana CM demanding that rights of the workers be upheld, and Maruti management be penalised for violating labour laws. On 15 October, CPI(ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya visited and addressed the striking workers. Student activists consistently joined the workers’ rallies at Manesar in large numbers, and mobilised support for the workers in universities.

In the name of ‘balance’ between the needs of growth and the interests of farmers, the UPA Government is set on legalising land grab. In the name of ‘balancing’ the interests of ‘growth’ and workers, the Government is seeking to jettison the hard won rights and liberties of workers.

As we go to press, the workers strike appears to be nearing its end. However, the management is still refusing to reinstate several of the leading workers’ activists. And the issue of recognition of the independent union is one that is going to continue to simmer even after this particular strike ends.

Politics in India

New Mining (MMDR) Bill: Promoting ‘Profit-Sharing’ or Land Grab?

- Radhika Krishnan, Liberation, November, 2011.

India’s mining sector is notorious as the source of some of the country’s biggest corruption scandals. Illegal mining activity and blatant violation of existing legislations is rampant in the mineral-rich areas of several states. Moreover, mining companies wishing to acquire land for new projects are facing strong opposition from local communities. It is in this context that the UPA government’s Union Cabinet has approved the new Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Bill (MMDR Bill) 2011. This bill, which intends to replace the existing MMDR Act 1957, is an attempt to institutionalise the vision of the National Mineral Policy (NMP) 2008.

The MMDR 2011’s ‘profit-sharing’ clause has drawn outraged protest from the mining sector. The bill proposes that in addition to the existing structure of taxation and royalties, coal miners will have to part with 26 per cent of their profits, and in the case of other mining activities, companies will have to pay an amount equivalent to the royalties they currently pay to the state government. All this will get deposited to the newly formed district-level ‘Mineral Foundations’. Therefore, the MMDR envisages a mechanism wherein a share of profits and royalties from mining activity could be shared with the local communities who have been displaced, or used for development of local infrastructure. For super-rich mining corporations, this sharing of profits is obviously complete anathema and their stocks in the share market immediately fell in an orchestrated reaction and protest.

In the midst of the furore that the MMDR 2011 has created in the mining sector, it is important to note that the bill finally approved by the Cabinet (according to which non-coal miners have to pay an amount equal to royalty) is a diluted version of the original draft, which had recommended that all mining companies (and not just coal miners) should share 26% of their profits with the local community as annual compensation. Royalty rates vary from mineral to mineral – they are either calculated on a per tonne basis, or else they are a fixed percentage (ranging from 0.2% to 20%) of the total value of minerals mined. Currently, state governments charge 10% royalties on total value of iron ore mined, while the royalties for zinc, copper, lead and bauxite are 8%, 4.2%, 7% and 0.5% respectively. In any case, royalties extracted by the state government are most often not a substantial proportion of the total profits.

It is well-known that coal mining is still predominantly in the public sector, while mining of other minerals such as iron ore and bauxite has been rapidly privatized. Clearly, the Tatas, the Jindals and other private players like the Reddy brothers, who have huge stakes in the mining sector, have pressurized the UPA to reduce the amount they have to pay as benefits to the local community. What we are seeing is yet another evidence of the State policy to “nationalize the losses and privatize the profits”! How else can one explain why the new legislation stipulating profit sharing will apply only to coal and not to other minerals dominated by private sector miners?

Even before the proposed bill gets tabled in the Parliament, there are ample indications that yet more concessions for the mining sector is in the pipeline. Back in June 2011, Reuters had reported a ‘Ministry source’ as having assured the mining industry that while the bill is likely to retain a reference to 26 per cent as a ‘ballpark’ figure, it would include a clause that would allow companies to approach the government for a “concession”! In other words, the final legislation might provide a loophole wherein industry-friendly governments can reduce or waive off the 26% profit-sharing clause! In the days to come, one will have to keep a close watch to see what the final MMDR has in store.

There is absolutely no doubt that mining companies make obscenely high profits, which certainly do not reach the people who live in mineral-rich areas. Therefore, any step towards changing this situation is welcome. However, one also needs to understand what ‘profit-sharing’ will actually mean. Essentially, it will mean more money available for the state to spend for ‘local infrastructure’ like hospitals and schools – basic needs that the state should anyway be providing. After all, people should not have to give up what little they do have (homes, land, livelihood) in order to access these basic facilities! It might also mean some money or ‘remuneration’ for people as compensation for having lost their only source of livelihood. Is this what the people in mineral-rich areas really want? Are they only demanding a share of profits?

In Jagatsinghpur for instance, the main concern is the loss of livelihood that will happen if the POSCO project comes up. The people of Jagatsinghpur know full well that “profit sharing” will not address this concern; it will not provide jobs or an alternative livelihood. It is precisely for this reason that people in several mineral-rich areas in Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh have rejected “lucrative” compensation packages that even offer company shares.

In designing a mineral policy for the entire country, it is important to ask: will state policy be decided by corporate profits, or by the larger interests of the people? Today, there is an urgent need to rethink our mineral policy – how much to mine, where to mine and more importantly where not to mine, how to utilise our mineral resources, whether or not to export minerals, and so on. These questions cannot be given short shrift by merely talking about ‘profit-sharing’. And unfortunately, this is exactly what the MMDR has ended up doing.

The UPA is crystal clear about why the new MMDR 2011, with the profit-sharing clause, is needed – Coal minister Prakash Jaiswal says that the new bill is all about “speeding” up the land acquisition process! The spectre of the prolonged and spirited resistance to POSCO and other projects has clearly forced the UPA to think of new methods to defuse public anger against mining projects, and the MMDR 2011 is the result. Several provisions of the MMDR make the intentions of the UPA even clearer. According to the MMDR 2011, mining leases as large as 100 square kilometers can be granted to a company and the time frame for granting various permissions has been reduced. Gram sabha “consultation”, and not approval, will be mandatory in tribal areas before mining leases are allotted.

The NMP 2008 advocated pro-industry concepts of ‘seamless transfer’, ‘security of tenure’ and ‘voluntary compliance’. MMDR 2011 is the logical culmination of the NMP 2008, which promotes large-scale mining, shifts the balance in favour of the private sector and uses all social and environmental jargons while deliberately leaving the mechanism to tackle them open-ended and vague.

Struggles in the World

Communal Violence Bill

- Liberation, November, 2011.

The Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparation) Bill 2011 prepared by the NAC has been sharply attacked by the BJP, on the grounds that it is biased against the majority community. Nitish Kumar of the NDA and Mamata Banerjee have also attacked it on the pretext that it violates the federal rights of states. Are these accusations justified?

Unlike previous versions, this Bill clearly defines the duties of public servants to prevent communal violence, protect the vulnerable community, and take action against perpetrators. It spells out punishments for public servants who fail in these duties. The Bill also spells out the rehabilitation and reparation provisions to which the victims of communal violence are entitled. It provides for the setting of National and State-level Authorities to monitor the official response in instances of communal violence.

Is the Bill divisive? Does it paint the majority community alone as perpetrators of violence? The BJP is alleging this on the basis that the Bill defines the “group” requiring protection as “a religious or linguistic minority, in any State in the Union of India, or Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.” Does this amount to discrimination against the majority?

Regarding rehabilitation, reparation, compensation, etc, the Bill makes no distinction between majority and minority – a victim of any community is entitled to the same provisions. However, the strict provisions of the Bill governing the conduct of public servants during communal violence apply only in case the victims belong to the “group” – i.e the linguistic/religious minority or SC/ST group. Why is this necessary?

Clearly, because the Bill makes the assumption (based on the experience of communal violence in India) that in cases where the perpetrators belong to the minority, or victims are of the majority community, the public servants, police etc have no bias and will perform their duty.

The strength of this Bill is that it recognizes the reality that in independent India, it is the minority that is targeted in most organized acts of communal violence. This does not mean that Muslims/Christians have never been or can never be guilty of violence against Hindus. But the evidence shows that although the Muslims and Christians represent a minority in society, they constitute a majority of the victims in cases of communal violence, and they bear the brunt of biases within political leadership, police and bureaucracy. To recognize this truth is not be biased or divisive. The SC/ST Act and the Domestic Violence Act are instances of laws that recognize that certain communities are vulnerable of targeted violence and require protection. Effective protection is possible only if the truth is recognized.

The Bill has already been amended on the few points where it could be said to be out of sync with federal principles. As of now, the Bill has no provisions allowing the Central Government to interfere in the administrative or policing functions of state governments. Even the National Authority has only recommendatory powers. State governments can reject these recommendations – but have to put such rejection on record.

At the recent National Integration Council (NIC) meeting, BJP’s aggressive attack on the Bill was predictable. NDA leaders like Nitish Kumar and even the UPA’s Mamata Banerjee have also opposed the Bill on the pretext of ‘federalism.’ But what is interesting is that the ruling Congress and other avowedly ‘secular’ ruling class parties did not defend the Bill!

The vacillation of the Congress is quite characteristic – how can the party which allowed Babri demolition and failed to take any punitive action against Modi summon the political will and legislative courage to push through such a bill which recognises targeted communal violence as a socio-political reality of India?

The motivated propaganda of communal forces against the Bill and vacillation of the Congress must be exposed and the secular and democratic forces need to strive to get the Bill passed without dilution.

However, mere enactment of the Bill is not enough. The instance of the SC/ST Atrocities Act 1989 should be remembered. The worst attacks on dalits and adivasis have taken place in the last two decades after the Act came into being. Mayawati-ruled UP has seen a deliberate dilution or suspension of the act and a palpable increase in the incidence of atrocities on dalits. This experience is a reminder that legislative measures are meaningful only to the extent there is mobilisation and assertion on the ground. Still, the enactment of a strong Bill to prevent Communal Violence may generate some deterrent effect, and will also no doubt strengthen the hands of those resisting communal violence on the ground.

Obituary

Gursharan Singh

- Liberation, November, 2011.

Liberation salutes Comrade Gursharan Singh, revolutionary playwright and theatre-person, who passed away on 27 September at the age of 82 after a long illness.

Gursharan Singh joined the communist party at the age of 16 and remained committed to communist values the rest of his life. He took theatre to the people, performing plays in villages, public squares, streets and towns with minimal equipment. His plays challenged feudal oppression, capitalist plunder, state repression and imperialism.

He played a major role in the formation of Jan Sanskriti Manch (JSM), and was elected its founding President in the founding conference of JSM in October 1985.

Gursharan Singh fearlessly performed plays committed to Bhagat Singh’s values, at the height of the separatist frenzy in Punjab. He worked closely with trade unions, a range of people’s movements, and civil liberties movements. Jailed during the Emergency, he became a symbol of the campaign against fake encounters and assassination of revolutionaries. His home was always a shelter for communist activists. He was a member of the national advisory board of the Indian People’s Front (IPF).

The 150 or so plays that he scripted and directed addressed political and social issues from a revolutionary perspective. Some of his memorable plays include ‘Baba Bolta Hai’, ‘Jangiram ki Haveli’ and ‘Gaddha.’ After Bant Singh’s limbs were mutilated by feudal forces, his play on the incident was performed in many parts of Punjab.

Comrade Gursharan Singh will remain a model and an inspiration for revolutionary cultural activists.

Long Live Comrade Gursharan Singh!

Table of Contents

1. CPI(ML) Hails People’s Victory on Lokpal Bill

2. Combat Corruption, Protect Land, Defend Democracy

3. Government’s Lokpal Bill: A Farce

4. Corruption and Corporate Loot – Quit India!

5. Scrap LARR Bill 2011 – Protect Agricultural Land By All Means

6. Karnataka: Politics of Money, Mining and Land

7. Grave Findings of Kashmir SHRC

8. 1981/2011 Racism, Injustice and Hypocrisy

9. The Politics of Prakash Jha’s ‘Aarakshan’

Press Release

CPI(ML) Hails People’s Victory on Lokpal Bill,

Calls for Further Struggles to Ensure an

Effective, Transparent and Accountable Lokpal Bill

- Prabhat Kumar, For Central Committee, CPI(ML) Liberation, August 28, 2011.

The CPI(ML) hailed the people’s movement for getting the Parliament to unanimously adopt a sense of the house resolution in favour of setting up Lokayuktas in all states; bringing of junior bureaucracy under the purview of the Lokpal; and a citizen’s charter and grievance redressal mechanism. It called for people’s continued vigilance and activism to ensure that Parliament does not backtrack on these principles in the days to come.

However, the fate of many other important provisions of the Lokpal Bill is unclear. In particular, the ruling class parties are yet to come out with a clear stance on the selection process to ensure an independent Lokpal; bringing of PM under the ambit of the Lokpal; allowing Lokpal to investigate the conduct of MPs inside Parliament. Concerns regarding the representation and rights of minorities and deprived groups also need to be taken on board and suitable mechanisms for checks and balances incorporated. The definition of corruption needs to expanded to include undue benefits to private corporations and loss to the exchequer as a result of such benefits and the diversion of funds from special allotment plans for deprived sections. Anti-corruption mechanisms need to cover big-funded NGOs, corporates and media as well, as well as election reform.

The CPI(ML) also stressed that such legal mechanisms could only be a partial measure to address the cancer of corruption. CPI(ML) called upon people of the country to fight for the reversal of policies of liberalization and privatization that are breeding corruption.

Struggles in India

Combat Corruption, Protect Land, Defend Democracy

- Liberation, September, 2011.

In a shameful assault on democracy, the very next day after Independence Day, the Congress-UPA (United Progressive Alliance) Government launched an offensive on citizens’ freedom, and arrested anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare and others. Subsequently, a massive countrywide upsurge against this arrest and crackdown on democratic protest forced the Government not only to release Hazare, but also to give him permission to hold his fast at Ramlila Grounds. People have shown that they have the will to resist repression and defend democracy, and in less than 24 hours, their determination forced a corrupt and repressive Congress-UPA Government to beat a retreat.

The Prime Minister (PM)’s Independence Day speech had already shown the way for this crackdown, by warning against peaceful forms of protest, and branded democratic activists as ‘people who are trying to create disturbances.’ The President’s Independence Eve speech also warned that people’s movements could lead to ‘erosion of credibility and authority’ of Parliament. Earlier, the Home Minister P Chidambaram had argued that since the Lokpal Bill has been tabled in Parliament, any ‘extra-parliamentary protests’ on this issue would be ‘unconstitutional.’ The huge people’s protest that greeted the arrest of Anna Hazare is a signal of how thoroughly the people have rejected such dishonest arguments. The people have made it clear that if anything is unconstitutional and a threat to democracy it is the government’s attempts to muzzle protest, and not people’s movements!

The countrywide resurrection of the anti-corruption movement in August has made it clear that the April ‘upsurge’ was no flash-in-the-pan media-created show. The degree of popular awakening and participation has only increased since April and the farcical way the government went about the whole process of drafting the Lokpal bill – virtually dismissing the joint panel – has only hardened the people’s mood against the corrupt and treacherous powerlords of the discredited UPA regime. It is true that with the Baba Ramdev stream effectively pushed out of reckoning, the RSS network has started throwing its entire weight behind the Anna agitation, and the attitudes and views of many of Team Anna including Anna himself are often contradictory and inconsistent on many integral aspects of democracy or a progressive social vision. But that makes it all the more important for all in the progressive camp to step in with all their might and lead the popular anti-corruption awakening in a consistently democratic direction.

In April, it was the new idea of Lokpal which had captured the imagination of the popular anti-corruption campaign. Now the debate has clearly moved beyond Lokpal. With the government coming out with its own version of a farcical Lokpal bill, the anti-corruption movement has rightly called for its rejection even as debates continue about the preferred kind of Lokpal legislation. There are concerns over the prospect of concentration of too much power in the hands of the proposed ‘Jan Lokpal’, there are also concerns over the JLP bill’s silence over corporate corruption given that corruption today thrives not just under the table in government offices but is fuelled most prominently by the private sector, whether thanks to outright privatisation or through the ubiquitous public-private partnership.

But beyond the specific content of Lokpal legislation, the government has made it into a people versus parliament debate and even some in the Left have fallen for the claim of saving parliament from the people or saving parliamentary democracy from the whims of mobocracy as they would like us to believe. Thus the movement has already progressed from ‘Lokpal’ to ‘Loktantra’ – from the specific turf of an ombudsman to the domain of democracy, be it resisting state repression or asserting the rights of the people’s movement.

Whether one focuses on the issue of corruption or the defence of people’s movement in the face of an overbearing corporate-dominated state and government, it is necessary to emphasise the organic links between the anti-corruption movement and the anti-corporate thrust of a whole range of ongoing people’s struggles. With the rural development ministry releasing the draft of the proposed land acquisition bill, it is also clear that the government is bent upon legalising and accelerating the ongoing corporate war on farmland and forest and tribal-inhabited land. The anti-corruption campaign must therefore seek closer unity with the anti-privatisation struggles of the working class and students as well as ongoing people’s movement in defence of land and livelihood.

The CPI(ML) seeks precisely to emphasise and embody the linkage between the anti-corruption movement and the broader resistance against corporate plunder of productive resources and state-inflicted denial of people’s rights. The August 9 jail bharo agitation and the August 9-12 student-youth day-and-night barricade at Jantar Mantar marked both the culmination of one phase and the beginning of the next phase with the battlecry “Combat Corruption, Protect Land, Defend Democracy.” Let us take this message to every corner of the country and mobilise the masses in their millions to oust the corrupt and authoritarian UPA government and reject and reverse the pro-corporate policies that are daily ravaging the country and the people.

Struggles in India

Government’s Lokpal Bill: A Farce

- Liberation, September, 2011.

Existing investigative agencies such as the CBI and CVC in India are ineffective because in many cases they are subservient to the very same people whom they are expected to investigate. That is why they have been so susceptible to political manipulation and so few cases of scams involving the powerful have ever been punished. The instance of appointment of CVC PJ Thomas showed how the selection process allows the Government to ensure that pliant officials are appointed. The Government’s draft Lokpal Bill will change none of this. The Lokpal members will be selected by a committee in which the majority of representatives are from the Government.

Restricted Scope of Lokpal

If the Government had its way, most of today’s major scams would fall through the gaping holes in the Lokpal’s net. Take the 2G scam: the Lokpal could not investigate it because it would not cover the Prime Minister.

Since the Lokpal cannot investigate the conduct of MPs inside Parliament, it would be unable to investigate cases such as oil pricing, vote on the Nuke Deal, or cash-for-questions scam, whereby the behaviour and positions taken by of MPs inside Parliament is suspected to be influenced by bribes or corporate interests.

The Lokpal could not investigate the Bellary mining, CWG, Adarsh, UP’s CMO or Bihar’s BIADA scams because it would not have power to investigate state government officials, and it has no provision of appointment of Lokayuktas.

It could not even investigate the scams faced by the rural poor in PDS and NREGA because it would have no jurisdiction over lower bureaucracy. It could not investigate the judges PF scam or any of the other scams involving judiciary.

What would be the point of such a Lokpal, which would not be able to investigate or ensure punishment in any of the huge scams which have angered people in recent times or in their daily lives?

PM, Judges Out of Lokpal’s Scope

The Lokpal Bill excludes the PM from the scope of investigation until he demits office. As of now, the PM is not immune from investigation by CBI. In the JMM ‘suitcase’ scam in Narasimha Rao’s tenure, the CBI has investigated the PM, so the sarkari Bill is actually retrograde even in comparison with the existing system.

The Government’s argument against giving the Lokpal powers to investigate judiciary is that it would affect the independence of the judiciary. It says judicial corruption would be covered by the Judicial Accountability Bill – but the Government’s draft of the JAB stipulates that permission for investigation would have to be sought by a panel comprising two justices of the same court and a retired Chief Justice, also of the same court. This is unacceptable because these judges of the same court are likely to be cronies of the accused judge.

Harassment of Anti-Corruption Activists

The sarkari Bill provides for extraordinary protection for the accused – while it not only fails to protect the whistleblower, it provides ample scope for anti-corruption activists to be harassed.

Right at the outset of the investigation, the accused would be provided with all the evidence against them, and would be asked why an FIR should not be registered against them! This means that the accused would be able to destroy evidence, identify and threaten or even eliminate witnesses or whistleblowers and sabotage the investigation. Further it provides for imprisonment and fines in cases of ‘false complaints.’ The accused can file a complaint against the complainant, and the Government would fund the case!

Janlokpal Bill

The Janlokpal Bill is certainly more comprehensive and serious than the sarkari Bill. Its selection process is more independent of the Government and more transparent and open to public intervention. It also provides for more empowered Lokpal and Lokayuktas. The charge that the JLP would be a ‘Frankenstein’ with draconian powers seems unwarranted. After all the same powers to investigate and prosecute are now enjoyed by existing investigative agencies – the only change is that the JLP would be independent of rather than subservient to government.

The JLP Bill provides for the anti-corruption wing of the CBI to be brought under the control of the JLP, so that it would have the requisite investigative machinery to perform. It also similarly empowers the Lokayuktas in the various states.

The big gap in the JLP is that is has no provisions to deal with corporate corruption or corruption in the army. In most of the big scams like 2G, mining scams etc, it is the corporates who benefited most. Similarly, in the Bofors scam and other defence deal scams, Tehelka scam, coffin scam or Adarsh scam, top army officers were also involved. What would be the mechanism to ensure that they are investigated and prosecuted impartially? The anti-corruption movement must demand mechanisms to investigate corporate and army corruption.

The JLP provides only for government-funded NGOs to be investigated by the Lokpal, while the sarkari draft provides for all NGOs, big and small to be included. It would be just for all big NGOs to be included irrespective of the source of their funding.

The sarkari draft Lokpal Bill must be scrapped. A strong and effective Bill on the lines of the JLP must be introduced in Parliament.

Struggles in India

Corruption and Corporate Loot – Quit India!

- Liberation, July, 2011.

Student Youth Barricade at Parliament and Nationwide Jail Bharo (Fill Jails)

On 9 August, the very day that students and youth from all over the country were pouring into Delhi to be at the Barricades at Parliament against corruption, the papers quoted Delhi Police officials saying that the protest would be allowed only till 6 pm, and no group could be allowed to hold a continuous sit-in for 100 hours.

The Barricade site at Jantar Mantar showed that this was an anti-corruption protest with a difference. Along with the demand for scrapping the sarkari (government) Lokpal and passing a strong Janlokpal, there were a variety of creative banners and placards saying “Privatisation is the root of corruption”, “Stop corporations from scripting our laws,” and supporting the people’s movements at Jaitapur, Jagatsinghpur and so on.

Students and youth from 20 states participated – Punjab, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Rajasthan, UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal, Orissa, Assam, Karbi Anglong, Tripura, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh. In addition, nearly 500 students from the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi University (DU) and Jamia Millia Islamia joined the Barricade. In JNU, entire classrooms emptied as students joined the All India Students Union (AISA) activists in busloads. Hundreds of Jamia students came in spite of the fact that campus security tried to browbeat them and stopped their buses. Eventually the students from Jamia had to come by public transport buses rather than the buses booked for the protest.

Hundreds of workers from Delhi – including Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) workers, street vendors, construction workers, security guards and women domestic workers – joined the Student-Youth Barricade in solidarity, under the banner of the All India Central Confederation of Trade Unions (AICCTU) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist -Leninist) [CPI(ML)]. They continued to be volunteers throughout the sit-in.

The mood at the Barricade was full of spirit and determination. As evening approached, the police demanded that they vacate Jantar Mantar but students and youth refused to abandon the protest. Cultural team Yuvaneeti’s rousing songs set the mood and the entire gathering stood up and shouted slogans spontaneously. As the police tried to break the gathering, the students formed a huge human chain and not a single protestor left the spot.

The police arrested the entire gathering, including a large number of women students, en masse and held them in Parliament Street police station. The students and youth refused to budge and continued their Barricade inside the police station. The huge number and the firm determination to continue the barricade even inside the jail, eventually forced the police to release the protestors but warned them that they must not return to Jantar Mantar to continue the barricade. Protestors rejected these completely unacceptable and draconian attempts by police to break the Barricade, and marched back in full strength to reclaim the Jantar Mantar site.

In the days and nights that followed, the young people braved severe rains but without any dampening of their enthusiasm. Cultural teams – Yuvaneeti, Hirawal, Dasta, Sangwari, the Karbi students’ cultural team, and several individual students sang songs in many languages.

Among the many activists, filmmakers, writers and intellectuals who attended or addressed the Barricade were Swami Agnivesh, Prashant Bhushan, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Arundhati Roy, Manglesh Dabral, Anand Swaroop Verma, Chittaranjan Singh of People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL), Sanjay Kak, Shankar Gopalakrishnan of the Forest Rights Campaign for Survival and Dignity, representatives of All India Students Federation (AISF) Comrade Arun Ghatai of Communist Party Revolutionary Marxist of Darjeeling, Pravin Gawankar of the Jaitapur anti-nuclear-plant struggle and Ashutosh Kumar of Jan Sanskriti Manch, Delhi.

Dipankar Bhattacharya, General Secretary of CPI(ML) addressed the Barricade on 10 August as well as again on the concluding day, 12 August, where he called for a countrywide protest campaign to Combat Corruption, Protect Land, Defend Democracy.

The national leadership of AISA and Revolutionary Students Association (RYA) , Sandeep Singh, President, AISA, Mohammad Salim, National President of the RYA, Kamlesh Sharma, General Secretary of RYA and Ravi Rai, General Secretary of the AISA – spoke of the months-long campaign undertaken by their organisations to deepen the debate on corruption and stress the need to combat the pro-corporate policies that are breeding corruption. Leading student youth activists from AISA and RYA from Punjab, Uttarakhand, UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Assam, Tripura, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala , Maharashtra and Gujarat participated.

Particularly impressive was the contingent of nearly 200 students from Karbi Anglong, which included a large number of women students. Their journey to Delhi was longest but they remained at the Barricade till the end.

On 9 August, tens of thousands of CPI(ML) activists all over the country courted arrest, barricades streets and rail lines in the ‘Fill the Jails’ (Jail Bharo) call given by the party against corruption, price rise and repression. Demanding that Manmohan Singh quit for the multiple scams and price rise, they also targeted the corruption and repression by various state governments.

At Patna, more than thousand participated in a spirited procession braving rains held from Gandhi Maidan to Kotwali police station. The jail bharo agitation here was led by Party’s General Secretary Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya, Central committee (CC) members KD Yadav, Ram Jatan Sharma, Meena Tiwari and Saroj Chaubey, and they raised the Bihar Industrial Area Development Authority (BIADA) land scam by the Nitish Government as well as central government scams. Protest processions were held at Ara, Madhubani, Darbhanga and all over Bihar in the rains. In Jharkhand, Jail Bharo was held in six districts of the State with the largest participation at Giridih with 3000 people courting arrest in front of the district court (DC). In Ranchi, hundreds from Ramgarh, Hazaribagh and Bokaro as well as Ranchi district marched from Ranchi Railway Station to Albert Ekka Roundabout in a heavy downpour. Marchers were arrested here and detained at Jaipal Singh Stadium where they held a protest meeting. At Palamu, 2000 people courted arrest. Court arrest programmes were held at Dhanbad, Koderma, Santhal Pargana and Dumka too.

In UP the Jail Bharo targeted the CMO scam and murders and the repressive Mayawati regime as well as central government’s scams. Agitations were held at Mirzapur, Sonbhadra, Chandauli, Gazipur, Gorakhpur, Maharajganj, Devaria, Balia, Pilibhit, Jalaun, Lakhimpur Kheri, Muradabad and Varanasi, while thousands courted arrest in the state capital, Lucknow, led by State Secretary Sudhakar Yadav and CC member Krishna Adhikari. At Uttarakhand, Jail Bharo was held at Nainital, Almora, Pithorgarh, Chamoli, and Garhwal. In Haldwani hundreds of people held a spirited march and completely blocked the Nainital national highway in front of the SDM court. A large number of women participated in the blockade.

1500 were arrested in Kolkata, and Jail Bharo was also held at Siliguri, Bankura, Murshidabad, North Dinajpur and other districts in West Bengal. Four hundred courted arrest in Siliguri with gusto. 14 people were injured in police crackdown and 2 people received serious injuries.

In Tamilnadu, the Jail Bharo preceded by an intensive campaign among workers at various centres, including cadre meetings, padayatras and leafleting in workers’ areas and factory gates. As a result, thousands of workers were among those who courted arrested all over TN on August 9 at 14 centres including Chennai, Madurai, Kanyakumari, Villupuram, Kumbakonam, Virudhachalam, Pudukottai, Kanyakumari, Colachal, Salem, Madurai, Karur and Sirkazhi. About 200 courted arrest in Puducherry at two centres. Com. S. Kumarasamy, politbureau member and All India President of AICCTU, who had camped at Coimbatore for a month and stayed at the Pricol Union office for 15 days, led the workers at Coimbatore in courting arrest at a place where even a public meeting is not allowed. In Kumbakonam of Tanjore district, hundreds including a large number of rural poor women were arrested, led by Comrade Balasundaram, State Secretary of the party and other leaders.

Hundreds courted arrest all over Andhra Pradesh. In East Godavari, people heading for the district HQ were stopped at their village police stations, but militant protest forced the police to let them join the district HQ protest where they courted arrest. A majority of the protestors were women. More than 300 people staged a ‘rasta roko’ at Gangavati of Koppal district of Karnataka on 9 August brought traffic to a standstill for more than an hour. Rice mill workers and a large number of women took part in large numbers in the agitation. An impressive demonstration was held in front of Mysore District Commissioner’s office in which construction workers of participated in good number.

The Mumbai Thane committee of CPI(ML) held a dharna at the historic Azad Maidan in Mumbai. More than two hundred fifty including Brihanmumbai sanitation workers ( BMC’s ) sanitation workers, unorganized sanitation workers and the tribal people of Thane participated. Tribal people from Boisar, Dahisar and Kurgaon, which is about 100kms from Mumbai started for Mumbai at 7am to participate. Comrade Uday Bhat of Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) also participated and spoke at the Dharna. People courted arrest at Bhubaneswar, Rayagada, Kendrapara and Gajapati districts of Odisha. A dharna was held at Raipur in Chhattisgarh. In Rajasthan, tribals at Pratapgarh held an impressive protest in pouring rain. 150 were arrested at a big rally at Jhunjhunu, and a protest was held at Ajmer too. Hundreds courted arrest at Guhawati and various districts in Assam.

Politics in India

Scrap LARR Bill 2011 – Protect Agricultural Land By All Means

- Dipankar Bhattacharya, Liberation, September, 2011.

Jairam Ramesh, the UPA government’s Minister of Rural Development, has come up with a draft Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Bill that will replace the notorious Land Acquisition Act, 1894. The draft bill clearly seeks to legalise and intensify the ongoing corporate land-grab campaign in the country even as it talks about addressing “the concerns of farmers and those whose livelihoods are dependent on the land being acquired”.

Before being brought to the rural development ministry, Jairam Ramesh was in charge of the forest ministry where his greatest role was to give a green signal to the Pohang Iron and Steel Company (POSCO) project in Odisha which seeks to acquire 4,000 acres of land in flagrant violation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006. And now as the Minister of Rural Development he has declared a veritable war on agricultural land and rural livelihood in the name of urbanization, industrialization and infrastructure development.

The new bill gives complete freedom to all kinds of private companies to purchase land without even bothering about seeking any consent of concerned land-owners. The provision of seeking and obtaining the consent of “at least 80 per cent of the affected families” applies only when land is acquired by the government either for “immediate and declared use by private companies” or “with the ultimate intent of transferring it for the use of private companies”. And the government too is free from the consent clause when it acquires land for its own use whether for erecting dams, setting up nuclear plants, building military bases or constructing any project whatsoever.

The bill talks of carrying out social impact assessments (where acquired land exceeds 100 acres) and keeping irrigated, multi-crop land outside the purview of land acquisition, but only when land is acquired by the government. Who will determine whether some land is multi-crop or not? We have seen in the case of Singur how multi-cropped land was declared as mono-crop by the government. The bill promises compliance with existing land-related laws like Panchayat Extension to the Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act, 1996 or Forest Rights Act, 2006, or the land transfer acts in Schedule V (tribal-majority) areas. But the record of implementation of these two acts is marked by extensive violation as can be seen on the ground in states like Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat or Maharashtra. In Odisha, the central and state governments are bent upon evicting as many as twelve villages to hand over 4,000 acres of land to the South Korean steel giant POSCO even as villagers are insisting on their land rights under the Forest Rights Act, 2006.

As for the Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R & R) provisions of the bill, the corporate buyers will have to abide by them only when the size of the land acquired equals or exceeds 100 acres. The R&R provisions are also a big sham. It is common knowledge that sale deeds always hugely understate the market value of land and the new bill promises compensation to land-losers as multiples of average sale deed rate in the area. Apart from one-time compensation, the bill does promise annuity payment for twenty years, but an annuity of Rs. 2000 per month per affected family can hardly provide any meaningful assured income to a family that loses its all. There is talk of providing ‘mandatory employment’ for one person in every affected family, but if employment cannot be provided, a compensation of only Rs 200,000 will do! In other words, the UPA government’s ‘generous’ rehabilitation and resettlement package assesses agricultural income at Rs 2,000 per month and the value of employment at Rs. 200,000!

Global capitalism today is passing through bouts of severe recession. Many manufacturing sectors the world over are in deep crisis. Real estate and construction, mining and commercial agriculture (dedicated more to bio-fuel and horticulture than food production) remain the few most lucrative sectors in these recessionary times. No wonder then that capital is going all out to grab more and more land – the gateway to assured windfall gains in times of acute uncertainty and prolonged recession. This is the twenty-first century version of the predatory colonial occupation and brutal primitive accumulation of early capitalism.

In the name of repealing the land acquisition act of the colonial era, the Indian state has now taken upon itself the task of spearheading and serving global capitalism’s war on Indian land and Indian agriculture. The proposed LARR Bill 2011 is nothing but a manifesto of this war couched in deceptive phrases like ‘informed consent’, ‘rehabilitation and resettlement’, and ‘partnership in development’. Even where the state will not be directly involved in acquisition, the peasantry and landless labourers will be left at the mercy of unmitigated corporate coercion, unleashed by a whole network of intermediaries and facilitated by a pro-corporate state and its administration.

Food security was a key promise of the Congress and the UPA in the last Lok Sabha elections. Today the notion of food security has been reduced to monthly supply of 35 kg foodgrains to families earning less than Rs. 15 per day in rural areas and less than Rs. 20 in urban areas. This is a complete mockery of any meaningful notion of food security for a country like India. If food security has to guarantee the nutritional requirements of 1.2 billion Indians, India needs to produce much more food, and this in turn needs more land for agriculture. There can be no public purpose which is bigger than this. Defending agricultural land from the clutches of capital and its state is therefore the greatest task today of every patriotic and democratic Indian. Not acquisition, but protection of agricultural and forest land by all means is the cry of democracy.

Struggles in India

Karnataka: Politics of Money, Mining and Land

- V. Shankar, Liberation, September, 2011.

It is only a beginning and not an end. The plight of Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka is not over with the resignation of Yeddy and with the election of a new chief minister, it has only assumed a new dimension of a rather complex nature. Factional infighting has undergone a process of realignment. Money power and the greed for political power have once again assumed its decisive role in defining power equations inside the party.

BJP has emerged as a party of scamsters and opportunists to the core.

The Lokayukta report on illegal mining in Karnataka, scripted by Santosh Hegde and assisted by Dr. U V Singh, Chief Conservator of Forests and his team, spelled doom for Yeddyurappa, the most corrupt Chief Minister Karnataka had ever seen.

The entire country witnessed the corrupt Yeddy dictating terms to the BJP and the so-called ‘value based’ BJP chose to remain content with his dictates for the ‘greed’ of retaining the only state government in the south by hook or crook. The central leaders of BJP did nothing but put a stamp of approval to the Yeddy-scripted end to the drama of resignation. Neither could they expedite his resignation nor could they change the name of the proposed Chief Minister that was decided by Yeddy.

The central leadership of BJP resorting to the method of ‘secret ballot’ to elect the chief ministerial candidate in inner party fora is not out of their love for democracy but because of their loosening grip over the Karnataka party and surrender to Yeddy.

The entire central BJP leadership was put on tenterhooks by Yeddyurappa for more than four days when he refused to resign. Their situation was even more pathetic when the first date of the meeting of legislative group to elect a new chief minister had to be postponed to 3 August because of his refusal to submit resignation. It seems that Yeddy has grown taller in terms of his money power since he took over as chief minister and was all set to challenge everyone.

In the context of the Lokayukta report that indicted him, Yeddy wanted a new chief minister of his own choice who would protect him either by rejecting the report or by making necessary modifications to the actions proposed by the Lokayukta.

It is not just the choice of new chief minister but an assurance by the BJP, as a party, to defend Yeddyurappa and the Bellary Brothers against allegations of corruption, which appears to have formed the basis of the deal behind the screen. This has become amply clear by the induction of V Somanna, a close associate of Yeddyurappa, who is accused by the Lokayukta report, into the new ministry. This is further reinforced by the fact that BJP president Nitin Gadkari is the chief guest this year in place of Sushma Swaraj, in the annual Varamahalakshmi festival being hosted by the Reddy Brothers in Bellary!

The Lokayukta report has not minced any words in accusing the Reddy brothers of running a mafiadom of illegal mining in Bellary. Yet, the BJP is not ashamed of associating with them and this is a sufficient proof that the BJP in Karnataka is being run by none other than land and mining mafia.

BJP’s opposition to corruption is only eyewash as many of its leaders want the most corrupt Bellary Brothers to be inducted into the ministry. Jagadish Shettar, main leader of the rival group to Yeddy is very candid in advocating induction of the Bellary Brothers into the ministry at the earliest.

The Lokayukta report has meticulously collected data running into more than 25000 pages. It has established through hard facts that Yeddyurappa’s sons and in-laws have received Rs.20 crores from Jindals, one of the big corporate companies in steel industry, towards the sale of one acre of land worthy of less than 1.25 crores in Bangalore. Another 10 crores were donated to a trust run by Yeddyurappa’s sons called ‘Prerana Education Trust’ by the same company in the same route. Remittance of this money was done by Jindals not directly but through another company called South West Mining Company Ltd. This transaction, according to Lokayukta, is nothing but a bribe extended as a quid-pro-quo for sending a favourable report by the state government to the central government on some clarification for allotting more than 540 acres of land for mining by three companies related to Jindals.

Yeddyurappa also allotted lands in Bangalore to his sons by denotifying lands out of the way, using his office. Recently, another FIR has been filed by Lokayukta police, under the direction of Lokayukta court, against Yeddyurappa on some scam involving Upper Bhadra Irrigation Project. He is also facing charges of illegal denotification of many other parcels of lands. HD.Kumaraswamy of Janata Dal (Secular) has accused Yeddyurappa of one more scam involving Ratna Cement Company of Belgaum. Many more scams are expected to be unearthed soon.

Floodgates for illegal mining in the state were opened, through a GO in 2003, by de-reservation of more than 11,620 sq.km of land meant for mining by the government and public sector. Another 6832.48 hectares were notified for surrender. This act of the state government paved way for the exploitation of public mineral wealth by private parties. Privatisation of the mining sector is the main reason for the alarming growth of illegal mining activities in the state. This can be undone only through nationalization of mineral wealth, particularly iron ore mining in the state.

This also created a conducive atmosphere for the growth of crony capitalism represented by the land and mining mafia. In order to strengthen its position in the economy, crony capitalism gradually started tightening its grip and increasing its assertion in the political arena. In this process, the entire administration at all levels was destroyed, parallel systems were put in place and thus, it gave birth to the ‘Republic of Bellary’, in the words of Lokayukta.

Recovering illegal wealth to the state exchequer is only a damage control exercise. Action on corrupt ministers and officials is only a mirage under the BJP dispensation. Only Yeddyurappa has been relieved from chief ministership, and even he has not been arrested yet. The Bellary Brothers, who are capable of erasing all evidence, are roaming scot free. None of the 800 officers facing corruption charges by Lokayukta has been arrested. The BJP government is likely to delay action until all evidence is erased by the mighty and the powerful.

Lokayukta Report

As per Lokayukta estimates, around 2.98 crore Metric Tonnes (MT) of illicit iron ore worth Rs.12,228 crores has been exported from Karnataka. More than 83 exports of the quantity of 17.58 lakh MT of iron ore has been exported after the ban imposed from 28/07/2010 on issue of permits for transporting iron ore. Illegal export of iron ore has gathered momentum after the seizure of more than 8 lakh tonnes of illegal ore at Bilikere Port in Feb. 2010. The momentum increased further after the release of first part of the report on illegal mining by Lokayukta in mid-2010. The direct loss to the state exchequer is estimated to be Rs.16,085 crores. Most of the illegal mining business is run by Reddy Brothers and they are estimated to have amassed a wealth of over Rs.30,000 crores over a period of time. More than 784 officials at various levels and from various departments are estimated to have received more than 2.5 crores as bribe in a short span of time. The rates of bribe for each official right from Port Director and Superintendent of Police to constables and clerks are also fixed.

Politics in India

Grave Findings of Kashmir SHRC

- Liberation, September, 2011.

It’s official now: thousands of ‘disappeared’ Kashmiri civilians did not vanish into thin air or across the border. They lie buried in unmarked mass graves – the victims of custodial murders by security forces in the Valley.

A probe by the Kashmir State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) probe establishes that more than 2000 bodies lie in 38 unmarked graves in northern Kashmir.

For the people of Kashmir, this is not a sensational discovery. They can only feel a grim sense of vindication of what they have long been alleging. The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, in March 2008, released a report, ‘Facts Underground’, that pointed to the presence of the unmarked graves. The SHRC enquiry was initiated in response to the APDP campaign.

In 2009 a report of the International People’s Tribunal (IPT) on Human Rights and Justice documented 2,700 unknown, unmarked, and mass graves.

Now the SHRC has stated that “beyond doubt,” 2156 bullet-ridden bodies have been found in 38 mass graves. Many of these were handed over by police to locals for burial as ‘unidentified militants.’ The SHRC report accepts that “There is every probability that these unidentified bodies may contain bodies of enforced disappearances.” In light of these findings, the SHRC has ordered a state-wide investigation including exhumation of the bodies, DNA profiling and matching with relatives of disappeared people, and lodging of first information reports (FIRs).

Some of the bodies were defaced; 20 were charred and five only had skulls remaining. 18 of the graves contained more than one body each. The report also suggests that “to stop the misuse of powers under AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act) and Disturbed Areas Act, it is necessary that wherever anybody is killed — whether he is a militant or an innocent civilian — his or her identification profile including DNA profile should be maintained properly.” This suggestion itself is an admission of how the draconian AFSPA is being used – as a license to murder civilians and maintain a reign of terror over the people in the areas where it is deployed.

The APDP estimates that around 10,000 people ‘disappeared’ during the last couple of decades. In some of the cases, where the disappeared person had been picked up by police or army officials from his home, the families pursued the matter, and probes were even ordered against the concerned security officials. But such enquiries mostly came to naught. The APDP is headed by Perveena Ahangar, whose son went missing in police custody 17 years ago. She has called for international human rights groups and Indian authorities to identify the people buried in the mass graves.

The families of the disappeared seek closure for the terrible uncertainty and pain they have endured. They also seek justice and punishment for the unconscionable murders, by Indian security forces, of their loved ones.

It is imperative that an unbiased drive to identify the bodies be launched before there is any chance of destruction or further decay of the evidence. As ordered by the SHRC, FIRs must be lodged in the case of all disappeared persons, and pursued at a fast track.

In the unmarked mass graves lie buried the dark reality of civilian life in Kashmir under military jackboots. It is a stark reminder that every Kashmiri family lives in terror of their loved one ‘vanishing’ after being picked up arbitrarily by security forces. This state of terror can end only when the right to self-determination of Kashmiris is respected and a political solution acceptable to the Kashmiri people sought and found.

Struggles in the World

1981/2011 Racism, Injustice and Hypocrisy

- Amrit Wilson, Liberation, September, 2011.

In early August, the ‘riots’ which began in Tottenham, a working class area of London with a significant black community, spread rapidly to other parts of London and then to other major cities in England. Many commentators have focused on the parallels and differences with the riots which took place in 1981. Like the recent events, the 1981 riots, dubbed ‘uprisings’ by many at the time, were not conflicts between communities. They involved youths of African-Caribbean, Asian and white origin taking to the streets and engaging in running battles with the police. They took place during the first wave of Thatcher’s neoliberal restructuring, attacks on state provision and rapidly spiraling unemployment. A major focus of the anger was the acute racism of the police and the brutality and criminalization faced by black youth. The 1981 riots forced the British state to modify its strategy for controlling working class black (including Asian) communities, introducing ‘multicultural’ policies which involved channeling state funding to ‘community leaders’ who could be manipulated. More recently however this strategy has again been reversed with a return to the promotion of a monolithic ‘Britishness’ and intensified repression in the context of Britain’s ‘war on terror’.

While the British media and spokespersons for the state preach ‘morality’, they seem to have forgotten that the riots began as a result of a man being killed on 4th August. Mark Duggan, a 29 year old Black father of three, was shot dead in Tottenham, North London not by rioters but by the police. His family have still not been told why he was murdered. And when on 6th August they and their grieving friends organized a peaceful protest outside the police station, demanding to know the truth, they were treated not with compassion but to further violence – with a 16 year old girl allegedly being assaulted by the police. Meanwhile a false story was circulated in the media that Mark Duggan had fired at the police. Is this perhaps what the state calls ‘morality’?

Not surprising then that the events of early August have been so easily reconstructed not only by the state but also by liberal, even supposedly left-leaning commentators. So while Mayor of London Boris Johnson screams for stiffer sentences for underage offenders, Kenan Malik, for example, tells us that we are misguided in drawing comparisons with the 1981 riots: “Those riots were a direct challenge to oppressive policing and to mass unemployment” whereas today’s riots are about “inchoate anger” [descending] “largely into arson and looting with little sense of political motive or cause”. But aren’t riots always, by their very nature, about ‘inchoate anger’? Can they ever be without burning political causes?

We are being asked to believe too that the riots this time –unlike in the eighties – were not about racism. And yet we know that they started with the murder of a Black man, and came against a background of police killings of black people – 333 people , the vast majority of whom are black, have been killed in police custody since 1998 (with not a single officer convicted). And yet these murders rarely make the front pages of the national media, and are often not reported at all. As a Black passerby interviewed in Hackney recounted bitterly “two dogs died in a police car… They started an enquiry there and then, officers got suspended. When [Mark Duggan] got shot, nothing got said, they didn’t even go and see the family. This told everybody in this environment that we’re nobody…”

Today, as in the eighties, the laws on Stop and Search are being used to routinely to harass and criminalise Black and Asian men. And as in the eighties, the rioters were not only black people but in each area represented the ethnic make up of the locality.

Then, as now, political commentators outdid each other to declare that the riots were really about a problematic culture which was imported into Britain. In the wake of the recent riots, the BBC subjected us to historian David Starkey pontificating about white people ‘becoming black’ and glorifying Enoch Powell; and in another programme a white interviewer insulting veteran campaigner Darcus Howe and accusing him of having ‘taken part in riots’ himself. In one Channel 4 discussion programme, a question about Mark Duggan’s death was quickly fobbed off by the anchor saying that this was not really the subject of discussion. Over and over again, we see attempts to raise the underlying causes of the riots suppressed with the accusation that the speaker is ‘trying to justify’ what happened, and the message being promoted by all major politicians – that the riots are primarily about ‘criminality’ and ‘immorality’ is once again reinforced.

David Cameron talks about “attitudes and assumptions that have brought parts of our society to this shocking state” and proceeds to blame it on “children without fathers, schools without discipline and communities without control” where the “twisting and misrepresenting of human rights that has undermined personal responsibility”. Behind this apparently garbled nonsense characteristic of such utterances is the attempt to use the riots, which have come in the wake of devastating cuts to public services and benefits, to disengage even further from any state responsibility for people’s welfare or even survival – and to justify further attacks on human rights and civil liberties.

Thus police numbers are to be cut massively, but at the same time they have been given even more powers – plastic bullets and water cannon will now be available for use on demonstrators, climate change activists, those defending their communities from fascists, and all others who oppose the state.

Here once again there are echoes of 1981, when the police were given increased powers and methods used in the north of Ireland were imported into Britain. So if these are similarities, what has changed between July 1981 and August 2011?

Firstly, laws have become even more racist and state violence has intensified. While the US and Britain attack and loot countries whose resources they want, they now have the powers to silence all those who oppose these policies at home, with draconian anti-terrorism laws.

Secondly, poverty now stalks vast areas of the country. Recent figures showed that 1.6 million children were growing up in severe poverty in Britain, with this set to increase sharply with job losses and welfare cuts. Everywhere communities have been fragmented, trade unions shackled, collective action stamped on, and individualism and consumerism glorified. Corruption has grown to gigantic proportions at the highest levels of society – from bankers to MPs to police commissioners – venality has become commonplace and goes unpunished. As big corporates hypocritically complain that their ‘brand image’ has been tainted by the looting which can be seen as the logical extension of the brand-based identities they have promoted, people in Britain are being shown once again that property under capitalism is more valued than human life, as the government which ignored so many young people’s deaths in custody and through gang violence instructs courts to hand out draconian jail sentences for looting during the riots.

So what are the causes of the 2011 riots? Was it the rage of youth who feel betrayed, feel they have no future and nothing to lose? Was it the cruel cuts to public expenditure which have already claimed lives and are likely to claim many more? Was it a response to the neoliberal doctrine that acquiring commodities is the ultimate goal in life? Was it perhaps all of these embodied in the periodic release of the pent up tensions building up for years in the intolerably unjust society created by capitalism in decline?

Culture

The Politics of Prakash Jha’s ‘Aarakshan’

- Kavita Krishnan, Liberation, September, 2011.

The ‘debate’ over caste-based reservations (a settled debate in many ways) was deliberately raked up by Aarakshan’s makers as a conscious marketing strategy. The pronouncements of prominent figures associated with the film prompted natural suspicions about its intent, and led to widespread protests and even bans in some states before its release.

It is true that the film, strictly speaking, is not blatantly casteist or openly abusive of deprived castes or of caste-based reservations. Its first scene shows caste and class discrimination in jobs faced by a young dalit man (played by Saif Ali Khan). In the scenes where conflict over ‘reservation vs merit’ is dealt with, it is the powerful dalit rejoinder by Saif has emotive impact, not the casteist taunts by the villainous Mithilesh Singh (peddler of commercial coaching, played by Manoj Bajpai). The idealistic teacher Prabhakar Anand (Amitabh Bachchan) rebuffs casteist parents who say deprived kids stink and demand separate classrooms, by saying “It’s your ideas which stink.” The central character (Prabhakar) does support the Supreme Court verdict upholding OBC reservations, saying that centuries of caste-based oppression call for a caste-based correctives. So far, so good.

That said, let us ask if the film is honest in its treatment of reservation and commercialisation of education, the two issues it claims to address? The answer is, unfortunately, no.

A film with ‘Aarakshan’ (reservation) in its title would naturally be expected to do justice to the issue of reservation. Strangely, the title is misleading. The opening part of the film does deal with the question of reservation, but soon the film abandons that plot entirely. Instead it moves on to the confrontation between the idealistic teacher and the peddler of commercialised ‘coaching’. It is almost as if one is watching two separate films.

The most glaring dishonesty lies in the way Prakash Jha connects the ‘reservation’ plot with the ‘commercialisation of education’ plot. What Jha does is to peddle the fiction that coaching classes and the marketisation of education are by-products of reservations! This argument has been made time and again by Jha, Bachchan and others connected to the film. Prakash Jha said, “Reservation came, the number of seats decreased, competition increased and encouraged private coaching. Ironically, reservation’s main aim was to bring equality but it ended up dividing us further.” (Indian Express, June 17) In a similar vein, Bachchan (TOI July 28) suggested, “We must find out if commercialization of education is the result of a mad race for seats triggered by reservation.” The film’s argument goes something like this: after the Supreme Court verdict upholding 27% reservations for OBCs, upper caste students were pushed out of education, and therefore flocked to commercial coaching institutes in a desperate attempt to compete for the shrinking seats. In the film, Prabhakar, while supporting the SC verdict, talks of the need to understand the ‘pain’ of the upper caste students who lose out on admission due to reservations.

But the above argument is a deliberate fiction – resting on an absolute falsehood. For one thing, OBC reservation in education came with a corresponding increase in seats for general category candidates. So, the plain fact is that OBC reservation in education has not led to loss of a single seat for general category candidates. But isn’t it a fact that the competition in education is steadily increasing, leading to desperation and even suicides among students? Isn’t commercialisation – in the shape of privatisation, steep fees, predatory teaching/coaching shops, donation/capitation fees etc a grim reality? All this is true – but none of it can be blamed on reservations!

The film makes a deliberately wrong diagnosis of the ‘pain’ that Prabhakar speaks of, and its prescription too is all wrong. Upper caste students do not have a monopoly on the pain of being pushed out of higher education thanks to shrinking opportunities. The policies of privatisation and commercialisation of education date back to 1990, and preceded those of OBC reservations in education (2008). It is those policies that have led to the steady shrinkage of seats in colleges and universities. Those policies are not just pushing out upper caste students who can’t afford high fees or donations or who can’t

meet the steep marks required for admissions. Reserved category students too are at the receiving end – because 22.5% or 27% of a shrinking pie means fewer students of these sections can benefit. Also they are, in general, even less able to afford the steep fees and donations.

The ‘painful’ situation in education today, where seats are ‘reserved’ (by the power of money) for the rich and the poor pushed out; and where students getting 90% marks are denied admission in DU colleges; can be changed only by resisting privatisation and demanding publicly funded education for all. The film hides the truth of privatisation behind a smokescreen of ‘reservation.’ It also situates ‘commercialisation’ only in the coaching classes; the private college of which Prabhakar is the principal is never accused of ‘commercialisation’!

The final confrontation takes place when Prabhakar starts free coaching in a ‘tabela’ (cowshed), and, when its success threatens his coaching institute, Mithilesh gets the police ready to bulldoze it. But this conflict between the idealistic teacher and the coaching shark (backed by the Government and police) is resolved by – believe it or not – the power of money! The rich and spiritual founder-patron of the private college (Hema Malini in a cameo role) turns up as a deus ex machina, and with a single phone call to the CM, makes the police beat a retreat, and dismisses the coaching-walas from the college.

Prabhakar’s wife articulates the familiar argument – ‘Reservations are unfair to the upper castes; instead, give primary education to the deprived castes and then let them compete on merit.” Prabhakar rejects this argument. But the film leaves the reservation debate unresolved, eventually ending on a note that tacitly upholds the ‘education is the solution’ view.

The initial part of the film gives us acrimonious debates over reservation, where the dalit Deepak, played by Saif, asserts his identity, demands reservation as a right, resents Prabhakar’s ‘charity’ to him and tells him there’s no middle road on the question of reservations. The tensions caused by this dalit assertion all vanish painlessly in the face of the paternalistic upper caste teacher (Prabhakar) who selflessly imparts education to all, irrespective of caste. Sushant (played by Prateik), who represents the upper caste student who protests against reservation, is never shown to come to any new realisation about reservation. Rather, both Saif’s character and Prateik’s come to a realisation that they’ve misjudged Bachchan, whose commitment to teaching, they are shown to recognise, is far nobler than any petty debates over reservation!

The prickly issue of whether private colleges should implement reservation is quietly dropped in the latter part, and instead the film ends on a triumphant note when the rich patron of the private college starts free remedial classes for weak students!

The film also tacitly endorses the myth that reservation has ‘divided’ youth on the basis of caste. It shows love and friendship among young men and women of different castes. This state of caste-less innocence, the film suggests, is rudely broken by the loss of innocence caused by OBC reservations. This pre-reservation paradise of castelessness is pure fiction. Don’t we live in a world where, reservations or not, khap panchayats and families kill inter-caste couples, and where matrimonial columns are as a rule rigidly divided on caste lines? Our youth never lived in a state of castelessness – they have always been hyper-aware of caste.

Given this basic dishonesty at the core of the film, it is hardly surprising that it has angered dalits and OBCs. What has contributed to the anger is the pronouncements of the actors during promotional events. Bachchan, (TOI July 28), for instance, begins by paying lip service to the reservation policy on a purely technical ground: “Since it has been endorsed by the Supreme Court and the Parliament and sanctioned by laws, Indians have no choice but to obey and accept it.” But he then goes on to call for a ‘review’ of reservations: “But we need to assess whether it’s really helping uplift the backward classes or widening the rift between the privileged and the have-nots. …the time has come to examine if reservations have really been able to create a level playing field for students from all sections of the society.”

Jha was also criticised by dalits for casting Saif, a son of a nawab in real life, in the role of a dalit. The question is not whether Saif is convincing in his role or not. Saif’s own attitude is ground for serious outrage. For instance, Saif has repeatedly said reservations are needed because they might have kept a revolution at bay: a truly self-serving reason for royalty to support reservations! Speaking to one paper (HT August 10), Saif said, pointing out that his father too had sent him abroad for studies, “I’m going to work really hard to send my children abroad. And if necessary, ensure that they don’t need to work. I know it’s an escapist attitude but how do you change the system and bring equality in a huge country like ours?” Breathtaking gall, indeed, for nawabs who can afford to pay for a foreign education and whose kids never have to work, to complain of ‘inequality’?! Most revealing of all was Saif’s assurance that in order to prepare for his role, he “met some people from that (dalit) strata of society!”

Be it caste discrimination or commercialisation, the film offers a fairy tale solution in noble individual teachers and the charity of the rich. Prakash Jha should have known better than imagine he could get away with exploiting the reservation and commercialisation issues for profit, and then expect people to swallow a facile and false formula.

Table of Contents

1. Intensify the Struggle Against Corruption and Corporate Plunder

2. In Solidarity with Anti-POSCO Movement

3. Privatisation Spawns Corruption

4. Young India Against Corruption, Young India For Democracy

5. Condemn Physical Assault by Congress Goons on Student Activist

6. Maruti Workers’ Strike

7. Debacle of the Left Front in West Bengal

8. Badal Sircar: A Legacy of Bringing Theatre to the People

Struggles in India

Intensify the Struggle Against Corruption and Corporate Plunder:

Resist the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government’s Undeclared Emergency

- Liberation, July, 2011.

The UPA Government, as part of its ‘Green Hunt’ policy, has long been in the habit of branding people’s movements and activists challenging corporate plunder and state repression as ‘left wing extremists’. Binayak Sens all over the country were branded as ‘seditious’ and jailed. Now, the same Government is levelling the charge of ‘fascism’ on the anti-corruption movement as a pretext for unleashing repression and muzzling protest.

First, the Congress tried to justify the violent eviction of Baba Ramdev and his supporters from Ramlila Maidan by invoking the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh- Bharatiya Janata Party (RSS-BJP) backing for his agitation. The RSS nexus with Ramdev and his own ideological closeness to the Sangh were self-evident, as were the BJP’s attempts to ride piggyback on Ramdev. But by any stretch of imagination, the sleeping protestors at Ramlila Maidan participating in a peaceful hunger fast, were hardly comparable to the mobs that demolished the Babri Masjid or conducted the Gujarat genocide. Moreover, till a few days before the crackdown, Congress was busy cultivating the same Ramdev as a useful counterweight to the Lokpal campaign, even signing secret deals with him! The forcible and violent eviction of a peaceful protest was nothing short of a shameful assault on people’s right to protest. Subsequently, Section 144 was even imposed for some days on Parliament Street (Jantar Mantar) – the national capital’s main venue of protest. The Government was clearly indicating its intention to stifle protest. Soon after, the Congress party and the Government began to brand Anna Hazare too as an ‘RSS’ front.

In an article titled ‘A cure far worse than the disease’ (7 June, Indian Express), Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari holds forth against “street power and contrived rage.” Ironically, at a time when the Government is indulging in witch-hunts reminiscent of McCarthy (branding dissenters as either ‘left wing’ seditionists or ‘communal fascists’), Tiwari sees in the anti-corruption street protests the spectre of “McCarthyism” and even “Nazism”! Street power, he suggests, is equivalent to “street coercion”, and has “very dangerous implications.” Street protests, according to him, are a threat to democracy, and if the government ‘capitulates’ to such protest, it would threaten our freedom! ‘Democracy’ here is defined (and confined) to what he calls “the high temple of democracy – Parliament”. The people (who elect Parliament) are themselves painted as a threat to democracy if they dare to protest when elected Parliamentarians form a corrupt nexus with private profiteers and rob the people. What a strange inversion of the real relation between Parliament and people! The Congress’ stand is reminiscent of Brecht’s ‘Solution,’ in which “The People/Had forfeited the confidence of the government/And could win it back only/By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier/In that case for the government/To dissolve the People/And elect another?”

The UPA’s brazen attempts to deny any corruption in the 2G and Common Wealth Games (CWG) scams have failed miserably; two UPA MPs and one Minister are already behind bars. One scam-tainted former Chief Minister has been inducted into the central cabinet and as the 2G probe progresses, some more heads are likely to roll. The latest revelation of the oil-and-gas scam has made it clear that the Congress cannot hope to put the scams behind it, blame the corruption on “allies” and move on. In desperation, the Congress and UPA Government are trying to discredit and slander all shades of anti-corruption struggle and clamp down on all avenues of democratic expression. All over the country, state governments faced with growing people’s anger are also resorting to the same repressive tactics. Such all-out repression calls for all-out resistance – let us challenge the undeclared Emergency, and intensify the struggle against corruption and corporate plunder!

Struggles in India

In Solidarity with Anti-POSCO Movement

- Liberation, July, 2011.

As the Odisha Government went ahead with its plan of forced land grab for the POSCO project, women, children, elders, youth and men of the Dhinkia, Govindpur and other villages of Jagatsinghpur district of Odisha state, in an exemplary display of resistance, lay day after day in the scorching sun face to face with nearly 30 police platoons. Protesting women were beaten up when they tried to prevent police platoons from destroying betel vines. Jagatsinghpur was on the brink of being turned into another Kalinganagar. The movement has now gained a small respite with the Odisha Government putting the land acquisition plans on hold for some days.

Below is an excerpt from a statement issued by environmental groups and activists, along with representatives of CPI and CPI(ML), on on 7 June in New Delhi.

POSCO: A scandal far bigger than 2G scam

It is high time the nation’s conscience is affected by what the project affected communities are suffering under the hands of the Navin Patnaik regime in Odisha. It is time to appreciate the fact that the POSCO project is perhaps the most shocking example of corrupt practices legitimised by State support. This is because the project is nothing short of a legalised loot of our natural resources – iron ore in this case. In an unprecedented deal, Indian and Odisha Governments have supported POSCO’s demands to mine 600 million tonnes of the finest iron in India on a 30-year lease. Of this, 30% can be exported for processing in POSCO’s Korean plants and thus endorsing profiteering abroad! With current fine iron ore rates crossing Rs. 8,000/tonne, it is simple arithmetic to note that POSCO can recover its capital investment of Rs. 52,000 crores in less than eight years, an unthinkable proposition in any industrial venture! Truly, the POSCO venture is a scandal far worse than those involving 2G and CWG.

In fact, A. Raja, principal accused in the 2G scam, may have facilitated POSCO’s entry when as Indian Environment Minister in 2007 he accorded the first major statutory clearance by approving the captive port component, one day before he transited to the Telecom Ministry. This was done without any review and also in response to severe pressure from then Union Finance Minister Chidambaram. Various key environmental and forest clearances quickly followed, all by subverting laws and breaking down the massive industrial/mining venture into little parts to hide their true environmental, social and economic consequences.

Three years later when Jairam Ramesh, the sitting Environment Minister, ordered a comprehensive review of these clearances by setting up two independent investigations, both committees confirmed that the clearances had been secured by fraud and subterfuge, and strongly recommended withdrawal of these illegal approvals. The appropriate action that the Minister should have taken was to cancel these fraudulent clearances and initiate criminal action against all involved in the POSCO decisions.

Instead, Jairam Ramesh claimed he was working towards “cooperative federalism” and on the basis of his “faith and trust” in the Odisha Government approved the project’s environment and coastal zone regulations (CRZ) clearances on 31 January 2011 and subsequently the forest clearance on 2nd May. This was despite absolute evidence that the Forest Rights Act had been fundamentally violated by deliberately overlooking Gram Sabha resolutions (convened by the constitutionally empowered Panchayats in the project affected villages) that clearly rejected the project. Ramesh, thus, became a party to the fraud in environmental decision-making and also directly responsible for the dangerous situation that is developing in the POSCO-affected villages today.

We demand the following:

1. The Odisha Government must immediately withdraw its police operations and forcible acquisition of land for POSCO.

2. The Central Bureau of Investigation must immediately expand the scope of its ongoing investigations against A Raja by reviewing his role in the POSCO clearances, and that of all those who have been involved in illegally promoting this scandalous project, possibly including then Finance Minister and presently Home Minister, Chidambaram.

3. The scandalous POSCO project must be scrapped as its benefits will be accrued mainly by major American financiers (including Warren Buffet) who are major stockholders of this South Korean company.

Politics in India

Latest Scam Update: Privatisation Spawns Corruption

- Liberation, July, 2011.

After the scams in mining and spectrum, now we have the fresh revelations of a huge scam in oil-and-gas and evidence of massive corruption in the public private partnership (PPP) model of constructing Delhi’s new airport. The POSCO project is increasingly being exposed, not just as an unconscionable act of environmental destruction and forced eviction of the poor, but as yet another instance of corruption and corporate plunder of minerals. Almost every fresh instance of corruption that is being exposed strengthens our contention that the hallmarks of neoliberal policies – privatisation of natural resources and monopoly services, and the crony capitalist nexus between government and big corporations – are the biggest source of corruption today. Any struggle that genuinely seeks to rid our economy and polity of corruption will have to challenge these policies that spawn corruption on an unprecedented scale.

UPA’s Oil Slick : Another Mega Scam

A draft report of the Comptroller and Accountant General (CAG) has exposed yet another “nexus” between the Government and private corporations, in which the UPA Government’s Oil Ministry and Director-General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) manipulated rules to favour private oil companies like Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), British Gas (BG) and Cairn India.

The CAG has revealed how the Oil Ministry and DGH allowed RIL to gain “undue benefit” by claiming capital expenditure costs inflated to the tune of 117% in the Krishna Godavari Basin. A joint venture of Reliance, BG and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) in the Panna-Mukta-Tapti oil fields, has also been accused for similarly inflating development costs at the cost of the Government exchequer. The production sharing contract between the government and private operators is such that the latter is allowed to recover all its costs before revenues are shared; therefore the higher a company’s costs, the lower the revenue available for sharing and the lower the government’s share. The Oil Ministry and DGH therefore facilitated these private companies in robbing the public exchequer to the tune of crores of rupees.

The CAG reveals how RIL bought diesel for its oil-field development activities at a higher price from from its own affiliate Reliance Petro Marketing (RPML), by falsely showing RPML to be the lowest bidder instead of the state-run Indian Oil Corporation. The CAG report also shows how companies like Cairns India were allowed to violate rules by exploring additional areas beyond the block stipulated in its contract in Barmer, Rajasthan. The CAG report also found that the government used a “backdoor method” to allow private operators to conduct oil exploration beyond the period stipulated in the contract.

The CAG corroborates what had already been alleged in a preliminary enquiry (PE) filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against former DGH V K Sibal two years back in 2009. The CBI’s PE, filed by its Anti-Corruption Unit, had observed, “It is alleged that Sibal favoured RIL and approved a phenomenal increase in the capital expenditure from $2.4 billion to $8.8 billion for KG D6 field between September and December 2006 in lieu of personal favours/ services from RIL Group of Industries.” According to the PE, Sibal, in exchange for undue favours to RIL, enjoyed various return favours, including accommodation for his two daughters for more than four months at RIL’s guest house in Dalal House in Mumbai. The PE had been registered “against VK Sibal, unknown officials of the Petroleum Ministry and unknown others for gross misconduct committed by them.” But since then, the CBI enquiry had gone cold.

A former Revenue Secretary, (Mr. E.A.S. Sarma) has, in the wake of the CAG revelations, written to Manmohan Singh reminding that he repeatedly alerted the Prime Minister’s office (PMO) to the irregularities in auditing capital costs, pricing and so on in the case of the RIL in the KG Basin and Cairn in Barmer. He has said that the PM turned a “blind eye” to these warnings, giving him the impression that that “the various government agencies including the PMO are apparently trying to hide the facts from the people of this country to benefit the oil companies.”

UPA Government: In Ambani’s Pockets

It is worth recalling here that the Radia tapes had already indicated the extent to which the RIL and its agent Niira Radia could get the UPA Government and even the main opposition, BJP, to do its bidding. In the Radia tapes, Janata Dal (United) MP and former revenue secretary N.K. Singh was heard saying that Murli Deora had probably been appointed Petroleum Minister because Mukesh Ambani “swung it for him.” N K Singh is also heard helping Radia ensure that during a debate in Parliament on Pranab Mukherjee’s move to introduce huge retrospective tax exemptions that would benefit RIL alone, the speaker from the opposition BJP would be handpicked, to rule out any possibility of the BJP opposing the move! In another conversation Atal Behari Vajpayee’s foster son-in-law is heard quoting Mukesh as saying, ‘Congress to ab apni dukan hai.” (Congress is now our shop.)

Privatisation Paves the Way for Loot

The CAG has highlighted the aspect of inflated capital costs and bending of contract rules to favour the private corporations. But the aspect of petroleum pricing is no less scandalous a case of undue largesse for private operators in this sector. And it is privatisation that has paved the way for literal loot of India’s oil-and-gas resources at huge cost to the public exchequer.

The private sector was first invited into the oil and gas exploration sector in 1997, and RIL was allocated blocks in the rich Krishna Godavari basin for throwaway prices, where it struck gas. In 2007, the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) (including Petroleum Minister Murli Deora and then Finance Minister P Chidambaram as well as Deputy Planning Commission Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia), which was set up to recommend the price of gas, recommended that RIL be allowed to sell gas at a highly inflated price: $4.20 instead of $2.34, while the ONGC was being paid only $1.8 at the time. During the court battle between the Ambani brothers, RIL had stated that its cost price of gas was just 1.43 dollars. Why was the domestic price of gas fixed so much higher than its cost price, and what was the logic of pegging it to the price of crude (in dollars) in the international market?

Next, in 2009, the UPA Government doubled the price of natural gas produced by public sector units (PSUs) from $1.8 per unit to $4.2 per unit to bring it in line with the price approved by the government for the gas produced by Reliance. This was obviously done to secure the market for RIL: without this decision, lower-priced gas produced by PSUs would have been preferred by power and fertilizer producers to gas produced by RIL. By hiking the prices all around, the Government increased the burden on farmers who buy power and fertilisers – all to boost the profits of a single private corporation. Since fertiliser and power are subsidy products, the steep cost of gas would also result in much higher subsidy costs – i.e another needless drain on the public exchequer! So, the gas pricing by the government amounts to another scam.

This latest scam has once again underlined that government complicity in corporate loot of natural resources lies at the heart of corruption in today’s liberalized economy. The UPA Government seems all set to deny the evidence of the oil scam – as they once tried to deny the 2G spectrum scam. The Congress has been raising questions about “leakage” of the CAG report to the public. But an awakened public will not allow this scam to be swept under the carpet, and will certainly insist on the concerned government and DGH officials as well as private players being brought to book. 

POSCO Plunder

(The following is a summary of a report by the Environment Support Group, Bangalore, titled Tearing through the Water Landscape: Evaluating the environmental and social consequences of POSCO project in Odisha, India, co-authored by Leo Saldanha and Bhargavi Rao).

On 2 May 2011, Indian Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh finally approved the diversion of over 3,000 acres of forest land, of the 4,000 acres demanded, for a steel-power-port complex of the POSCO India project.

Earlier, on 31 January 2011, Ramesh had approved the environmental and coastal regulation zone clearances that the project had secured in 2007, even though all these clearances were obtained by fraud, and thus illegal, as proved by an independent investigative committee appointed by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) last year as well as by another expert committee.

Forest Rights Denied

The diversion of forests for non-industrial use by POSCO was based on “categorical assurances” that Jairam Ramesh sought from the Odisha Government, that the Forest Rights Act did not apply to communities affected directly and indirectly by POSCO. The Odisha Government gave him this assurance on the basis of fraudulent claims that there were no non-traditional forest dwellers and tribes in the POSCO project affected villages of Jagatsinghpur, thus making this massive land transfer merely an administrative arrangement. The Odisha Government accused Shishir Mahpatra, the sarpanch of Dhinkia Panchayat, of fraud in providing resolutions of Palli Sabhas that demonstrated that not only were tribals in the project affected area, but that they had been dependent on the region’s natural resources, particularly forests, for centuries. Ramesh did not hesitate for a moment and question this claim by the Odisha Government. On the basis of this uncertainty in fact, he proceeded to support the POSCO clearance claiming it was of “strategic importance” to India.

Authorising Loot

As the single largest industrial foreign direct investment ever in India (with a capital cost of Rs. 51,000 crores at 2005 prices), POSCO’s ambitions in India are not merely that of establishing a steel-power-port complex in the ecologically sensitive Jagatsinghpur district. In fact, company officials have submitted before the investigative committees that they will not invest in the steel-port complex if permission to mine for iron ore in over 6,100 acres of dense jungle in the Kandahar Hills in Sundergarh district is not granted.

Most of this iron ore mined is for export without any local value addition, and thus will serve the economic interest of South Korea and POSCO stockholders – mainly American banks and Warren Buffet – one of the world’s richest individuals. POSCO has also demanded a dedicated railway line to the port – that means additional land demands. Further the project requires at least 2,000 acres for a township for its employees, and diversion of drinking water from the Jobra barrage for industrial use. All this has been agreed to by the Odisha Government when the project MOU was signed in 2005, but the people have been kept in the dark of the real consequences of such loot of India’s non-renewable natural resources.

A ‘Right-less People’?

Over 13,000 acres is merely the demand of land for realising POSCO’s dream venture in India. Thousands of families will be dislocated, and suffer irreparable damage to their lives and livelihoods. It is time we appreciated that this steel-power-port-township-mining project is the single largest industrial venture conceived in recent memory, and that such scale of investment will be done only because we are gifting highly expensive and excellent iron ore for POSCO to make stupendous profits. There is absolutely no benefit for India in this deal, and what POSCO will leave behind, if they succeed at all, is a lot of fly ash, destroyed ecologically sensitive coastal and forest environments and thousands of people in misery.

Our extensive review of historical, ecological, social and economic evidence shows that Jairam Ramesh’s support for POSCO is nothing but a highly condemnable act that legitimises fraud and corruption in environmental decision making. Ramesh has today become the architect of one of India’s greatest planned disasters that begins its ominous initiative by turning the affected communities into a ‘right-less people’, as their fundamental rights have been snatched on the basis of “faith and trust” in Odisha Government’s lies.

Student/Youth Struggles

Young India Against Corruption, Young India For Democracy

- Radhika Krishnan, Liberation, July, 2011.

For the past one month, All India Students Association- Revolutionary Youth Association (AISA-RYA)’s nation-wide Student-youth Campaign Against Corruption has been reaching out to people across the country. In this sweltering heat, when campuses are closed for the summer holidays, teams of students are busy campaigning in market places, in buses and railway stations, in coaching centres, hostels and rented accommodations. At a time when fresh scams are being unearthed almost every day, volunteers of AISA-RYA’s campaign are exposing the links between corruption and corporate loot in different parts of the country.

During the campaign, volunteers are collecting signatures from people, and are appealing to them to join the ongoing struggle against privatization and neo-liberal policies, against corporate loot of our resources, and against governments which seek to shield the corrupt. They are emphasizing the need to demand an end to draconian laws and to confront the repressive policies of governments.

Campaign folders and booklets are being distributed and through songs and speeches, volunteers are calling upon people to gather in Delhi on 9th August against corruption and corporate loot.

Throughout the country, the campaign is receiving enthusiastic response from people. Not just students and youth, but shopkeepers, small vendors and people from all walks of life are listening to our campaign and joining as volunteers. In Kalu Sarai in Delhi, children in the area sang with the volunteer team and local people gave speeches in support of the campaign. Our volunteers often receive phone calls from people who have come across our campaign material and want to know more details.

Volunteer teams are regularly surrounded by large crowds – people ask questions, and express happiness and hope at the fact that students and youth of the country are running this campaign.

In Lucknow, the volunteer team was stopped by the UP Police, who claimed that the students did not have ‘permission’ to campaign, and that they were ‘disturbing the peace’ of the area. The volunteer team addressed the large crowd that soon gathered, and explained the intentions of the ongoing campaign – while also asserting that they had every right to take their campaign to every part of the country. Common people responded positively to the volunteer team’s arguments against the police.

Throughout Tamil Nadu, where the people have recently punished the corrupt DMK government, volunteer teams are receiving generous donations from common people to carry forward the campaign.

This campaign has reached far beyond the boundaries of colleges and universities. Campaigns in messes and rooms of hostels is not possible because of the ongoing summer holidays, but volunteers are conducting their campaign every day at bazaars, tea-stalls, dhabas and parks, in buses and railway stations, and are also conducting door-to-door campaigns in areas where students live in rented accommodation.

In the national capital, campaigns have taken place in Narela, Mandavali, Jamia Nagar, Patel Chest, Vijay Nagar, Mukherjee Nagar, Christian colony as well as in Munirka, Ber Sarai, Kalu Sarai and Katwaria Sarai in South Delhi. As admissions begin in Delhi University for the 2011-12 academic session, volunteers have set up booths and are distributing campaign material every day. Volunteers from Delhi also went to Khairpur in Ghaziabad, where a massive land acquisition drive for the Yamuna expressway is going on. The people in Khairpur, fighting a spirited struggle against corporate land grab, responded positively to the campaign. AISA activists from Delhi University also went to Bhind in Madhya Pradesh. After a convention in Bhind town, volunteers campaigned near the district court in Bhind, as well as in Bhup village.

In Bhubaneswar, a convention was held and AISA National President Sandeep also accompanied a Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) [CPI(ML)]-led team to the anti-POSCO resistance site, where a brave struggle against one of the worst instances of corruption is ongoing. In Maharashtra, workshops and conventions against corruption and corporate loot have been held in Ahmednagar and Shrirampur, and the campaign has taken off in these places. In Uttar Pradesh, volunteer teams have campaigned in Lucknow, Allahabad and Benaras. The campaign teams also held press conferences in Allahabad and Benares, and in these cities, the campaign has also received good coverage by local media.

In West Bengal, AISA as well as RYA has organized meetings, conventions and workshops in Kolkata, Hoogly Siliguri and Dhaniakhali. Campaign has begun in these areas, and as the admission for the new session begins, campaign booths have been set up in front of the Kolkata University gate. In Tamil Nadu, campaign has begun in ten districts: Chennai, Tiruvallur, Coimbatore, Kanyakumari, Pudukottoi, Namakkal, Kadalur, Madurai, Kancheepuram and Thanjavur. There are plans to campaign in more districts in July. And in Uttarakhand, campaign has started in Srinagar, Garhwal and Rudrapur districts. In Bihar, conventions have been conducted in Bhojpur and Patna, and the campaign will soon begin in Darbhanga, Jehenabad, Bhagalpur, Purnia and Newada.

As the nexus between governments and mega corporations increasingly stands exposed as the main source of corruption today, and as a desperate government’s attacks on democracy become even more naked, the student-youth campaign gains in determination and energy. The campaign is all set to broaden and intensify as we approach 9th August – the anniversary of the Quit India Movement – when thousands of young Indians will demand that the policies that promote corruption and corporate plunder and unleash repression must Quit India!

Struggles in India

Condemn Physical Assault by Congress Goons on Student Activist

- Prabhat Kumar for CPI(ML) Central Committee, New Delhi, June 26.

The physical assault by Congress goons on a Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student and former JNU student union President, and National President of All India Students’ Association (AISA), Sandeep Singh at Union human resource development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal’s press conference at Ranchi on 24 June is symptomatic of the growing crackdown on democratic voices which challenge the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s patronage of corruption and policy regime of privatization. This attack by Congress goons is reminiscent of the terror of the ‘Sanjay brigade’ of the Emergency days, and strengthens the feeling that an undeclared Emergency is in place.

At the press conference, Kapil Sibal reiterated his government’s and Ministry’s commitment to privatization of higher education, pleading ‘fund crunch’ for expanding publicly-funded colleges and universities. Sandeep Singh, a student activist and a research scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), had responded to this by raising questions about the huge drain on public funds in the shape of mega scams and black money; funds which could otherwise be used for ensuring quality education for each young Indian. He pointed out that the HRD Minister had defended the 2G scam publicly, denying that any malpractice had taken place. Press photographs which appeared in Jharkhand papers, show how Sandeep, on asking his question, was immediately forced out by Congress goons, and then brutally kicked and beaten by them.

Kapil Sibal had described the Ramlila Maidan crackdown as a ‘lesson to everybody.’ His meaning becomes clear from the Ranchi incident. The HRD Minister is accompanied by muscle-men who physically suppress and assault any student who dares to question the HRD Minister!

The CPI(ML) condemns such attacks on the freedom of India’s youth to demand answers of the Government on burning issues such as corruption and the right to education. Such attacks will only intensify the determination of India’s students and youth to resist corruption and defy repression.

Workers’ Struggles

Maruti Workers’ Strike

- Liberation, July, 2011.

The 13-day strike of workers at the Maruti Suzuki factory at Manesar (Gurgaon) finally concluded with a significant victory of the workers this June. The management was forced to reinstate the 11 workers who had been sacked for agitating for the right to form a union of their choice.

The existing union in Maruti was the management-approved Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union (MUKU). Workers had asserted that this union was not protecting their interests, and had formed a new union – the Maruti Suzuki Employees Union (MSEU). The management had refused to recognise or negotiate with this union, insisting that only the MUKU would be allowed to function.

The Maruti workers’ demand for their legally mandated right to a union of their choice struck a chord with the working class all over the country. The fact that workers were sacked for raising this basic demand highlights the fact that in factories in India, the bare minimum of industrial democracy is suppressed in order to maintain exploitative conditions. After the agreement and the end of strike, the struggle for a union separate from the management-approved one will continue.

The Haryana CM in a meeting with the Director General and CEO of Maruti declared that he would disallow the formation of any union except the one approved by the management. Such a declaration is in itself an open violation of the statutory and legally mandated right of workers to form unions of their own choice. That an elected CM should thus openly endorse the violation of the law of the land and the rights of workers by corporations is a comment on the prevailing ruling class hostility towards workers’ rights.

Workers in automobile units like Maruti Suzuki earn significantly higher wages than other sections of workers. Their sustained strike for nearly two weeks (withstanding threats, intimidation, cutting off of electricity and water) sends a strong message that the question of workers’ dignity, rights to unionise, and industrial democracy are central to workers’ lives and aspirations.

This is not the first time workers at automobile units in Gurgaon have waged struggles for the right to form a union. Maruti workers themselves have had to wage a similar struggle a decade ago, Honda workers faced severe police brutality in the course of a similar struggle, and in 2009, the entire Gurgaon-Manesar belt witnessed a historic strike raising basic issues of industrial democracy. The denial of such basic democracy in spite of protracted struggles of workers has taken its toll in incidents at the Graziano factory in Greater Noida and the Pricol factory in Coimbatore. After a protracted struggle and severe crackdown, Pricol workers did indeed succeed in securing their right to form a union. But this fundamental right of workers is routinely denied in all factories and industrial clusters all over the country.

Denial of workers’ right to form unions and conduct protest actions is a symptom of a serious erosion of democracy and assault on rights. And this assault is being conducted by governments in order to appease corporate power and give corporations a free hand to violate laws and exploit workers.

Gurgaon in Congress-ruled Haryana has long been the Mecca of corporate capital, thanks to the free hand to corporations to flout laws and suppress all industrial democracy with fleets of private ‘security guards’ aided by a pliable police force in their service. While malls and factories flourish, the poor of Gurgaon live in abject denial of basic amenities like drinking water, public transport and electricity. The strike of workers at the Maruti factory in Manesar (Gurgaon) has struck at the roots of this ‘corporatocracy.’

Elections in India

The Debacle of the Left Front in West Bengal and

Challenges before the Indian Left

- Liberation, July, 2011.

[Statement issued by the All India Left Coordination after its meeting in Delhi on 28-29 May 2011]

The severe defeat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)]-led Left Front in the recent Assembly elections of West Bengal holds major lessons for the Left movement in India. It not only raises several important questions, but more importantly it brings to the fore new challenges and urgent tasks for all sincere forces of the Left.

While the Trinamool Congress (TMC) now hogs the limelight in West Bengal, the Congress and the BJP, the two key all-India parties of the Indian ruling classes, as well as the whole spectrum of bourgeois ideologues and media analysts are gloating at this electoral debacle and political crisis of the CPI(M). Many of them are proclaiming this debacle as the end of the Left in India. Communist views are being increasingly attacked as an outdated dogma, as an irrelevant relic of the past and everybody is being asked to accept and celebrate the domination of capitalism and the current reign of neo-liberal and pro-US policies that have already pushed the country deep into an all-round crisis.

The All India Left Coordination (AILC), which was formed through a National Convention in Delhi on August 11, 2010, sponsored jointly by the CPI(ML) (Liberation), CPM Punjab, Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) of Maharashtra and Left Coordination Committee, Kerala, rejects these shrill cries of bourgeois triumphalism and appeals to the people to see through this political and ideological game plan of the ruling classes, that have already launched a war on the people, on their resources and rights, livelihood and liberty.

While rejecting the politically motivated bourgeois claims that the Left has become outdated and can only revive itself on an expressly social-democratic plank, all genuine activists and well-wishers of the Left must also deeply analyse the factors that have triggered the downfall of the CPI(M)-led Left Front and draw appropriate lessons for a revival of the Left movement on a countrywide scale. A rejuvenated Left movement can be the most befitting rebuff to the renewed anti-Left ideological-political offensive of the Indian ruling classes.

Contrary to the claims being made by the CPI(M) leadership, the defeat of the Left Front in West Bengal cannot be bracketed with the type of defeats the CPI(M)-led LDF experiences in every alternate election in Kerala. The contrast becomes all too obvious when one compares the West Bengal outcome to the Kerala one – in Kerala the Congress-led UDF has just barely scraped through with a margin of just four seats, in West Bengal the CPI(M)’s tally has fallen short of even its 1967 strength and the difference in votes between the two coalitions is more than three millions.

To be sure, the CPI(M) tried its best to galvanise its entire network in a do-or-die battle and did manage to increase its votes by a million compared to the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. But the fact that it still suffered such a humiliating defeat clearly signifies an overwhelming mass outburst, a veritable electoral revolt against the CPI(M) rule in West Bengal. The inability and refusal of the CPI(M) to read the writing on the wall and respect the voice of the people in the wake of Singur, Nandigram, Lalgarh and countless other expressions of popular protest only made it further isolated from the people and discredited in their eyes. Far from making any genuine attempt at seeking apology and rectification, the CPI(M) leadership resorted to arrogant browbeating and expressions of contempt for the people and even sexist slanders which only showed their growing disconnect with the glorious legacy of the Left movement in the country.

It seems even after this massive debacle the CPI(M) central and state leadership do not have the political inclination or courage to identify the deep-rooted real causes, busy as they are with various conspiracy theories and vague talks about organisational lapses and shortcomings on the governmental plane. Voices of dissent indicating the real malady and its symptoms are being censured in the name of inner-party discipline.

The AILC is of the considered opinion that the debacle of the CPI(M) in West Bengal by no means amounts to a mass rejection of Left politics and ideology; the CPI(M)-led government in West Bengal had abandoned that years ago and begun to implement the same neo-liberal agenda it claimed to be opposing elsewhere, an agenda marked by a whole gamut of pro-corporate policies and priorities, at the cost of people’s basic rights and minimum benefits. Ironically, it is the growing rightward shift of the ruling Left in West Bengal which has brought the Right back in power in a populist garb. We must not lose sight of the fact that the phenomenal rise of the TMC in West Bengal over the last five years was propelled by the people’s anger against the CPI(M) on the basic issues of land, livelihood and democracy.

In 1977, the Left Front had begun with the promise that the government would serve as a weapon of people’s struggle and embarked on the agenda of Operation Barga, land redistribution, and democracy at the grassroots through panchayati raj, while calling for a restructuring of federal ties giving more powers to the states. But after this initial impetus petered out, the government failed to come up with the next level of pro-people reforms and by the mid 1990s the government virtually embraced the neo-liberal trajectory of ‘development’ through the free market agenda of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation. The CPI(M) in fact discovered one big merit in these policies in that the state government was no longer encumbered with the burden of getting clearance from the centre and was free to woo private investment in the state! In 1994, the West Bengal government adopted its new industrial policy on the lines of the centre’s new economic and industrial policies launched in 1991 and, by 2003, it was already toying with the idea of having its own SEZ Act and relaxing and reversing land ceiling legislation to facilitate large-scale diversion and acquisition of agricultural land.

These were by no means stray administrative changes in West Bengal, the CPI(M) also followed the same direction in Kerala. More importantly, the CPI(M) also changed its party programme in this direction and embraced the new discourse of ‘development as class struggle’. By 2006 when Singur happened, we saw not only the Left Front government forcibly acquire land for the Tatas but also the CPI(M) central leadership accuse supporters of Singur agitation of pursuing a Narodnik (a petty-bourgeois socialist trend in Russia that romanticised petty production and did not appreciate the need for large-scale production as a basis for socialism) or Luddite (early worker fighters who viewed machines as the enemy and revolted against machines by breaking them up) course! When Nandigram happened and the entire democratic opinion in West Bengal and elsewhere condemned the series of massacres, the CPI(M) central leadership treated it as an anti-Left conspiracy hatched jointly by the far-right and the ultra-left. And when the adivasi masses revolted in Lalgarh against police atrocities, the CPI(M) actively collaborated with the Centre to suppress the tribal agitation, unleashing a joint paramilitary campaign and working in tandem with Chidambaram to promote the theory and practice of Operation Greenhunt.

Here we see the biggest and the most basic deviation from the key task of communists while in power. While acknowledging the possibility of communists acquiring local power through elections, Marxist-Leninist teachings call upon communists to integrate such communist-led local governments with the overall communist perspective and practice of revolutionary opposition to the central authority. The CPI(M)-led West Bengal experiment in its later phase turned out to be a classic case of overturning this basic directive that had emerged from the revolutionary experience of the international communist movement in the early decades of the 20th century. Far from being a weapon of class struggle, it degenerated into a class collaborationist dispensation and an instrument for crushing people’s resistance to pro-corporate policies. While it became increasingly indifferent to its initial promise of providing the masses with urgent relief, in the era of imperialist globalisation it went overboard in granting competitive favours to corporate investors in the name of attracting more investment to the state. The experience of the Left Front government in West Bengal will serve as a warning to all future Left-led governments in the country about the danger of this crucial and fatal deviation.

For the CPI(M), the impact of the West Bengal model has been all-pervasive. Even as this ‘transitional’ government lasted for three decades and the CPI(M) ran out of initiative and vision regarding the future course of the government, the ‘stability’ of the government was projected as the highest achievement of class struggle and Left-ruled West Bengal as the advance post of Indian revolution. With governmental stability becoming the biggest decisive influence on party policies, the CPI(M)’s whole political world started revolving around its longest-lasting government and the possibility of coming to power in other states and at the Centre through collaboration with various non-Congress non-BJP bourgeois parties. The period 2004-2008 also saw the CPI(M) indirectly share power with the Congress at the Centre in the name of keeping the BJP out of power. The CPI(M)’s model of ‘Left unity’ and ‘united front’ functioned on this narrow basis of opportunistic electoral calculations and all Left and democratic forces and people’s struggles that did not fit into this scheme were even sought to be branded as being ‘anti-Left’.

The collapse of the Left Front government must also signal an end to this CPI(M)-dictated government-centric model of Left unity. The All India Left Coordination appeals to all sincere forces of the Left, organisations as well as individuals, to come closer at this juncture through common and sustained struggles and shared ideological-political views. India is passing through a deep and all-round crisis marked by runaway inflation, acute poverty and unemployment, rampant corruption and concerted assault on democracy, and to be sure there is no dearth of protest struggles and alternative ideas in the country for mobilising the people and building steadfast mass resistance.

The ‘Left Front’ model of the CPI(M) collapsed because it abandoned the basic path of class struggle, adopted class collaborationist and capitulationist line in practice and got increasingly delinked from the people and the struggles reflecting their democratic concerns and aspirations. Let all fighting Left forces regroup and bring about a resurgence of the Left movement and Left politics on the basis of people’s struggles. As the most consistent and committed defender of secular democracy and self-reliant development, the genuine Left must surge ahead in close cooperation with all democratic, anti-imperialist and secular forces and struggles of the Indian people.

Signatories:

Dipankar Bhattacharya, General Secretary, CPI(ML)(Liberation),

Mangat Ram Pasla, Secretary, CPM Punjab,

Bhimrao Bansode, General Secretary, LNP(L), Maharashtra,

TP Chandrashekhar, Secretary, LCC, Kerala.

Culture

Badal Sircar: A Legacy of Bringing Theatre to the People

- Liberation, June, 2011.

[Badal Sarkar, a revolutionary, pro-people theatre personality and a unique and towering figure in the cultural movement, passed away on 13th May. Badal Sudhindranath (Badal) Sircar was born in 1925. He had an engineering degree from the Shibpur Engineering college and he worked in England in the 1960s.

In the turbulent period of Bengal in the late 1960s and 1970s, marked by the impact of the Naxalbari uprising and severe repression, Sircar arrived at a new theatrical idiom, taking theatre to the common people. He established the theatre group Shatabdi in 1967, and with its repertoire of anti-establishment plays, Shatabdi toured the Bengal countryside, braving state terror and armed brigades of state-sponsored goons.

Theatre activists and groups like Yuvaneeti of the Marxist-Leninist (ML) movement in the Hindi-speaking states drew great inspiration and support from Badal Sircar. He often visited Allahabad and other places, holding workshops, meeting young activists and offering advice and support. His plays Ebong Indrajit, Spartacus, Michhil, Bhoma, Pagla Ghoda, Basi Khabar and many others were translated into many Indian languages. Breaching the barriers of region and language, they spoke and continue to speak to ordinary Indians – of struggles and suffering, of exploitation and resistance, of common concerns and questions that continue to resonate even today.

Badal Sircar was not among those who enjoyed a cosy or pampered relationship with power. He neither sought nor received support or recognition either from the West Bengal Government or the Centre. He twice rejected the Padma Bhushan – the last time in 2010. Theatre activists and struggling people, striving for cultural expression that is part of social change will be inspired by Sircar's legacy.]

Below are excerpts of Badal Sircar’s letter to Richard Schechner, dated November 23, 1981, (published in The Drama Review: Vol. 26, No. 2, 1982) that give us a glimpse, in his own words, of his vision of theatre, society and social change.

Calcutta. The city I was born in and raised in. An artificial city created in the colonial interests of a foreign nation. A monster city that grew by sucking the blood of a vast rural hinterland which perhaps is the true India. A city of alien culture based on English education, repressing, distorting, buying, promoting for sale the real culture of the country. A city I hate intensely. A city I love intensely.

…None of the Satabdi members are paid anything. They work in banks, schools, offices, factories; they assemble in evenings exhausted by loveless work and sardine-packed public transport; they have to disperse early for long journeys, many by scandalously irregulars suburban trains. On Sundays we can work for five hours, provided we are not invited to perform somewhere – a village, a “bustee” (slum), a suburban town, a college lawn, an office canteen. …

July, 1978. First performance of Gondi—an adaptation I made of The Caucasian Chalk Circle. … We all felt that the play is Indian and contemporary and can be understood equally by the educated of the city and the illiterate of the village, and our later experience proved this belief to be correct. After Gondi, …we were having workshops, relating sometimes to the cruel absurdities we live in. Enormous wealth and immeasurable poverty. A devastating flood ruining hundreds of thousands in the villages and a huge crowd of fans gathering to see the film stars raising donations in Calcutta for flood-relief. Construction of the underground railway in Calcutta and 90 percent of the underground water remaining untapped, rendering most of the arable land mono-crop. Satellites in space and 70 percent of the population under the poverty line. Democracy and police brutality. The stupidity of man, the cruelty of man, the achievements of man, the callousness of man-not just in this country, but in the whole world.

But what about the courage of man? Somebody asked. What about Spartacus, on whose struggles we made a play in 1972? What about all those who dream of and die for the emergence of a new and better society? We decided that we would try to make a play collectively on these issues built around the theme of a revolt. …the Santhal revolt of 1855-56 that shook the British imperial hold on Eastern India for nine long months. The aboriginals. Always subjected to the worst kind of exploitation and injustice. Pushed beyond limits, they have often burst out in spontaneous revolts. But the accounts of such revolts do not find any place in the history textbooks. We had to depend on the work of some rare researchers and some obscure accounts.

… Through our research we became more and more confirmed in the belief we already had – that conditions have not changed fundamentally even today. To us the subject was contemporary…

We decided to show it from the point of view of a contemporary young man just like any of us. The man is born, is educated, is constantly bombarded by lots of information from text books, newspapers, radio, literature – false, half-true, irrelevant – and sometimes he comes across a report of mass killing or gang rape in an aboriginal village by paid hoodlums of the local (high caste) landlord. Or maybe a survey report giving figures and facts regarding “bonded labour”…

All that happened to us, is happening to us. Each of us was that young man, trying our best to deny the existence of the “killed man” in our midst, and yet not wholly succeeding. The “killed man” in our play wandered silently from time to time amongst the chorus of performers, sometimes breaking through, holding his bandaged right palm in front of the eyes of a performer to make him read something about the Santhals of the last century, another time using his left palm for something happening today. That was Basi Khabar (stale news)—a theatre created by the whole group in pain and love. It is not a theatre one can perform by “enacting.” It can only be performed by “state of being.” The performer acts out his own feelings, his own concerns and questions and contradictions and guilt. Through the play, our protagonist changed a little, we changed a little, and we hoped that our spectators, some of them, would change a little. …

Yes, our theatre has become a theatre of change. A long voyage – Spartacus, Michhil, Bhoma, Bhanga Manush, many other plays. We came out of the proscenium stage in 1972, five years after the inception of Satabdi, twenty years after the beginning of my involvement in theatre. The immediate reason was that of communication – we wanted to break down the barriers and come closer to the spectators, to take full advantage of direct communication that theatre as a live-show offers. We wanted to share with our audience the experience of joint human action. But in taking that course we also found our theatre outside the clutches of money. We could establish a free theatre, performing in public parks, slums, factories, villages, wherever the people are, depending on voluntary donations from the people for the little expenses we needed. We stopped using sets, spotlights, costly costumes, make-up – not as a matter of principle, but because we realized that they are not essentials, even if sometimes necessary. We concentrated on the essentials – the human body and the human mind. Our theatre became a flexible, portable and inexpensive-almost free-theatre.

The indigenous folk theatre of India, strong, live, immensely loved by the working people of the country, propagates themes that are at best irrelevant to the life of the toiling masses, and at worst back-dated and downright reactionary. The proscenium theatre that the city-bred intelligentsia imported from the West constitutes the second theatre of our country, as it runs parallel to the folk theatre – the first theatre – practically without meeting. This theatre can be and has been used by a section of educated and socially conscious people for propagating socially relevant subjects and progressive values, but it gets money-bound and city-bound, more and more so as costs go on rising, unable to reach the real people. Historically there appears to be a need for a third theatre in our country – a flexible, portable, free theatre as a theatre of change, and that is what we are trying to build. …

Obviously, such a theatre takes the character of a movement, and cannot be taken as a profession. … Only those who feel the urge to change, and want to use theatre to contribute to the forces of change, can be in this theatre. … The only way is to have many such groups to join the movement at different places. This is beginning to happen, not so much in Calcutta proper, but in suburbs and provincial towns….not only in this State, but in other parts of India as well, sometimes independently, sometimes as a follow-up of workshops I (and now others too) conduct from time to time at different places.

The ultimate answer however is not for a city group to prepare plays for and about the working people. The working people – the factory workers, the peasants, the landless labourers—will have to make and perform their own plays. We have deprived them not only of food, clothing, shelter, and education, but also of self-confidence. Here we can also help by demystification, by assuring them that theatre is not the monopoly of the educated. One of my greatest experiences of self-fulfilment occurred when a group of illiterate and semi-literate peasants and landless agricultural workers of a remote village bordering the jungles of Sundarbans began making and performing plays about their own life and problems, following Satabdi performances in that village and the workshops I did with them. …

This process, of course, can become widespread only when the socio-economic movement for the emancipation of the working class has also spread widely. When that happens, the third theatre (in the context I have used) will no longer have a separate function, but will merge with a transformed first theatre.

Table of Contents

1. Osama Is Dead: But US Imperialism’s World Wide War Lives On

2. Assault on the Citadels of Corruption and Corporate Plunder

3. CPI(ML)’s Solidarity Initiatives

4. Anna Praise for Modi and Nitish Unfortunate

5. Stop the Smear Campaign against Anti-corruption Campaigners

6. May Day: Working Class Marches

7. Mixer-Grinder in Tamil Nadu, Switzerland-London in West Bengal!

8. Binayak Gets Bail: When Will All our Binayaks Get Justice?

9. Heed the Warning from Japan: Scrap Jaitapur Nuke Project

10. AISA Protests Suicides of Research Scientists at NII

11. Poem: Free my feet from the shackles

International

Osama Is Dead: But US Imperialism’s World Wide War Lives On

- ML Update, May, 2011.

The US has proclaimed its success in its decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden, culminating in the killing of Laden by US military operatives in a house in Abbotabad in Pakistan. As the televised triumphalism and images of hyper-nationalist celebrations in the US fade, however, the US’ heroic narrative is being subjected to uncomfortable questions.

Ironically, Osama’s death has come, not in the wake of 9/11 when he was at the peak of his strength, but at a time when Osama and his al-Qaeda were effectively sidelined in an Arab world that is witnessing a democratic awakening and upsurge. This fact too robs the US narrative of some of its sheen.

The US itself has put forward conflicting versions of the night-time raid by its military team. The initial US claim of an intense fire-fight has now been discarded, with the US admitting that in fact, only one man opened fire on the US operatives. The claim that Osama himself opened fire too has been withdrawn, and the US has admitted that he was in fact unarmed. Osama’s killing is said to have been witnessed by his 12-year-old daughter. Apart from Osama and his son (whose bodies were speedily disposed off in the sea), at least three other men and one woman were killed, while many have been injured.

Why was it necessary to kill an unarmed Osama rather than arrest him and bring him to justice? Why has his body been hurriedly disposed off in a way designed to prevent the possibility of any closer scrutiny of the manner and circumstances of his death? The US has yet to answer these questions convincingly. Moreover, an armed attack on a sleeping household including several children, the killing of an unarmed terrorist in the presence of his child, and the killing of other unarmed men and a woman – these are not the stuff of a heroic encounter with a dreaded terrorist.

US President Obama has claimed the killing of Laden to be the crowning achievement in the war on terror. Some have even tried to glorify it with comparisons to the end of Hitler and the defeat of fascism. Such inflated claims are quite baseless. The end of Hitler did mark the end of WWII and a world historic defeat and decline of fascism. The killing of Osama, in contrast, spells neither the end of terrorism as a phenomenon nor the end of the US imperialist ‘war on terror.’

Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda are known to be the most dangerous by-products of the anti-Soviet strategy pursued by the US in the 1980s using the popular resentment in Afghanistan and the Islamic world against the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Modern-day terrorism is largely a US strategy that has backfired, and this cannot be contained or ended by the end of Osama. Rather, continuing US occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan and wars on Libya are likely to keep spawning more terrorism.

The most immediate political effect achieved by the Osama killing is the sharp rise in popularity ratings of Obama, who is soon to face elections. The Osama coup has effectively taken the wind out of the sails of the aggressive Republican/Tea Party campaign that had been gathering momentum in the backdrop of growing unemployment and continuing economic crisis in the US and the huge politico-economic costs of the US misadventure in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, Obama’s claim to have avenged 9/11 may well outweigh the propaganda of his rivals.

There are indications that the despotic Saudi rulers, threatened by the Arab uprising and seeking a convergence of Arab ruling interests and those of US imperialism and Obama in particular, helped deliver Osama to the US.

Pakistan’s military establishment is facing tough questions within its own country about how much it knew and concealed of Osama’s hideout, which was a stone’s throw away from a military academy. The Raymond Davis episode, Wikileaks revelations of US rulers’ doublespeak on US drone attacks, and now the Osama episode have created some ferment in Pakistani society about the nexus between the Pakistani ruling class, military establishment, terrorism and US imperialism.

The Pakistani rulers and military as well as the US are wary of possible reverberations of the ‘Arab spring’ in Pakistan. Whether Pakistan will indeed witness some version of an ‘Arab spring’ remains to be seen, but it must be stressed that only a democratic and anti-imperialist awakening of the people can be an effective answer to both imperialism and terrorism (which, after all, is nothing but an imperialist ploy gone berserk).

In India, we are witnessing some hawkish clamour to use the US’ Osama operation as a precedent for unilateral action to hunt down the masterminds of 26/11 inside Pakistan. The Indian Army and Air Force Chiefs have indulged in irresponsible statements about India’s preparedness for a similar operation against terrorists in Pakistan. Instead of indulging in such misplaced jingoism, India should re-examine its own relationship with the US in the light of the US treatment of Pakistan.

The Osama operation, like the Raymond Davis episode, has underscored the sheer contempt the US has for the sovereignty and independence of its so-called allies and partners. All US ‘partners’ including new members of the club like India should be warned. Terrorism and imperialism pose similar threats to both Pakistan and India. With the increased US presence in South Asia, with its accompanying spiral of terrorism, people of both countries need to recognise the need to come closer to tackle these twin challenges of terrorism and imperialism effectively.

Struggles in India

Onward to a More Determined Assault on the Citadels of Corruption and Corporate Plunder

- Liberation, May, 2011.

The indefinite fast launched by Anna Hazare on April 5 demanding a Jan Lokpal Bill (JLB) has ended in an initial victory. The fast has been withdrawn after 98 hours following an agreement between the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and some leading JLB campaigners. A 10-member drafting committee has been constituted with as many members from the government side as from the JLB campaign. The draft of the Bill will presumably be ready by June 30 and Anna Hazare says he would like to see the legislation become effective by August 15. This is surely an encouraging moment for the anti-corruption movement in the country.

The idea of a Lok Pal (ombudsman) has been discussed time and again since the 1960s. Every time corruption in high places has hit the headlines, the idea has been mooted and then shelved. Since 1968, there have been ten instances of a Lok Pal bill being introduced and then being allowed to get lapsed. The Lok Pal bill can thus be described as the oldest member of the club of long-awaited legislations like right to work, reservation for women in State Assemblies and Parliament and comprehensive legislation for agricultural labourers.

How could an idea which has been shelved for decades get ‘clinched’ in less than a week? This can be attributed primarily to two factors – the intolerably high levels of corruption and the groundswell of popular support and activism which would have surfaced much more pronouncedly if the fast were to continue any longer and if it were to move on to the subsequent phase of a countrywide ‘jail bharo’ agitation. The Indian ruling classes and the scam-studded UPA government could not possibly risk a protracted stalemate or a direct showdown on the issue, especially in view of the ongoing Assembly elections in five states and the ‘alarming’ examples of contemporary mass upsurges from Nepal to Egypt.

If the rulers have demonstrated such ‘maturity’ and corrupt leaders and corporate honchos all are now itching to wear the anti-corruption mask, activists of the anti-corruption movement and the people at large will also have to demonstrate their resolve to step up the battle and snatch bigger victories.

We must remember that behind the pleasant surprise of this quick initial victory lay the people and their growing anger against corruption. The people are not particularly concerned about the nitty-gritty of a Lok Pal or the composition of the drafting committee, what they want is rooting out of corruption and firm action against the corrupt. The Jan Lok Pal can of course be an important institutional mechanism in this context and pressure must be kept up to make sure that the country indeed gets an effective anti-corruption legislation and a functional and credible institutional mechanism to prosecute and punish the guilty.

India has not yet ratified the United Nations (UN) Convention against corruption and the government is taking no step either to bring back the money that has been drained out of the country or to confiscate the enormous amount of black money and ill-gotten wealth accumulated within the country. We must insist on immediate and decisive action on all these issues.

While fighting for new laws and institutions we must also realize why the existing laws and institutions are not delivering. The answer clearly lies in the growing shadow of corporate power and the obnoxious complicity between the ruling parties/coalitions and dominant corporate interests. The anti-corruption movement must therefore also take on this growing corporate power and the nexus between the governments, the corporations and US imperialism, the military flagship of global capitalism.

The corporate media, especially most 24 hour television channels, are known to treat every major issue or event as a grand spectacle. Even when they have to deal with a people’s movement, they invariably zero in on personalities – be it an Anna Hazare or a Baba Ramdev – and obliterate the people, and subject complex questions and democratic debates to a simplistic hype. But the forces of people’s movement must not get distracted and seize the moment to launch a more determined mass assault on the citadels of corruption and corporate plunder.

Struggles in India

CPI(ML)’s Solidarity Initiatives

- Liberation, May, 2011.

The CPI(ML), extending support to the movement led by Anna Hazare for an effective Jan Lokpal Bill, held a solidarity dharna at Jantar Mantar as well as daylong solidarity fasts at several places all over the country on 8 April.

Party General Secretary Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya participated in the solidarity fast against corruption at Ranchi, while Comrades Rameshwar Prasad, President of the All India Agricultural Labourers’ Association (AIALA), Rajaram Singh, General Secretary of the All India Kisan Mahasabha (AIKM), Comrade Saroj Chaubey, Vice President of the All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA), Comrades Satyadev Ram, Arun Singh and Kamlesh Sharma sat on the solidarity fast at Patna.

In Uttar Pradesh dharna, hunger fast and marches were organised by CPI(ML) on 8th April in different districts including Lucknow in support of Anna Hazare’s hunger fast for Jan Lokpal Bill in Delhi. In Lucknow Party activists and members sat on a dharna at the Jhulelal Park on the banks of Gomti. A Dharna was organised at Shaheed Bhagat Singh’s statue in Allahabad and at Ramashray Park in Kanpur. Party members held similar programmes at Varanasi, Chandauli, Mirzapur, Sonebhadra and Lakhimpur Khiri among other places. An anti-repression and anti-corruption march was held at Jamania in Gazipur which was addressed by Party’s State Secretary.

In Gorakhpur, the CPI(ML) held an anti-corruption fast and dharna each day from 5-10 April. In this town where the Sangh Parivar has a dominant presence, our dharna site became the rallying point for secular, democratic anti-corruption protestors.

In Delhi hundreds of students and workers under the banner of All India Students’ Association (AISA) and All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) joined the CPI(ML)’s solidarity dharna at Jantar Mantar in Delhi. The dharna was addressed by Delhi State Secretary of the CPI(ML), Sanjay Sharma, Central Committee member Swapan Mukherjee, AISA National General Secretary Ravi Rai, AICCTU leader Santosh Ray and many others. Following this, the gathering marched through Jantar Mantar, raising slogans against corporate plunder and corporate-driven polices and distributing leaflets outlining the party’s perspective on anti-corruption struggle.

Hailing the popular awakening against corruption in the country, the CPI(ML) called for the anti-corruption movement, for which the starting point has been the agitation for Jan Lokpal legislation, to take the struggle forward to challenge the policies of privatisation that are the breeding ground for ever-bigger scams and corporate loot.

Struggles in India

Anna Praise for Modi and Nitish Unfortunate

- CPI(ML) CC Statement, New Delhi, 11 April.

Anna Hazare’s remark praising Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar on their rural development work is highly unfortunate and unwarranted.

Narendra Modi as Gujarat chief minister (CM) faces charges of having deployed state machinery to orchestrate communal genocide in 2002. Top Ministers and police officials in the state face serious charges of fake encounters which have been linked to mafia interests; the Sohrabuddin encounter being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) currently is suspected to have been a contract killing at the behest of marble mafia. Can such a Government and CM make any pretensions to supporting the cause of the struggle against corruption?

Nitish Kumar evaded facing a CBI probe on the multi-crore treasury fraud in Bihar. The latest CAG report on the state of finances in Bihar has again indicted the Nitish Government, showing that there are no DC (detailed contingency) bills against AC (abstract contingency) withdrawal amounting Rs 15,850.41 crore. DC bills submitted hastily after the High Court ordered a CBI probe have been found to be full of discrepancies. A government that is itself facing such serious charges of corruption and evading even a CBI probe cannot be allowed to bask in the borrowed limelight of the anti-corruption struggle.

Anna Hazare has got widespread support on the issue of corruption, and is now a member of the drafting committee on the Lokpal Bill. Statements from him seeming to legitimize NDA Chief Ministers like Modi and Nitish Kumar are not in the best interests of the anti-corruption movement. Such remarks are liable to be used by discredited rulers while undermining the spirit of the fighting people.

Struggles in India

Stop the Smear Campaign against Anti-corruption Campaigners

- CPI(ML) CC Statement, New Delhi, April 19.

The anonymous circulation of a CD claiming to implicate noted anti-corruption campaigners and members of the Lokpal Bill drafting committee, Shanti Bhushan and Prashant Bhushan, is cause for concern. The timing of the CD (released on the eve of the first meeting of the Lokpal Bill drafting committee), accompanied by a concerted attack on the lawyer duo by Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh as well as Amar Singh, is suspicious.

Prashant Bhushan is fighting numerous public interest litigations (PILs) and cases against corrupt Governments and powerful corporations. He has stressed that the fight against corruption will require not only an effective Lokpal Bill but an end to the policies of privatisation that create incentives for corporate plunder and corruption.

Corporations and corrupt political forces therefore have a huge interest in undermining the credibility of the Bhushans. The smear campaign against the Bhushans is a reminder that the anti-corruption movement will face the most virulent and underhand attacks when it takes on pro-corporate and pro-liberalisation policies that are at the root of corruption.

Amar Singh, implicated in a host of corruption charges, has joined the Congress in attacking the Bhushans. He has also declared that the Congress has taken exemplary action in the case of every recent scam.

A scam-tainted UPA Government, opportunistically making common cause with the dubious Amar Singh to target such public-spirited individuals as the Bhushans, only further lowers its own already beleaguered credibility. Those responsible for the fabricated CD should be identified and sternly penalised.

May Day in India

Working Class Marches against Corporate Plunder, Corruption & Violation of Labour Laws

- Rajiv Dimri, ML Update, 3-9 May, 2011.

May Day, 2011, was organized by All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) through out the country against unbridled corruption/scams and corporate loot, price rise particularly of food items and attack on and curtailment of labour rights in the country and American interference in Arab world particularly aggression against Libya.

While commemorating May Day, AICCTU called upon the workers to further intensify the movement against corruption and corporate loot with demand of reversal of economic policy of liberalization, privatization and globalization (LPG), which is the root cause of corruption and corporate loot and to blacklist and prosecute corporate houses that have been implicated in corruption or violations of law. It also called upon the workers to intensify the movement for workers’ democratic and livelihood rights, food for all, jobs for all and for provision of daily wages of Rs. 400 with dearness allowance, a minimum monthly pension of Rs. 7500 and social security to all unorganized workers and rejection of anti-worker recommendations of the Expert Committee on Provident Fund pension.

The May Day programmes were organized by AICCTU among various sections of workers ranging from organized industries like coal, steel, automobile etc. to vast masses of unorganized/informal sections like contract, construction, brick-kiln, agricultural and rural workers, tea plantation workers and honorarium workers particularly women working in various government schemes. Including Delhi, in several states joint left trade union rallies were organized in which AICCTU participated. In overall sense, the left trade unions took lead in organizing May Day events in India. Following is the glimpse of May Day programmes organized by AICCTU.

Bengaluru (Karnataka): All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) organized an impressive rally of workers on May Day that marched through the streets surrounding Information Technology (IT) Park, one of the centres of global capital in Bangalore. Last year May Day was organized in Electronic City which is another major centre of IT industries. Workers of readymix concrete plants from four corners of Bangalore joined the rally after hoisting flags in their respective plants. The workers raised slogans that reverberated all through the centre of global capital. The rally also demanded resignation of Yeddyurappa-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state of Karnataka that is pro-corporate and pro-transnational corporations. The rally accused the BJP government of fomenting communalism and for promoting illegal mining despite tall talks of ban on exports.

Assam: AICCTU and its affiliated organizations observed May Day at different places in Assam. Different central trade unions (TUs) including AICCTU jointly organized a massive protest meeting and a procession in Guwahati city. In the morning AICCTU affiliated trade union (among unorganized and contractual workers) United Workmen Union of Guwahati Refinery brought out a procession and held a seminar on ‘Role of Working Class and Mass Organization in National Building Process’. In Tinsukia district, a tea workers’ mobilization was organized in Panitola Tea Estate under the banner of Asom Sangrami Chah Sramik Sangha (ASCSS).

Tamilnadu: At Redhills near Chennai 1000 strong rally of workers of AICCTU & All India Agricultural Labourers Association (AIALA) was held which culminated in a public meeting. Workers of Chennai, Tiruvellore and Kanjipuram participated in a well decorated rally in red uniforms. Comrade S Kumarasamy, National President of AICCTU was the main speaker.

In Namakkal district, Flag hoisting programmes were held at 17 centres. In Tirunelveli, rally attended mostly by women beedi workers. In Coimbatore, an impressive public meeting was organized in Perianayakkan Palayam near Pricol factory.

Punjab: Many rallies were organized by AICCTU Punjab to mark the International Labour Day. Massive rallies were organized at Mansa, Jhunir, Budhlada, Tapa, Rampura and Talwandi apart from various village grain markets. These rallies were largely attended by the brick kiln workers under the banner of Lal Jhanda Bhatha Mazdoor Union (AICCTU) and Majdoor Mukti Morcha.

Chhattisgarh: May Day was observed by the AICCTU by taking out a rally from Ghadi Chowk, Supela and a public meeting thereafter. The meeting was addressed by AICCTU General Secretary Swapan Mukherjee among others.

May Day was observed by the workers of Kolvasari, Welcome Distillery, Rayalseema Concrete Sleepers and the workers from Raipur, Bhilai and Rajnandgaon associated with Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha.

Rajasthan: May Day was celebrated in three districts of Rajasthan. In Jaipur District the newly-formed South Jaipur Industrial Area Mazdoor Union which recently got affiliated with AICCTU, took out a rally in the Sanganer area under the leadership of Com. Anand Dheva. This area has 200-300 industrial units mainly involved in paper-making, textile printing, garment manufacture and exports. This was the first time that workers and unit owners in this area had witnessed a workers’ rally with red flags, slogans and speeches. The main speaker was Rajasthan AICCTU-in-charge, Com. Srilata who emphasised the importance of Mazdoor Divas, problems of unorganised workers and the need to form a strong workers’ union. The rally culminated at the gates of Rainbow Paper Factory where a worker had completely lost his right arm when it was crushed by a machine and he had not received any compensation. This gate meeting demanded that he be compensated at once. On the evening of May Day a joint press conference was held in Jaipur at the AICCTU office addressed among others by Com. Srilata.

Uttar Pradesh: At Allahabad, hundreds of workers of Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO) Contract Workers’ Union (CWU) (affiliated to AICCTU) marched 4 km in the form of a rally from their factory gate to Babuganj Bazaar on the eve of May Day with red flags, slogan placards and banners in their hands. Peasants and other workers too joined in at different places on the way. The meeting at the end of the rally remembered the immortal and unforgettable martyrs of Chicago 1886.

On May Day, IFFCO (CWU), Allahabad Medical Workers’ Union, sanitation workers of Municipal Council and hundreds of other workers marched to Suhash Chauraha where a meeting was organised by May Day Celebration Committee.

Bihar: May Day programmes were organised under AICCTU banner at Gaya, Bhagalpur, Patna, Nalanda, Bhojpur, Jahanabad, Darbhanga and Vaishali. At most places rally was taken out that transformed into public meeting at the end of march. In Patna, joint rally was organised in the evening organised by Central TUs.

Jharkhand: May Day programmes were centred on the protest against eviction of poor in the name of removing encroachment apart from national issues. On 2nd May, the bandh called in Coal Belt and Jharkhand against the evictions was a complete success. Prabhat Pheri (dawn time parade) was held at Steel Plant Colony in Bokaro and Flag was hoisted at Balidih office. Flag hoisting and pledge meetings were held at Dhanbad’s various centres of our work participated by coal workers in large numbers and rally was held at Bermo’s Kurpania village and Chandan Kiari. A big meeting of thousand workers by the name “People’s movement and rights’ day” was held at Bagodar organised by AICCTU affiliated unions.

Delhi: A huge rickshaw rally was held at Noida. Rickshaw pullers, factory workers and students from Delhi holding red flags jointly marched and celebrated May Day here. At Wazirpur Industrial Area, a militant march was taken out by the workers and joined in by students in the morning, street-corner meeting was held in East Delhi’s Mandawli locality where building workers participated.

Haryana: May day call was given at Sonipat Industrial area.

Orissa: May Day was observed in Bhubaneswar, Rayagada , Kendarpara and Puri. At Nagbhusan Bhaban in Bhubaneswar members of various AICCTU affiliated unions participated and joined in the Flag hoisting ceremony. Later, a public meeting was held. Flag was hoisted at Rourkella participated by workers from various unions. At Puri, hundreds of construction workers participated in a public meeting. At Rayagada, motor workers union, construction workers and agricultural workers participated and initiated movement for Rs.400/day as minimum wage and in Kendrapara Aganwadi workers, transport workers union and rickshaw workers union participated.

Elections in India

Mixer-Grinder in Tamil Nadu, Switzerland-London in West Bengal!

- Liberation, May, 2011.

Election time is manifesto time. On the eve of elections we are used to the spectacle of ruling parties releasing eye-catching manifestos with spectacular promises. Former Haryana Chief Minister Chaudhary DeviLal had once famously said that all manifestos read alike, the difference lying only in cover pages showing the names and election symbols of respective parties. There is surely an element of truth in what the earthy leader had said – almost every ruling party manifesto today for example echoes the same rhetoric of ‘good governance’ and ‘inclusive growth’ even as in real life governments vie among themselves in promoting corporate plunder, curtailing democratic rights and enacting multi-billion scams. Yet reading between the lines, manifestos still help us in getting an idea about the forms of politics practised by different parties and holding them accountable after they come to power.

Dominant politics in the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh has never had any dearth of cinematic gloss. Once again, the manifestos of both Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) gave us a glittering picture of competitive populism. The DMK manifesto promised free mixers or grinders for women, free laptops for scheduled caste and scheduled tribe SC/ST engineering students and 35 kg free rice for Antyodaya card-holders, and Rs. 400,000 loan for women self-help groups with a maximum subsidy component of Rs. 200,000. The previous DMK manifesto which had promised colour TV sets and 2 acres of land for every landless poor household had been termed the hero of the 2006 poll. It is another thing that while many families did get colour TV sets, hardly any landless poor family in the state got the promised 2 acres and the government subsequently resorted to an utter lie to claim that the state did not have enough land to fulfill this promise!

Karunanidhi described his current manifesto as the ‘heroine’, only to find a ‘super heroine’ overshadow her in no time. The AIADMK manifesto promised 20 kg free rice to all ration card holders and 20 litres of purified drinking water for below poverty line families (BPL), mixer, grinder and fan for every woman, 4 grams of gold and Rs. 25,000 as marriage assistance, up to Rs. 10 lakh loan for women self help groups (SHGs), free laptop for all students in colleges and polytechnics, and 3 cents of land as house-site for landless poor families or BPL households. This politics of doles has truly reduced citizens to subjects with modern-day kings and queens promising freebies to come to power and then using state power as a license to systematically rob the people of all their rights and resources. The freebies are meant not just to fetch votes but also to mint money for the expanding business empire of ruling politicians. It is not difficult to see the huge benefits the mass distributed colour televisions have meant for the cable and channel business run by the ruling family of the DMK.

While the competitive populism of the dominant Dravidian parties makes big news in Tamil Nadu, the focus of national attention in the coming Assembly polls is of course on West Bengal where the Trinamool Congress (TMC) is widely predicted to dislodge the more than three-decade-old Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)]-led government. The TMC has had a dramatic rise in recent years, and with its plank of ‘change’ and accent on mass agitation it has come to acquire a political identity quite distinct from the standard complexion of all-India/regional ruling parties in the present phase of neo-liberal policies. Reinforcing the mystic aura about the TMC has been its enthusiastic endorsement by large sections of progressive and Left-leaning intelligentsia and parties like the Socialist Unity Center of India (SUCI). But as the TMC comes closer to its cherished goal of coming to power in the state, it has started revealing its true colours though its manifesto and its choice of candidates.

The TMC manifesto is full of lofty phrases with very little concrete promises. It promises to transform North Bengal into Switzerland, Kolkata into London and Digha into Goa and usher in green revolution in both agriculture and industry – just by waving the magic wand of ‘public-private partnership’. There are also talks of ‘curbing state terror’ and probing all cases of human rights violations in last 35 years (interestingly, the manifesto also includes the infamous Kashipur-Baranagar massacres of 12-13 August 1971 in this list) within six months. But the manifesto does not forget to blame militant trade union struggles for the industrial crisis in West Bengal even as it is common knowledge that capitalists have had a free hand in CPI(M)-ruled Bengal violating every labour and industrial law with impunity. The manifesto has an entire chapter devoted to the railways but is conspicuously silent about the other ‘achievements’ of the UPA government – the unprecedented rise in prices and the lengthening list of mega scams not to mention the Wikileaks revelations – which the entire country is discussing.

Particularly revealing is the TMC’s list of candidates. The TMC candidate against the Left Front’s Finance Minister is none other than Amit Mitra, the secretary general of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), one of the premier organizations of Indian big business. Mr. Mitra has all along been a loud votary of liberalization, privatization and globalization and a vocal opponent of Singur-type agitations. The TMC nominee against Buddhadev Bhattacharjee is Manish Gupta, former Home Secretary and Chief Secretary of the West Bengal government and currently one of the directors of a Tata company (Tata Metaliks Ltd). And then there are the Rachpal Singhs and Sultan Singhs, former police officers who have been notorious for suppressing popular agitations under Left Front rule. A party which loves to describe itself as the party of ‘Ma-Mati-Manush’ (the soil and people of Motherland Bengal) is systematically packing itself with corporate representatives and former bureaucrats and police bosses.

Struggles in India

Binayak Gets Bail: When Will All our Binayaks Get Justice?

- Dipankar Bhattacharya, Liberation, May, 2011.

Dr. Binayak Sen has finally got bail following a favourable directive from the Supreme Court. In granting him bail, the apex court has also questioned the flimsy basis on which the Chhattisgarh government has charged him with sedition. The judges, Justice Harjit Singh Bedi and Justice Chandramauli Kumar Prasad, are reported to have said that Binayak may well be a Maoist sympathizer but that does not automatically attract charges of sedition. They have also said that just as mere possession of Gandhi’s autobiography does not make one Gandhian, the same also holds good for the works of Marx, Lenin or Mao. It should however be noted that the comments made on the issue of sedition, though made in open court and reported widely in the media, are not part of the court’s order. In fact, the judges did not give any reason “lest they prejudice any party” in the case!

It is nevertheless refreshing to hear such words of sanity from the apex court at a time when the state has identified ‘Maoism’ as the biggest threat to internal security and cutting across ideological divides, central and state governments are joining hands to wage a veritable war on democracy in the name of combating the Maoists. Indeed such sanity is quite rare and on plenty of occasions the apex court has just upheld lower court verdicts without giving any relief to victims of state repression and lower court injustice. To remind our readers of just one such case, Comrade Shah Chand and thirteen others from Jahanabad district in Bihar who had been sentenced for life by a Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) court in Bihar in 2003 got no justice from the Supreme Court. No arms were recovered from these comrades; the inventory of articles found with them included copies of the Communist Manifesto, Mao’s articles and manuals of Bihar Pradesh Kisan Sabha and studies on Bihar’s agrarian economy. The TADA court had dubbed this literature ‘terrorist’ and the Supreme Court merely upheld this fiat of the TADA court!

Let us not forget that even in Dr. Binayak Sen’s case, he has just got bail and acquittal is still a long way off. It took nearly two years and a sustained campaign across the country and an international outcry by human rights campaigners to secure the first bail after Sen had been arrested in May 2007 on charges of ‘sedition’. Yet we know the Raipur trial court went on to convict him and once again the High Court rejected the bail plea. And let us also remember that while Dr. Sen has been granted bail there are many languishing in Chhattisgarh jails on sedition charges including tribal activists Kopa Kunjam and Kartam Joga and businessman Piyush Guha and hundreds of tribal people from entire Chhattisgarh villages designated as hotbeds of sedition! In spite of periodic interventions by the Supreme Court and repeated directives to the Chhattisgarh government to disband the unconstitutional Salwa Judum campaign, Chhattisgarh remains a veritable graveyard of human rights.

In the second week of March, Chhattisgarh police claimed to have fought an encounter battle with Maoists in the jungles of Dantewada. A fact-finding team visiting Chintalnar, Morapally, Timmapuram and Tadmetla villages in that area found the police claim to be nothing but a hoax. They said what had happened in reality was a full-scale rampage by state-sponsored Koya commandos and the “CoBRA” unit of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) from March 11 to 16 in the course of which at least three tribals were killed, three women were raped and over 300 houses/huts, granaries and other properties were set on fire. A few days later when Swami Agnivesh took a relief team to the villages, he was attacked forcing the NHRC to take notice and the Supreme Court to call for yet another hearing on the Salwa Judum case which is going on for four years now. And the latest SC hearing once again brought out the real truth that Chhattisgarh is experiencing a systematic war on human rights and that the war is being jointly sponsored by the state and central governments.

While welcoming the bail granted to Dr. Binayak Sen and the remarks made by the judges, the human rights movement cannot lose sight of this larger ongoing war. In fact, the time is now absolutely ripe for a powerful countrywide people’s movement for democratic rights. The draconian laws – some of them archaic, and some are of recent origin – must go. The sedition law (Section 124A of IPC), the AFSPA, the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act 2005, the sweeping and draconian provisions of the UAPA – these are all utterly incompatible with the notion of a functional democracy. The awakened public opinion which has forced on the government the agenda of drafting an anti-corruption legislation must also call for repealing all these terrible laws which make a complete mockery of our constitutional liberties and rights. Let anti-corruption campaigners and human rights activists march together and unfurl the common banner of a democratic India free of corruption and repression.

Nuclear Issue

Heed the Warning from Japan: Scrap Jaitapur Nuke Project

- Radhika Krishnan, Liberation, May, 2011.

Just over than a month since the partial meltdown of the Fukoshima nuclear reactor, Japan is still coping with this disaster, which scientists have officially termed ‘at par’ with the explosion and meltdown that happened in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986. The full impacts of this catastrophe are yet to reveal themselves. The tragedy has intensified the resolve of the people of Ratnagiri on the Konkan coast of Maharashtra not to allow the proposed Jaitapur nuclear power plant to come up.

The Congress- National Congress Party (NCP) Government in Maharashtra and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government at the Centre have responded to the well-founded apprehensions and opposition of the people with draconian crackdowns and an outright refusal to reconsider the project. The entire area close to the project site has been converted into a virtual police state, dissenting voices have been detained, and protesters have been fired at by the Maharashtra police. Tabrez Sayekar, a resident of the fishing village of Sakhri Nate was killed in the police firing, and eight others injured.

One paper (the Indian Express) recently carried an editorial holding the presence of “village posters using Fukushima images to scare villagers about what’s in store for them” to be proof that anti-nuclear activists are exploiting the lack of “nuclear literacy” and branding the resistance to the Jaitapur project as a blind ‘Luddite’ opposition to ‘development. What the people of Ratnagiri are expressing is not unreasoning fear and hysteria, stoked by anti-nuke ideologues. They do not need Fukushima posters to ‘scare’ them. They have watched the tragedy in Japan unfold on their TV screens, and the plight of the people there has struck a chord with them. After all, the Jaitapur project too, like the one at Fukushima, is in a seismic zone on the seashore. They can see that the people of Fukushima too were assured that the reactors were safe from the dangers posed by quakes and tsunamis: but these assurances proved empty when disaster struck. To cap it all, the design given by the French company Areva is untested and questionable. Every man, woman and child in Sakhri Nate and Madban and other affected villages can tell you these facts. It is not their ‘illiteracy’ that is the problem for the power-that-be – it is their well-founded arguments to which the latter have no answer.

The Jaitapur protests are also being dubbed by the Congress as a political gimmick of the Shiv Sena. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Shiv Sena, as an opposition party, is naturally seeking to fish in the troubled waters of Jaitapur. But the resistance in these villages is not manufactured by the Shiv Sena. In fact the people of the area are fully aware of the Shiv Sena’s betrayal on the Enron issue. The people’s movement a Jaitapur cannot be ignored further; the nuclear project must be scrapped.

Fukushima – Wake-Up Call

After Fukushima, which has been a world-wide wake-up call, it is appalling that the UPA is presenting Jaitapur and other new nuclear projects flowing from Indo-US Nuke Deal commitments as a fait accompli to the Indian people, brushing aside the possible risks involved.

The world over, people are forcing governments to rethink their dependence on nuclear energy. Germany for instance has announced a moratorium on its plans to extend the operations of 17 of its existing nuclear plants; a decision has been taken to shut down two of the Germany’s oldest nuclear plants. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Christian Democratic Party have already had to pay for their pro-nuclear stands in the past: the recently concluded regional elections in Germany saw a marked shift in favour of the German Green Party in regions which have traditionally been strongholds of the Christian Democratic Party.

Going against this tide, India, instead, is proposing to increase its dependence on nuclear power. India currently meets less than 1 per cent of its total energy requirements from nuclear energy – and the UPA proposes to meet a whopping 25% of India’s total energy demands from nuclear energy by 2032. Nuclear capacity addition across the world has fallen sharply since the late 1980s, despite a huge increase in energy demands. In the past 15 years, the contribution of nuclear energy towards meeting the world’s electricity demands has been decreasing, even as the nuclear establishment claims the emergence of a ‘nuclear renaissance’.

Given the enormous problems and risks inherent with dependence on nuclear energy, and given the dubious nature of claims of the nuclear establishment (see Box: Exploding the Myths), the case against nuclear energy is very strong. Why then is the UPA so keen on promoting nuclear energy? Why are governments resorting to repression, crackdowns and complete scuttling of voices opposing this myopic promotion of nuclear energy in India?

India’s Nuclear Overdrive:

‘National’ Interest or US-dictated Disaster?

A CAG report clearly shows in the 1990s, the Nuclear Power Corporation was routinely denied the funds demanded to it: for instance, in 1995-96, it required 2032 crores. Out of this requirement, only 214.29 crores was actually allocated to it. This story was repeated year after year in the 1990s. Why did the Indian government wake up suddenly to the miraculous realization that nuclear power was the panacea for India’s energy woes?

The reason is clear: the clamour for nuclear energy is not about ensuring ‘clean’, ‘cheap’, ‘sustainable’ energy to millions of Indians. It is, rather, the direct fallout of the India government’s overtly pro-US economic and foreign policy. In 2006, as the debate over the Indo-US Nuclear Bill was raging in India, the then US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice testified to the House International Relations Committee that the main reasons for the proposed Indo-US nuclear initiative was to deepen Indo-US ‘strategic partnership and create opportunities for US business. This is what Rice had to say:

“Civil nuclear cooperation with India will help it meet its rising energy needs without increasing its reliance on unstable foreign sources of oil and gas, such as nearby Iran.” In other words, nuclear energy was required only so that India need not get oil from the India-Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline. And that too of course because Iran was an ‘unstable’ source of oil, according to the US! Rice continues: “Diversifying India’s energy sector will help to alleviate the competition between India, the United States, and other rapidly expanding economies, for scarce carbon-based energy resources.” So India was supposed to go for an expensive, unsafe, and unreliable energy option (at a huge risk for the Indian population) only so that the US could safeguard carbon-based resources from further competition! Rice went on: “The initiative will also create opportunities for American jobs, as many as 3,000-5,000 new direct jobs and about 10 to 15,000 indirect jobs as we engage in nuclear commerce with India..Nuclear cooperation will provide a new market for American nuclear firms…”

In December 2010, Jairam Ramesh has spilled the beans about the Jaitapur nuclear project when he pleaded, “I can’t stop the project. It is going to come up because it is not just about energy but also about strategic and foreign policy.” India is going for this nuclear overdrive at the cost of our sovereign foreign policy, putting the health, lives and livelihoods of millions of Indians at risk.

The recently passed Nuclear Liability Bill too was drafted under direct US pressure. It exempts both the supplier and operator from any compensation in case of damage due to natural disasters such as earthquakes and puts the burden on the public exchequer. So, if a Fukushima were to be repeated in India, the supplier and operator would escape having to pay any compensation whatsoever!

The fears of Jaitapur’s people about safety are being pooh-poohed by the nuclear establishment and corporations like Areva. The question arises – if the nuclear industry and corporations are really so sure that their plants are safe and can withstand any quake or tsunami, why are they so insistent on ‘caps on liability’ and exemptions in case of natural disasters? Why not offer full liability?

The Liability legislation was prepared, ignoring the concerns expressed by the Government’s own Ministries before a Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Bill. For instance Secretary for the Ministry of Health Sujata Rao testified before the committee that the health ministry was not consulted while drafting the bill. She warned that because hospitals are not well-equipped “it is natural that mortality and morbidity due to multiple burns, blasts, radiation injuries and psycho-social impact could be on a very high scale and medical tackling of such a large emergency could have enough repercussions in the nearby areas of radioactive fallout.” She admitted that her Ministry had no wherewithal to meet such a nuclear emergency.

The Indian Government’s claims about nuclear ‘safety’, ‘preparedness’ for a nuclear disaster, and nuclear power as essential to meet energy needs are all proving hollow. It is high time the Jaitapur project is scrapped; a moratorium on future nuclear projects announced; a credible and independent review of India’s nuclear programme set in motion and the Nuke Liability Bill (which now awaits Presidential assent) be sent back for reconsideration by Parliament.

Update on the struggle

Currently, people in Jaitapur, Fatehabad (Haryana), Haripur (W Bengal), Mithivirdi (Gujarat) and elsewhere are fighting a spirited and protracted battle against proposed nuclear power plants in their backyards which will destroy their lives and livelihoods. From 23-25 April, activists from all over the country are holding a yatra from Tarapur to Jaitapur in solidarity with the resistance to the Jaitapur project. All India Students’ Association (AISA) National President Sandeep Singh joined a team of activists of the Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) in this yatra.

Dalit Struggles

AISA Protests Suicides of Research Scientists at NII

- Liberation, May, 2011.

The recent suicide of a 27-year old dalit Ph.D. scholar, Linesh Mohan Gawle, at the National Institute of Immunology (NII) opened up a can of worms of institutionalized discrimination, victimization and harassment at premier science institutes. It has emerged that Gawle’s suicide is the third such tragic case in a row in the recent past.

On 18 April, AISA initiated a protest demonstration at the NII, which was joined by students and faculty members of JNU and Indian Institute of Mass Communications (IIMC) as well as representatives of other student groups AIBSF, AISA, DSU, SFR and UDSF. They demanded an immediate enquiry into the factors leading to the suicide of Gawle and other NII students in the past year.

To begin with, the NII administration refused to allow the students to hold a condolence meeting within the NII campus. Several students of NII then assembled at the gates (clearly on the instructions of the administration and some NII faculty members) and tried to persuade the protestors that Linesh had committed suicide due to ‘personal’ reasons, and not due to any institutional pressures or discrimination. The protestors persisted in holding the condolence and protest meeting at the NII gates, and after that, a delegation consisting of representatives of various organizations went to meet students, teachers, and officials of the NII administration.

The delegation put forward the primary demand that an independent enquiry should be instituted into the various allegations of inhuman working conditions, discrimination and harassment. The NII administration refused point blank to institute any enquiry, and continued to deny any institutionalized harassment or discrimination in NII.

Much as the NII administration and faculty members are trying to hide it, it is clear that there are deep and systemic problems being faced by students – whether it is the inhuman work pressure, dictatorial attitude of the institution’s administration or the entrenched discriminatory attitude of some faculty members.

It is also clear that there is immense pressure from the administration on the students not to complain, and not to raise their voices even on basic genuine democratic concerns. There is every chance that the students who did not turn up in vocal support of the administration on the day of the protest will be targeted, pressurized and victimized.

The NII is affiliated with the School of Life Sciences, JNU, and students there acutely feel the contrast between the freedom of expression and democratic student-teacher relations enjoyed by JNU students, with the authoritarian culture in the NII. At NII, public shaming of students who fall short of standards that keep getting more demanding, is common. Students from reserved categories, even if they perform well, face discrimination in addition to the other pressures and humiliations. Gawle was a bright student, who scored 98 percent marks in the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) test; yet he was pushed over the edge to take his life.

The tragedy of Gawle’s death underlines the need to democratize science institutions, private institutions and all such educational centres where students are subjected to intense stress and denied their democratic voice. AISA, which has long demanded democratization of campuses, has mobilized science scholars and students to highlight the conditions in science institutions.

Poetry

Free my feet from the shackles

- Liberation, May, 2011.

Free my feet from the shackles

Like bangles made of thorn

Confined inside a narrow room

My fault lies in

Being incarnated as a bird.

Inside the dark room of the prison

Many voices echo around

Unlike the sound of birds

Not the merry laughter

Not that of a lullaby

A child snatched away from the mother’s bosom

The lamentation of a mother

A woman separated from her husband

The cry of anguish of a widow

A cry springing out of a sepoy’s hand

A ball of fire is seen

Dooms day follows it

The ball of fire was lit

By the product of science

Because of oral experimentation

Servants of sense organs

Everybody is in trance

Intoxication – the enemy of thinking

Wisdom of thinking is annihilated

No experimentation of thinking

Laughing with smiles on the face

By the traveller of coming beyond the hill ranges

Nothing remains but my laments

Nothing saved by the seeing eyes

Strength cannot show itself

Human life is precious

Before life comes to an end

Let me be light of darkness

Nectar will be sown

A true of immortality will be planted.

Putting on artificial wings

All the corners of the earth will be covered

Near the joining line of life and death

Morning songs will be sung

The chores of the world will be performed.

Let the gate of the prison be flung wide

I will not go on another path

Please remove the shackles of thorn

Let me be not accused

For being incarnated in the life of a bird.

Poem by Irom Sharmila,

translated from Manipuri to English

by Wide Angle Social Development Organisation

Irom has been on fast against AFSPA for over a decade- When will the Government heed her voice?

Table of Contents

1. Onward to the March 14 “People’s March to Parliament”

2. In Solidarity with the Anti-Posco Resistance Struggle in Odisha

3. Confessions of a CEO Prime Minister

4. Indian Skies up for Sale

5. Food Security for All

6. Privatisation Has Paved the Way for Corruption

7. Violence Against Women: Grim Picture

8. Workers’ March to Parliament

9. Arab Uprising: When Decades Happen in Weeks

Struggles in India

Onward to the March 14 “People’s March to Parliament”

- Central Committee, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist).

Rise against Soaring Prices and Rampant Corruption!

Rise against the

Corrupt, Repressive and Treacherous UPA Regime!!

Onward to Delhi,

Onward to the March 14 “People’s March to Parliament”!!!

Can you imagine a country where 77% people live on a daily budget of less than Rs. 20 while food grains rot in state custody and rising food prices subject more and more people to hunger and malnutrition?

Can you imagine a country where national wealth is routinely drained out of the country and amassed in foreign banks and the government refuses to take any action against the culprits in the name of ‘international diplomacy’?

Can you imagine a country where ministers and bureaucrats work in tandem with corporate houses to rob the national exchequer of enormous funds that could have been used for public welfare and the Prime Minister likens this loot to whatever little money the government spends in the name of food, fuel and fertiliser subsidy for the poor?

Can you imagine a country where every year tens of thousands of farmers are compelled to commit suicides and the government conspires with corporate houses to dispossess peasants of their land and livelihood?

Can you imagine a country where the government throws all laws of the land to the winds – from environmental laws and land legislations to panchayat acts – to allow desi (national) and foreign companies to plunder the country’s mineral and other natural resources with impunity?

Can you imagine a country where the government is so mortally afraid of the truth that it always seeks to silence people’s struggles with batons, bullets and black laws and imprison upright intellectuals under sedition charges?

We do not have to imagine such a country. This is the country we are living in. This is India after two decades of liberalization, privatization and globalization. This is India under United Progressive Alliance (UPA) rule where governance has become a licence for unbridled corruption, where democracy is overshadowed by dark clouds of state repression and the common people have to wage a grim battle for sheer survival.

This state of affairs cannot be tolerated any longer. The UPA government has betrayed all its promises and hence lost its mandate to rule. It has proved to be a government of runaway inflation and unbridled scams. And the Prime Minister and Congress leaders would like to explain everything away as a ‘coalition compulsion’! Whatever ‘compulsion’ the Congress or the UPA may have, the country certainly has no compulsion to tolerate such a regime. Come, let us all join the People’s March to Parliament on March 14 and ask the UPA government to stop giving lame excuses and quit office.

What is the alternative? The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would like us to believe that it can bring down prices and stop corruption. But NDA-ruled states – whether Gujarat or Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh or Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand or Bihar – are as badly mired in corruption as states ruled by the UPA. Worse still, while the country is seeking an end to corruption and repression, the BJP and the RSS are busy whipping up tension over Kashmir and Ayodhya, and some of them are involved in downright terrorist activities. The NDA is clearly not an acceptable alternative.

Indeed, no government which enforces the policies of liberalisation, privatization and globalization can control prices or curb corruption. No government which represents the corporate agenda can guarantee basic welfare for the people. What the country needs is alternative policies, policies that keep the people’s needs and aspirations, and not the profit and power of capital, at the centre. And to this end, the country needs a powerful awakening of the people and a united assertion of all fighting Left forces.

The CPI (ML) and its allies in the All India Left Coordination are fighting on every front for such a pro-people alternative. Make the March 14 “People’s March to Parliament” a big success to carry this battle forward.

Struggles in India

In Solidarity with the Anti-Posco Resistance Struggle in Odisha

- Liberation, March, 2011.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests has chosen to clear the notorious Posco project in Odisha in spite of the fact that three separate committees, the Saxena Committee, the Posco Enquiry Committee and the Forest Advisory Committee set up at the behest of the Ministry itself have testified to rampant and deliberate violations of the Forest Rights Act by the project. The various ‘conditionalities’ which accompany the Ministry’s clearance of the Posco project are nothing but a flimsy piece of fiction to hide the fact that in India today, corporations are a law unto themselves, with a licence to loot in brazen violation of laws to protect the environment and people’s rights. Posco and Odisha Government are being given a green signal by the UPA Government on their ‘assurances’ to comply with environment and forest rights laws that they have already violated and lied about.

Following the Communist Party of India ( Marxist-Leninist) [CPI(ML)] Central Committee meeting held at Balugan in Odisha from 3 to 5 February, a CPI(ML) team visited Dhinkia panchayat in Erasama block of Jagatsinghpur district, the main centre of the people’s resistance to the proposed Posco project on 7 February, 2011. The delegation met several leaders of the Posco resistance struggle including Akshay Das, Prakash Jena (member of Erasama block panchayat samiti) and woman activist Monorama Khatua and several others and addressed an impromptu meeting of villagers at Dhinkia.

The villagers of Dhinkia were visibly angry with the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government for giving the go-ahead signal to the Posco project in spite of adverse recommendations by several expert committees and the continuing struggle of the local people for the last five years. But they also expressed their determination to resist the Posco project in one straightforward slogan: “Maribo kintu daribo na, bhita-maati chhadibo na” (we are not afraid to die, but we will not abandon our hearth and home). The Posco project entails acquisition of 4,000 acres of coastal/forest land that has been home for several hundred years to as many as 8 villages in three panchayats. At least 20,000 people face eviction and loss of livelihood – the area is known for its good crop of paddy, cashew, coconut and high quality betel leaves that are much in demand outside of Odisha. The project also involves the construction of a new captive port for Posco (with devastating consequences for the coastal ecosystem) in spite of the availability of the nearby Paradip port.

Activists of the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) also described how the state administration was trying to break the morale of the fighting people. An undeclared embargo has been imposed on the area with some 2000 people facing arrest on leaving the village. Routine panchayat work has come to almost a standstill and people are being denied basic benefits like ration or old age pension. Elected panchayat representatives are being harassed by the block administration for supporting the resistance struggle. Even the post master of Dhinkia post office has been suspended for his alleged sympathy for the movement. In the face of this economic blockade and repressive threats, the morale of the people of Dhinkia and other adjoining villages like Gobindapur, Nuagaon etc. still runs high and the PPSS is determined to fight till the end.

The CPI (ML) Odisha unit has been in close touch with the anti-Posco resistance movement since its inception and this was the second visit to the struggle site by a central team of Party leaders. Reiterating the party’s full support to the struggle and saluting the courage and determination of the local people, Comrade Dipankar, General Secretary of CPI (ML), described the resistance struggle as not merely a struggle against forcible land acquisition but as a battle for freedom from corporate rule. He said the fighting people of Dhinkia had set an inspiring example and enjoyed the support of democratic forces from all over the country. Comrades Khitish Biswal, Rajaram Singh and Mahendra Parida also addressed the meeting along with leaders of the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS).

Politics in India

Confessions of a CEO Prime Minister

- ML Update, 22-28 February, 2011.

Ahead of the budget session of Parliament, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had a televised meeting with some select editors of television channels. The Prime Minister (PM) had a simple explanation for all the problems facing the country: ‘compulsions of coalition politics’. And he had a simple suggestion: the media should not pay too much attention to the scams and other problems for it affects the ‘self-confidence of the people’ and the ‘international image of the country’! The economist PM brushed aside the whole issue of the 2G scam by likening the spectrum loot to the subsidy on food, fuel and fertilizer! And he also did not forget to remind his listeners that his government would complete its term for it still had a lot of unfinished business.

In May 2009 the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) had returned to power promising food security for the hungry and ‘inclusive growth’ for all those who have never been invited to the celebrations of economic growth. But while food security and inclusive growth still remain cruel jokes, under UPA-II, the country has had no respite from soaring prices and mega scams. The government knows it has forfeited whatever confidence the electorate may have reposed in it and it therefore asks the media not to weaken the ‘self-confidence’ of the people by focusing too much on the scams! And if the PM’s press meet was any indication, the media is only too willing to play ball. There was hardly anything asked on the issue of illicit outflow of Indian wealth abroad, estimated at Rs 240 crore every single day. Nor was any clarification sought from the PM on the issue of appointing a tainted official as the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC)!

The PM had the audacity to compare the loss to the national exchequer caused by the spectrum loot to the subsidies meant for the poor. Even if one ignores the crucial distinction between the beneficiaries in the two cases – the 2G spectrum loot only bolstered corporate coffers while the subsidies are meant to help the poor survive the onslaught of the market – how can the PM compare a budgeted subsidy to a loss caused by the non-auction of a key resource? If it is the government’s policy to allot spectrum on ‘first come, first serve’ basis and not through auction why did not the government declare that? Why did the government then go in for auction in the case of 3G spectrum, claiming credit for the revenue it yielded? Why did Manmohan Singh write to the Telecom Minister Raja in November 2007 suggesting auction of 2G spectrum if he thought it should be made available to telecom companies at subsidized rates?

The Al Jazeera correspondent of course drew the PM’s attention to the ongoing developments in the Arab world and asked if he thought such mass upsurges could also happen in India. True to his politics, Manmohan Singh expressed concern over what was happening in the Arab world before reluctantly extending his good wishes to the people of Egypt if they wanted to move towards democratization! He was however sure that there was no ‘danger’ of Egypt being replicated in India, for India is a ‘functional democracy’ where the people “already have a right to change governments”. And he seemed to be sure that the Indian people would not exercise that right against his government! “Of all the decisions that I take, 7 out of 10 turn out to be correct. The shareholders of a normal corporation will say a job well done”, said Singh.

So here we have Singh’s essential vision of democracy and his role as Prime Minister: he is the CEO of a ‘normal corporation’! Manmohan Singh and his ilk can only see politics through the corporate prism – where the government is just a service provider to those who can afford to buy that service. Not even a ‘sleeping shareholder’, the notion of a citizen has actually been reduced to that of a fee-paying customer and those who cannot afford to pay simply do not count! But India is not a ‘normal corporation’ – it is a country of more than a billion people 77% of whom live on a daily income of less than Rs. 20 while Rs. 240 crore daily migrate illegally to the safer shores of foreign banks. Manmohan Singh is a crisis manager whose way of crisis management only deepens the crisis. In 1991 he initiated the new economic policies in the name of solving the country’s balance of payments crisis. Twenty years later, there is crisis on every front, but Manmohan Singh and his ilk are doing brisk business.

The people will have to accept the challenge thrown up by Manmohan Singh. Beyond a mere change of government, the Indian people will have to rise for a change in the disastrous policies. The entire policy establishment of liberalization, privatization and globalization and its trademark products – economic crisis, megabuck scams and state-corporate assault on democracy – will have to be dismantled. In Manmohan Singh’s vocabulary, his normal corporation will have to be sent out of business. And if it needs a replication of Egypt in India, the people of India will have to rise to the occasion and foot the bill for a real change.

Politics in India

Indian Skies up for Sale

- P Gopal, Liberation, March, 2011.

This is an era of liberalized scams involving politician-bureaucrat-big business nexus in looting the national assets. The heat generated by 2G spectrum has not subsided. Now, Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audit findings have revealed the corruption cloud over the Indian skies. The Union government on 17 February scrapped the controversial 2005 S-band allotment deal between Antrix, the commercial arm of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), and Devas Multimedia, a private firm. Explaining the rationale behind the annulment of the deal Law minister Veerapa Moily said there has been an increased demand for spectrum for national needs, particularly in the fields of defence, para-military forces, railways and other public utility services as well as for societal needs. “In view of the country’s strategic requirements and societal services like education, healthcare, communication and disaster management, the government will not be able to provide slot in S-band to Antrix for commercial activities, including for those which are the subject matter of existing contractual obligations for S-band,” Moily added.

This particular issue should be seen beyond the frontiers of corruption. Just as thousands of kilometers of national highways are virtually owned by private sector, through Antrix-Devas deal Indian Space Organization was attempting to handover the national space assets to the private sector for a song. Antrix Corporation Limited was incorporated as a private limited company owned by Government of India, in September 1992 as a Marketing arm of ISRO for promotion and commercial exploitation of space products, technical consultancy services and transfer of technologies developed by ISRO. Antrix signed an MOU in March 2003 with M/S Forge Advisors, USA to explore opportunities in digital multimedia services. Later, Forge Advisors established an Indian company called Devas Multimedia Pvt Ltd.

The Bangalore-based start-up, founded in 2004, is headed by Dr. M.G. Chandrasekhar, former Scientific Secretary at ISRO. In 2008, Deutsche Telekom picked up 17 per cent stake in Devas for about $75 million. Columbia Capital and Telcom Ventures are the other international investors. Devas was able to get Rs.1.14 lakh premium on its share worth Rs.10 when it divested stake to Deutsche Telekom. The board of directors includes Kiran Karnik, a former President of Nasscom; Larry Babio, a former vice-chairman of Verizon, and Gary Parsons, a former Chairman of XM Sirius Satellite. It may be noted that former ISRO Chairman Prof. U.R .Rao’s daughter works for Devas.

According to the contract, Devas Multimedia is entitled to get a total of 70 Mhz of the S-band spectrum on lease for 20 years. The contract requires ISRO to build and launch two communications satellites — GSAT-6 and GSAT-6A — at a further cost of Rs 2,000 crore. To operationalize this agreement, Antrix committed to development and launch of two satellites by ISRO referred to as Primary Satellite-1 (PS-1) and Primary Satellite-2 (PS-2) in the agreement. Devas got all this for a measly Rs. 1000 crores. S-band spectrum was once used by Doordarshan to deliver programmes by satellite to all parts of the country but is now considered to be of enormous commercial value for high-speed, terrestrial mobile communications. In 2010, the Union government got nearly Rs. 67,719 crore from the auction of just 15 Mhz of similar airwaves for 3G mobile services.

Mass education, weather forecasting, disaster management, communication and navigation were the original intent of the Space industry. Increasingly, though, commercialisation is taking a toll of ISRO’s priorities. The Antrix Board of Directors, significantly, includes Ratan Tata and Adi Godrej. MNCs have been availing of the remote sensing capability of ISRO for a song while commercial DTH/multimedia operators like Tata Sky, Bharti, Sun, Reliance ADAG etc have been scrambling for Ku-band spectrum.

So, what are the issues in the Antrix-Devas deal? S-band spectrum was allocated without inviting competitive bids. Organizational control systems were not followed. ISRO’s costs were underestimated. Public resources were diverted to build two customer-specific satellites. Devas Multimedia’s terms deviate from those in past commercial contracts of ISRO/Antrix. According to preliminary CAG estimates, this spectrum largesse to a private customer could have caused the exchequer a loss in excess of Rs. 2 lakh crore. And the Prime Minister’s office, to which the ISRO is directly accountable, turned a blind eye for the past six years, and would probably have continued to do so had it not been for fear that the taint of accumulating scams in 2G, CWG etc would reach the PM’s chair through the S-band scam.

The S-Band spectrum scam is very much a fallout of the commercialisation of ISRO, whereby the ISRO bureaucracy hankering after lucrative but shady deals, has compromised the credibility of the institution and undermined the work of the scientists. If this is what happens when corporate layers get on the boards of scientific institutions, it is a pointer to how the UPA-II’s agenda of commercialisation of education and research will also open the floodgates of corruption in those areas too. The crash of image thanks to these scams will take a greater toll on the credibility of scientific research institutions than the crash of launch vehicles and rockets.

Politics in India

Food Security for All:

Too Much for United Progressive Alliance-II (UPA-II) to Digest?

- Kavita Krishnan, Liberation, March, 2011.

The tussle between the National Advisory Council (NAC) and the Expert Committee headed by the PM’s Economic Advisor C Rangarajan over the National Food Security Bill is being projected as a contest between the ‘pro-people concerns’ of the NAC headed by Sonia Gandhi, and the neoliberal commitments of Manmohan Singh on the other. Indications are, however, that it’s all a case of calculated shadow-boxing, with food security being a casualty at a time when food prices are hitting an all-time high and India has among the worst rates of hunger and malnutrition in the world, especially among children and women.

Under pressures from the Government, the NAC had already watered down its initial proposals of universal Public Distribution System (PDS) coverage along with child and maternity nutrition programmes.

According to the NAC’s proposals, the Below Poverty Line/Above Poverty Line (BPL/APL) divide was to continue, with the ‘priority segment’ (46 % of the rural population and 28 % of the urban population) being eligible for 35 kg of food grain at the rate of Rs.1 a kg for millets, Rs.2 a kg for wheat and Rs.3 a kg for rice; and the ‘general segment’ (44 % of rural and 22 % of urban populations) being eligible for 20 kg per household at half the minimum support price for the grains. The 46% of ‘priority’ rural population is based on the rural poverty ratio for 2004-05, with a margin of 10% for “exclusion errors.”

The NAC’s calculation of ‘priority’ population is only marginally higher than the Tendulkar Committee’s estimate (rural poverty at 41.8%), and much lower than the N C Saxena committee’s estimate that between 50-80% of rural households were poor. And it is a far cry from the Arjun Sengupta report’s estimate, which had found that 77% of India’s population lived on less than Rs 20 a day. At a time when food prices are soaring, how much can Rs 20 stretch? Yet even the NAC proposal left out a large section of such people from the ‘priority’ list of the poor.

As Jean Dreze, a member of the NAC, put it in a scathing dissent note, the NAC’s was “a minimalist proposal”: far from being a radical food guarantee, or even a substantial expansion of the existing PDS coverage, it was even a curtailment of the existing PDS model under which APL households too are eligible for 35 kgs of grain. But even this ‘minimalist’ proposal has been too much for the UPA-II to digest. It appointed the Rangarajan panel to review the NFSB proposal, which, on cue, declared that the NAC proposal was infeasible, since there was a shortage of food stocks to meet the requirement. When food grain stocks rot in godowns, prompting even the Supreme Court to take notice, can it really be that India lacks food stocks to feed all her people?

The Rangarajan panel has sought to mask its hostility to the very idea of expanded PDS coverage behind a facade of concern for the burden placed on the poor, arguing that if the Government goes for larger procurement to stock the PDS, it will run the ‘danger of distorting food prices in the open markets,’ thereby increasing the burden of food prices on the poor. This is not only rank hypocrisy, it makes no sense economically. After all, increased procurement if accompanied by increased distribution cannot result in increased food prices. On the contrary, it has the potential to ease the agrarian crisis by guaranteeing an assured minimum income for the crisis-ridden peasantry.

The Rangarajan panel recommends an even further dilution of the NAC proposal – suggesting that guaranteed PDS coverage be restricted to the ‘priority’ households (defined as official BPL estimates + a margin of 10% of BPL population, amounting to 46% rural and 28% urban population) which will receive 35 kgs at Rs 2 per kg wheat and Rs 3 per kg rice. State-wise BPL population cut-off will be fixed from above by the centre. According to the Rangarajan panel, PDS foodgrain can be sold to the non-BPL population at the Minimum Support Price. Further, the Rangarajan panel, in the name of reforming the PDS mechanism, essentially suggests dismantling it in favour of a system of ‘smart cards’ whereby beneficiaries can “go to any store of their choice and use their smart cards or food coupons to buy food.” The Rangarajan panel’s suggestion disturbingly indicates the UPA-II’s motive to privatise the PDS, relieving the Government of accountability for its functioning.

Jean Dreze’s dissent note had observed that “the NAC proposals are a great victory for the government – they allow it to appear to be doing something radical for food security, but it is actually ‘more of the same’”. To confuse the issue, the UPA-II is seeking to restrict the entire question of food security to a debate between the minimalist proposal of the NAC and the even more minimalist proposal of the Rangarajan panel – both of which are a mockery of any genuine programme of ‘food for all.’ The Rangarajan recommendations will serve as a pretext for further retreat on part of the NAC, and behind the NAC-Rangarajan smokescreen, the UPA-II plans to stall, delay and dilute its promise of guaranteed food security for all.

Politics in India

Privatisation Has Paved the Way for Corruption

- Prashant Bhushan, Liberation, March, 2011.

[Text of speech delivered by Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan at the Deshbhakt Yadgar Hall, Jalandhar, on ‘The Indian State and the Cancer of Corruption’ on 14 February.]

Corruption is corroding Indian democracy, and massive scams are being discovered all around. Corruption is commonly understood as bribe-taking, but that is not really the case. Rather, corruption in any instance in which a person in public office takes a decision, due to any factors, against impartial public interest.

The worst and most serious form of corruption is the loot of natural resources which are being handed over to huge corporations. These super rich corporations, for instance, have lakhs of acres of land which have been forcibly snatched from the poorest adivasis and handed over to them in the name of Special Economic Zones (SEZs), mining, or steel plants and other industries. After land, the other major loot of resources is taking place in the country’s mineral wealth. Oil, gas, iron, copper – every kind of minerals are being gifted to these companies to the tune of lakhs of crores of rupees. You all have heard of the spectrum scam being worth around Rs 1.76 lakh crores and the Indian space Research Organization (ISRO) S-Band spectrum scam worth Rs. 2 lakh crore. But the loot of other natural resources like land and minerals – for instance the natural oil and gas fields given to companies like Reliance – is to the tune of many lakh crores every year.

Every year, a single company, Reliance, earns around Rs 1 lakh crore from the oil and gas fields, which is a precious natural resource of the country, but which the Government has sold to Reliance for peanuts. The Government then proceeded to double the price of natural gas produced by Public Sector Units (PSUs) from USD 1.8 per unit to USD 4.2 per unit to bring it in line with the price approved by the government for the gas produced by Reliance and swell the latter’s profits. [If the Govt. had not done so, lower-priced gas produced by PSUs would have been preferred by power and fertilizer producers to gas produced by Reliance Industries Limited (RIL). By hiking the prices, the Govt. not only protected RIL’s market, it also increased the burden on consumers of power and fertilisers. –Ed.] Not only that, Pranab Mukherjee got a Bill passed in Parliament introducing tax concessions on gas production that would be applicable retrospectively- something that would benefit Reliance hugely! On the Radia tapes we can hear how, when this Bill was to be debated in Parliament, former Revenue Secretary and now Member of Parliament (MP )N K Singh tells Mukesh Ambani’s lobbyist Niira Radia that Pranab Mukherjee is planning a Bill to ensure thousands of crores of tax concessions for Reliance (which Singh refers to as “our company”). But Singh warns that if Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were to speak strongly against the Bill in Parliament then it might not be easy to pass. Apprehending that BJP MP Arun Shourie who was to be the lead Opposition speaker in Parliament might be “very critical” of the Bill, Singh suggests that he can persuade BJP to replace Shourie with Venkaiah Naidu who is close to Mukesh Ambani. And that is exactly what happened in Parliament – Shourie was scheduled to speak but was replaced by Naidu, who supported the Bill which was passed. A Reliance representative was flown down by chartered flight to brief Naidu before this debate.

So in every way, not only are natural resources being looted, the entire government – and not just the government but the entire system of the country – is working overtime to ensure the highest profits for these private corporations. The Radia tapes have given the citizens of this country a glimpse for the first time of how the government’s decisions, policies, laws passed by Parliament, decisions of regulatory authorities as well as media stories are being decided by corporations through their lobbyists. Privatisation has now gone to the extent that monopolies – such as electricity supply (there is never any competitive market for electricity supply; you have no choice but to buy electricity from a single company) – have been privatized. Similar is the case with monopolies like airports and roads, and natural resources – all are being handed over to private companies.

Corporations even control the regulatory mechanisms. You remember that there was a debate recently over whether or Bt Brinjal should be introduced. That decision was to be based on the recommendations of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) set up by the Government. When we looked at who were the members of this Committee we found that the Co-Chairman was a bio-scientist called C D Mayee who is on the Board of Directors of an international organization International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) which is funded by Monsanto, the very same company that has the patent for Bt Brinjal and had applied for approval! [Mayee was the Co-Chair of the GEAC that approved Bt Cotton in 2001 and four years later he was appointed to the Board of the ISAAA.- Ed] How can such a committee take an impartial decision on approval, when its Co-Chairman himself is a part of an institution with a commercial interest in pushing genetically modified crops in the third world and countries like India? In our country such conflicts of interest have been created in every regulatory body. Take the instance of our case in the Supreme Court against poisons in Coke, Pepsi and other soft drinks. Pesticides are present in water and therefore make their way into soft drinks – but apart from these, various poisonous substances like phosphoric acid, ethylene, chemical colours and flavours and other poisonous chemical substances are deliberately introduced by the companies into these drinks. The Government says there is a Food Safety Authority which has various panels to look into these matters. When we investigated we found that on these panels were people of Pepsi, Coca Cola, Nestle – the very same companies which the Committee is supposed to regulate! When we brought these to the attention of the Supreme Court, the Bench finally passed an order that the regulatory panels be reconstituted and all names associated with soft drink companies removed. [The SC Bench observed, “the panel does not consist of independent persons; it is contrary to the (Food Security) Act. What kind of recommendations do you expect from the panel?” – ed.]

Our economic policies are formulated by the Planning Commission. Montek Singh Ahluwalia is Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission – where has he come from? He worked for 15 years at the World Bank (WB), after which he was brought to India, first as economic adviser, then revenue secretary, then finance secretary, and then he became Director of the International Monetary Fund ( IMF) for three years where his salary was Rs 2 crore a year. Then he became Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, and it is said that from here he will become IMF Chairman! What, after all, is IMF)? It is an institution which is controlled by USA and some Western European countries. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz held that WB and IMF are totally in the grip of the MNCs, especially financial MNCs, of USA and Western Europe. Former West Bengal Finance Minister Ashok Mitra has written in his autobiography about how Manmohan Singh became Finance Minister. In 1991, when Narasimha Rao became PM, India’s foreign exchange reserves were over and India badly needed a loan from IMF or WB. IMF-WB placed two conditions for the loan – first, India must adopt the ‘structural adjustment’ policies of liberalization-privatisation-globalisation (LPG); and second, they made the explicit condition that the Finance Minister must be of their choosing. Rao agreed. IMF first nominated IG Patel as the Finance Minister; Patel turned it down due to prior engagements. IMF then nominated Manmohan Singh – and that is how our Prime Minister (PM) today became India’s Finance Minister in 1991!

Today Manmohan Singh blows his trumpet that these policies have increased the GDP growth rate from 4% to 9%. Well, if you sell off all the country’s natural resources, you can easily increase GDP to even 2O%! And this is what is happening – natural resources have been distributed at a great rate amongst private companies for peanuts. These companies are exporting minerals to other countries like China to earn massive profits – and India is not getting anything in return, though it all goes to swell the GDP figures of the country. The Lokayukta of Karnataka Santosh Hegde has prepared a big report on the economics of Karnataka’s mines. The Reddy brothers – Bellary’s mining mafia and also Ministers who command great clout in the BJP Government – are exporting iron ore at Rs 5000 a ton, mainly to China. 2/3rds of the iron ore mined in India is being exported, in which the private companies earn Rs 5000 a ton. The cost of extracting the ore is Rs 250 a ton; transporting it to the ports costs another Rs 250 per ton! The company earns a 90% profit of Rs 4500 a ton and the Government gets a royalty of half per cent – Rs 27 a ton (now it has been raised to Rs 60 a ton). Moreover the land for mining is snatched from poor adivasis and handed over to the private companies. This is the root of the Maoist problem which the PM claims is the biggest security threat to the country. Most adivasis are dying of hunger as a result of their means of survival being snatched – some are taking up guns in desperation. India’s natural wealth is being extracted at a huge rate (30 years later these resources will be depleted), water and jungles ruined, and adivasis robbed of their survival – all for a puny royalty earned by the government and enormous profits for private players! Yet the PM claims daily that he is ‘increasing GDP rate’ as though it were a great achievement.

Those who made him Finance Minister and PM are directing him to privatise all natural resources and monopolies – and yet he claims he is an honest man who takes no bribes. Not taking a bribe – is this the only criterion of honesty?! Virtually each Minister in your Cabinet is corrupt and taking thousands of crores in bribes; you knew Raja was corrupt and yet you did not remove him from the Cabinet and in fact made him Minister a second term under pressure from private companies as revealed on the Radia tapes – and yet you say you are very honest! The Vigilance Commission (VC) is the country’s topmost anti-corruption agency – the PM hand-picked a man – Thomas – who is himself being prosecuted in a corruption case. I have heard that Thomas too takes no bribes – but he is being prosecuted for having, as Food Secretary of Kerala, facilitated Kerala Chief Minister Karunakaran in taking a bribe in the palmolein export matter, preparing fake letters and so on so as to remain in his seat and get plum posts in future. And sure enough he has landed a plum post of VC now. As Raja’s Telecom Secretary, Thomas did Raja’s bidding in every way. Raja asked him to get a suitable opinion from the Law Ministry to the effect that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has no authority to interfere in the 2G scam matter; and he procured such an opinion. If someone, even if he does not take a bribe himself but allows others to do so, allows corrupt policies to be made and corrupt decisions to be taken and does nothing to stop these, in order to hold on to his post or to secure a promotion, then will we call him honest? The PM says he is helpless because if a coalition partner like Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) calls the shots he can do nothing; in other words he is tolerating corruption in order to remain in power – can we call him honest?

None of the Multinational Corporations (MNCs) in India – in any sector be it oil or mining or stock market – is paying taxes. And why not? Because the government has left a loophole open for them. They have only to show that their company is based in Mauritius. Since India’s tax treaty with Mauritius is different from that with other countries, companies based in Mauritius will not have to pay any tax in India. It is international practice that at least capital gains tax is paid to the host country; all these companies are making huge capital gains in India and would, by any treaty, have had to pay capital gains tax to India. But thanks to the Mauritius loophole, these companies are getting total exemption. Mauritius has passed a law called the Mauritius Offshore Business Activities Act; any company from any country can come and register itself as an offshore company there, but by law it can do no business activity or employ any person in Mauritius. All MNCs in India are registered as offshore businesses in Mauritius and many Indian companies like Essar too have done likewise to evade taxes! Some 1.5 trillion dollars of Indian money is stashed in Swiss banks – the Government is talking of bringing it back to the country. Far from bringing it back, today they have left this ‘Mauritius’ route wide open for money be siphoned off every day, because the Government is in the pockets of the corporations.

Not only the government but even the judiciary today is mired in corruption. The Radia tapes conversation with Prabhu Chawla reveal that the Reliance case in the Supreme Court (SC) was managed. You may have heard of a recent contempt case against me in the Supreme Court, because I said in an interview that at least half of the last 16-17 Supreme Court Chief Justices were corrupt. I said what I did after having given it much thought; of the last 17 Chief Justices, in my assessment at least 9 were corrupt. (applause) I said this quite deliberately because there is an illusion that is fostered that there is corruption in the lower rungs of the judiciary but not at the top, not in the High Court (HC) and SC. Now there are many revelations of corruption against SC Chief Justices including the last one, Justice Balakrishnan.

The Radia tapes also revealed that the media will not only write what is dictated to it by corporate lobbyists but media persons too will act as willing agents and couriers for these corporate houses.

Who benefits most from the corruption that has spread throughout the entire system? It is said that politicians, Ministers etc are responsible. Yes, they are responsible because they head this system. But in corruption there is always a demand and supply. Today the all-pervasive privatization had created an unprecedented demand for corruption. Because for the private companies, the easiest way to multiply their profits a hundred-fold is to bribe a Minister and get the rights over an oil field or a mine for a throwaway price – and thereby loot lakhs of crores worth of natural wealth. You can get assets worth one lakh crore for a 1000 crore, pay the Minister a 10% bribe of Rs 10,000 crore and still enjoy a fat profit. The policy regime of privatization has created a system where it is possible to earn lakhs of crores by bribing the policy makers.

In earlier times, natural resources were not privatized and available for loot. There was corruption in the public sector mining corporations, no doubt, but it was not possible to acquire lakhs of crores worth of assets for peanuts and then sell them for a profit. The argument in favour of privatization was that government agencies are corrupt, and if the mining etc is taken out of the government’s hands and given to private players, it would reduce corruption. But the opposite happened. And that is what one distinguished economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote eight years back in his book Globalisation and Its Discontents, in a chapter titled ‘Who Lost Russia’ said that neo-liberal reform and the transition from communism to capitalism in the 1990s, involving the privatization of public sector assets and natural resources, had resulted in corruption of such proportions that Russia had become a failed state, a banana republic. In an article in the Hindu in January 2011 titled ‘Chilling picture of crime and corruption’, Vladimir Radyuhin observes that Russia has become a mafia state. The same corporate mafias and the “crime syndicates born out of the corruption-ridden privatisation of the 1990s have not only survived but also developed close ties with the law-enforcement agencies.” If anyone in the police tries to stop them these mafia powers promptly kill them, and even Russia’s PM or President are helpless before these mafias. If unbridled privatisation continues in India, then India too will meet the same fate.

In keeping with the demand for corruption, the supply has grown because there is no check over the Ministers etc who are the suppliers and over the system as a whole. The anti-corruption agencies – VC, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and judiciary – are all so corrupt and weak themselves that they are able to act effectively only on very rare occasions. In the present 2G Scam case, the SC Bench has forced CBI to go after at least some Ministers and CEOs; but the CBI is yet to pursue several industrialists. Heads of Essar, Tata and Ruia – all are involved in this and by rights they should all be pursued and booked but that is yet to happen and it remains to be seen if it will happen in the future.

The question now is – how to fight this all-pervasive corruption? To begin with, we must struggle to change these policies, and reverse the rampant privatization and prevent the future plans to privatise even the remaining avenues like water supply.

Anti corruption agencies need to be reformed – the judiciary, CVC and CBI – and a new anti-corruption agency needs to be created, call it Lokpal or what you will, that should be completely free from Government control and in whose selection the Government should have no hand. We have proposed a Bill with a transparent method of selection of the Lokpals, in stark contrast to the complete lack of transparent criteria in the selection of the CVC. The Lokpal should have full freedom to investigate any complaint of corruption and CBI should be under the Lokpal, not the Government, as should vigilance departments. The Lokpal should also have the power to prosecute. The Government’s Lokpal Bill is toothless and an eyewash. We also need judicial reforms and an independent commission to which the judiciary should be accountable – but Governments and judiciary alike have an interest in resisting this.

We also need political reforms. Elections as of now are an extremely unfair laying ground for genuine pro-people activists and forces. Democracy should not mean only voting to elect a Government. We need to move from representative democracy towards participatory democracy or direct democracy. People, be it at the village level or on national policy questions, should be enabled to vote directly on the decisions to be made, through a referendum of sorts, using technology such as the internet. Take the question of the Nuke Deal – such an enormous decision was taken by the Government, not even by Parliament! Why could such an important issue not be decided by the people themselves through a referendum?

To sum up, we need to put an end to the policies of privatization which is the root of the worst corruption; we need to reform the anti-corruption agencies and create an effective Lokpal institution; we need judicial reforms; and we need to move towards direct democracy. But who will do this? The Government, which is a puppet in the hands of corporations, will not do so. The only way is for the people of the country to come out on the streets to demand these changes through a mass movement – and in the mood of the people today, there is certainly the potential for such a movement. Rangarajan recommendations will serve as a pretext for further retreat on part of the National Advisory Committee (NAC), and behind the NAC-Rangarajan smokescreen, the UPA-II plans to stall, delay and dilute its promise of guaranteed food security for all.

International Womens’ Day

Violence Against Women: Grim Picture

- Kavita Krishnan, Liberation, March, 2011.

On 8 March last year, the UPA-II had passed the Women’s Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha with much fanfare. As the International Women’s Day Centenary culminating on 8 March 2011 nears, it is apparent that the Bill has been shelved. It may periodically be taken off the shelf and dusted off, but there is no sign that it will in fact be passed without significant dilutions. Other key legislations like the one on sexual harassment are still pending.

Meanwhile, a series of rape cases involving elected leaders of ruling parties has brought the issue of violence against women to centre-stage, and highlighting the tolerant attitude of the ruling political establishment towards such violence. In the Rupam Pathak case in Bihar, the Deputy Chief Minister (CM) himself led a campaign to vilify a woman who, faced with the impossibility of securing justice in her complaint of sexual exploitation by a Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA), had resorted to the desperate measure of stabbing the MLA.

The situation in Uttar Pradesh is especially shocking. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) Government led by Mayawati had come to power on the promise of social justice and a leash on crime. In particular, women from oppressed castes had expected that the Government led by a ‘dalit ki beti’ (as Mayawati styles herself) would ensure some freedom from the feudal violence of which they bear the worst brunt. Instead, NCRB data shows an increase in crimes against women, especially dalit women, in UP. But that is not all. Since Mayawati came to power, no less than seven MLAs from her own party have been implicated in crimes against women. In Mayawati’s previous tenure, she could try and shrug off the case of BSP Minister Amarmani Tripathi (later Samajwadi Party [SP] MLA) convicted of murder of his lover Madhumita Shukla, as a one-off case. But seven such cases in her current tenure suggest that the rot runs deep. It seems there is something about Mayawati’s sarvajan regime that allows these MLAs to entertain the feudal belief that rape (especially of women from oppressed castes) is part of the perks of power.

First, in 2007, there was the Uttar Pradesh minister of state for Food Processing Anand Sen Yadav, allegedly involved in the kidnapping of a 24-year old dalit college student of Faizabad. Then, in 2008, there was another BSP MLA Guddu Pandit who was accused of raping a schoolteacher. Then came the case of kidnapping and rape against Bilsi MLA Yogendra Sagar. The police avoided arresting Sagar and he was declared to be “absconding”, forcing the victim to move court. Another BSP MLA, Haji Alim, was charged with the abduction and rape of Nepali girls who were forced to work in his circus. In January 2009, Ram Mohan Garg, former Chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Fisheries Development Corporation, a post which enjoyed ministerial rank, was arrested on charges of raping a woman and making an obscene video of her. More recently, the Banda MLA Purushottam Naresh Dwivedi stands charged with raping a oppressed caste girl and then getting her arrested in a fabricated theft case. Since then, another BSP MLA Shiv Pratap Yadav has been charged by a court in Etawah of conspiring to protect a school principal accused of raping a teacher in his school and driving the victim’s husband to commit suicide.

When MLAs from the ruling BSP behave as though they have a license to rape, it is a symptom of a more widespread disease, whereby police and authorities routinely protect socially and politically powerful perpetrators of crimes against women. A rash of horrific cases of violence against women is being witnessed in UP, especially against dalit women. Near Kanpur, one dalit girl had her body parts chopped off for resisting rape. Some months ago, a dalit teenage girl immolated herself after police refused to register her rape complaint. Recently, another dalit girl in Azamgarh hanged herself when her father got threats after she complained of gang rape. A schoolteacher at Jaunpur immolated herself recently, despairing of being able to get justice in her rape charge against the director of the school board. At Chinhat, not far from the state capital, the police tried its best to suppress and destroy evidence of rape and murder of a dalit girl.

Previous governments and rival parties in UP have been no better. In 2006, three ministers of the Mulayam Singh Yadav government were accused of being involved in the murder of a woman lecturer in Meerut University. Last year, a Samajwadi Party MLA was charged with rape by a woman in Sultanpur. But this is no excuse for the Mayawati Government, because after all the sole USP of this Government is supposedly its commitment to justice for those who have long suffered feudal and patriarchal oppression. For MLAs in this Government as well as police in the state to be involved in and encouraging such oppression exposes the BSP’s social justice facade as hollow and deceptive.

The Congress has been quick to embarrass the Mayawati Government over the series of incidents of violence on women in UP. But who will answer for the relentless increase in incidents of rape and violence in Congress-ruled Andhra Pradesh, Assam and even Delhi? According to NCRB data, Hyderabad and Delhi are among the worst cities as far as women’s safety is concerned. Likewise, Haryana has the worst record as far as ‘honour’ killings are concerned, and the Congress government there continues to offer excuses for this barbaric phenomenon.

The recent case in Barasat where a young boy was killed by goons when he resisted them for harassing his sister, at a place quite close to the DM’s bungalow, reminds us that even West Bengal is showing a dismal record these days when it comes to violence against women.

In regions where the Indian state is at war with people, women have been a deliberate target. In the rape and murder of two young women at Shopian, Kashmir, the country’s highest investigative agency colluded to bury the truth and claim that they drowned in a shallow stream. If the systematic state repression were not enough, women also become targets for militant groups: recently, two sisters in the Valley were picked up from their homes by unidentified gunmen and brutally killed.

In Odisha, within a period of weeks beginning in the last week of December 2010, 10 women, many of them adivasis, have been killed in what the police claims were ‘encounters’ with Maoists. These include four women and one 12-year-old girl near the site of people’s resistance to the proposed Tata steel plant at Kalinganagar, and five women adivasis, all around 20 years old, killed in a single night in Rayagada district.

If women and even children in these areas of resistance to corporate land grab and mining loot are being massacred in fake encounters, the case of a young tribal woman of Odisha, Kandri Lohar, illustrates how the situation of ‘surrendered Maoist’ women is no less vulnerable. Kandri, who is said to have run away from home to join the Maoists, was arrested in 2005. Press stories said she was arrested with her fiancé Shankar, and the police, holding Kandri to be “innocent,” got her to surrender and arranger her marriage to a local youth. However, reports are that she was tortured by her husband and in-laws, and therefore returned to her parents’ house with her small son. Meanwhile the police had promised her the job of homeguard at the time of her surrender, but the job was offered to her only in 2009 when media highlighted her case. On the night of 11 February 2011, she and her son were found brutally murdered. Police claimed that Maoists killed her because she was suspected of helping the police, but Maoist leaders have accused the police of the killing. Human rights groups, pointing out that police had killed three alleged Maoists in an encounter in the afternoon of 11 February, have suspected that perhaps Kandri was in touch with suspected Maoists and being used by police to track their movements. Whatever the truth about who killed her, Kandri’s story does raise serious questions about the conduct of the police. If the media stories are true, it seems the police separated Kandri from the partner of her choice and, doing nothing for years to provide her with employment and independence, instead satisfied themselves with “arranging” another marriage for her, in which she was subjected to violence. Official explanations of how she was killed leave many questions unanswered.

The Ruchika case had underlined how difficult it is to pursue a case of sexual harassment against a police official. The same is being repeated in a notorious case of 2005 in which P S Natarajan, an IG of police in Jharkhand, was accused of sexually exploiting an adivasi woman. This month, the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has squashed the suspension order of Natarajan, and the Jharkhand police is busy putting out stories accusing the woman of being a leader of a Maoist outfit.

With this grim situation all over the country, the IWD Centenary will not be only an occasion to celebrate a 100 years of hard-won gains. Rather, on IWD in India this year, women all over the country will cut through the bland and hollow assurances of governments and will demand why these same governments are protecting perpetrators of crimes against women.

Workers’ Struggles

Workers’ March to Parliament

- Liberation, March, 2011.

Thousands of workers under the banner of various central trade unions marched to Parliament on February 23^rd against price rise and demanding upholding of labour laws.

The following is a link to an article from International Metalworkers’ Federation:

(http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=25776&l=2)

International

Arab Uprising: When Decades Happen in Weeks

- Dipankar Bhattacharya, Liberation, March, 2011.

There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen. Lenin said this nearly a hundred years ago during the turbulent days of Russian revolution. The last few weeks have once again vindicated this Leninist insight when the people of Tunisia and Egypt succeeded in ending decades of autocratic rule through weeks of massive street protests. It took the brave people of Tunisia just four weeks to not only end the 23-year-old autocratic rule of their notorious US-backed ruler, Ben Ali, but also inspire upsurges across the Arab world to put several other Ben Alis on notice. One of them, Hosni Mubarak, the octogenarian strongman of Egypt, the biggest political and military partner of the US in the region, has already had to step down in the face of sustained mass pressure. Protests are also on in countries like Yemen, Algeria, Jordan, Libya, Morocco and Sudan, and the rulers have already announced some measures to pacify the protesters and meet some of their demands.

The return of mass upsurges on the Arab street has revealed tremendous potential and struck a chord of global resonance. True, the upsurges had the local rulers as the immediate target and the US-Israel axis was hardly even mentioned. But the fact remains that Egypt has been the lynchpin of the US-Israel strategic axis in the Arab world. Even when Obama tried to ‘reach out’ to the Muslim world, he chose Cairo as the stage for delivering his address. Any mass upsurge for democracy in Egypt therefore has the unmistakable potential to destabilize the US-Israel strategy and pose new challenges for the US policymakers. Washington’s response to the Egyptian developments has been carefully calibrated – it was only when it became crystal clear that Mubarak had no other option but to step down immediately that the US went for a military-monitored transition. It now remains to be seen how the awakened people of Egypt respond to the challenges of transition in the coming days.

It is well known that while the US loves to topple regimes in the name of democracy, it is always afraid of democracy straying beyond the dotted lines of the Empire. Will the Egyptian urge for democracy be satisfied with the mere ouster of Mubarak, the hated and tired dictatorial face, or will it insist on more changes in the set-up that Mubarak had built over the years and in the policy trajectory he followed both internally and externally? With the opening up of the democratic space in Egypt and the larger Arab world, diverse trends in Egyptian society, history and culture will now have a chance to reassert themselves and we will have to wait and see if the once dominant trend of secular Arab nationalism can again emerge as the leading current.

While keeping a close watch on the unfolding developments, one must wholeheartedly welcome what has already been achieved by these popular uprisings. Together with popular victories in Latin America, militant student protests and workers’ struggles in Europe and the continuing people’s resistance in many parts of Asia, the Arab uprising marks a major rejection of neoliberal policies of privatization and corporate plunder. “Bread, freedom and dignity” was the central slogan of Tunisia’s “Jasmine Revolution” (Jasmine is Tunisia’s national flower) and in Egypt too the upsurge is clearly rooted in popular anger against rising prices, growing unemployment and the spectacular accumulation of private wealth at the expense of public resources and rights. The thoroughly modern, secular and popular character of the uprising has also demolished the mischievous imperialist propaganda that demonises Islam and depicts life and politics in almost all Muslim-majority countries as being dogmatic and medieval.

Tunisia and Egypt have not only furnished inspiring examples of popular upsurges in the present phase of global financial and economic crisis, in many ways they have also shown us what people’s upsurges can be like in the twenty-first century. The electronic speed with which the protests spread and the people assembled using every new technological medium – from television and mobile phones to the internet – gave us a glimpse of how revolutionary advances in information and communication technology can be made to serve the cause of a fighting people. The uprising also showed how a modern state with all its repressive apparatus can be effectively immobilized by a united and aroused people. It was truly a people’s uprising when the people reigned supreme and seemingly all-powerful rulers had to give in.

Given the historical reality and objective conditions in the Arab street where years of dictatorial rule had pushed back the organized political parties and the trade union movement, the uprising could only have a party-less and leaderless character. It will be wrong to universalize this as the emerging era of civil society and idolize it as the politics of the multitude. Indeed, now that the pro-US Egyptian Army, bureaucracy and elitist leaders are back at calling the shots, the people of Egypt will increasingly realize the need for sustained and organized political intervention to realize their dream of a meaningful democratic transition.

In many ways Egypt’s evolution in the latter half of twentieth century has been similar to that of India. A close ally of India during the heady days of Non-Aligned Movement, and a big votary of state-led industrialization and public welfare in early Nasser years, since 1980s Egypt has fallen headlong into the trap of neoliberal economics and pro-American geopolitics much the same way as India has. Will the rising tides of the Nile today be followed by a similar upsurge in the land of Ganga and Kaveri, Brahmaputra and Narmada?

]]> http://mlint.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/178/feed/ 0 mlint http://mlint.wordpress.com/2010/12/19/170/ http://mlint.wordpress.com/2010/12/19/170/#comments Sun, 19 Dec 2010 21:17:47 +0000 mlint http://mlint.wordpress.com/?p=170 ]]> January-February 2011

Table of Contents

1. ‘Laissez Faire’ for Corporate Loot

2. 2 G Spectrum Scam

3. Paddy Export Scam: Hands in the Rice Bowl

4. ‘Adarsh’ Patriotism

5. The Human Cost of Corporate Loot

6. Justice for 6 December 1992

7. We Must Rise to the Occasion

8. Nobel Prize and the Price of Peace

Politics in India

Spate of Scams:

‘Laissez Faire’ for Corporate Loot

- Liberation, December, 2010.

The rapid proliferation and sheer scale of scams that we are witnessing are shameful even by Indian standards. The 2-G spectrum scam has been dubbed the mother of all scams in India, involving as it does a whopping Rs 1,76,379 crore (1 crore = 10 million) lost to the public exchequer. But now we know, about 12 times that money had been illegally siphoned off our country to Switzerland and other tax havens. Mr Dev Kar, a former senior economist with the International Monetary Fund and currently a lead economist with the US-based research body Global Financial Integrity (GFI), has estimated that between 1948 and 2008 our country has been drained of $462 billion (over Rs 20 lakh crore) in this way. And this is a very conservative estimate, the GFI adds.

The more interesting fact is that, growing at 11.5% a year, nearly half of this amount exited the country after 1991 and about a third of the outflows occurred between 2000 and 2008. What this demonstrates is that the decline of the ‘quota-permit raj’ – yesteryears’ convenient whipping boy for rampant corruption – did not lead to any decline in the menace. Quite to the contrary. All-pervasive liberalization and globalization have thrown the floodgates of corruption wide open, bolstering the black economy and further degrading the quality of politics in India.

The UPA (United Progressive Alliance) Government and Congress have presided over large-scale loot – the Commonwealth games (CWG), the 2G spectrum, Adarsh Society, Indian Premier League (IPL), Scorpene submarine deal, paddy export, cash-for-votes, Prasar Bharati etc. The only action taken has been a few face-saver resignations. Recent revelations – like the phone tap tapes involved in the telecom scandal – underline forcefully that the UPA Government is being run to serve corporate powers, who vie amongst each other to decide policies and even ministerial berths. The corporate media is no less ‘embedded’ – playing middleman for corrupt leaders and corporate lobbyists. The scams to the tune of thousands of crores are at the cost of the country and the common people. Nor is the Congress-UPA alone – the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) too is equally at the command of corporate mafias.

Not surprisingly, Transparency International’s ‘Corruption Perception Index’ report covering the public sector in 178 countries shows that India fell by three positions from its ranking of 84th in 2009 to 87th this year in terms of corruption; even as neighbouring China improved her position from 79th in 2009 to 78th place now. To be sure, China does not seem to present an impressively better picture. But at least the fight against economic crimes is much more resolute there and maybe that explains the improvement, however small. Here in India, we have a completely different scenario. Our country finds itself in the dubious company of the likes of Saudi Arabia by refusing to ratify the UN Convention on Corruption – the only major country to have not done so. Ours is a land where all governments and ruling parties routinely try and save the guilty officials and leaders as long as possible and then let them off the hook with minor ‘punishments’ like ‘resignation’ and this is usually followed by rehabilitation in some other prized position; where the Supreme Court indicts the high office of Prime Minister for passivity in fighting charges of corruption; and where, to top it all, a tainted bureaucrat like PJ Thomas is appointed as Central Vigilance Commissioner!

In a situation as somber as this, it is necessary to connect the many dots on the corruption canvas and see the bigger picture. It is necessary to join the People’s campaign against the corporate-politician-bureaucrat nexus and for a paradigms change in the very orientation and mechanism of ‘growth’ and ‘governments’.

Politics in India

2 G Spectrum Scam:

Unbundling the Wires that Connect Corporates-Politicians-Media Barons

- Liberation, December, 2010.

A full year ago, the Central Vigilance Commission recommended a Central Bureau of Intelligence (CBI) probe into the matter, and the CBI raided the Telecom Minister’s office – but the UPA Government remained impervious to all demands for the removal of the Telecom Minister. Questions about the feasibility of an impartial probe while the accused remained a Minister were royally ignored. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Report has now vindicated all the allegations, exposing how procedures were manipulated to unfairly benefit certain companies, granting them 2G spectrum – a national asset – at throwaway prices leading to a loss to the public exchequer to the tune of Rs 1,76,379 crore(1 crore = 10 million).

How the Scam Was Worked

In the first place, the 2G spectrum (i.e. magnetic airways – a precious and scarce national resource) was not auctioned but was instead allocated on a ‘First-Come-First-Served’ (FCFS) basis for a mere Rs 1,651 crore each. Companies, Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices were also given GSM and CDMA licences at prices fixed in 2001. In comparison, auction of 3G spectrum earlier this year fetched Rs. 67,710 crore.

But the matter did not rest with the choice of FCFS procedure over competitive bidding. Even the FCFS procedure was tampered with to ‘fix’ the match in favour of certain companies! Previously, applications were ranked on the basis of the date of receipt at the central registry section of the Department of Technology. However, this basis was changed to that of compliance with ‘Letter of Intent’ conditions such as bank guarantees. The CAG has further noted that the time limit for compliance with the LoI conditions was reduced to just half a day, and miraculously, certain applicants (who obviously enjoyed advance information) were all ready with demand drafts and relevant documents. Of the 122 licenses issued in 2008, 85 were found to fall short of the eligibility conditions prescribed by the DoT itself!

Further some of the companies which bagged the Spectrum allotment for a mere Rs. 1651 crore, did not have any prior experience in the business of mobile phone and then within a matter of six months sold off shares to foreign companies at the prevailing market rate making at least 700% return on their ‘investment’! Swan, a front for Reliance sold to a Dubai-based company Etisalat, and Unitech, an Indian real estate company with no interests in telecom, sold to Telenor of Norway.

Congress Cover-Up and Complicity of the PMO

Not only did the Congress remain a silent spectator as this loot was being orchestrated, it has now come to light that no less than Prime Minster Manmohan Singh had ‘assured’ the Telecom Ministry that it would be free to allot the 2G Spectrum as it wished, with no interferences from the Empowered Group of Ministers! A letter written by former Union Telecom Minister Maran to the Prime Minister reveals that the PM had promised not to interfere in the spectrum pricing. The top Congress and UPA leadership thus stands indicted not just of inaction, but of active collusion in this multi-crore scandal.

From the very beginning itself in 2007-08, the 2G Spectrum allotment process was so outright corrupt that the Central Vigilance Commission and the IT department started prima facie investigation amidst huge public and political outcry. Strangely, the Mr. Clean PM paid no heed and allowed Raja to continue with his ways. It is only when things came to a head recently after the CAG report that Raja was asked to go but still not without brazen attempts on the part of Congress to undermine and trivialise the mind-boggling findings and indictments by this constitutional body. But Congress’ continuous cover-up game does not end here.

Earlier this September, thumbing its nose at widespread opposition and furore, the PM and Home Minister went ahead with the appointment of telecom secretary P J Thomas as the CVC. Not only does Thomas have a criminal charge-sheet on the Palmolein import scandal of 1992 in Kerala pending against him; as the telecom secretary under Raja, he had objected to inquiries by the CVC and the CAG into the allotment of 2G Spectrum licences. By promoting such a person to the crucial post of CVC, does the PM expect the country to believe that the office of CVC will effectively probe the 2G spectrum scam which implicates Thomas himself? On the contrary, the defiant move to place Thomas as the CVC at this crucial juncture has only displayed the UPA Government’s desperation to misuse the institution of CVC to sabotage 2G spectrum scam probe. With even the SC now questioning the appointment criterion of CVC, Congress clearly stands exposed and outsmarted in its cover-up game.

Similarly, the government’s choice of AG Vahanvati to answer before the SC for PMO’s inordinate delay in acting on the 2G spectrum scam, has come under serious questioning as according to a 26 December 2007 letter of Raja, it was Vahanvati, who in his then capacity of the Solicitor General has “advised” the telecom minister “to go ahead.”

Despite a week-long logjam by the Opposition in Parliament, why is the Government stubbornly refusing a JPC probe? Why is it seeking to whittle down the implications of the CAG report by restricting the question to that of an assessment of the CAG’s estimates of losses by the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC)? Is it not because the JPC, unlike the PAC would be empowered to summon Ministers and look into the political dimensions of the scam, whereas the Congress seeks to reduce the huge loss due to the scam to a debate over ‘accounting’ alone? Of course, it is true that JPCs in the past have come to naught thanks to the behind-the-scene bargains by ruling class parties. So, in addition to a JPC, there must also be an independent judiciary-monitored enquiry into all the criminal dimensions of the swindle, as has been demanded by the PIL being heard in the Supreme Court.

Crony Capitalism

Corruption in the telecom sector has come hand in hand with privatisation of this sector. More than a decade ago, Congress Minister Sukhram was at the centre of a telecom scam that accompanied the first moves to privatise telecom. And now, the size and scope of the scams have grown with more rapid privatisation of this sector.

In the wake of scam revelations, neoliberal commentators have spoken of the need for transparency and probity, while defending the ‘clean PM’ (or, in the case of CWG, ‘clean Shiela Dixit’) as opposed to corrupt individual leaders like Kalmadi or Chavan and allies like DMK. There is also very little focus on the main actors in the corruption drama – the CEOs and corporations themselves – choosing instead to focus on individual politicians. And there is a careful ‘see no evil’ policy regarding the neoliberal economy itself.

A close observation, however, reveals that cronyism is inbuilt into liberalization, which was ushered in by Manmohan Singh himself in the early 1990s. How? In the first place, liberalization dictates that scarce national and natural resources – land, water, minerals, magnetic air waves etc) as well as public sector assets are to be privatized and handed over on a platter to corporate to exploit for their own profit. Here, the myth is that the anonymous and fair forces of the ‘market’ will somehow ensure that the most suitable company gets the resources. But such fair competition is a myth – in reality, competing corporate jostle with each other in the arena of bribes and cronyism! In other words, it is nothing but corruption or cronyism (closeness to a particular Minister, for e.g) that decides which corporate gets which resource. No wonder the era of liberalization has time and again seen bigger and bigger loot of such resources.

Politics in India

Paddy Export Scam: Hands in the Rice Bowl

- Liberation, December, 2010.

The Congress and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) may attempt to appear virtuous by belatedly securing the resignations of Kalmadi, Chavan and Raja. But they will still have to answer to the people why they are yet to allow any credible enquiry into what is by far the most callous and cruel scam of all – the scam in which cabinet ministers connived to siphon off PDS rice via selected private operators to the international market – all in the name of aiding hungry and needy African nations!

Let us briefly recall how this Rs. 2500 cr scam unfolded:

In 2007, food inflation had reached alarming levels and at a time of economic crisis and recession, people were battling hunger and struggling for survival. The UPA Government accordingly banned the export of non-basmati and 25 per cent broken rice – and such a step was certainly called for in order to guard against depletion of PDS stocks and ensure food security. In any case, for a country like India where malnutrition and hunger are rampant, there can be no case for allowing the export of food grains, at least not until it is ensured that not a single Indian goes hungry.

But for key figures in the UPA dispensation, the ban on export represented, not a necessary measure to ensure food for the poor, but a golden opportunity to make profit out of a crisis. The ban on export of rice caused a steep rise in the price of rice in international markets (from $350 to a peak of $1,000 a metric tonne). First, in 2008, the UPA Government created a loophole so that the ban on export would not be absolute. On the plea that the export ban had pushed up rice prices in the international market, the Government adopted a policy that if poor and needy nations were to make requests for grain, rice could be released at subsidised rates on humanitarian grounds.

Soon after, requests for grain at concessional rates were ostensibly made by twenty-one African nations to the Ministry of External Affairs, which forwarded the requests to Ministry for Food and Public Distribution (headed by Sharad Pawar) and to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (then headed by Kamal Nath). These request letters on behalf of Governments of countries (for instance Ghana or Sierra Leone) had one peculiarity – they would specifically name a particular Indian private company through which the export should take place. For instance Ghana’s foreign ministry had stipulated that grain be exported through a private company, Amira Foods (India) Ltd, while Sierra Leone asked that Sierra Leone named a company called M/s Shivnath Rai Harnarain India Ltd on one occasion and Amira on another occasion. This is completely at odds with the regulations which dictate that the Indian Government decides the supplier. As per guidelines of Director-general of Foreign Trade (DGFT) grain is to be procured through the Food Corporation of India (FCI), exported through PSUs like the State Trading Corporation Ltd (STC), Minerals and Metals Trading Corporation (MMTC), or Project and Equipment Corporation of India Ltd (PEC), and transported through the Shipping Corporation of India.

Once the ‘request letter’ named a particular Indian company, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry would obediently give the required clearance (no questions asked about why the grain was to be routed through a private supplier rather than a PSU in a government-to-government transaction). Subsequently, the private company would handle the entire transaction with the foreign government, while the responsible PSUs and authorities turned a convenient blind eye to the entire process of grain procurement, the price at which rice was exported, and even the final destination of the exported rice. Thanks to an investigation of corruption ordered by a new government in Ghana against that country’s former foreign minister, evidence surfaced that the rice (exported supposedly on ‘humanitarian’ grounds from India) was sold, not at ‘concessional’ rates but at the international market rate (which, thanks to India’s export ban, was unusually high).

Moreover, there is every suspicion that the grain never reached the ‘needy’ country at all, but was instead routed off to the international market to be sold at a huge profit. The grain exported in the name of Ghana and Sierra Leone was sourced from PDS stocks of rice sold at Rs. 2 per kg in Andhra Pradesh. This grain must have been procured by the private company at the around $280 per metric tonne. If sold at an international rate of $470, it translated to a profit of $190 per metric tonne. Given the steep hikes in international prices then, even greater profits might have been made from such transactions.

There were so many blatantly suspicious and telltale things about these transactions that the MEA, Food Ministry and Commerce Ministry will find it extremely difficult to claim they were unaware of the scam.

First, the fact that the letters from the ‘needy’ governments named specific private companies; then, the fact that many of the 21 countries had a better per capita income than that of India, and one of them Egypt, is itself a rice exporter. The case of Nigeria was especially telling. The DGFT had allotted 1,17,100 tonnes of rice to Nigeria, but Nigeria denied that it had ever requested for rice. The Indian Government claimed that Nigeria rejected India’s rice allocation because of a bumper crop, and allocated 26,000 metric tonnes of rice to South Africa instead. Ironically Nigeria and South Africa are known to consume parboiled rice and would have no use for white rice.

Nearly half of India’s children below three years of age are malnourished. At a time when precious rice was being siphoned off illegally to swell the profits of crony firms, at least four states – Bihar, West Bengal, Assam and Chhattisgarh – were refused their demand for more PDS grain allocations. What has the UPA Government done to bring the perpetrators of this crime against the people to book?

To India’s shame, Ghana sent a 7-page letter specifically asking for a probe into the role of the then Commerce Minister, Kamal Nath; the then External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee; the DGFT; Amira Foods India Ltd; the State Trading Corporation (STC); and the Commerce Ministry.

In spite of the seriousness of such an unprecedented request by a foreign country for a probe into the role of key Ministers in the Central Government, the UPA Government is yet to order any credible enquiry. No CVC or CBI enquiry took place. Some probe has reportedly been conducted by secretary-level functionaries in the Commerce Ministry, who themselves served under the accused Kamal Nath, but even their report is yet to see the light of day.

Politics in India

Adarsh Patriotism

- Liberation, December, 2010.

The NDA (National Democratic Alliance) regime had been caught in a scam involving the purchase of coffins for Kargil martyrs. Now the Congress Government in Maharashtra has been caught colluding in land grab and illegal construction and allocation of flats invoking Kargil veterans and widows. In a supremely cynical gesture of mockery, the scamsters chose to call the illegal housing society ‘Adarsh’ (which means ‘ideals’ in Hindi). The whole episode speaks of the total lack of moral values or ideals on the part of a whole range of powerful powers.

The notorious corruption and dishonesty of politicians is often contrasted with the ‘uprightness’ and probity of the army. The Adarsh Housing Society Scam, in which a large number of top army officers are deeply implicated, has irrevocably busted that myth. Defence Minister A K Antony has had to acknowledge “a criminal conspiracy” by defence personnel, who “colluded” with the promoters to divert 6,490 sq. mt. of land (that the Army had “de facto” possessed for the past 60 years) for commercial purposes.

The scam originated when some army personnel mooted the idea of flats to “accommodate and reward the heroes of Kargil operation and those who had laid down their lives for the protection of the motherland”. Although the plot proposed (in the prestigious Colaba area of Mumbai) was one in which coastal regulations prohibited high-rise constructions, the magic mantra of ‘Kargil’ with its halo of nationalism was used to ignore and delegitimize environmentalists who raised questions, and a 31-floor structure came up. But the list of those who eventually got flats allotted to them in this apartment complex reads like a virtual who’s who of defence top brass, bureaucrats, and top Congress and NCP politicians of Maharashtra including the former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan. Of the 103 names to whom flats have been allotted, only 3 are in any way connected to Kargil!

The NAPM, which played a leading role in exposing the scam, has pointed to the “corrupt nexus of the builders-politicians-bureaucrats who order the demolition of the houses of the poor slum dwellers saying that they are illegal and are encroachers while they themselves encroach over land meant for the widows.” The Maharashtra High Court has meanwhile sought data on large-scale violations of the Coastal Regulatory Zone Act leading to unauthorised real estate constructions and environmental depredations along a 60 acre stretch of land in South Mumbai.

The Congress has replaced Ashok Chavan as CM and ordered a CBI enquiry, and the Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has ordered the demolition of Adarsh society. But it remains to be seen if the CBI will bell the cat and identify and prosecute those responsible for this shameful scam.

Scam-stained Saffron

The Congress party and Ministers in the UPA Government are in the eye of the storm of scams in recent times. But when it comes to taking up the scams as a political issue the main Opposition party – the BJP – is constrained by the fact that its own leaders and Governments are equally mired in sordid scams on a large scale. During the NDA regime, the BJP President Bangaru Laxman was caught on camera accepting a bribe. The BJP’s Chhattisgarh Government is implicated in a multi-crore paddy procurement scam. Party President Nitin Gadkari is trying to distance himself from close associates who are part of the Adarsh scandal.

Soon after the Congress-UPA had to get Ashok Chavan, Kalmadi and A Raja to resign, the BJP (as we write) is now in a struggle to get its Karnataka CM B S Yeddyurappa to resign, after being implicated in a massive land scam.

Confronted with evidence that he used his discretionary powers as CM to ‘denotify’ (i.e free from government control) huge tracts of land near Bangalore as well as in Shimoga to benefit his sons, daughters-in-law, son-in-law, as well as BJP MLAs, Yeddyurappa’s defence has been that he has only done what other CMs before him have done.

Even if the BJP succeeds in getting Yeddyurappa to resign, there will be no getting away from the fact that their Government in Karnataka with the blessings of BJP’s central leadership has disturbingly close linkages with mining mafia in the shape of the notorious Reddy brothers of Bellary. Top BJP leaders are known to have a very close relationship with the Bellary brothers, who have time and again proved that they and their considerable ill-gotten wealth call the shots in the state government. In fact it seems that Yeddyurappa might succeed in saving his seat by aggressively confronting the BJP with its toleration of the Bellary brothers in contrast with its demand for his resignation.

Among the illegal beneficiaries of flats in Adarsh is a close relative of Ajay Sancheti, an industrialist who is a member of BJP’s National Executive and known to be a close confidante of BJP President Nitin Gadkari. Sancheti, the CEO of a company with huge interests in coal, rail and power projects, and other kinds of infrastructure, is said to have brokered a deal to make Arjun Munda Jharkhand CM, and is alleged to be a front for Gadkari himself.

Politics in India

The Human Cost of Corporate Loot

- Liberation, December, 2010.

The issue is not just one of personal probity or morality. It is instructive to see what the telecom scam – and the resultant loss to the public exchequer – means to the people of this country.

The amount lost – Rs 1,76,379 crore – is 3% of our GDP (1 crore = 10 million).

When the Food Security Bill was mooted, there was a hue and cry on part of the corporate class and its ideologues about the fate of India’s fiscal deficit as a result of the ‘burden’ imposed by the subsidy. Now it emerges that with the amount lost due to the scam in telecom, we could have cleared half of the country’s fiscal deficit!

It is almost rs 40,000cr. more than the total amount that would be required to universalise food security – i.e provide 35 kg of foodgrains at Rs 3 per kg to all Indian households.

The amount lost due to the scam is

- 4 times the NREGA’s annual budget

- 4 times this year’s education budget.

- More even than our this year’s entire defence budget.

- The amount is roughly the same amount that would be required to ensure education for all for next five years ( as per the estimates of National institute for Educational Planning and Administration, NIEPA).

- It is double the Union budget for infrastructure spending this year.

PM Manmohan Singh has said that “the guilty will not be spared.” The question, however, is not just to punish those who took the bribes and worked the scam.

The PM must tell the people – why did he turn a blind eye and allow this massive loot of the public exchequer – that will, as we can see from the above sample of facts, affect the lives of millions of the country’s poor – to continue unabated? This is the question that all those eager to defend the PM from the corruption taint must answer.

Politics in India

Justice for 6 December 1992 -

Punish the Perpetrators of the Babri Masjid Demolition!

- ML Update, 7-13 December, 2010.

On 6 December 1992, Sangh Parivar mobs demolished the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya. They were led by the top leaders of the BJP – including Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti. Each blow struck at the historic structure of the mosque was a deliberate, grievous blow to the secular fabric of India.

In the 18 years since the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the perpetrators of that dastardly act have never been punished. The Liberhan committee came out with its belated report indicting BJP and Sangh leaders, but even after the report was tabled, the UPA Government has done nothing to ensure justice for the demolition.

On 30 September this year, just a few months before the 18th anniversary of the demolition, the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court came out with a verdict in the title suit case that in fact rewarded the very same forces who demolished the Masjid! The judgment, throwing the principles of evidence and justice to the winds, awarded 2/3rds of the land to the Hindu claimants.

It is true that the verdict awards one third of the land to the Muslims. Some try to tell us that this verdict should be accepted in the interests of “peace” and “harmony.” Can peace ever be had without justice? Can the demolishers of the Masjid share the land with the victims of the demolition who had occupied it for 400 years? Can secular and democratic Indian citizens ever rest if the perpetrators of the Babri Masjid demolition are rewarded rather than punished? Such a verdict will only end up emboldening the communal fascists who will seek to repeat Ayodhya all over the country, destroy secularism and equality, and turn minorities into second-class citizens.

The Congress party, which watched mutely as the idols were smuggled by communal forces into the Masjid, which facilitated the opening of the locks on the Masjid, and whose Prime Minister presided over the demolition of the Masjid, would like to bury the memory of the demolition. The Congress and its UPA Government is neither interested in acting on the Liberhan report and punishing the guilty, nor in ensuring that justice is done in the title suit case. It is Congress’ vacillations and double standards that have emboldened the Sangh Parivar time and again.

On 6 December 2010, let us assert that no peace is possible until justice is done and the demolishers of the Babri Masjid punished! Let us resist the attempts (both judicial and political) to erase the memory of the demolition of India’s secular values. Let us demand that the Supreme Court does justice in the title suit case, and let us demand that both the Courts and the Central Government initiate action against the perpetrators of the Babri Masjid demolition.

Struggles in India

The Resolve of December 18: We Must Rise to the Occasion

- ML Update, 14-20 December, 2010.

As 2010 draws to a close, the country is witnessing an unprecedented spate of mega scams. The 2G spectrum scam alone is estimated to be of the order of Rs. 176,000 crore – 2,750 times the size of the Bofors scam which had once rocked the country and led to the downfall of the Rajiv Gandhi government which enjoyed a massive 400-plus majority in Parliament.

What however makes the current spate of scams unprecedented is not just their enormous magnitude, but the range of institutions afflicted by the spreading rot. The Delhi Commonwealth Games turned out to be a mega circus of corruption. The Adarsh Society scam in Mumbai has exposed the corrupt nexus involving chief ministers, top bureaucrats and the Army top brass. The Radia tapes have revealed the intimate links between governments, big corporations and influential mediapersons. The Supreme Court has objected to the appointment of a tainted official as the Central Vigilance Commissioner. Accusing fingers have also been raised against the judiciary itself, both from within the judiciary and without. From the Prime Minister’s Office to Chief Ministers in key states – be it Congress-ruled Maharashtra or BJP-ruled Karnataka, from the Army to the judiciary and corporate media, all ruling class parties and pillars of the state-system are today under the scanner.

This clearly shows that corruption has emerged as the essential bridge between bourgeois economics and politics in the era of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation. This is the lubricating oil that runs the machine of state-power and corporate power in India today. The rulers had of course made a contrary claim while initiating the new policies two decades ago. We were told that market-driven policies would clean up the system by abolishing the licence-quota-permit raj. But there is now overwhelming evidence to show that the market is gobbling up everything, subjecting the entire decision-making process to a shadowy market mechanism where every law of the land is thrown to the winds and all resources of the country and rights of the people are sacrificed at the altar of corporate power and greed.

An all-pervasive agrarian crisis which has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives of Indian peasants, sky-rocketing prices that are daily pauperising large sections of the toiling masses, draconian laws and repressive campaigns that are bent upon throttling every voice of reason and dissent, and now this epidemic of corruption which is fast landing the system into its worst crisis of credibility – this is the big picture of today’s India. The ruling classes and the UPA government are trying to combat this crisis with American certificates declaring India as a ‘key strategic partner’ and an ‘emerged power’ and promises of a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. But as the recent Obama visit clearly showed, India’s partnership with the US may guarantee a bailout package for a crisis-ridden America, but for India it is certainly no passport to prosperity.

The more the Indian ruling classes cling to the US imperialism in the name of a strategic partnership, the more the US deepens its intervention in India and seeks to use India as a vehicle of American interest and influence in Asia. This only weakens our independence and vitiates our security environment. A recent study has also estimated that more and more Indian wealth is fleeing the country in search of grener pastures and safer havens abroad. Between 1948 and 2008, the country has been drained of an estimated Rs. 20,000 billion, and this outward flow has only been accelerating in recent years.

It goes without saying that this unfolding situation calls for a much bigger and much more assertive role of revolutionary communists to strengthen people’s struggles on different fronts. In 2010, the Party took a couple of important initiatives in this direction – the launch of the All India Kisan Mahasabha in May and the formation of the All India Left Coordination (AILC) in August. Together with the agricultural labour front, the peasant front is going to play a crucial role in the coming days not only from the point of view of resisting the agrarian crisis and advancing the campaign for land reforms, but also in terms of strengthening the anti-imperialist battle of the Indian people. The AILC too has made a good beginning, and it has already demonstrated some potential to attract the attention of serious Left forces in different parts of the country. In the coming days, we must make every effort to strengthen the AILC and carry it forward in the cherished direction of radicalization and rejuvenation of Left politics in India.

While most of our efforts and initiatives in 2010 yielded encouraging results, the results of Bihar Assembly elections have certainly come as a rude shock to the entire Party and all our friends and well-wishers. The continued presence of the Party in the legislative arena was the source of an added political profile for the Party not only in Bihar but in Left circles all over the country. Now that the NDA has swept the Bihar polls, rightwing forces and dominant sections of the media will surely try to use this sweeping victory of the NDA to mount an anti-Left offensive. The BJP having tasted extraordinary success in Bihar is bound to step up its role in Bihar and also try and use its success in Bihar for a countrywide rejuvenation of the BJP and the NDA. This will undoubtedly introduce new elements of tension in the political situation and we must boldly face every eventuality with our consistent anti-feudal anti-communal role.

The Party will surely learn every lesson that needs to be learnt and take every measure that needs to be taken, but electoral reverses cannot and must not be allowed to dampen the spirit and weaken the role and initiative of a revolutionary communist party like the CPI(ML). The Party will take the electoral shock in its strides and even use it as a “shock therapy” to strengthen the movement and streamline the organisation, and in no way will it allow reactionary forces to rob the people of the hard-won gains of decades of revolutionary struggle.

This 18th of December, along with Comrade Vinod Mishra we also remember Comrade Ramnaresh Ram (Parasji) who breathed his last on October 26 after giving his very best to the communist movement and the people for more than sixty years that changed the face of Bhojpur and much of erstwhile central Bihar. Comrade Ramnaresh Ram’s long political journey from the days of freedom struggle through the historic struggle of Ekwari (his native village in Sahar block of Bhojpur district) to the glorious assertion of the rural poor against feudal oppression and domination will remain a treasure house of inspiration for generations to come.

Comrade VM and Comrade Parasji played a historic role in reorganising and reviving the CPI(ML) after the setback of the early 1970s and also in upholding the revolutionary banner of Marxism and communist movement in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union when weak-hearted communists had started wavering and deserting the communist movement. This 18th of December, the entire Party takes a collective vow to carry forward their glorious and inspiring legacy. This 18th of December, we rededicate ourselves to the revolutionary communist mission of the CPI(ML) and to the challenge of fulfilling the unfinished tasks of all our martyrs and departed leaders. We inherit the legacy of learning from mistakes and turning defeats into victories. Let us rise to the occasion with renewed and stronger resolve and take the Party forward with bold and energetic steps.

International

Nobel Prize and the Price of Peace

- ML Update, 14-20 December, 2010.

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. China termed the award a calculated affront, and with Liu Xiaobo in prison serving an 11-year sentence and his wife under house arrest, the prize was awarded to an empty chair.

That the Nobel Peace Prize more often than not carried a political charged message is nothing new. Last year’s award to US President Barack Obama was calculated to boost the US’ bid for renewed prestige and credibility after the universally condemned Bush era. The choice of Xiaobo is very likely inspired by the intention to delegitimize Communist Party-ruled China as an authoritarian regime. If so, however, China has walked headlong into that trap.

Liu Xiaobo, associated with the Tianenmen protests of 1989, is an advocate of political reforms to bring China in line with Western-style liberal democracy. His Charter 08, for which he was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2009, advocates a gradual path of reform including property rights and multi-party democracy. In a media interview in Hong Kong in the late 1980s, Xiaobo is also said to have spoken approvingly of colonialism’s role in Hong Kong’s development and prescribed “300 years of colonialism” for China.

In China, spectacular capitalist growth in the economy is accompanied by continuing oversight and direction as well as political control by the CPC. Behind the clamour by the US and other capitalist countries for ‘democracy’ in China is the hope that this contradiction between China’s increasingly neoliberal economic trajectory and its communist-ruled political structure could be sharpened to push for wholesale capitalist restoration in that country. However it must also be recognised that China’s market

reforms in the economy are providing a material basis for demands of commensurate political reforms as well. For China to deal with that contradiction by muzzling the advocates of such change is to play into the hands of its detractors. By imprisoning Xiaobo, pressurising various other countries to boycott the Nobel ceremony and preventing Xiaobo’s wife from receiving the award in his stead, China has obliged its opponents with the most potent symbolic weapon they could have hoped for.

It must also be recognised that it is not only advocates of capitalist political reform that have been muzzled in China – it appears that even voices highlighting the growing social disparities too have been similarly suppressed. Not long ago, a man whose five-year-old son was poisoned by toxic milk in China was sentenced to jail for setting up a website to organise other parents against melamine poisoning. Workers’ protests too are known to meet with repression. The same repressive stick has been wielded to deal with popular outbursts at regional and cultural disparities in Xinjiang and Tibet.

The Nobel episode also unavoidably highlights the hypocrisy and double standards of capitalist liberal democracies. Even as Obama and others express pious outrage at how China treats its dissidents, they have all participated in the manhunt for Julian Assange, the founder of whistleblower website Wikileaks which blew the lid off the horrific war crimes that were the daily feature of the wars and occupation in Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the world. A 22-year old US solider, Private Bradley Manning, languishes in prison on suspicion of having leaked documentary evidence of war crimes to Wikileaks, including a video of US soldiers deliberately firing from the air to kill unarmed civilians in Baghdad. Even as the Nobel ceremony was underway in Norway, neighbouring Sweden was partnering the US in its bid to hunt down and silence Assange. Had the Nobel Committee really wanted to give a powerful contemporary message of peace, surely a more suitable candidate for the Peace Prize would have been Manning or Assange, for exposing the real face of war to people all over the world at the cost of personal liberty?

The double standards are no less visible here in India. How would the Indian state and mainstream media, quick to castigate China on Xiaobo and Tibet, have responded were Irom Sharmila, that powerful icon of protest against the Indian state’s war on its people, to have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize?

Table of Contents

1. Organise Country-wide Protests during Barack Obama’s India Visit

2. US Hands off India, Hands off Asia!

3. The Ayodhya Verdict: A Blow to the Spirit of Modern India

4. CPI(ML)’s Charter for the People of Bihar

5. All India Left Coordination (AILC) Holds Conventions

6. The Human Cost of Wealth Explosion

7. Comrade Ram Naresh Ram is no more

Struggles in India

Organise Country-wide Protests during Barack Obama’s India Visit

- Liberation, November, 2010.

US President Barack Obama’s forthcoming visit to India this November will inaugurate a new chapter in the ‘strategic partnership’ between US imperialism and India’s ruling class. As people of India, let us examine the interests that the US President represents and the implications of his visit for India.

Barack Obama became President of the United States because he represented, for the people of the US as well of the world, a promise of ‘change’ – change from the imperialist policies of the Bush regime that had imposed wars, occupation, and economic crisis on the world.

Two years later, both in the US as well as elsewhere in the world, that promise stands belied. Obama’s regime has represented ‘continuity’ rather than ‘change’ with the policies of US imperialism and war-mongering. Any ‘change’ has remained cosmetic. Obama colluded in suppressing the UN’s Goldstone Report indicting Israel for war crimes in Gaza. In the name of ending the occupation of Iraq, Obama has actually renamed 50, 000 US troops in Iraq as ‘advise-and-assist brigades’ rather than combat troops. The US war in Afghanistan continues unabated. And there has been no change whatsoever in the policies of US imperialism that force a grave economic crisis on the people of the world.

As Manmohan Singh’s United Progressive Alliance (UPA)-II government rolls out the red carpet for US President Barack Obama this November, we will once again hear the familiar claims – that India’s ‘special’ relationship with the US is a matter of pride and that being part of the US’ strategic embrace protects India’s economic and security interests. But bitter experience has taught us better.

It has been revealed recently that the US had information of the Mumbai terror attacks’ mastermind David Headley’s links with terrorist outfits as well of his plans to target Indian cities, but did not share the same with India. Not only that, the US is even now keeping its own secrets by protecting Headley from facing trial in India. In the Bhopal gas tragedy, we saw how India’s rulers obliged the US by failing to make corporations like Union Carbide and Dow face the criminal consequences or even pay damages. The Indo-US Nuke Deal is designed to keep a US leash on India’s foreign policy and increase India’s dependence on the US, while the recently passed Nuke Liability Bill is scripted to protect the interests of the US nuclear industry. The Indo-US Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture and ‘Obama-Singh 21st Century Knowledge Initiative’ are all increasing the US stranglehold over India’s self-reliance in education and agriculture.

Obama’s visit to India will undoubtedly serve US interests in many ways – by further prising open key sectors of the Indian economy for US investment; by expanding the Indian market for the US military-industrial complex; and by further binding India to the US’ imperialist strategies in the world. For the mass of Indian people, however, it is clear that India’s growing ties with the US are inviting economic crisis and terrorism on Indian soil, and shamefully shackling India’s independence and self-reliance to imperialist interests.

Barack Obama is coming to our country as the intelligent, democratic face of US imperialism; let all who stand for peace, justice and sovereignty greet him with protests all over the country with a loud welcome message:

US Imperialism Keep off from India, Keep Off from Asia!

Asia is not for US Meddling and Occupation!

Stop Outsourcing War, Terror, and Economic Crisis!

CPI(ML) Liberation

CPM Punjab

Left Coordination Committee (Kerala)

Lal Nishan Party (Leninist)

For All India Left Coordination

Politics in India

US Hands off India, Hands off Asia!

- Arindam Sen, Liberation, November, 2010.

Barack Obama’s journey to India in the first week of November promises to be remarkable on several counts. Not all US Presidents visited India; those who did came here only in their second terms in office. Obama will be coming here before completing his second year in the White House and the trip is expected to cover full four or five days – the longest on record. Generally speaking this is a measure of India’s enhanced importance in the American dream of world domination. But perhaps more important are the current context and the immediate concerns on both sides.

Right on the eve of Presidential trip, the CNAS (Centre for a New American Security), a think tank headed by Richard Armitage and Nicholas Burns — both former Deputy Secretaries of State under George Bush Junior and key architects of the Indo-US Nuclear Deal – brought out a paper titled “Natural Allies: A Blueprint for the Future of U.S.-India Relations”. Referring to the “rapid expansion of ties” during particularly the Bush years, the paper laments that now this progress has stalled. “Past projects remain incomplete, few new ideas have been embraced by both sides, and the forward momentum … has subsided” – the paper observes, adding “it is critical to rejuvenate the U.S.-India partnership and put U.S. relations with India on a more solid foundation.”

How does the Democratic administration propose to respond to this Republican pressure?

According to an official statement from the White House, the visit will focus on the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, bilateral business ties and the world economy. It is easy to guess that the second item would dominate the agenda, since this is crucial both for a recession-hit and debt-burdened US and for an India betting on an outward-looking rather than domestic demand-driven strategy of growth. The two sides will therefore focus on issues such as the easing of high-tech exports to India by removing Indian firms from the banned entities list, which is mainly a fallout of New Delhi not signing the NNPT and other security-related technology transfer agreements like CISMOA (Communications and Information Security Memorandum of Agreement) and BECA (Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement). If some success is achieved on this front, that will be used to project the visit as “historic”. The principal beneficiaries will of course be the corporate lobbies in both countries – particularly the military-industrial complex in the US. Firms like Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp. expect to sell military-transport aircrafts, military jet engines, freight locomotives, reconnaissance aircrafts and other items worth tens of billions of dollars. As for the Indian establishment, it will be only too happy to show off its commitment to “national security” with the newly acquired state-of-the-art defence equipments and technologies.

Apart from the huge profits to be made from the sale of military hardware, arming India to the teeth is important for Washington also as part of its China containment policy. In the recent past, China-US relations took some severe beatings on issues like arms sale to Taiwan and Obama’s meeting with the Dalai Lama while the perpetually simmering tensions in the Sino-Indian relations were also aggravated on more occasions than one. Naturally the Indian Government is a very willing accomplice in the American scheme of promoting “the world’s biggest democracy” as a counterweight to “authoritarian China”. Of course, this can happen only within a limit. For the Democratic administration also accepts China’s crucial role in South Asia, as the Beijing joint statement – which, inter alia, had appeared to convey that China and the US would now keep a watch over differences between India and Pakistan – made clear a year ago.

A thorny issue that will be sought to be sorted out during Obama’s visit is the teetering civil nuclear-energy partnership between the two countries. US sanctions against India ended with the signing of the nuclear deal a couple of years ago, but US firms like GE are not selling nuclear technology to India yet. They are not prepared to accept even the very limited liability placed on suppliers in the event of a nuclear accident under the Nuclear Liability Bill. India is hoping to assuage US firms that it will take care of their concerns through the rules to be framed under the law, while US officials and corporations want the law itself revised and the liability provision scrapped —which does not seem to be feasible in the given balance of political forces in India.

In the realm of world economy, the US wants India to support it in the currency war against China, blaming the latter for artificially devaluing the Chinese Yuan. But it has itself adopted a deliberate strategy to devalue the dollar, the principal means being quantitative easing (printing huge amounts of dollar for buying bonds and other financial assets from the market). A weaker dollar would help the President meet his avowed goal to double exports in five years, but this is not good omen for other nations. This explains why Pranab Mukherjee, during his recent visit to the US, refused to take the American side in this war against the Chinese, currently India’s most important trading partner. Nor did he forget to voice India’s disgruntlement with the Obama Administration’s policy of discouraging outsourcing. During the impending visit of the US President, he is likely to raise this question again, and ask for liberalisation of the H-1B visa regime.

The Indian wish list would also include a clear commitment from the US to support its claim for permanent membership in an enlarged United Nations Security Council. India, too, would be required to make a number of commitments and policy changes. It will be under great pressure for removing whatever restrictive regulations are still there in sectors such as energy, technology, retail, health care and banking. On the diplomatic front, New Delhi will be urged to join the US in bullying Iran. As a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has an “inalienable right” to develop and use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and according to the International Atomic Energy Agency there is no evidence to back up the charge that Iran is “planning to produce nuclear weapons”. And yet the US, which lied about imaginary weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to manufacture the logic of aggression, is now portraying Iran as a threat to peace and resorting to escalating sanctions and threats of military intervention against that country. Washington has already named India’s oil and gas flagship Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and three other firms among the 41 concerns worldwide having energy ties with Iran, an act for which it may impose sanctions on them and the pressure will now be further intensified.

Sending out a symbolic message of Indo-US partnership in the fight against terror, the US President will begin his tour from Mumbai, sight of the 26/11 attack. But is America really a dependable ally in this struggle? Soon after the visit was finalized, ProPublica — an independent non-governmental organisation which was a recipient of this year’s Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting — gave out minute details showing that three years before the November 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai, US officials knew that David Coleman Headley was undergoing training with the Lashkar-e-Toiba, which plotted the attack. Had this information and his photographs been shared with India at the time or even after the Obama administration took over, India would not have given a visa to Headley for his repeated visits and this could have prevented the terror strike. This point has been largely ignored by major sections of the Indian media, almost exclusively preoccupied as it is with exposing the role of Pakistan’s ISI in the attack on Mumbai.

Among regional issues, the Af-Pak policy of US will also figure in the talks, though hardly any breakthrough is expected. In the “Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Stabilization Strategy” released in January this year, the White House promised an “enhanced partnership” with Pakistan that would move far beyond the military funding the Bush administration had provided. This was followed up by a provision of $7.5 billion to be given to Pakistan over five years. All this is not palatable to India, which never tires of complaining about US dollars being used by Pakistan in abetting cross-border terrorism. New Delhi is also eager to increase its stakes in Afghanistan and angry with President Karzai for talking to the Taliban. Pakistan on the other hand is reasonably aggrieved with the continuing US Drone attacks inside its territory. In a situation as complex as this, the visiting President will be hard put to balance relations between India and Pakistan — countries eternally at loggerheads, but both of which hold significant regional influence in American plans for a post-war Afghanistan.

The impending visit will have its interesting sidelights too. For a starter, the Tata Group has announced a $ 50 million (Rs 220 crores) gift to Harvard Business School — the largest donation from an international donor in the school’s history. The symbolism should not be lost on India’s state guest, who is also a Harvard (law school) alumnus. But in terms of substance, how much will the trip actually yield? Given the maze of multiple pressures and pulls in Indo-US relations, no sensible observer will dare come up with a categorical answer at this stage.

The US President comes to India at a time when he is experiencing a steep fall from a peak of popularity in his own country and abroad for failing to deliver on any of his high promises. The Manmohan Singh Government too finds itself beleaguered by a host of nagging problems ranging from skyrocketing prices to the CWG scam. Both sides desperately need a face-lift and they will use the trip for that purpose too. With the range of economic, diplomatic and strategic issues to be covered, it is also evident that Obama’s India sojourn aims at bolstering US interests well beyond this country. The point was driven home by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Robert Blake, one of the top diplomats coming to New Delhi on a ground preparation mission, when he said the centre of gravity of US foreign policy has shifted from Europe to Asia. The bottom line is clear. Barack Obama is coming to our country as the intelligent, democratic face of US imperialism; let all who stand for peace, justice and sovereignty greet him with a loud welcome message: US imperialism keep off from India, keep off from Asia!

Politics in India

The Ayodhya Verdict: A Blow to the Spirit of Modern India

- Liberation, November, 2010.

On the eve of the Allahabad High Court verdict on Ayodhya, we had said the verdict would be a “test case for India’s secularism, democracy and justice.” Now, following a close look at the shocking verdict, we must say it has failed this test in every possible way. 30 September, 2010 will now be bracketed with 6 December, 1992. Eighteen years after the dastardly physical demolition of the Babri Masjid, we have now seen its judicial demolition, a verdict that flies in the face of the basic principles of justice and rule of law, and challenges the fundamental spirit of a secular, democratic modern India.

The High Court was supposed to decide on the title suit regarding the disputed site. It is well known that the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and its Sangh siblings were all along wary of the court deciding on this case on the plea that the whole issue concerned “faith” and there could be no adjudication over “faith”. It was clear to them that they had no legal basis for their claim and hence they chose the way of cheating the country. They assured everybody that the law of the land would be honoured, and then betrayed their own words to demolish the mosque through a communal-fascistic mobilisation in broad daylight.

Today, the Sangh is jubilant that the High Court has turned “faith” into law. All the three judges have accepted the fact that the idols of Ram, Sita and Bharat were smuggled in from outside on the intervening night of 22-23 December, 1949. Yet the judges have ruled by 2-1 majority that the “disputed structure” was not a mosque because it was apparently constructed by demolishing a Hindu religious structure and hence according to the tenets of Islam, it could not have the sanctity of a mosque! The other judge has of course differed on both counts – but the majority view prevailed.

The verdict is based heavily on two factors – the so-called ‘archaeological evidence’ marshalled by the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) in its 2003 report that there was a Hindu temple on the site before the mosque was built, and the ‘faith’ held by many Hindus that the disputed area is the birthplace of Lord Ram. The ASI report has been widely questioned and rejected by a whole range of historians and archaeologists and can at best be treated as a piece of speculative conjecture based on inconclusive evidence and questionable interpretaion. The other aspect of ‘faith’ is just that – faith, which can by no means be treated as an evidence to decide a title suit.

After conceding the Ramjanambhoomi claim on such thoroughly questionable grounds, the judges sought to give the whole thing the appearance of a reconciliatory measure whereby the disputed land would be apportioned into three equal parts with one part going to the waqf board. Reconciliation can only be attempted and achieved on the basis of truth and justice. In this case, both truth (at least recorded historical truth) and justice have been sacrificed at the altar of this phoney reconciliation formula and hence it is a compound travesty of all three. Can there ever be a dignified compromise by compromising truth and justice?

After Gujarat genocide, the BJP had been steadily losing ground in most parts of the country. Ever since its debacle in the 2009 Lok Sabha election – its second successive defeat in five years, the party seemed virtually clueless as to how to arrest its continuing state of demoralisation and desperation. Now the Allahabad High Court verdict has breathed some fresh life into the demoralised and desperate saffron camp. Advani has already described the verdict as heralding a new chapter in the country’s history of national integration. In all likelihood, an emboldened BJP will now reopen the whole gamut of its ‘suspended agenda’ and refuel its Hindutva campaign.

The judicial trajectory of the case will now reach the Supreme Court. It remains to be seen if and how far the Supreme Court can salvage the spirit of law and justice and heal the post-Ayodhya wound on the body polity and the composite culture of the country that has only been rendered deeper and more acute by the Allahabad High Court verdict. Every effort must be made to make sure that the glorious tradition of India’s composite culture and the secular democratic vision of modern India prevail over the Sangh brigade’s conspiracy to redefine India on retrograde majoritarian lines.

Bihar Assembly Elections 2010

CPI(ML)’s Charter for the People of Bihar

• Liberation, November, 2010.

CPI (ML) is in the midst of a most vigorous election campaign in the 104 constituencies of Bihar. Below is the election charter.

Fight against Corruption: Corruption has become a major drag on development and it marks a serious denial of dignity and democracy for the poor. The CPI(ML) is therefore determined to wage a “zero-tolerance to corruption” campaign and insists on comprehensive probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation or other credible and competent agencies into all frauds unearthed by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and other vigilance agencies to ensure that all officials, politicians and contractors/middlemen responsible for misappropriation and diversion of public funds and Public Distribution System (PDS) loot are brought to book. More often than not, corruption flows from the top and it is therefore particularly important to mete out stern punishment in every case of corruption in high places. The CPI(ML) demands that each Minister and any other politician holding the office of profit and each bureaucrat be legally mandated to publicly declare his/her assets that s/he possessed before s/he occupies the public position, and then at every six months interval during the period of holding such position, failing which the concerned minister/official should face automatic termination. Special courts in sufficient numbers must be created right from the state level down to district and subdivision levels to try corruption cases through speedy trials.

Democratic Rights and Democratic Debate: There can never be ‘good governance’ without accountability, democratic rights and serious democratic debates on policy issues. Successive governments in Bihar have systematically downgraded democracy by curtailing democratic rights and reducing the role of the State Assembly as a platform for serious policy debates. The CPI(ML) rejects this authoritarian subversion of democracy, feudal-bureaucratic style of governance and increasingly corrupt and opportunist political culture, and is determined to fight for democratic principles and rights in every sphere and promote serious public debate both within and outside the Assembly.

Below Poverty Level (BPL): The latest UNDP report estimates the incidence of poverty in Bihar to be as high as 80%, but the BPL list in Bihar has become a tool for not only gross underestimation of poverty but also large-scale exclusion of the poor. The CPI(ML) will press for automatic inclusion of all agricultural and other rural labourers, small peasants and artisans, low-paid contract/unorganized workers, employees working on token honorarium in BPL category.

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGA): Immediate doubling of the current provisions to ensure 200 days of assured annual employment to two persons per family at a daily minimum wage of Rs. 200. Bihar has a very poor record of implementation of MNREGA. The government claims to have provided jobs to all applicants, but in terms of work given (person days), the ratio has actually come down from 35.34% in 2006-06 to 27.54%. If the proportion is calculated relative to the number of job cards issued, the figure will be as low as 9% in 2009-10. Yet the Bihar government has not paid unemployment allowance for failure to provide 100 days’ employment. While fighting for improving the provisions of MNREGA, the CPI(ML) will press for strict enforcement of all norms including prompt allocation of work and payment of wages, payment of unemployment allowance, childcare and other facilities for women workers, check on mechanization and middlemen in MNREGA projects and supervision through general body meetings of the beneficiaries.

PDS: Overhauling of PDS in compliance with Supreme Court food orders to ensure 50 kgs of food grains at Rs. 2 per kg and 5 litres of kerosene oil at Rs. 2 per litre to all food-deprived and low-income groups; expansion of commodity coverage under PDS to include all items of essential consumption including pulses, edible oil, soaps and detergents; replacing the present system of private dealership with a network of government-run ration shops in every panchayat.

Land Reforms and Tenancy Rights: The D Bandyopadhyay commission has made a modest set of proposals for land reforms and tenancy rights. CPI(ML) wants immediate and complete implementation of all recommendations made by the commission including (i) standardization and strict enforcement of ceiling laws so as to provide 1 acre cultivable land to every landless family, (ii) provision of 10 cents of homestead land for the shelterless and regularization of all settlements of the poor and the oppressed, (iii) registration of all tenants/sharecroppers, regulation of rent and protection of the right to cultivate and extension of necessary assistance to tenants/sharecroppers to help them develop their agriculture.

Flood-control and Water Management: Recurrent floods are one of the topmost problems facing Bihar, but the root of this problem lies not so much in nature’s fury as in criminal negligence on the part of successive governments in Patna and Delhi. The Bihar government submitted proposals for plan assistance worth Rs. 17059.62 crore for flood control in the Eleventh Plan, but did precious little to implement its own proposals and follow even the standard precautionary measures. The result was the unprecedented Kosi disaster in 2008 – but while the government has now turned to the World Bank for more funds in the name of rehabilitation, the breaches in Gandak embankments this year clearly show the continued criminal negligence and callousness on the part of the Bihar government. All pressure must be exerted on the state and central governments for immediate implementation of short-term and longer-term measures for flood-control, water management and rehabilitation of flood victims.

Irrigation: Despite Bihar remaining primarily an agricultural economy, not more than 50 percent of the cultivable area is irrigated. This strikingly low figure is despite creation of higher irrigation potentials for irrigating about 70-80 percent cultivable area. The gap between potential and actual irrigation area is because of serious neglect of distributory and field channel system, decreasing carrying capacity in the canals because of siltation, and virtual collapse of the government-run tubewell system, to mention three major reasons. Thus, increasing coverage area of irrigation by strengthening the existing system for realizing its potential should be a major agenda of reform. Modernisation of Sone canal and immediate completion of Kadwan reservoir project should be on top of Bihar’s irrigation priorities.

Lack of supply of power and rapidly increasing diesel prices have also proved major obstacles and Nitish Kumar’s promise of 4.64 million borewells has turned out to be completely bogus. If the government cannot guarantee assured power supply, it must consider providing free diesel for pump irrigation pumpsets. While neglecting the issue of maintenance, modernization and expansion of irrigation facilities, the government has been pursuing a strategy of privatization of irrigation, thereby further weakening the system and excluding the poor and middle peasants and tenants/sharecroppers from irrigation facilities. The CPI(ML) is determined to resist this course and fight for the peasant’s right to assured and affordable irrigation facilities.

Development of Agriculture and Allied Sectors: Development of agriculture and allied sectors including horticulture, animal husbandry, dairy, poultry and fisheries remains central to any notion of meaningful economic development in Bihar. Apart from guaranteeing thorough-going land reforms and increased public investment in agriculture and allied sectors, the state and central governments must be compelled to extend comprehensive assistance to the agricultural and allied population. Cheap credit, assured power and water and timely supply of subsidized inputs, procurement centres at every panchayat, coldstorage facilities and veterinary hospitals at every block, pro-peasant agricultural research and extension service – these are some of the key demands of agriculture and rural livelihood, and no government can be allowed to abdicate its responsibility on this score.

Power and Electrification: Compared to the national average per capita annual consumption of electricity (613 units), Bihar lags way behind at 75 units. Under the Rajiv Gandhi Rural Electrification Scheme (RGGVY), Bihar was supposed to reach universal electrification by 2012, but by current estimates only 30% of Bihar villages have been covered till date. Among Bihar’s 1.26 crore rural households, only 6.5 lakh – a shocking 5.12% – are electrified. And in terms of supply, most of the ‘electrified’ areas receive very little and highly erratic power supply. Instead of taking urgent steps to improve power generation and rationalize the power distribution system by prioritizing sectors like agriculture, weaving, industry, education and healthcare, the government has only been desperate to dismantle the State Electricity Board and privatise the power sector. While opposing privatization, the CPI(ML) stresses rapid completion of ongoing power projects and also promotion of decentralized renewable energy to meet Bihar’s growing energy needs.

Road and Public Transport: While National and State Highways in Bihar show a degree of improvement, rural roads as well as roads inside district/subdivisional towns are still in very bad shape. Huge gap still exists in this sector seriously constraining the communication and marketing linkage between rural areas and the administrative locations, markets and towns and cities. Against a total of 82,958.63 kms of road network, still about 36,851.63 kms of roads, or 44.42 percent of roads, are kuccha as against 10 percent in Gujarat and 23 percent in Tamil Nadu. Bihar has low penetration of road network with only 77 km road length per 100 sq km, compared with 169 km in Orissa, 118 km in Tamil Nadu, and 97 km in Uttar Pradesh. What is worse, there is still virtually no public transport system in most parts of Bihar. While fighting for a comprehensive network of all-weather motorable roads, and optimum and transparent utilization of concerned resources, the CPI(ML) insists on a safe, affordable and effective public transportation system to take care of the growing communication needs of the people.

Healthcare: All shortages in public health infrastructure and staff strength, identified in the Bihar Programme Implementation Plan (PIP) of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and other recent surveys, must be filled up on war-footing. One Community Health Centre (CHC) should be set up in every panchayat and one 50-bedded hospital for every 30 km radius, assured supply of medicines for all sub-centres and CHCs. Bihar needs at least 3 all India Medical Insitute (AIIMS)-style super-specialities, and at least one medical college for each district.

Safe Drinking Water, Hygiene and Sanitation: Free and universal access to safe drinking water and sanitation has been recognized by the UN as a basic human right. The Bihar government must take urgent steps to guarantee this right and stop the growing privatization and commercialization of water. Building community toilets in every village, cleaning up all water bodies and freeing drinking water from dangerous effluents and chemicals, and adopting effective measures for water harvesting to stop the falling level of groundwater must be taken up as a priority.

Literacy and Education: Bihar’s record on the literacy front is still lagging behind most states in India with the literacy rate among dalits being as low as 28.47% (only 15.58% among dalit women). Rapid and sustained improvement on literacy and education front is crucial for Bihar’s overall progress. In this regard, the CPI(ML) insists on complete implementation of the recommendations made by the Commission on Common School System (CSS) in its report submitted in June 2007 to ensure free and compulsory education for all within the 6-14 years age-group. As visualized by the CSS commission, Bihar will need nearly 60,000 additional schools – another 26,000 primary schools, 15,500 middle schools and 19,000 senior secondary schools, and raise the strength of teachers from 3.72 lakhs in 2007-08 to 11.2 lakhs by 2012-13 and 15.28 lakhs by 2016-17. The Nitish government’s policy of recruiting teachers on contract/honorarium basis runs completely contrary to this vision – this policy must be scrapped and teachers must be provided job security and adequate training to improve the quality of teaching. The CPI(ML) also calls for regularization and upgradation of Madarsas and Sanskrit Vidyalayas according to this framework .

Industrialisation: The Nitish model of organizing glamorous “Global Meets”, wooing of corporate capital and looking to foreign agencies like USAID and World Bank for promotion of industrial investment in Bihar has been a complete failure. The CPI(ML) calls for greater conversion of savings accumulated in Bihar into investment by ensuring a higher credit-deposit ratio by nationalized banks, and a special package to ensure reopening of closed mills, revival of sick units in the public sector and promotion of employment-intensive agro-based and other small- and medium-scale industries.

Urban Development: Bihar is the least urbanized among all Indian states and yet the government’s vision of urban development is limited only to Patna. The CPI(ML) stands for rapid development of urban infrastructure and urgent provision of civic amenities in all district and subdivisional headquarters. The party will also press for restoration of urban land ceiling norms to curb speculative real estate deals and the consequent rise of real estate barons and land sharks.

Land Acquisition: Like in many other parts of the country, of late Bihar is also witnessing a land acquisition spree in the name of widening of roads, setting up of plants and all kinds of construction activities. The CPI(ML) is opposed to any forcible acquisition of land leading to displacement and dispossession of people without informed consent and adequate compensation and resettlement. As a policy, the government should make utmost effort to avoid acquiring cultivable land and displacing/disturbing existing settlements. As far as the demand of land for industrial purposes, against a total land of 4330 acres involved in different industrial areas, even till date about 880 acres are lying vacant. Additionally, a careful scrutiny of sick and closed units can identify which are beyond any possibility of revival, and land occupied by such units can also be freed to make that available to new units.

Mining: While most mineral resources of undivided Bihar are now in Jharkhand, Bihar continues to have heavy amount of sand- and stone-mining activities. Much of this mining is unregulated and operated and controlled by the criminal-bureaucrat-politician nexus. The CPI(ML) calls for regulation of this economy to ensure a better deal for the workers and the common people involved and protection of the environment.

Disaster Management: Bihar suffers from a recurrent cycle of floods, droughts and other disasters and yet disaster management remains one of the neglected areas of governance. In terms of both planning and preparedness and execution of relief and rehabilitation – the official response continues to be most lethargic and irresponsible. Construction of elevated roads and elevated platforms in flood-prone areas, safe storage of foodgrains, flood-resistant housing models, provision of fire brigades at every block, and district-level disaster-management planning and availability of trained personnel for prompt execution of such plans – these are certain basic measures that every government must guarantee.

Panchayati Raj: Introduction of party-based elections in panchayats and election of mukhia on the basis of majority support among elected ward members as in panchayat samitis and zila parishads; provision of regular salary and allowance for all elected people’s representatives in different panchayati raj institutions; giving more powers to panchayats regarding local planning and implementation and ending bureaucratic interference in panchayat functioning.

Cooperatives: Bihar needs a vibrant network of broad-based and democratically functioning cooperatives to service the multiple needs of agriculture and allied sectors, handicrafts and small industries. To this end, the existing cooperative rules should be amended to facilitate mass membership and democratic participation and supervision in various cooperatives and free them from the clutches of bureaucratic domination and mafia control. The government is transferring the agricultural marketing sector to private hands – the CPI(ML) opposes this policy of privatization, and calls for development of agricultural marketing – for both supply of inputs and procurement of crops and marketing of artisanal production – through a network of cooperatives down to every panchayat.

Teachers: Implementation of recommendations of the Common School System commission; regularization of all teachers and ending the practice of contract/casual employment in posts of permanent nature; guarantee of time-bound promotion and pension benefits for all teachers; strict implementation of the Patna HC directives on filling the teacher vacancies in schools; Sixth Pay Commission parity in the salaries of all school and college teachers and mandatory housing quarters for all government school and college teachers; treating teachers in primary/secondary schools at par with their counterparts in colleges/universities in regard to their right to vote and contest in MLC elections; just settlement of the longstanding issue of teachers in unaided schools and colleges, and extension of all essential facilities to such unaided but otherwise functional educational institutions.

Government Employees: Democratisation of the Bihar State Government Servant Conduct Rules to guarantee full democratic rights, including the right to strike, for government employees and teachers; immediate filling up of all vacant posts in government departments; revival of all government and semi-government undertakings with immediate payment of all accumulated wage-arrears; regularization of all employees employed on contract/honorarium/casual/daily basis; parity with central government employees in terms of pay scales, allowances, promotion, pensions and other benefits; comprehensive enforcement of all past agreements and court orders upholding the rights of employees.

Unorganised Workers: Minimum wages in Bihar should be revised immediately in parity with the minimum norms prescribed by the Sixth Pay Commission for government employees. Welfare boards must immediately be constituted in different industries/occupations to ensure housing, healthcare, education and pension benefits for unorganized workers and their families including agricultural labourers, and adequate compensation for all accident victims. The government must issue proper identity cards to all unorganized workers to save them from administrative harassment.

Women: Free education for girl students at all levels; 33% job reservation for women in all spheres; regularization of women engaged in Anganwadi, Mamata and Midday Meal schemes; provision of working women’s hostel facilities in every district/subdivisional town; compliance with relevant Supreme Court guidelines and central/state legislations and initiation of necessary new legislative measures to save women from sexual harassment in workplaces and from domestic violence and other anti-women crimes, separate cells or helpline for women in every institution that deals with the public. The Centre and State should jointly guarantee a credit of Rs. 50,000 on demand to any individual woman without collateral at an interest rate of 2 per cent per annum. The interest on SHG loans should also be brought down to not more than 4 per cent per annum.

Senior Citizens: All senior citizens in low-income families should get a minimum monthly pension of Rs. 1,000 and free healthcare facilities, provision of old-age homes and special care centres in every block to take care of old people without any family support.

Children: To abolish child labour in all forms and provide all children up to 14 years of age with free and compulsory education, the Common School System (CSS) commission in its June 2008 report suggested a set of concrete measures such as supplementing the income of families of child labourers or street children by at least Rs. 1,000 per month apart from taking full care of all needs of such children to ensure their enrollment and retention in schools. We call for a survey of all child labour and street children in Bihar and demand their urgent rehabilitation according to the norms prescribed by the CSS Commission.

Students: Education in Bihar is reeling under the combined assault of privatization, rampant commercialization, systemic neglect and declining standard, forcing more and more students to migrate in search of quality education. Unregulated coaching institutions and private colleges are mushrooming in the state and students are being forced to pay exorbitant fees for the so-called job-oriented courses that no longer guarantee any jobs. The CPI(ML) calls for reversal of this trend, regulation of coaching institutions, reduction of fees and special scholarships for students from low-income families. All vacancies in colleges/universities must be filled up immediately to enable existing institutions to function efficiently. Patna, Muzaffarpur and Bhagalpur universities should be upgraded to central universities, and the proposed branch of Aligarh Muslim University opened without any delay. Apart from setting up Indian Institute of Management (IIM) chapter in Patna, the state should take initiative to ensure affordable quality courses in Information Technology, engineering and medical education in Patna and all major urban centres and provide ample hostel facilities for students. College and university students must have their full democratic rights to elect representative student unions.

Youth: Provision of monthly unemployment allowance of Rs. 1,000 for every unemployed youth not getting any employment within six months after registration with state employment exchange; holding of railway and other national-level recruitment examinations for Bihar-based applicants at centres inside Bihar; construction of youth hostels in district/subdivisional towns.

Urban Poor: Most Nagar Panchayats in Bihar, though formally considered urban, have a socio-economic profile that is still predominantly rural; yet the poor in these areas are deprived of the BPL schemes available for rural areas. The same benefits should therefore accrue to the BPL population in Nagar Panchayat areas. Likewise, there should also be dedicated housing scheme and adequate civic amenities for the urban poor in bigger towns.

Street Vendors and Small Traders: All street vendors in Bihar should be provided with proper license and identity cards and protected from harassment by the police, officials or money-extorting goons. The CPI(ML) is also committed to the defence of small retail traders against extortion threats, other criminal offences, harassment by police and bureaucracy and heavy taxation.

Looms, Handicrafts and Artisans: There should be a special scheme of assistance for handicrafts and artisans. The Bihar government should organize relief for the weavers of Bhagalpur to protect the famous Bhagalpur silk and tussar from the impact of the global crisis and to curb cheaper Chinese fake products. Assured 12-hour power supply should be guaranteed to all powerloom clusters in Bhagalpur as well as in Biharsharief, woolen weaving in Nalanda, cotton powerlooms in Gaya, Nawada, Madhubani, Banka, Purnea and other centres in the state. The Weavers’ Service Centre in Bhagalpur should be upgraded to an Export Promotion Council/Centre and National Institute of Fashion Technology/Design branches should be set up in Bhagalpur and other prominent weaving centres, mainly to cater to the children from the families of weavers. Madhubani painters and artisans producing famous wall-hangings with Madhubani painting designs also need similar institutional support. The central and state governments should extend a one-time grant of Rs. 1 lakh to all artisans.

Housing: 10 cents of homestead land as recommended by the D Bandyopadhyay Commission, a proper housing scheme for both rural and urban poor, minimum housing grant of Rs. 200,000 and cheap housing loan at 2% interest for low-income groups.

Welfare and Rights of Muslim Community: The NDA government in Bihar pretends to be a great champion of Muslim welfare. It set up yet another commission on Bhagalpur riots, but only an interim report was submitted and while the committee recommended higher compensations on the lines of the 1984 victims of anti-Sikh pogrom, the number of victims was drastically reduced and the enhanced compensation/rehabilitation is yet to be effected. The CPI(ML) demands proper compensations and pension for all victims of Bhagalpur riot and similar compensation and pension for riot victims in other areas like Sitamarhi, Biharsharief and Nawada. Funds meant for Muslim welfare are also lying unused – last two years (2008-09 and 2009-10) saw some 25% funds (more than Rs. 60 crore) remain unspent. The CPI(ML) calls for effective implementation of the recommendations of Sachar Committee and Ranganath Mishra commission and time-bound execution of the ongoing multi-sector development programmes not only in Bihar’s seven minority concentration districts but also to minority concentration blocks in other districts, with special emphasis on the community’s education, healthcare and employment needs.

Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (SCs/STs) and Reservation: A commission should be set up to investigate deprivation and discrimination against SCs-STs in all spheres and to propose remedial measures covering all sections of dalits and adivasi people; Tharus should be accorded ST reservation; dalit Christians and dalits among Bengali refugees should be recognized as SC; women should get 33% reservation in Assemblies and Parliament; job reservation for SC/ST in private sector.

Migrant Workers: Bihari workers constitute one of the biggest contingents of inter-state migrant population in India and are known for their tremendous contribution to the development of agriculture, industry and the service sector in the relatively advanced areas. Yet of late Bihar workers and education- and job-seeking youth have been victims of chauvinistic violence in state after state. The Bihar government must set up a migrant workers’ protection and welfare authority, with offices in major centres of migration like Mumbai, Delhi, Ludhiana, Kolkata, Coimbatore, Bangalore, Surat etc.) so as to take up the cases of attacks, harassment/ill-treatment and violation of labour laws hurting Bihar migrant workers in States of out migration, and establish a welfare fund to rehabilitate migrant workers displaced by economic crisis as in Dubai/Gulf, natural disasters like in Surat or terrorist/chauvinist attacks as in Mumbai, Manipur, Assam and Northeast or eviction due to urban beautification as in Delhi and Mumbai. Bihar Assembly should pass a resolution demanding a new stringent Central legislation in place of the present toothless Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act.

Rehabilitation of Victims of Massacres, Riots, Disasters and Displacement: Bihar has any number of families with deep scars of caste massacres, communal riots and state-promoted natural disasters. Yet successive governments have made only empty promises for the victim families – the record of Nitish Kumar government being one of the worst (disbanding of Amir Das Commission, politics of compensation with Bhagalpur riot victims, lack of compensation and rehabilitation measures for Kosi and other flood victims, lack of crop insurance and compensation in drought-affected areas). The CPI(ML) will fight for bringing all perpetrators of massacres and riots and officials guilty of inviting disasters to justice and provision of adequate compensation and rehabilitation measures for the victim families.

Prohibition: The department of prohibition has effectively been transformed by the Nitish government into the department of all-out promotion of liquor consumption. The CPI(ML) calls for urgent reversal of this ruinous trend and is determined to promote anti-liquor movement through popular mobilization.

In 2009, the Nitish Kumar government amended the Right to Information Act 2005, imposing unwarranted restrictions on the exercise of the right and limiting the concessions available for the BPL category. The CPI(ML) demands immediate withdrawal of these limiting provisions and unrestricted scope for the people to exercise their right to information so as to subject governance to greater transparency and accountability.

Languages and Culture: The state should uphold the right of every student to study his/her mother-tongue, if not receive education in mother-tongue. In this regard, the government must take urgent steps to recruit adequate number of Urdu and Bengali teachers. The CPI(ML) supports the demand for inclusion of Bhojpuri language in the Eighth Schedule. Along with Maithili and Bhojpuri, special measures should also be taken for the protection and development of regional languages like Angika, Bajjika and Maghi. The state government should set up a Bihar Film Development Corporation to promote film-making in Bihar, provide tax exemptions to local films and cash incentives to local talents, launch an National School of Drama (NSD)-type institution to help local talents in the field of theatre and a Sahitya Parishad to promote publication of literary works by emerging writers. There should also be several Regional Cultural Centres to foster the rich cultural traditional tradition in different parts of Bihar. Auditoria and cultural centres should be set up in all district headquarters as a tribute to eminent poets and writers like Nagarjun, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Phaniswarnath Renu and Gorakh Pandey.

Sports: Adoption of a sports policy to encourage rural sports, ensure availability of sports teachers and training facilities at every school and spot and groom budding talents at the grassroots level. There must be a properly built sports stadium in every block and a well-equipped sports complex in every district/subdivision headquarter.

Tourism: Tourism in Bihar is currently mostly confined to a few prominent Buddhist sites and places of religious pilgrimage. The tourism potential of Bihar in regard to places of historical importance and natural beauty remains largely untapped. The government of Bihar must come up with a comprehensive tourism development plan with due emphasis on development of tourism-related infrastructure for small-budget tourists.

Regardless of the composition of the next government, the CPI(ML) is determined to fight for this charter with all its might. Cast your valuable vote in favour of CPI(ML) candidates and strengthen the CPI(ML) for a better tomorrow in a changing Bihar.

All India Left Coordination

All India Left Coordination (AILC) Holds Conventions at Kolkata and Ranchi

- Liberation, November, 2010.

The All India Left Coordination, launched at New Delhi in August this year, held a Convention at Kolkata on 5 October at the Moulali Yuba Kendra on the theme “Decline of the opportunist Left – Rise of the fighting Left”. Among those who attended the Convention were renowned poet and litterateur Nabarun Bhattacharya, Samir Putatunda of Party for Democratic Socialism (PDS) and Aloke Nandy of Democratic Communist Party (Marxist) [DCPM]. Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya, General Secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) [CPI(ML)], Comrade Kumaran Kutty of Left Coordination Committee (LCC), Kerala, Comrade Bhimrao Bansod, Secretary of Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) [LNPL], Maharashtra were the main speakers at the Convention. Comrade Mangat Ram Pasla, General Secretary of Communist Party Marxist (Punjab) [CPM (Punjab)] could not reach the convention due to a delayed train, but addressed a press conference along with Comrade Dipankar and other leaders on the following day. The convention was presided over by Comrade Abhijit Majumder, Central Committee Member of CPI(ML), Liberation.

In his address Comrade Dipankar explained the background of the formation of the All India Left Coordination and the purpose of holding the convention at Kolkata in the backdrop of decline of the ruling Left in West Bengal. Comrade Kumaran Kutty spoke of the situation in Kerala, where extreme reactionary forces were on the rise to fill in the vacuum created by the decline of the opportunist ruling left. However, as a positive trend, he indicated that some disaffected left forces were leaving the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] with a commitment to uphold the genuine, fighting character of the Left rather than join right-wing forces. Comrade Bhimrao Bansod of LNPL emphasized the need to wage unrelenting struggle against the opportunist Left to develop an effective and struggling Left movement.

Samir Putatunda of PDS started with the question of democracy in socialism and urged the constituents of the coordination to be flexible in order to make the unity as broad based as possible and to embrace as much genuine left forces as possible. Poet Nabarun Bhattacharya acknowledged the high importance of this convention and termed the ruling left parties as corporate parties. Pointing to the intellectuals who have aligned themselves with the right reaction today, he called them purchasable commodities. He asserted his unflinching commitment to the left movement at any cost and underlined the need for the All India Left Coordination. Aloke Nandy of DCPM, which is operative in Danton of West Midnapore, expressed his full support to the initiatives and joint declaration finalized by the coordination. He narrated how they with their small organization have been fighting against the tyrannies of the CPI (M). He stated that they lost at least 3 of their comrades in CPI(M) sponsored terror attack and hundreds have been arrested. Defying CPI(M) terror, the DCPM’s strength has been growing.

Summing up the discussions, Dipankar said that a wave of change is coming in West Bengal, but that change is being perceived by many in a distorted manner. He said, the real vehicle of this change is the peasants and the rural poor. That was amply demonstrated in Singur, Nandigram and Jangalmahal. The fall of CPI(M) from power in West Bengal is now a foregone conclusion and no effort will be needed to remove it. Contradicting those who say that that attempts at Left revival must wait for the CPI(M)’s exit from power, he asserted that the task of reviving and rejuvenating the fighting Left has to be started now itself, so that its fruit can be reaped in future. He said that the unity and coordination of the fighting Left should be oriented to hasten the decline of the opportunist Left and work for the rise of the fighting Left.

The next convention was held at Ranchi on the theme “Liberate Jharkhand from Starvation, Loot and Injustice” at the Gosner Theological Hall in Ranchi. The well-attended Convention was addressed by comrades Mangat Ram Pasla, General Secretary of CPM(Punjab), Bhim Rao Bhonsle, Secretary, LNP(L), Kumaran Kutty from LCC Kerala and CPI(ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya. Comrade Dipankar called upon the people of Jharkhand for uniting to thwart Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s intentions of converting the State in yet another laboratory of communal fascism and launching a robust fight against displacement, eviction, to build the Jharkhand anew as per the dreams of its martyrs. He further said that the ruling parties have subverted the State into ‘Lootkhand’ (plunder land) by numerous Memoranda of Understanding (MoU), lease and illegal mining. Panchayat elections under the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) have been on hold just to ensure that these MoUs are not annulled by elected gram sabhas (village committees) and it is the duty of the true inheritors of the revolutionary legacy of Birsa Munda and Mahendra Singh to transform the panchayats into a platform of struggles for democracy.

Comrades Mangat Ram Pasla, BR Bhonsale and Kumaran Kutty, speaking of the loot and plunder of resources and state repression that marked not only states like Jharkhand, but other states like Punjab, Maharashtra, Kerala and the whole country, said that only a revolutionary Left movement can liberate the people from this situation. The Convention was also addressed by CPI(ML) leader and its representative in the State Assembly Com. Vinod Singh, renowned intellectual Shri VP Keshri and senior journalist Shri Faisal Anurag among others. The initiative and formation of AILC was warmly welcomed by the speakers who said that true Left has a serious responsibility of mobilizing and consolidating all the forces of struggle for a revolutionary alternative.

The Convention was presided over by Comrade Bahadur Oraon, Central Committee member of CPI(ML). Comrade JP Minz proposed the resolutions on behalf of the Convention which was unanimously passed. Prerna, a part of Jharkhand Jan Sanskriti Manch presented cultural performances.

World Economy

The Human Cost of Wealth Explosion

- Arindam Sen, Liberation, November, 2010.

“In proportion as the labour develops, and thereby becomes the source of wealth, poverty and demoralisation among the labourers and wealth and culture among the non-labourers develop. This is the law of the whole hitherto existing history. In the present day capitalist society material etc. conditions have finally been created which enable and compel the labourers to smash this historical malediction” — Karl Marx

According to a recent report on global wealth by investment bank Credit Suisse, total wealth in India has tripled over the past decade to $3.5 trillion (this is a general trend in emerging economies in the Asia-Pacific region: Indonesia’s wealth for example has grown five-fold over the same period) and could further increase to almost double that amount — $6.4 trillion to be precise — by 2015. Given the hardly reassuring state of Indian and world economies, will the forecast come true? More pertinently, assuming it does, will that bring India any nearer the UN Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by 2015?

Such apprehension arises in view of a number of very disturbing facts and trends. The hallowed wealth increase occurred almost exclusively among the uppermost and higher-middle layers of population and much of it in stock market operations, where only around 5% of Indians participate. According to the 2009 Asia-Pacific Wealth Report, brought out by financial services firms Capgemini and Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, the number of high net worth individuals (HNWIs) — defined as those having investable assets of $1 million or more, excluding primary residence, collectibles, consumables, and consumer durables – were 84,000 in 2008. They had a combined net worth of $310 billion. According to the firms’ 2010 World Wealth Report, India now has 126,700 HNWIs, an increase of more than 50% over the 2008 number.

Not surprisingly, at least 200,000 peasants committed suicide around the same time as India became the nation with the second highest number of dollar billionaires, and the yearly food intake of an average poor family in 2007 turned out to be about 100 kg less than in 1997. In 2007-08 India occupied the132nd place in the UN human development index (HDI) index – down from the 122nd place it occupied in the same index in 1992.

We have the highest number of malnourished people and malnourished children (43% of India’s children under 5 are underweight – that is, with BMI lower than 18.5 – the highest in the world) as of 2008. In fact almost simultaneously with the Credit Suisse report, the 2010 Global Hunger Index published by the International Food Policy Research Institute placed our country far behind Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan in terms of people – children in particular – suffering from hunger and undernutrition. With these three countries placed in the 39th, 56th and 52nd positions and China miles ahead with the 9th place in the world, India occupies the 67th position. Shockingly, our country finds itself even behind countries in sub-Saharan Africa in respect to a whole range of indices like maternal and infant mortality rate.

The Gini coefficient of income inequality (a statistical measure where zero denotes complete equality and one denotes absolute inequality) in India comes to a high 0.535. Inequality of opportunity – which is more important in determining a country’s future growth trajectory and which depends mostly on distribution of land as well as access to education, health, stable employment etc – is even more pronounced.

The extremely skewed land ownership in our country is well-known, but few people know that India’s educational inequality is one of the worst in the world. According to World Bank estimates, the Gini coefficient of the distribution of adult schooling years in the population, a rough measure of educational inequality, was 0.56 in India in 1998/2000, which is not just higher than 0.37 in China and 0.39 in Brazil but even higher than almost all Latin American countries.

Now add to these figures the wherewithal of economic growth: large-scale displacement, land grab, resource loot and onslaughts like UAPA and Operation Green Hunt. What you get is the moral of the whole story – in the neoliberal model, growth in GDP and ‘national’ wealth has to be inversely proportional to real development and democracy. For the aam admi, therefore, the spectacular growth prospects highlighted by the Swiss bank comes as a warning bell, implying more deprivation, more marginalization, more attacks on democratic rights, more cultural and environmental degradation.

Surely this cannot go unchallenged. The fight for an alternative path of self-reliant and people-centred development as opposed to the present imperialist-dictated, corporate-driven growth – an alternative that would promote relatively more egalitarian and employment-intensive and less energy-resources-capital intensive path of development – thus assumes a new urgency as we approach the second decade of 21st century.

Obituary

Comrade Ram Naresh Ram is no more

- ML Update, 26 October – 01 November, 2010.

Veteran leader of historic struggles in Bhojpur, Central Committee Member and leader of the CPI(ML)’s legislative group in the Bihar Assembly from 1995-2010, Comrade Ram Naresh Ram passed away around 4 pm in Patna Medical College Hospital (PMCH), Patna, where had been in a coma and battling a cerebral stroke for the past several days. 87-year old Comrade Ram Naresh Ram, popularly known as ‘Parasji,’ is among the tallest leaders of the revolutionary struggle and is an icon for the downtrodden and oppressed people, not only of Bhojpur and Bihar but the whole country.

Hailing from a dalit family of Shahabad (Bhojpur) region in Bihar, he became a full-time communist organizer in the 1940s, participating actively in the freedom struggle as an activist of the undivided CPI. When the CPI(M) was formed in 1964, he became one of its founding members in the Shahabad region. In 1967, he contested the mukhiya election and was brutally attacked by feudal goons. Inspired by the Naxalbari struggle, he became one of the founders of the CPI(ML) movement in Bihar, along with other legendary leaders like Jagdish ‘Master.’

In the 1980s, he was the Secretary of the Bihar unit of the CPI(ML). Ever since 1995, he consistently represented the CPI(ML) in the Bihar Assembly, and was the leader of the party’s legislative group. In 2003, when the founding conference of the All India Agricultural Labourers’ Association (AIALA) was held in Ara, he was elected the founding President of the AIALA.

Sahajanand Saraswati galvanized the peasantry of central Bihar in militant anti-feudal and anti-colonial struggles during the pre-Independence period; Comrade Ram Naresh Ram played a comparable role along with others like Jagdish ‘Master’ in galvanizing the rural poor in the post-Independence period in anti-feudal and anti-imperialist struggles.

Comrade Ram Naresh Ram had a deep sense of respect for the legacy of the First War of Indian Independence of 1857 as well as for the freedom struggle. As a legislator, he had had a memorial to the 12 peasant martyrs of 1942 constructed at Lasarhi village in Bhojpur.

In his simplicity and his life-long organic link with people’s struggles, combining both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggles, he was a model for communist parliamentarians and people’s representatives.

His abiding legacy will inspire the entire communist movement and the struggles of the oppressed for time to come.

Red Salute to ‘Parasji’!

Table of Contents

1) National Day of Solidarity with Kashmiri People

2) Memorandum on Kashmir Submitted by All India Left Coordination

3) Kashmir Solidarity Letter to PM

4) Towards Realignment of Left Forces and Radicalisation of the Left Movement

5) All India Left Convention Held at New Delhi

6) Delhi Declaration

7)’ Naxal’ Witch-Hunt: Mirzapur Police Targets CPI(ML) CC Meeting

8) Orissa CPI (ML) Leader Arrested in Land Struggle

9) Police Firing on Farmers in Western UP: A Fact-finding Report

10) Workers’ Convention: Onwards to 7th September All India General Strike

Politics in India

National Day of Solidarity with Kashmiri People

– Liberation, September, 2010.

On 20 August 2010, in keeping with a resolution adopted at its founding Convention, the All India Left Coordination (AILC) comprising the Communist Party of India Marxist Leninist [CPI(ML)] Liberation, the Communist Party of India Marxist (CPM) Punjab, the Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) Maharashtra and the Left Coordination Committee Kerala, observed the National Day of Solidarity with Kashmiri People in various important centers of the country. Through protest marches, dharnas and demonstrations left activists across the country declared a strong message of solidarity to the struggling people of Kashmir and determination to sensitise and mobilize struggling people in India on the question of the repeated betrayals and daily brutalities perpetrated by the Indian state against the people of Kashmir.

In the national capital, a solidarity dharna was organised at Jantar Mantar which was attended by a large number of students, workers, activists and democratic individuals. Addressing the dharna, Dipankar Bhattacharya, General Secretary of CPI(ML),  condemned the stubborn continuation of a policy of repression of mass demonstrations and the attempt to deny the authenticity of the Kashmiris’ outrage and protests. He asserted that nowhere can unity be achieved at gun point or under the army jackboot and added, “In Kashmir the much-touted economic packages cannot assuage the sense of alienation, and are no substitute for addressing the political demands and aspirations for justice and dignity of the people of Kashmir.” The Solidarity Dharna was also attended and addressed by CPI(ML) Central committee members Kavita Krishnan, Prabhat Kumar, Delhi State Secretary Sanjay Sharma, All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) leader Rajiv Dimri, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Student leader Sucheta De, AICCTU leaders Satvir Shramik and NM Thomas, film maker Sanjay Kak and others.

The National Day of Solidarity with Kashmiri People was observed in 12 different districts of Punjab including Mansa, Sangroor, Bathinda, Chandigarh, Raikot (Ludhiana),Nangal (Ropar), Rahon, Mukandpur (Navan Shehar), Tarntarn, Gurdaspur, Ajnala, Raiya (Amritsar), Mahetpur (Jalandhar), and Mukerian (Hoshiarpur). Main speakers at different places were Rajwinder Rana, Sukhdarshan Natt, Kanwaljeet, Harbhagwan Bhikhi, Iqbal Kaur Udasi, Harmeet Smagh (of CPIML-Liberation) and Mangat Ram Pasla, Harkanwal Singh, Raghveer Singh, Gurnam Dawood, and Rattan Singh Randhawa (of CPM-Punjab) and others. In Assam, the effigy of Chidambaram was burnt in several parts of the state.

In Pune, a public meeting was organized by Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) which saw enthusiastic participation of workers, students and intellectuals. Among others Com. B.J. Kerkar of Lal Nishan Party( Leninist) spoke at the meeting. In Mumbai, CPI(ML) and Lal Nishan Party held a public meeting at Dadar and have planned to hold a dharna for Kashmir at Churchgate on 25 August.

In Bihar, solidarity marches were organized in 20 districts including Ara, Patna, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Bhagalpur, Purnea, Sasaram, and Kaimur. In Jharkhand, seminars were held at Bagodar and Deoghar, and protest marches and mass meetings were held in Giridih town, Ranchi, Gumla, Dumka and Hazaribagh.
In Uttar Pradesh (UP), CPI(ML) organized solidarity marches and mass meetings across the state at Lucknow, Varanasi, Kanpur, Gajipur, Mughalsarai, Chandauli, Jalon, Allahabad and Ballia. In Uttarakhand CPI(ML) along with All India Students Association (AISA) held protest demonstrations and effigy burning of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at Pithoragarh, Dehradun and Haldwani.

At Gangavati in Karnataka, CPIML protestors burnt the effigy of the central and the Kashmir state governments. Basavaraj Soolebavi of Karnataka Souharada Vedike, Virupaksha of AICCTU and Peer Pasha, a noted left intellectual addressed the gathering. A memorandum was submitted to the Tahsildar at HD Kote taluk in Mysore district.

In Andhra Pradesh, a dharna was held at the Kakinada collectorate in which 200 people participated; at Vijayawada a padayatra from Gandhinagar to the sub-collector’s office culminated in a dharna; at Narsipatnam of Visakha district, a dharna was held at the Revenue divisional office. In Tamil Nadu, solidarity programmes were held at Tirunelveli, Thanjavur, Pudukottai, and Chennai along with poster campaigns and distribution of 10,000 leaflets in many districts. In Puducherry, Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), Forward Bloc state leaders too participated in CPI(ML)’s solidarity programme.

Politics in India

Memorandum on Kashmir Submitted by All India Left Coordination

(The following memorandum was submitted by the leaders of the four constituents of All India Left Coordination on 12 August.)

To
The Hon’ble President,
Union of India

Respected Madam,
We the undersigned are deeply disturbed by the situation in the Kashmir Valley, where scores of young people have lost their lives in firing by security forces on street protests. Reports suggest that around 50 people have lost their lives in this manner in the past two months. It may be noted that the street protests this time around started with demonstrations against the fake encounter of three civilians at Macchil. Since then the street protests  with the visible participation of women and youth  have gained momentum with every instance of killing of people, especially children and teenagers, due to tear-gassing or firing by security forces.

What is even more disturbing is the refusal by the Government of India to concede the legitimacy of the protests by Kashmiri people. Instead, attempts have been made to suggest that the protests are all orchestrated by militants or anti-nationals. The death of young people in police firing usually witness popular anger and protest anywhere in the country. The Kashmiri people are exercising their natural democratic right to protest against excesses by security forces. The attempt to deny the legitimacy or authenticity of the protests, and the stubborn continuation of a policy of repression of mass demonstrations, are contributing to the alienation and anger of Kashmiri masses. Draconian laws like Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act  (AFSPA) are emboldening security forces to commit crimes like fake encounters and killing of civilians.

The response from the Prime Minister of India too is wanting. In a long-delayed statement, he has promised various economic packages and on the key political question, has said that “autonomy can be considered if there is a consensus.” It is clear that in Kashmir, economic packages cannot assuage the sense of alienation. It is only if justice is done in cases of fake encounters and such human rights violations, draconian laws like AFSPA scrapped, and the military shadow lifted from civilian life in the Valley can some measure of trust be built. As for the political question, we recall that former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao had after all said “the sky is the limit” as far as autonomy for Kashmir is concerned. It is necessary for the Government of India to come up with a credible political proposal of maximum autonomy  without making ‘consensus’ any condition for such a proposal.

We appeal to your office to intervene to ensure that the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act AFSPA is scrapped; moves taken to investigate cases of human rights violations and excesses of security forces and the guilty punished; and immediate measures taken towards a democratic political solution to the issue of Kashmir.

Dipankar Bhattacharya               Mangat Ram Pasla
General Secretary                        Secretary
CPI(ML)(Liberation)                    CPM Punjab

Bhimrao Bansode                                                   M R Murali
Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) Maharashtra            Left Coordination Committee, Kerala

Politics in India

Kashmir Solidarity Letter to PM by UK- and US-based Organisations

(On 20 August, coinciding with the Kashmir Solidarity Day called all over India by the All India Left Coordination, various organisations in the UK and US submitted a letter to the Indian Prime Minister via the Indian High Commission in London. The text of the letter along with signatories is reproduced below.)

To
The Prime Minister of India,
Prime Minister’s Office
South Block, Raisina Hill,  New Delhi, India-110 101.
20 August 2010

Dear Prime Minister,
We the undersigned wish to express our grave concern about the ongoing killings of civilians by security forces on the streets of towns and villages of Kashmir. The brutal murders of more than fifty unarmed people, a majority of them children and teenagers, in the space of two months, demonstrates a complete disregard for the humanity of the Kashmiri people on the part of the security forces who, directed by the Indian state, are acting with complete impunity.

The current phase of violent repression against Kashmiris began with attacks on demonstrations against the cold-blooded killing of three civilians at Macchil by security forces in a fake encounter. On 11 June 2010 security forces opened fire with tear gas and live ammunition on one such demonstration by unarmed civilians, killing Kashmiri schoolboy Tufail Ahmad Mattoo. In protest against this murder, people, women and youth in particular, came out in very large numbers  but security forces fired on each protest, and the death toll of protestors has risen daily.

We are extremely concerned that Kashmiris are not even being allowed to express their anger in public protests when children are killed in police firing. Some of the numerous incidents which indicate the gravity of current human rights violations include, on 1st August alone, the shooting and then bludgeoning to death of a seven year old boy by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in Batamaloo; the torture and killing of a disabled youth Arshid Ahmad (17) of Reshipora Sangam by CRPF personnel inside their camp; and the killing of a fifteen-year-old girl, Afroza Teli, who was shot in the head during a protest demonstration in Khrew village in Pulwana district.

We also remind you that current events are taking place against a background of two decades of violent repression in Kashmir which has resulted in up to 32,000 women being widowed, nearly 100,000 children orphaned, approximately 10,000 men ‘disappeared’, and countless rapes of women by the army and paramilitary forces.

As representatives of Indian and South Asian diaspora organisations and civil liberties organizations in Britain we would urge you to act immediately to ensure:
- An immediate end to the atrocities against Kashmiris by security forces
- That those who committed and sanctioned these atrocities are brought to justice
- Immediate repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, (AFSPA) which provides impunity to     security forces
- That the military shadow is lifted from civilian life in Kashmir
- That the Indian government demonstrates a credible commitment to a democratic political solution in     Kashmir

Yours sincerely,
Amrit Wilson, South Asia Solidarity Group
Avtar Jouhl, Indian Workers’ Association (GB)
Raj Pal, South Asian Alliance
Jasbir Singh, The 1857 Committee
Estella Schmid, Campaign Against Criminalising Communities
Marai Larasai, Imkaan (a national charity supporting Black, South Asian, and  Minority Ethnic women’s organizations working on violence against women)
Saima Yousaf, National Union of Students
Anu Mandavilli, on behalf of Friends of South Asia, USA

All India Left Coordination

Towards Realignment of Left Forces and Radicalisation of the Left Movement

Dipankar Bhattacharya, Liberation, September, 2010.

Four fighting organizations of the Left – Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)  [CPI(ML) (Liberation)], Communist Party Marxist (Punjab) [CPM (Punjab)], Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) [LNP](L)] of Maharashtra and Left Coordination Committee (Kerala) [LCC (K)]– formed an All-India Left Coordination (AILC) through a joint Convention held in New Delhi on August 11, 2010. The Convention adopted a Delhi Declaration with a 12-point agenda which will serve as a guideline for coordinated action and intervention by the four organizations in the coming days. In its Declaration, the AILC rejected both class collaboration/parliamentary cretinism and Left adventurism/anarcho-militarism and resolved to strengthen the Left movement by all means while exploring opportunities for broader Left unity and cooperation with democratic forces. As its first all-India action, the AILC called for observing August 20 as a National Day of Solidarity with the People of Kashmir and Protest against State Repression.

The AILC was certainly not formed overnight, it was the upshot of years of mutual cooperation and shared quest for a united platform to radicalize and rejuvenate the Left movement in the country. The CPI(ML)(Liberation) and LNP(L) have a history of working together for nearly two decades. Ever since the Communist Party of India (Marxist ) [CPI(M)] split in Punjab in the wake of the Thiruvananthapuram plenum in 2000 leading to the formation of CPM Punjab, CPI(ML) and CPM Punjab have had close ties of cooperation. The LCC (Kerala) of course came into existence only recently, but it was preceded by years of ideological struggle inside the CPI(M) and ever since it started taking shape as an independent organization, it evinced keen interest in becoming part of an all-India process of realignment and radicalization of the Left.

This united move surely marks a first step towards fulfilling a long-felt need. For much of the last three decades, the CPI(M) and Communist Party of India (CPI) had virtually monopolized the Left space in the dominant media and naturally also in the layman’s perception. The CPI had a bigger presence than the CPI(M) in the Hindi belt while the CPI(M) dominated the show in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. Over the last few years, the CPI has been reduced to a pale shadow of its past in the Hindi belt and now increasingly the CPI(M) too is facing a similar situation in West Bengal and Kerala. This marks both an opportunity and challenge for all sincere and radical forces of the Left to step up their role and dispel all notions of a ‘terminal crisis’ and ‘irrelevance’ of the Left in India. The AILC has its role cut out in this context.

The other significant feature regarding AILC is that it is not yet another proverbial case of ‘birds of the same feather flocking together’.  Neither is it an attempt at unity of Marxist Leninist (ML) forces nor is it a case of erstwhile CPI(M) forces reuniting among themselves. Rather it is a case of historically diverse and also to an extent geographically separated streams of the Left seeking a common all-India ground in today’s critical situation. A closer look at the constituents of the AILC will bring out this important aspect.

Here is, for example, LNP (L) of Maharashtra which had branched out of the CPI in the 1940s questioning the CPI’s 1942 line, played an active and important role in subsequent years in many worker/peasant/general democratic movements in Maharashtra right from the Sanyukta Maharashtra Movement to the historic textile strike of the 1980s, and moved away again in the late 1980s from the parent Lal Nishan Party’s increasingly pro-Congress reformist stance to reiterate its Leninist moorings. This is what paved the way for close cooperation between the LNP (L) and the CPI(ML)(Liberation).

The CPI(ML) too has evolved in two different directions – while CPI(ML)(Liberation) has emerged as an all-India revolutionary communist party rooted in militant mass struggles, the PWG of Andhra Pradesh has moved away from the CPI(ML) stream to acquire a ‘Maoist’ identity by merging with the Maoist Communist Centre. As far as the CPI(M) is concerned, in the later years of 1970s, it had benefited considerably from the first phase of the CPI(ML) movement – the CPI(ML) base in many areas had returned to the CPI(M) and in states like West Bengal and Kerala, it was the CPI(M) which succeeded in appropriating much of the impact of the CPI(ML)-led struggles and the people’s desire for democracy following the dark years of semi-fascist terror of the Congress.

Yet the CPI(M) promoted a hostile attitude to the CPI(ML) and tried to suppress every voice of ideological dissent within the party as a sign of ‘Naxalism’. The CPI(ML) on the other hand always stressed Left unity on the basis of independent assertion, and today, Left forces coming out of the CPI(M) find a warm welcome from the CPI(ML) precisely on this common ground.

As noted in the Delhi Declaration, the AILC marks only a modest beginning. As of now, it is just a platform of coordination with a shared approach and understanding on most urgent issues of the day. But as representatives of all the four organizations remarked in the convention, it is a modest first step, which nurtured properly, may well grow into an important long march; a small beginning hinting at great possibilities of realignment and radicalization of the Indian Left. Let us carry it forward in this desired direction.

All India Left Coordination

All India Left Convention Held at New Delhi

- Liberation, September, 2010.

A day-long All India Left Convention was held on 11 August 2010 at Speaker’s Hall, Constitution Club, New Delhi, jointly sponsored by CPI(ML)(Liberation), CPM(Punjab), Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) of Maharashtra and Left Coordination Committee (Kerala). With more than three hundred activists from across the country attending the Convention, the Speaker’s Hall was packed to capacity.

The convention was chaired by a four-member presidium comprising Comrades Ramji Rai, Bodh Singh Ghuman, K S Hariharan, and Bhalchandra Kerkar. The secretaries of the four parties – Comrade Mangat Ram Pasla, Secretary, CPM Punjab, Comrade Bhimrao Bansode, Secretary, Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) Maharashtra and Comrade M R Murali, Secretary, Left Coordination Committee Kerala, and CPI(ML) General Secretary Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya – were also present on the dais.

Inaugurating the Convention on behalf of the four parties, CPI(ML) General Secretary Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya welcomed the gathered activists and leaders, and also briefly introduced each of the four parties. Outlining the ruling class assaults on people’s rights and democracy, and the range of people’s resistance movements, he said that real forces of the Left were naturally committed to championing these movements. The Convention aimed at addressing these issues and advancing these struggles by launching an All India Left Coordination to forge a closer unity and coordination among these movemental left forces. As a broad guideline for this coordination and unity, he said, the four parties had prepared a ‘Delhi Declaration’ to be discussed and adopted by the Convention.

Following the inaugural address, the ‘Delhi Declaration’ was read out – in English by Comrade Harkanwal Singh of the CPM Punjab and in Hindi by Comrade Ramji Rai of CPI(ML) Liberation. More than a dozen leaders and activists placed their views on the various issues, challenges and perspective outlined by the Declaration.

Addressing the Convention, AISA General Secretary Ravi Rai said that if peasants’ land was being grabbed for corporate loot, similarly students’ education too was a victim of corporate loot, and the students’ movement would resist the assaults on democratic rights – not just in campuses but in the whole of society. Comrade Kumarankutty of the LCC Kerala drew a shocking portrait of the Kerala CPI(M)’s growing forays into business and the blurring of the line of demarcation between communist politics and bourgeois commerce.

CPM Punjab leader Comrade Harkanwal Singh highlighted the need for an assertion of the revolutionary Left agenda at a time when the official Left had jettisoned that agenda. LNP(L) leader Comrade Uday Bhat spoke of the working class movement in Mumbai and Maharashtra, especially the revival of textile workers’ struggles against the corporate grab of mill land. Comrade V Shankar of the CPI(ML) expressed the hope that the emerging unity of fighting Left forces would facilitate the independent assertion of the revolutionary Left over the capitulationist politics of parliamentary opportunists.

CPM Punjab leader Comrade Raghvir Singh spoke about farmers’ resistance to imperialist agricultural policies imposed in the name of WTO. Comrade Uddhav Shinde of the LNP(L) and Comrade Bauke spoke of the acute agrarian crisis in Maharashtra and other parts of the country where farmers were committing suicide. Comrade Inderjeet Singh Grewal (leader of the CPM Punjab’s trade union organisation, the CTU) spoke of the struggles against power privatisation in Punjab, and called for struggles to be intensified against the repressive anti-people and pro-imperialist policies of the Governments at Centre and States.
Comrade Kavita Krishnan, National Secretary of AIPWA, spoke about the assaults on women’s rights and freedoms in the name of ‘honour’, and also of how women were bearing the brunt of state repression in the ‘Operation Green Hunt’ areas. Comrade Malleswar Rao of the CPI(ML) spoke about the recent police firing in Sompeta, Andhra Pradesh, and the struggles against land grab and loot of mineral resources in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh.

After the detailed discussion, the Convention adopted the Delhi Declaration enthusiastically. Comrade Swapan Mukherjee of the CPI(ML) presented a series of resolutions which were also adopted by the house. The Convention adopted a resolution condemning the brutal repression and bloodshed of civilians in Kashmir, demanding a democratic political solution to the Kashmir issue and calling for a ‘National Day of Solidarity with the Kashmiri People’ to be observed all over the country on August 20, 2010. Other resolutions included one against the UPA Government’s utter failure and callous attitude towards price rise, a demand for a probe into the corruption at the Commonwealth Games, and another demanding scrapping of the Nuclear Liability Bill. Another resolution adopted extended full support to the Central Trade Unions’ call for a General Strike on 7 September 2010. Comrade Swapan Mukherjee also outlined the plans for the AILC to hold Conventions at several state capitals and other centres, and also to send solidarity/fact-finding teams to various centres of people’s resistance.

The Convention culminated with the address by top leaders of the four parties. Comrade Mangat Ram Pasla, General Secretary, CPM Punjab said that the Left Coordination marked a small beginning, but one that was destined to grow big in the coming days. He said the four organisations were aware of their mutual differences but were determined to unite on the basis of the essential points of agreement. He called upon comrades to implement the Delhi Declaration with the commitment and courage that Bhagat Singh epitomised. LNP(L) Secretary Comrade Bhimrao Bansode gave a brief account of the historical evolution of the LNP(L) and said it had been overly preoccupied with trade union struggles but was determined to play a more active political role. Comrade Unnithan, leader of the LCC Kerala, presented a speech on behalf of his party, observing the degeneration of the official Left, and calling upon the Left Coordination to take up the banner of the heroic struggles of Punnapra Vayalar and Kayyur and the sacrifice of hundreds of communists – a banner that was being abandoned by the revisionist leadership of the CPI(M) today.
The concluding speaker at the Convention, Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya, said that the Convention and the Coordination just launched represented a ray of hope for unity of the Indian Left movement. “Just as communists part ways at some turning points,” he said, “they can also unite at other junctures.” He said “Naxalbari was very much a product of the revolutionary tradition of the Indian communist movement – it was an attempt to resurrect Telangana when the ruling classes faced their gravest crisis after 1947 and Charu Mazumdar always described the CPI(ML) as the same Communist Party that produced the heroic martyrs of Kayuur and Telangana, Tebhaga and Punnapra-Vayalar. Today as circumstances around us are changing radically, we need to take a bold and forward-looking step towards realignment of all sincere, struggle-oriented and mass-based Left forces and rejuvenation of the Left movement to meet the challenges of the day.”

All India Left Coordination

Delhi Declaration

- Liberation, September, 2010.

(Adopted at All-India Left Convention sponsored by CPI(ML)(Liberation), CPM Punjab, Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) Maharashtra, and Left Coordination Committee, Kerala, and held at Constitution Club, New Delhi on 11 August 2010)

Recent years have been witness to an aggressive US imperialism pushing the world into renewed war and occupation as well as an unprecedented financial crisis. In the name of globalisation, imperialism has intensified attempts to appropriate and exploit the natural and human resources of the developing world, but while accentuating exploitation and disparities, globalisation has also led to intensification of all the inherent contradictions of global capitalism and new waves of popular anti-imperialist resistance the world over.

The Indian ruling classes have adopted a strategy of integrating India into this US-led imperialist order on economic as well as strategic plane. Reckless implementation of pro-imperialist, pro-corporate policies – coupled with the pro-landlord agrarian strategy being pursued since Independence – by the Indian ruling classes has pushed the country into alarming depths of an all-round crisis marked by relentless rise in prices, chronic mass hunger, widespread unemployment and rampant corruption. Even as tens of millions of the country’s poorest people reel under starvation, the debt-trap-turned death-trap continues to claim the lives of crisis-ridden peasants in their hundreds and thousands. Amidst systematic loot and siphoning of the country’s wealth and precious resources, the working people are being relentlessly exploited, displaced and dispossessed in the name of ‘development’.

The recent farcical verdict on the world’s biggest industrial genocide which happened a quarter century ago in Bhopal has unmasked a most reprehensible and thoroughly corrupt nexus among state power and corporate power undermining every principle of justice and human and national dignity. Meanwhile, the growing incidence of oppression of dalits and women and the shocking spectacle of ‘honour killings’ in the National Capital Region and its surroundings point to an ugly social reality beneath the gloss of glamourised and globalised development.

While the Indian people are seeking answers to these maladies and alternatives to these disastrous anti-people policies and the corrupt and criminalized political culture, the ruling classes and their parties, whether in power or in opposition, are making a clamour for greater liberalization to give more concessions to capital and a harder state to unleash more repression and restrictions on the people.

Against this backdrop, four fighting organizations of the Left, viz., CPI(ML)(Liberation), CPM Punjab, Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) Maharashtra, and Left Coordination Committee, Kerala, have resolved to come together and form an All-India Left Coordination with a view to strengthening the Left movement in the country.

While pursuing the goal of a countrywide Left resurgence, the AILC will focus on the following key areas of a democratic agenda:

Resisting the whole gamut of neo-liberal pro-corporate pro-imperialist policies being followed almost without exception by all governments at the Centre and in the states, and fighting for an immediate halt to the ongoing spree of disinvestment/privatization measures and for curbing penetration of FDI in key sectors of our national economy and  other sectors of strategic/national importance,

Opposing Indo-US strategic partnership and growing subordination of Indian foreign policy to the global hegemony of imperialist forces, US imperialism in particular; promoting friendly relations, especially people-to-people ties, with neighbouring countries, and uniting with the struggles of the peoples of the world against globalisation, war and imperialist machinations,

Fighting for an alternative path of self-reliant and people-centred development as against the present imperialist-dictated, corporate-driven and big capital-led ‘profit-centred development’ resulting in relentless rise in prices, growing hunger and unemployment, sharp regional and social inequalities, landgrab, displacement, resources-grab/deprivation and serious environmental degradation – an alternative that would promote relatively more egalitarian and employment-intensive and less energy-, resources- and capital-intensive path of development,

Fighting for a comprehensive policy regime ensuring fundamental rights to food, shelter, education, healthcare, basic amenities, work and social security for all,

Fighting against every facet of agrarian crisis, for adequate protection of Indian agriculture from the adverse WTO diktats, for scrapping of Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Act 2005 and Land Acquisition Act, 1894, for thorough-going implementation of land reforms and promotion of small peasant-centred agricultural development,

Launching struggles for the nationalisation of wholesale trade of foodgrains and for creation and strengthening of a Universal Public Distribution System (PDS) for essential commodities of daily use as well as for subsidised agricultural inputs and automatic inclusion of all agricultural and other rural workers, small peasants, artisans, unorganised and contract workers in the below poverty line (BPL) category,

Resisting the growing state-led assault on democracy, fighting for a democratic political solution of the long-standing problems of Kashmir, North-East and the Maoist insurgency, for scrapping of draconian laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act and Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, disbanding of Salwa Judum, and halt to Operation Green Hunt and anti-minority witch-hunt in the name of combating terrorism,
Resisting communal violence, and caste and gender oppression and fighting for minority rights and affirmative action for development of deprived sections within minority communities, and the rights and dignity of dalits, adivasis, women and all marginalized sections,

Fighting for labour rights for all sections of workers, especially the right to living wages, job security, universal health and social insurance, trade union rights including mandatory recognition through secret ballot and democratization of the workplace/industrial relations, adequate protection for migrant workers and unorganized workers including agricultural labour, and against contractualisation, outsourcing, hire-and-fire, and indiscriminate privatisation which are hallmarks of the neoliberal offensive;

Promoting the women’s movement against patriarchy and oppression, to struggle for gender equality, justice, and women’s dignity, as well as equal rights and opportunities in society as well as in the workplace; resisting violence both within and outside the home; challenging obscurantist practices that demean women; resisting all attempts to curb women’s freedom in the name of upholding tradition or culture; demanding speedy legislation against sexual harassment in workplaces, ‘honour’ killings and sexual violence, as well as for 33% reservation in Assemblies and Parliament.

Promoting the student-youth movement to secure ‘right to education and employment’, demand a Common School System to ensure schooling of high quality for all, and resist commercialization and pro-imperialist restructuring of education and denial of democratic rights to the student community,

Promoting people’s cultural awakening against the corporate cultural invasion that denigrates women and working people, the feudal culture of ‘honour killing’ and various retrograde social and cultural practices that seek legitimacy in the name of tradition, fighting for democratization of social, professional and inter-personal life and supporting the progressive democratic aspirations of the intelligentsia.

The AILC will strive to build a countrywide movement over these issues while also fighting for the resolution of various pressing local problems.

The AILC rejects all kinds of fundamentalism, terrorism and national/sub-national chauvinism and upholds the values of democracy, secularism and social progress in every sphere of national life

Within the Left movement, AILC will fight against the trend of class collaboration and rightward drift and degeneration while rejecting the line of Left adventurism/anarcho-militarism.

To advance the Left-democratic agenda and strengthen the Left and democratic movement, the AILC will work consistently for broader Left unity and seek cooperation with various democratic forces including individual activists.

The formation of the AILC marks only a modest beginning and we appeal to all activists and well-wishers of the Left and democratic movement to join and help us in this endeavour.

Struggles in India

‘Naxal’ Witch-Hunt: Mirzapur Police Targets CPI(ML) CC Meeting

- Liberation, September, 2010.

The CPI(ML) Central Committee held its last meeting at Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, on 1-3 August 2010. Following the meeting, the Mirzapur police has made a deliberate attempt to intimidate the local party leaders in the name of an ‘anti-Naxal’ offensive.

On 6 August, a police official hand-delivered a letter addressed to Mohammad Salim, the National President of the Revolutionary Youth Association (RYA) and a senior leader of the party in Mirzapur. The letter is signed ‘In-Charge, Naxal Cell, Mirzapur’, but there is no name accompanying the signature. The letter states that “information was obtained” that a CPI(ML) programme was organised at Mirzapur, in which office-bearers and activists from the “Naxal-affected states” of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, as well as ‘Naxal-affected’ districts of UP participated. The letter adds, “Mirzapur is an are extremely sensitive and Naxal-affected” district where there are “continuous reports of movement of Naxalites.”

The letter goes on to say, “We have come to know that you have organised a Conference and cadre meeting in this Naxal-affected area, in which suspicious people took part. Being an Indian citizen and a senior office-bearer of CPI(ML), it was your topmost duty… to obtain permission from the district administration for such a meeting. You are already aware that Section 144 is in place all over Mirzapur, and no conference or programme can be held without permission in an unconstitutional way.” In the manner of a show-cause notice, the letter then asks Comrade Salim why action should not be initiated against him and participants in the meeting for “100% violation of Section 144 CrPC,” and warned that if no answer was received by 7 August, action would be initiated against him for which he would be solely responsible.

The Mirzapur party has responded to the ‘letter’ via the District Collector, demanding to know who the ‘In-charge, Naxal Cell’ is who has signed it.

The CPI(ML) has condemned in the strongest terms this attempt to brand its Central Committee as a haven for ‘suspicious’ elements. Rather, it is the behaviour of the UP police that is suspicious and shady. Well aware of the antecedents of the CPI(ML) and its leadership (including the fact that it is a party registered with the Election Commission of India, and CCMs who attended the meeting included several former elected people’s representatives and leaders of recognised Trade Union, Agricultural Labour and Peasants’ organisations with lakhs of mass membership), the UP police deliberately chose to target the party and its highest leadership.

It may be recalled that following the CPI(ML) State Committee meeting in Gorakhpur (February 12-14 2010), the UP police and intelligence officials had interrogated district-level CPI(ML) leader Rajesh Sahni for two hours, demanding to know why intelligence officials were not allowed to attend the State Committee meeting, and implying that this meant some illegal activities were being plotted in the meeting! The interrogators also asked why the party insisted on opposing the Government and Green Hunt, and warned that if the party did not change its stance on Green Hunt, it was liable to face action. Comrade Sahni was told that the police had considered arrested the entire State Committee. Subsequently, various other members of the district committee also received calls making ‘enquiries’ about each other and about the party functioning.

The UP police and Government are clearly taking advantage of the ‘Green Hunt’ climate to defame and intimidate people’s movements and harass political forces that are voicing dissent.

Struggles in India

Orissa CPI (ML) Leader Arrested in Land Struggle

- Liberation, September, 2010.

Comrade Tirupati Gamango, State Committee member of CPI(ML), was arrested by the Rayagada police when 500 CPI(ML) Liberation activists occupied 24 acres of ceiling surplus land at Banduguda panchayat of Bisam Cuttack block of Rayagada district. Along with Comrade Tirupati, Comrade Rajendra Hikka was also arrested.

The party had been demanding redistribution of ceiling surplus land to local adivasis as per the rules of Orissa’s Ceiling Surplus Act but the Biju Janata Dal (BJD)-led government, while failing to distribute land that is the adivasis’ rightful due, instead distributed 6000 acres of land to the MNC Vedanta.

On 4 August, as part of an ongoing land rights campaign led by the party, CPI(ML) activists occupied 24 acres of land. Following the arrest of Comrade Tirupati Gamango, a protest demonstration was held at Gunupur sub-collector’s office on 9 August, where a delegation of state committee members including Comrades Yudhistira Mahapatra, Ashok Pradhan, and Muralidhar Behera met the sub-collector. A bail hearing for Comrade Tirupati and Comrade Rajendra Hikka is due on 26 August.

Recently, reports by official panels indicate how the Orissa Government deliberately colluded in the large-scale violation of laws by Pohang Iron and Steel Company (POSCO) and Vedanta. The same Government, while colluding in corporate crimes and grab of adivasis’ and peasants’ land, is out to arrest and harass activists who are leading adivasis’ struggles for land.

Peasant and Agricultural Workers’ Struggles

Police Firing on Farmers in Western UP: A Fact-finding Report

- Liberation, September, 2010.

(On 14 August, ironically the eve of Independence Day, farmers protesting against corporate land grab were fired upon in Western Uttar Pradesh. A team of the All India Kisan Mahasabha (AIKM) comprising AIKM Vice President Comrade Prem Singh Gehlawat and National Executive member Comrade Afroz Alam visited the site and met with protesting farmers. Main findings and observations of their fact-finding report are summarized below.)

Farmers whose land is being acquired for the Yamuna Expressway and the associated Hi-Tech cities have been agitating for long against land acquisition. The Yamuna Expressway would be 165 km long, acquiring the fertile lands of Gautam Buddha Nagar, Aligarh, Mathura, Agra and Hatras districts of Western UP and affecting 1192 villages. Jay Prakash (JP) Associates are the builders and developers of this project. Other than the expressway, some 30,000 bighas of land on either side of the Yamuna are being acquired for building townships and commercial ventures. It is this prime land which the Government is acquiring from farmers at throwaway prices and handing over to JP for mega profits that has irked the farmers and brought them out from their farms to the battlefield.

Villagers from the six villages – Zikarpur, Kansera, Jehangarh, Udaypur, Tappal and Kripalpur villages of Tappal block in Aligarh district had been sitting on an indefinite fast since 27 July under the banner of Sarva Dal Kisan Sangarsh Samiti, led by Ram Babu Katelia. 88 villages of Tappal block would be affected as 510 hectares of their farm land would be acquired for building the township. Their main demands were 1. Increase of land rate from the existing Rs. 412/m2 to Rs. 870/m2, the rate given to farmers in Noida two years ago 2. Residential accommodation in the new township to the farmers whose land had been acquired for building the township 3. Residential accommodation to landless labourers of the area who would lose means of livelihood after land acquisition.

Background of movement
Farmers had not wanted to sell land initially. Land was first acquired from small farmers, mostly Jatavs (Dalits) in Kripalpur, Birja Nagla at the rate of Rs 336/m2. Farmers say only 22.5% of them have agreed to sell their land. Farmers filed a writ in the High Court against land acquisition. The judgement on 2 July went against them. After that, between 8-11 July, the district administration in collusion with JP razed to ground the standing crop of farmers of the six villages, building embankments to encircle their lands and forcefully evicted them. Farmers in Udaypur broke these embankments. The Government had also deviously acquired possession of the land in land records even before the agreement with farmers was finalised. The farmers were then compelled to start an indefinite fast from 27 July against the state government. Thousands of farmers from the nearby villages would gather daily at the dharna in solidarity with the movement.

The Incident
On 14 August, at about 5 pm, a plainclothes Station Officer of Tappal Police Station along with some masked goons of JP reached the dharna site and arrested Ram Babu Katelia. When farmers resisted, they were fired upon by the SO and four people received gunshots. Hearing that their leader had been kidnapped, villagers from the neighbouring villages started gathering at the scene. Meanwhile, a PAC truck reached there and uprooted the tents at the dharna. The people then realized that Katelia had been arrested by the police and they retaliated against the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC). The PAC fired on the unarmed villagers, killing three, including two children. The PAC entered Zikarpur village and mercilessly beat up even women and children. The villagers fired in self-defence and in the ensuing melee one PAC officer was killed. The farmers were in no mood to relent and ultimately the PAC had to flee. Meanwhile some farmers erected blockades on the Aligarh-Palwal road. Next day, on 15 August, thousands reached the dharna to chalk out the next course of action. The neighbouring towns of Tappal, Jattari and Zewar observed total bandh. In adjoining Mathura, farmers blocked the roads. A large part of Western UP was celebrating its own version of Independence.

On 16th, a massive Kisan Panchayat was organized at the Dharna. Leaders of all major political parties addressed the Dharna. Com. Prem Singh Gehlawat, the National Vice-President of AIKM and Com. Afroz Alam, the national Executive member of AIKM also reached the spot and addressed the gathered villagers and visited their homes.

To dowse the spreading fire, Mayawati rushed her Cabinet Secretary to Aligarh where Katelia was jailed. Under pressure from the movement, Katelia was unconditionally released, a compensation of 10 Lacs was announced for those killed by the police and the land rate increased from 412 to 570/m2.

Those killed in police firing include 13-year-old Mohit, a Class V student from a Jatav family; 13-year-old Prashant Sharma of Jahangarh and 26-year-old Dharmendra of Sarol village. 13-year-old Rafiq Khan, a Class VIII student of Kansera village, has also disappeared since the day of the firing and is presumed dead. Comrade Prem Singh visited the homes of all four.

The UP Unit of CPI(ML) has declared that it will observe 23 August as a Black Day all over the state against the corporate land grab and police firing on farmers.

Workers’ Struggles

Workers’ Convention: Onwards to 7th September All India General Strike

- Liberation, September, 2010.

All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) held a Workers’ Convention on 12 August 2010 in Constitution Club, New Delhi “Against Corporate Loot, Privatization and Assault on Workers’ Rights”. The Convention was attended and addressed by leaders of Maharashtra Sarva Shramik Mahasangh, CTU (Punjab) and Left Coordination Committee, Kerala. Worker activists and leaders from Delhi and neighbouring states like Punjab, U.P. and Uttarakhand participated in the convention.

The convention was presided over by Comrades N M Thomas, Hari Singh, R N Thakur and Bhagwant Singh Samao of AICCTU, Bhim Rao Bansode of Maharashtra Sarva Shramik Mahasangh, P Kumanrankutty of Left Coordination Committee, Kerala and Comrade Randhawa of CTU (Punjab). The main speaker at the convention was CPI(ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya. A resolution supporting the All India Strike was read out by Rajiv Dimri.

The General Secretary of AICCTU Swapan Mukherjee welcomed the participants and also delivered the concluding speech. Apart from members of Presidium, the convention was addressed by Vijay Kulkarni of Maharashtra Sarva Shramik Mahasangh; Ram Kishan, Secretary General of All India Health Employees and Workers Confederation; leaders of AICCTU – Babulal (U.P.), Santosh Roy (Delhi), K.K. Bora (Uttarakhand), Satbir Shramik (MTNL); Ravi Rai, General Secretary of AISA; Kanwaljeet, leader of RYA (Punjab) and others.

The convention resolved to give a fitting rebuff to the anti-worker approach of the powers that be and intensify the nation-wide campaign for the success of the all India General Strike on 7 September 2010 called by Central Trade Unions including AICCTU in the backdrop of intensified onslaught on the working class by the UPA Government at the Centre and State Governments of all hues and people’s resistance.

July-August 2010

Table of Contents

1. Down With These Undeclared Emergencies !

2. Corporate Genocide, Judicial Treachery, Appeasement of Imperialism

3. When Corporations Subvert Democracy

4. What the US Government Owes to Bhopal

5. Indo-US ‘Strategic Dialogue’: Binding India Closer in Imperialism’s Embrace

6. CPI(ML) Team Visits Anti-Posco Struggle Area

7. RSS Goons Attack CPI(ML) Leader in Kalahandi

8. Scrap Indo-Israel Arms Deals

Politics in India

Down With These Undeclared Emergencies !

- Liberation, July, 2010.

June 26, 2010 will mark the 35th anniversary of the imposition of the infamous Emergency. Formally speaking, there has been no second imposition of Emergency since 1975. The Congress party that had imposed Emergency in 1975 suffered its first defeat at the Centre in 1977, in the first post-Emergency election. On the face of it, it may therefore appear that the ruling classes and their parties have drawn their lessons and we can look back at the 1975 Emergency as an aberration. But a closer look at the state of our democracy clearly reveals that 1975 was no aberration but a trend-setter. Indian democracy is now permanently embellished with several undeclared mini emergencies.

In states like Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and several North-Eastern states, the armed forces enjoy special powers which grant them not only the ‘right’ to shoot and kill (and also rape) but also impunity. During his recent visit to Kashmir, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh waxed eloquent about human rights and said human rights violations by armed forces would not be tolerated. But independent observers and even official reports record any number of fake encounters, custodial killings and mass rapes over the last two decades of virtual army rule in the valley. The J&K state police, for example, report 52 rape cases by armed forces between November 2002 and January 2009. From time to time the Government of India talks of improvement in the situation in the valley, but withdrawal of armed forces and scrapping of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) remains an absolute no-no.

Where there is no AFSPA, there is Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and Operation Green Hunt. The other day the whole country was treated to a most shocking glimpse of Operation Green Hunt from Lalgarh in West Bengal. Central paramilitary and state police forces are jointly spearheading a combing operation in the area for last one year. The other day, as the operation approached its first anniversary we were told that the joint forces have had a major success in a close encounter with a Maoist squad and 8 dead bodies and lots of weapon and one injured Maoist had been captured from the site. The identity of the killed Maoists was never revealed, the captured weapons were never displayed, but we had a shocking televised display of how the dead are treated by our security forces.

Security forces were seen carrying the body of a young woman exactly the way the carcass of a wild animal displayed as a ‘trophy’ of a hunt would have been carried – trussed up on a bamboo. How better could we possibly expect the Indian state to treat the ‘preys’ of Green Hunt! The oppressed poor are denied their right to human dignity even in their death. The same security forces presented a mute and mentally challenged young man named Rameshwar Murmu as a hardcore Maoist “too stunned to speak”. The reality of Operation Green Hunt as a war on the oppressed poor could not perhaps have been revealed more graphically than what we saw in the “anniversary victory” footage of the combing operation from Lalgarh.

Even in the rest of the country where there is no ‘insurgency-like situation’, the state is no less repressive while dealing with popular protests and struggles. In rural areas where the poor are asking for land and food, or jobs and wages, or the peasants are demanding seeds, water and power – the state routinely showers lathis or even bullets and imprisons people in false cases. Every struggle of workers is facing victimization by employers, with the administration and judiciary often siding with the employers to crush the genuine grievances and demands of the workers. The scene is similar in most of our university campuses where students are being systematically denied their democratic rights to organize and struggle against injustice. And the Union Home Minister loses no opportunity to target human rights organizations and dissenting intellectuals.

When the footfalls of Emergency get louder, it is surely time for the people to heighten their vigilance and intensify the resistance. Let us insist on the scrapping of all draconian laws and bringing all perpetrators of crimes against the people and democracy to justice.

Bhopal Special

Corporate Genocide, Judicial Treachery, Appeasement of Imperialism

- Kavita Krishnan, Liberation, July, 2010.

More than 25 years after the infamous Bhopal Gas Disaster, the verdict of a trial court in Bhopal is nothing but a cruel mockery of justice. With charges already diluted by the Supreme Court of India, the trial court verdict could only be a formal burial of justice. Not only does the verdict insult the victims of one of the world’s worst industrial disasters by letting off the mighty CEOs who were the chief perpetrators either scot-free or with a ridiculously light sentence, it amounts to an assurance to MNCs they will enjoy total impunity in India even when their negligence and violations of regulations leads to loss of thousands of Indian lives and injury to several thousand more.

In December 1984, 40 tonnes of Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) leaked out of the Union Carbide Corporation’s pesticide plant in Bhopal, exposing over 5,00,000 people to the toxic fumes. 25,000 people died as a result, and hundreds of thousands of persons suffered irreversible damages to their health. The poison in the soil and water continues to affect future generations.

After over 25 years, the trial Court gave its verdict allowing the Union Carbide CEO Warren Anderson (declared an absconder) to go scot-free, while convicting eight representatives of the Indian operatives Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) for a mere two years.

The injustice of the Bhopal verdict is not just a comment on judicial betrayal of justice – it rings a warning bell that every Indian should heed. It warns us as to how the Indian establishment’s policy of pandering to the United States and its corporations (a policy of which the Civilian Nuclear Liability Bill is the latest example) is injurious to the health and safety of India’s people. The US establishment is fully aware of these implications: it has reacted to the Bhopal verdict by “hoping that the verdict will not affect” the growing ties between India and the US and the Nuclear Liability Bill in particular, and instead will provide “closure” for the victims of the tragedy. The US double standards – of seeking ‘closure’ in a case where a US corporation caused thousands of deaths while pursuing criminal charges against corporations responsible for American lives lost – are all too apparent!

Facing flak over revelations of how the Congress Government of Madhya Pradesh (MP) in the wake of the Bhopal Gas Disaster helped Union Carbide CEO Warren Anderson to flee India and evade justice, the Congress party and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government are now in damage control mode. The UPA Government set up a GoM to look into remedies for Bhopal victims and it has come up with a range of recommendations. Meanwhile some sections of the Congress are seeking to blame Anderson’s escape on Arjun Singh who was then MP chief minister (CM), and Pranab Mukherjee has instead sought to defend both Arjun Singh as well as the then Central Government headed by Rajiv Gandhi. None of these attempts, however, can conceal Congress’ culpability in the crime of shielding and exonerating Bhopal’s perpetrators.

Nor is Congress’ culpability restricted to spiriting Anderson away from justice. In a bid to protect Union Carbide, the MP Government in 1984-85 even banned treatment of the disaster victims by sodium thiosulphate, for fear that success of this treatment would establish that the poisonous Methyl Isocyanate had entered the bloodstream and result in heavier damages for Carbide. In other words, the Congress-led MP Government was callous enough to withhold the only effective treatment for the victims because for it protecting Carbide was more of a priority than saving lives!

More than 25 years later, nothing much has changed. Even today, the Congress-led UPA Government is busy shielding Union Carbide and its successor Dow Chemicals while shedding crocodile tears for the victims of these companies, denied justice as well as clean-up and compensation. Moreover, it is further seeking to send suitable signals of submissiveness and sell-out to US MNCs by pushing the Nuclear Liability Bill which will institutionalise the impunity that Carbide-Dow have enjoyed in the Bhopal case, by protecting US reactor supplier firms in advance from any responsibilities towards compensation or clean up in the event of any disaster. In 1984, a CIA document commenting on Bhopal expressed the apprehension that “Public outcry almost certainly will force the new government to move cautiously in developing future foreign investment and industrial policies and relations with multinational – especially US – firms.” Governments from 1984 till the present have bent over backwards to prove to the US that these apprehensions are misplaced, and that they are willing to ignore or trample upon any public outcry in order to protect MNCs, especially US MNCs.

If Anderson remains an ‘absconder’, his successor, Dow CEO Andrew Liveris is a proud member of the US-India CEO Forum, which continues to play a key role even in the recent Indo-US Strategic Dialogue. Liveris, along with Indian counterparts like Ratan Tata have for years lobbied to free Dow from responsibility for cleaning up the Carbide factory site and other affected areas. Planning Commission Deputy Chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia as well as Congress leaders and UPA Ministers P Chidambaram and Kamal Nath have since 2006 been actively pushing Dow’s and Tata’s suggestion that a ‘Site Remediation Trust’ be set up, funded by Indian CEOs, that will effectively free Dow of any responsibility to clean up the disaster area. Can it be a coincidence that the very same Chidambaram and Kamal Nath are members of the GoM on Bhopal?

The BJP, which is trying to score political points over the Congress over Bhopal, too must be confronted with the fact that it has partnered the Congress in betraying the people of Bhopal. The Vajpayee Government never demanded that the US extradite Anderson. And in December 2009, the BJP State Government of MP joined Union Minister Jairam Ramesh in declaring that the factory site was free from contamination and proposing to turn it into a ‘tourist site’!

The GoM has come up with recommendations including enhanced compensation for the Bhopal victims; pursuance of extradition of Anderson; a curative petition against the Supreme Court’s 1997 order that diluted charges against UCC and UCIL from ‘culpable homicide’ to ‘negligence’; and funds and proposals towards clean-up of the contaminated site. In a nutshell, the GoM’s brief and intent seem to be to exonerate Rajiv Gandhi and the Congress leadership from charges of colluding with the US in saving Anderson and the UCC and hushing up the debate by announcing enhanced compensations. In other words, while bailing out the Congress rulers and corporate criminals, the GoM taxes the Indian people to bear the cost of compensation and clean-up.

But even on this score, the GoM uses the dubious figures used in the infamous 1989 sellout brokered by the Supreme court. For example, the GoM puts the number of the dead at 5,300 as against the actual figure of 22,146. Likewise, the figures for the permanently and temporarily injured are also gross underestimations.

And the biggest betrayal is once again on the issue of Dow’s liability. While the State Government of MP and the Centre will now argue about who foots the bill and bears the responsibility for clean up of the site, and Indian taxpayers will pay for compensation, there is virtual silence on Dow. The recommendations include no proactive measures to push Dow to pay for compensation and clean up or penalise it for not doing so. Rather, the attempt is to tacitly ‘settle’ the Bhopal issue without bringing Dow to book. It is significant that Chairman and CEO of Dow Chemicals Andrew Liveris will not attend the Indo-US CEO Business Forum meeting scheduled to be held in Washington on June 22 even as a high-level Indian delegation led by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee alongwith Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia and prominent corporate leaders from India will be attending the meeting.

The GoM recommendations are also silent on the prevention of future Bhopals: they ignore the protection offered to future corporate offenders by the Nuclear Liability bill.

If justice is to be served, what we need and must demand is an independent and time-bound probe to fix culpability for the escape of Warren Anderson, and for subsequent attempts to absolve Dow Chemicals of responsibility. Dow must be made to pay for cleaning up the polluted sites and for medical care of the victims and must be blacklisted forthwith, the Nuclear Liability Bill must be scrapped, and Bhopal victims must be guaranteed not only comprehensive compensation and clean up, but also justice. Only these measures can ensure that the tragedy of Bhopal and its shameful consequences are never repeated on Indian soil!

Bhopal Special

When Corporations Subvert Democracy

- Gopal Krishna, Liberation, July, 2010.

The June 7 verdict by the Bhopal court sets a precedent for the worst of corporate crimes and even nuclear disasters too to be treated like a traffic accident. Bhopal’s verdict was constrained because of the order of Justice A.M. Ahmadi Bench of the Supreme Court dated 13 September 1996 in which the charges against Indian officials of Union Carbide India Limited (subsidiary majority owned by Union Carbide Corporation) were diluted. Since February 2001, the culpability lies with the Dow Chemical Company which took over Union Carbide Corporation-USA.

All the seven convicts in the Bhopal gas tragedy have been sentenced to two years in jail and a fine of Rs 1 lakh (100, 000) each and, got bail for a surety of Rs 25, 000 each. Union Carbide’s subsidiary in India has been found guilty and is fined to the order of Rs 5 lakh for the industrial disaster. All the officials who were accused in the Bhopal catastrophe including Keshub Mahindra, the former chairman of the Union Carbide India Ltd, a unit of US based Union Carbide Corporation and current chairman of Mahindra & Mahindra Company too has been let off lightly for the industrial disaster that happened during his tenure. The convicts have been held guilty under Sections 304-A (causing death by negligence) besides 336, 337 and 338 (gross negligence) of the Indian Penal Code instead of 304-II (culpable homicide not amounting to murder).

What is quite clear from the verdict is that generations to come will view Supreme Court’s act of reducing the charge against Union Carbide Corporation officials in 1996 from manslaughter (which is punishable with imprisonment up to 10 years) to death caused by a rash or negligent act (carrying a maximum penalty of two years) with deep suspicion that belittles its moral stature.

As early as in 1973, Carbide CEO Warren Anderson was aware of the flaws of the Bhopal plant – untested technology, faulty design and its unsafe location besides its unsafe operation. In December 1987 Central Bureau of Investigation filed criminal charges of culpable homicide against 10 officials including Union Carbide Company’s President Warren Anderson. Why was this charge diluted? Warren Anderson who was the Chairman and CEO of Union Carbide Company when the lethal methyl isocyanate (MIC) leaked from a pesticide plant of the company’s Indian subsidiary on the night of December 2-3, 1984. Anderson was arrested and then released on bail by the Madhya Pradesh Police on December 7, 1984 and left for US even as victims continued to suffer because of the industrial disaster. Anderson who lives in New York served as Union Carbide CEO till 1986 till his retirement.

In 1992, Anderson was declared a fugitive by the Bhopal court for failing to appear for hearings in a case of culpable homicide after that his case was separated from the case in which eight people employed by Union Carbide were convicted. In July 2009, an arrest warrant was issued for him. Government of India took some 19 years to move a formal request for his extradition in May 2003 but the US rejected India’s request for the extradition of Anderson in June 2004 saying the request did not “meet requirements of certain provisions” of the bilateral extradition treaty.

US Double Standards

Feigning forgetfulness about the industrial disaster caused by a US Corporation in India, referring to the worst environmental disaster in US caused by British Petroleum, a British global energy company which is the third largest energy company and the fourth largest company in the world, on May 27, 2010, US President Barack Obama said, “As far as I’m concerned, BP (British Petroleum) is responsible for this horrific disaster, and we will hold them fully accountable on behalf of the United States as well as the people and communities victimized by this tragedy. We will demand that they pay every dime they owe for the damage they’ve done and the painful losses that they’ve caused.” He has accused the British company of ‘nickel and diming’ using an American phrase to describe someone who pays a paltry sum far below what is due.

The question is: Isn’t the US corporation Dow Chemicals ‘nickel and diming’ Indian citizens in Bhopal? Why is Obama hypocritically silent about the extradition of Warren Anderson, former chairman of Union Carbide Company and the liability of Dow Chemicals? The deafening silence of US President and US legislature to ensure justice to the victims of the mass disaster engineered by a US Corporation constitutes “yet another instance of American imperialism” in the words once used by US Judge Keenan who heard the Bhopal case in New York district court.

Bhopal GoM Stacked With Dow’s Defenders

The 55 page PMO documents gathered using Right to Information Act (RTI) shows manifest collusion between ministers, officials and Dow Chemicals to protect it from the liabilities of Industrial catastrophe of Bhopal. The documents reveal how some of the ministers who have been made part of Group of Ministers (GoM) on Bhopal by the Prime Minister have been acting to safeguard the interest of the US corporation in question, which is liable for Bhopal disaster.

The documents gathered using RTI reveal how Chidambaram and Kamal Nath, as well as Deputy Planning Commission Chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia have already expressed their support for Dow Chemical Company’s proposal to save it from Union Carbide Corporation’s liability which it inherited in 2001 after merger.

Andrew Liveris, CEO of Dow, and the Indo-US CEO Forum of which he is a member, have been pushing hard for freeing of Dow from UCC’s liability for compensation and clean up (‘remediation’) in Bhopal. Ratan Tata (now Chairperson of Indo-US CEO Forum from the Indian side) in his role as the Chairman of the three-member Investment Commission, set up in the Ministry of Finance in December 2004 by the Government of India wrote to P Chidamabram, the then Finance Minister suggesting setting up a Fund for remediation on the site of Bhopal disaster that “would cost approximately Rs 100 crores.”

Donning another hat Tata wrote again as the Chairman, Tata Sons Limited to Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Government of India on October 9, 2006 with regard to resolution of “various legacy issues” of “Dow Chemicals” pursuant to the recommendations of the Indo-US CEO Forum pointing out how the Investment Commission has not had “much success” in this regard. He referred to the interest of Andrew Liveris, CEO of Dow Chemicals with regard to approaches/solutions to the issue. As Chairman, Tata Sons Limited, Tata wrote again to Montek Singh on November 26, 2006 referring to letter of Andrew Liveris that was sent to Ronen Sen, India’s Ambassador to US wherein a request was made saying that “it is critical for them to have the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers withdraw their application for a financial deposit by Dow against the remediation cost, as that application implies that the Government of India views Dow as ‘liable’ in the Bhopal Gas disaster case.”

In a letter dated November 10, 2006, Chidambaram wrote to the Prime Minister about his visit to United Sates to review issues with the Indo-US CEO Forum in New York wherein he submitted a tour report mentioning his comments on a prior note by Ahluwalia regarding Ratan Tata’s letter. In his comments dated 5th December, 2006 Chidambaram refers to Ratan Tata’s offer for Indian corporations to take over remediation in order to free Dow from liability, saying, “I think we should accept this offer”. In December 2006, Dr S Jaishankar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs in note titled “Issues Emerging from Indo-US CEO’s meeting” underlies how Dow has “sought a statement from GOI (Government of India) in the Court clarifying that GOI does not regard Dow as legally responsible for liabilities of UCC” and wants to avoid “cloud of legal liability”.

Notably, Liveris had complained to Ronen Sen about how “GOI (Government of India) has taken position adverse to Dow“, in the Madhya Pradesh High Court. The case is still pending. On 5 January 2007, Tata (as Chairman, Tata Sons Limited) wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, putting on record the meeting of the members of Investment Commission with the PM to discuss “the old Union Carbide tragedy”. The PMO’s letter from B V R Subramanyam, Private Secretary of the Prime Minister dated January 12, 2007 assured Tata that “the matter is being examined” and “the Prime Minister has seen” his letter and “ has taken note of its contents”.

In February 2007, Kamal Nath even wrote a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about the matter suggesting that it would send “an appropriate signal to Dow Chemicals, which is exploring investing substantially in India and to the American business community” if “a group under the chairmanship of the Cabinet Secretary be formed to look” in the matter of the liability of the Dow Chemicals “in holistic manner in a similar manner as was done in respect to the Enron Corporation with respect to Dabhol Corporation”. The immorality of his suggestion lies in the fact that it ignores the Enron scandal that led to the bankruptcy of the Enron Corporation, a US energy company.

The real issue arising out of Bhopal verdict that has necessitated the setting up GoM is its fallout on the proposed Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill that is pending in the parliament. After all, the Bhopal verdict underlines that any future liability regime must include criminal liability and must not cap the amount of civil liability because the damage from a nuclear or chemical disaster depends on the direction and nature of the wind at the time of the accident. The GoM’s gestures of compensation etc are nothing but an attempt to shield Dow and deflect attention from the protests against the Nuclear Liability Bill’s proposed protection of US nuclear companies from liability.

Seeds of Bhopal Disaster Sown during Emergency

The affidavit from Central Bureau of Investigation’s most recent affidavit in the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Bhopal provides information that implies that had Emergency been not imposed, Bhopal’s catastrophe caused by the US Corporation’s acts of omission and commission would not have happened. There is a compelling logic for an independent probe in the entire issue ranging from granting of industrial license, escape of Warren Anderson, role of Indo-US CEO Forum to lobbying by industrialists and ministers to absolve Dow Chemicals of liability.

It emerges that industrial license to the US Corporation’s chemicals plant was granted during the period when the country was under the Emergency from 25th June 1975 to 21st March 1977 during 21-month regime. According to the CBI’s recent affidavit, on 1st January 1970, Union Carbide Company had “applied for industrial license for manufacture of 5000 tonnes MIC- based pesticides” required under The Registration and Licensing of Industrial Undertakings Rules, 1952. The application was signed by E. A. Munoz, a General Manager in the company. The company did not get industrial license for more than 5 years. There must have been sufficient reason to withhold permission for industrial license. After the imposition of Emergency, the company was granted the license on till 31st October, 1975.

Officials from the then Ministry of Industrial Development have informed that the entire department was against granting of the industrial license. The officials in the Ministry knew that obsolete and discarded technology and machinery was being transferred to India for which the license was granted by bypassing the due process. Clearly, there was political interference in the granting of the industrial license.

The manufacture of Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) commenced on 5 February, 1980, information regarding which was sent to the Department of Chemicals and Fertilizers vide letter dated 19th February, 1980. The company informed the Ministry of Industrial Development on 12 November, 1982 about the commencement of production in 1980, while requesting for renewal of agreement that was to terminate in 1982.

Obsolete Technology and Unsafe Procedures

There is incontrovertible evidence that Union Carbide Corporation (now a subsidiary of Dow Chemicals) is guilty of knowingly setting up the Bhopal plant with obsolete and discarded technology and absence of emergency safety systems available in Union Carbide’s West Virginia plant, and of allowing Bhopal plant operations to continue in the full knowledge of unsafe procedures and cost-cutting measures risking workers and public safety. Page 25 of the Bhopal verdict notes, “(z) It is worthwhile to mention here that the Government of India and the Team of Scientists admittedly was never permitted to visit the Plant at Virginia, USA. No brochure, or any other documentary evidence demonstrating the similarity between the two plants at Virginia and Bhopal has been produced before the court by the defence.”

On page 95 of the verdict, it is stated, “Mr. Warren Anderson, UCC USA and UCC Kowloon Hongkong are still absconding and therefore, every part of this case (Criminal File) is kept intact along with the exhibited and unexhibited documents and the property related to this case, in safe custody, till their appearance.” The verdict quotes the expert evidence of Dr. S. Varadarajan, the Head of the team of experts who visited the Plant Site very next day of the incident: evidence that establishes the many defects in design and defaults in the safe treatment of toxic substances like MIC. Although the design fault by the US corporation is established, the criminal liability of the Union Carbide’s case is yet to be settled.

In 1987, after Union Carbide insincerely argued in the court that it had given a flawlessly designed plant which was operated negligently, the Government of India amended the Factories Act 1948. A new chapter IV A was added with the “provisions relating to hazardous processes” In Section 7 B, sub-section (5) absolved the person (who) designs, manufactures, imports, or supplies” plant and machines from the responsibility for the effect that the plant and machines has on risk and safety, provided the user gives an assurance “to take steps specified in such undertaking to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the (plant and machinery) will be safe and without risks to the health of workers when properly used, the elimination or minimisation of any risks to the health or safety of the workers to which the design or article may give rise.” (emphasis author’s) This demonstrates how, even after the Bhopal experience, corporations succeeded in getting a law enacted that provided them with a convenient loophole in case of negligence (i.e they can blame disasters on improper use of machinery!)

To conclude, we must acknowledge that the plight of Bhopal – India’s ‘Baghdad’ – too is a consequence of a considered political act of the US Government in defence of the interests of US corporations.

India’s geo-strategic and ecological position in relation to the US has been compromised for good under a narrative which misleadingly equates corporate interests, investment needs and national interests to the profound detriment of freedom and democracy.

Ecological disasters caused by corporations in pursuit of profit are acts of genocide – and for such monumental acts of genocide, there is a need for a trial similar to the Nuremburg Tribunal, wherein a few German corporations were held guilty of connivance with genocide.

Bhopal Special

What the US Government Owes to Bhopal

- Liberation, July, 2010.

The US government and its legislature must make corporations like Dow Chemicals and British Petroleum liable and accountable for their acts of omission and commission. The following steps are required in US towards that end:

1. The US government should accept the submission of the Government of India that “the corporation and its subsidiaries are treated as a unit, without regard to the location of responsibility within that unit”. Consequently, an illegal act by it should be deemed as the act of the corporation, without consideration to its location of responsibility. The customary alibi of corporations like Dow Chemicals is an act in sophistry designed to conceal fact of crime and criminals of the ‘upperworld’. The US government should disclose all the trade secrets of the Union Carbide Corporation and its Research and Development (R&D) Centre to facilitate a probe as to whether the Bhopal disaster was a consequence of experimenting with war time chemicals is yet to be probed.

2. The US government must take note of the verdict by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, and in the interest of justice for the Bhopal victims, the US government should expedite the process of extraditing Anderson at the earliest.

3. The Dow Chemicals Company has set aside $2.2 billion to address future asbestos-related liabilities arising out of the Union Carbide acquisition. How is that Dow Chemicals can take the asbestos liability of Union Carbide and not the liability for the industrial catastrophe in Bhopal? The US government should volunteer its assistance in ascertaining the Bhopal disaster’s inherited liability of Dow Chemicals Company.

4. The US government should promote acceptance of the resolution of the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights that approved the “UN Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights” as a step towards ensuring corporate accountability. Article 18 of the Norms called on transnational corporations and other business enterprises to make reparations for damage done through their failure to meet the standards spells out: “Transnational corporations and other business enterprises shall provide prompt, effective and adequate reparation to those persons, entities and communities that have been adversely affected by failures to comply with these Norms through, inter alia, reparations, restitution, compensation and rehabilitation for any damage done or property taken. In connection with determining damages, in regard to criminal sanctions, and in all other respects, these Norms shall be applied by national courts and/or international tribunals, pursuant to national and international law.”

5. In memory of victims of Bhopal, US and Indian governments should call for a mandatory regime for regulating transnational corporations unlike UN’s voluntary Global Compact and reject the report of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Business and Human Rights wherein it underlined the need for voluntary regulation and self compliance by the companies saying, “While corporations may be considered “organs of society,” they are specialized economic organs, not democratic public interest institutions.

If there is one lesson that democracies across the world have clearly not learnt from industrial disasters, it is to ascertain the nature of all the genocidal acts of corporations and the very legal design of the corporation so as to make it genuinely governable by democratic legislatures. A befitting tribute to victims of Bhopal lies in learning this lesson in order to prevent future industrial warfare that irreparably undermines intergenerational equity.

Politics in India

Indo-US ‘Strategic Dialogue’: Binding India Closer in Imperialism’s Embrace

- Kavita Krishnan, Liberation, July, 2010.

The Indo-US Strategic Dialogue that has taken off early this June in Washinton DC, capital of the United States, is an attempt to bring various key Indian sectors closer into the US embrace. The process, begun during President Bush’s visit to India, with the Indo-US Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture being launched alongside negotiations towards the Nuke Deal, is now being taken much further and deeper.

The ‘Strategic Dialogue’ saw India represented by Minister for External Affairs S M Krishna, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission and architect of the neoliberal project in India Montek Singh Ahluwalia, human resource development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal, and Minister of State for Science and Technology Prithviraj Chavan, and the US by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as representatives of the US Security and Intelligence establishment.

According to a ‘US-India Strategic Dialogue Joint Statement’ issued on conclusion of the Dialogue, the Dialogue covered the many opportunities to deepen cooperation between the two countries – in security and counter-terrorism, trade and investment, science and technology, infrastructure investment, climate change, energy security, education, agriculture, food security, and healthcare. As Robert O. Blake, Jr., US Assistant Secretary, Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, indicated in his press briefing on the eve of the Indo-US Strategic Dialogue, “On the bilateral front, we have 18 separate dialogues underway between the United States and India to really try to capture the full scope of the opportunities ahead of us.”

In the same press briefing, the US Assistant Secretary categorically informed his American audience that the US was keeping a close eye on the nuclear liability legislation in India, which when passed “would provide a very important legal protection and open the way for billions of dollars in American reactor exports and thousands of jobs.” In the wake of the recent Bhopal verdict, it is clear that while the liability legislation spells “billions of dollars” and “legal protection” (read impunity) for US reactor companies, it spells more corporate crimes and endangering of the safety and health of people in India.

The US interest in education legislation in India, in particular the Foreign Universities Bill, also came out clearly, with US representatives expressing the hopes that this Bill would soon be enacted. Behind the US eagerness for the Indian education market lie not just commercial interests but long-term political and foreign policy objectives. The US-educated Indian-American community has played a key role in facilitating the present phase of Indo-US strategic partnership. With Indian students getting American degrees on Indian soil, the pro-American constituency within Indian middle classes and policy-making establishment is likely to expand further. The ‘Obama-Singh 21st Century Knowledge Initiative’, already launched last year, is yet another mechanism through which the US is likely to influence and shape the education agenda in India.

The Strategic Dialogue comes in the wake of the launching of ‘Economic and Financial Partnership’ between India’s Ministry of Finance and the US Department of the Treasury in April 2010, the Indo-US ‘Framework for Cooperation on Trade and Investment’ in March 2010 and the ‘Memorandum of Understanding on Agricultural Cooperation and Food Security.’ The thrust of all these ‘partnerships’ was indicated by Hillary Clinton’s urging of India “to reduce or ease caps on investment in critical sectors.” She also noted that “the US military holds more exercises with India than with any other country”. The US military-industrial complex is clearly looking to corner the huge Indian market for arms imports – a key part of the “strategic dialogue” agenda.

US Under Secretary for Political Affairs William J. Burns, on the eve of the Strategic Dialogue noted that India had “$1 trillion worth of new projects to build highways, airports, electrical power stations and other infrastructure”, representing “major potential opportunities for American firms”, and also argued for “easing of caps on investment in critical sectors” to facilitate the entry of US firms.

While there was much talk of shared counterterrorism objectives, there was conspicuous silence, even on the Indian side, on the dubious and murky attitude of the US to David Headley, one of the key masterminds of the Mumbai terror attack.

The Headley episode and the Bhopal gas disaster are just two reminders of the deep inequalities between the US and India and double standards of the former towards India. Any ‘strategic partnership’ between the two can only be scripted and directed by the US in its own interests – and is bound to be deeply damaging to the interests of the Indian people. We must resist this growing US interference in critical sectors of Indian economy and national life and defend and assert India’s sovereignty and independence with all our might.

Struggles in India

CPI(ML) Team Visits Anti-Posco Struggle Area

- Mahendra Parida, Liberation, July, 2010.

A CPI(ML) team of leaders from Odisha comprising State Secretary Comrade Khitish Biswal, State Committee member Comrade Yudhisthir Mahapatra and All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) leader Comrade Mahendra Parida visited the anti-Posco struggle area on 7 June 2010 and talked to several activists and local people involved in the anti-Posco people’s struggle. Five years ago, Posco had signed an MoU with the Odisha government for setting up a steel plant in Jagatsinghpur. Billed as the biggest ever FDI project in India (involving an investment of $12 bn or Rs. 52,000 crore), the project has invited tremendous mass opposition ever since the MoU was signed five years ago. The project involves more than 4,000 acres of land including 3,000 acres of forest land and a proposed port at Jatadhari near the Bay of Bengal which clashes with the jurisdiction of the Paradip port.

While the local people have successfully resisted the Posco project for so long, official pressure for the beginning of the project has intensified in recent months. CPI leader Abhay Sahoo had a leading role in the movement, but during the last Lok Sabha elections the CPI entered into a seat-sharing alliance with the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and won from Jagatsinghpur (the constituency that covers the proposed Posco project area) with BJD support. And then this year, the South Korean President was the guest of honour for the Republic Day parade and he threw all his official weight behind the project. In a clever move to divide the anti-Posco movement, Naveen Patnaik has requested Posco to relinquish its claim on the 300 acres of privately owned land leading to speculation that the government would like to facilitate a deal by separating the state land from privately owned land. In their discussion with movement activists, the CPI(ML) leaders cautioned against the government’s ploy and reiterated the party’s unflinching support for the land and livelihood issues of the people over the entire 4,000 acres of land and against any attempt to reduce the movement to the question of defending only the 300 acres of privately-owned land. Unfortunately, during the Rajya Sabha election the CPI had a discussion with the BJD under which the movement leaders have been persuaded to allow Posco officials to enter the area in the name of carrying out land survey.

Struggles in India

RSS Goons Attack CPI(ML) Leader in Kalahandi:

Police Station Gheraoed in Protest

- Liberation, July, 2010.

In protest against the brutal attack by Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and BJD goons on Orissa state committee member Com Nilanjan Bhattacharya and demolition of tribal and dalit Christian houses in Ulladani village panchayat of Rampur block in Kalahandi district, nearly 500 activists of CPI(ML) gheraoed Kalahandi police station on 19 June. The CPI(ML) has been fighting for last four years for land and housing rights of local tribal and dalit Christian people. The local RSS unit however has been trying its level best to stop these people from getting their land rights so that communists did not get any foothold in that area. Yet defying RSS pressure, the land rights campaign succeeded in securing patta for some people. The RSS-BJP-BJD goons then forcibly demolished the huts set up by the CPI(ML) supporters on 9 June. When on the next day, Comrade Nilanjan went to investigate the case, the RSS-BJP-BJD goons assaulted and abducted him. Following intervention by the State Committee and a visit to the area by State secretary Comrade Khitish Biswal on 11 June, Comrade Nilanjan was eventually released. On 19 June nearly 500 people led by Comrades Nilanjan Bhattacharaya, Mahendra Parida, Arjun Majhi, Sanjay Naik, Balaram Hota and Joseph gheraoed the Kalahandi police station and asked the SP to take immediate action against the RSS-BJP goons. It may be noted that the area borders the Kandhamal region where the RSS-BJP had repeatedly unleashed anti-Christian communal violence in recent past.

International

Scrap Indo-Israel Arms Deals

- Liberation, July, 2010.

The Israeli actions have prompted an avalanche of protests the world over calling for international sanctions and isolation of Israel, with several European countries summoning their Israeli ambassadors for explanation. But in India, the Ministry of External Affairs did not go beyond issuing an insipid condemnation while choosing to be conveniently silent on the increasing strategic and military intimacy between India and Israel. The words of condemnation will remain hollow and ritualistic until all arms deals with Israel are scrapped.

Since 2008, Israel has gained the status of India’s top defence supplier. While these deals, secured in utmost secrecy, remain mired in corruption allegations, the moot issue is that through these deals India actually subsidises Israel’s massive war economy and in fact contributes to the killings of Palestinians.

CPI(ML) stands in solidarity with the demand for international sanctions against the state of Israel and demands for an immediate lifting of the blockade in Gaza.

CPI(ML) calls for an urgent scrapping of India’s military and strategic ties with Isreal and cancellation of India’s arms deals with Israel.