November-December 2009

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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 Contents

1. The Myth and Reality of Congress Revival

2. Defeat the UPA’s War on Democracy!

3. Open Letter to Indian PM

4. India’s China Policy: Calling for Cooperation, Not Confrontation

5. Pricol Workers’ Struggle: Justice Must Prevail

6. Land Reforms Sangharsh Yatra and Convention

7. Women Workers’ Convention

8. Tamil Nationalism: Ducking the Issues
9. Saluting the Memory of K Balagopal

10. Adieu to Comrade Ibn-ul Hasan Basru!

Assembly Elections in India

The Myth and Reality of Congress Revival

- ML Update, 27 October – 2 November, 2009.

In the recently concluded elections to State Assemblies in Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh, the Congress has predictably managed to retain power in all the three states, triggering a growing media buzz regarding the revival of the Congress and the return of the old era of Congress domination.

A closer look at the poll outcome however reveals a number of holes in the story of Congress revival. In Haryana, the Congress tally has dropped from 67 to 40 while a resurgent Indian National Lok Dal finished a close second with more than 30 seats in its kitty. The dramatic revival of Om Prakash Chautala signifies nothing short of a huge backlash by the aggrieved electorate of rural Haryana. In Maharashtra too, the Congress- National Congress Party (NCP) combined tally fell one short of the majority mark and its vote share dropped by six per cent. The big news from the state is the rise of Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). More than anything else, it is the MNS factor which has helped the Congress by not only splitting the Shiv Sena vote, but also pushing a disillusioned electorate back to the Congress in search of some sense of safety and security from the MNS brand of divisive and aggressive politics.

The Congress would of course like to attribute its return to power to a ‘positive mandate’ from the electorate. But the ground reality in neither Maharashtra nor Haryana would endorse the Congress claim. Maharashtra is still reeling under the combined impact of agrarian crisis and economic recession while Haryana remains notorious for its retrograde and patriarchal social environment that continues to deny large numbers of dalits and women their basic human dignity and civil rights.

According to Maharashtra’s state economic survey, three out of every eight residents are below the line. Every day since 2006, 1,800 people have lost their jobs. Regional disparity is quite glaring – per capita income in Vidarbha (Rs. 29,000) is only 40 per cent of the per capita income of a Mumbai resident (Rs 73,930). The corporate-builder-politician-bureaucrat nexus reigns supreme in the state even as real estate and share market have replaced the manufacturing industries of yesteryears as the biggest sources of wealth accumulation. Haryana too has a similar story to tell. Congress rulers in Delhi and Chandigarh keep showcasing Gurgaon as the shining star of economic boom, but beneath all the corporate glitter and gloss, there is little urban infrastructure and no industrial democracy in this hugely over-rated success-story.

By all accounts, the Congress win in these elections is more a victory by default aided by a weak opposition and the absence of any credible and consolidated Left-democratic challenge. Both in Maharashtra and Haryana, the BJP failed to make any headway – in fact, it suffered further erosion and this in turn has aggravated the chaos in the party. Also notable is the decline of the BSP in both Maharashtra and Haryana. The rise of the MNS in Maharashtra of course marks a major challenge to the working class movement in the state. In the 1960s, the Congress had facilitated the rise of the Shiv Sena to curb the Left trade union movement in and around Mumbai; four decades later the MNS is raising its head, once again with blessings from the Congress, giving a distorted and divisive ex-pression to the popular anger against deindustrialization and joblessness.

As far as Arunachal Pradesh is concerned, election in the state continues to be viewed more in the context of border dispute and bilateral tension between India and China than as a reflection of the political situation and public mood in the state. Like most small states in the North-East, elections in Arunachal too are heavily influenced by money-power and bureaucratic manipulation. An NDTV correspondent covering Arunachal elections put the average amount spent by victorious Congress candidates at a staggering Rs. 5 crore per Assembly seat!

Far from returning to the old paradigm of Congress monopoly, Indian politics continues to evolve through the maze of multi-party competition. The forthcoming elections to the Jharkhand Assembly should provide further proof of this political diversity.

Struggles in India

Defeat the UPA’s War on Democracy! Build Broad-based Democratic Resistance!

- Liberation, November, 2009.

In the name of combating the ‘Maoist menace’ the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is gearing up for a massive combat operation. The Cabinet Committee on Security has already cleared the Home Ministry plan to take the “war on Maoists” to the next level even as Chidambaram shies away from describing the operation in terms of an outright war. While on record the Prime Minister has ruled out the possibility of deployment of the Army in the operation, the scale and framework of the proposed operation indicate nothing short of an all-out military offensive. The Home Ministry talks of waging simultaneous operation on eleven theatres covering over 2000 police station areas in 223 districts, and the Defence Minister and Air Chief Marshal talk of deploying (Indian Air Force) IAF’s special force Garuda with powers to fire in ‘self-defence’. A special central force called COBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action) has already been raised and pressed into service. Chidambaram has also spoken of ‘amending’ the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) (presently deployed in Kashmir and the North East) in order to make it applicable in the whole of India.

In tandem with this military offensive, a full-scale propaganda war is also underway. Influential sections of the print and electronic media are working overtime to manufacture a ‘national consensus’ in favour of the military offensive. With state governments all joining in, contours of a grand political consensus are easily discernible. The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) session at Rajgir has expressed its full-throated support to Chidambaram’s ideas. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee too made it a point to take time off from the CPI(M) PB meeting in Delhi to meet Chidambaram over breakfast to demand more forces and a more intensified and concerted drive. Mamata Banerjee of course conveniently seeks to distance herself from this consensus, expecting everybody to ignore the fact that the ongoing paramilitary offensive in West Bengal is very much a joint venture sponsored by the government at the Centre where she is a cabinet minister.

It can hardly be coincidence that key arenas of the proposed war are precisely those mineral-rich areas on which mining corporations have had their eye. Whether Chidambaram, himself one of the Directors of Vedanta until becoming a UPA Cabinet Minister, and a favourite lawyer for many of mining companies, will succeed in his stated goal of wiping out the Maoists is uncertain – what is however clear is that it will pave the way for corporate land grab.

The Maoists with their reckless actions are of course doing everything possible to alienate large sections of the democratic opinion. With every passing day, they demonstrate increasingly clearly how far they have moved away from the legacy of the Naxalbari peasant rebellion and Comrade Charu Mazumdar. Comrade CM was no advocate of isolated and exclusive armed actions – for him the two key phrases were “integration with the landless rural poor” and “politics in command”. The Maoists have delinked the whole question of arms from this essential context and have thus moved beyond the purview of the CPI(ML), the party founded by Comrade Charu Mazumdar. This is why they have had to find new names to describe their ideology and organization. The alienation and anger of the tribal masses does provide the Maoists with some favourable initial conditions, but they have done nothing to channelize it to any powerful mass awakening. On the contrary, Lalgarh shows how the Maoists have miserably misled a popular uprising.

The Government of India and the various state governments are however invoking the ‘Maoist threat’ not only to tackle the Maoists but to suppress every movement of the working people and stifle every democratic dissent. Reports of indiscriminate detention in false cases and on fabricated charges, custodial torture and harassment, and attacks on the press and on the freedom of expression are coming in from every corner of the country. The dark days of the Emergency seem to be staging a comeback in so many ways. The revolutionary Left movement must boldly face this situation by in close association with other democratic forces. There can of course be no condoning the reckless acts of the self-styled Maoists, and it is imperative to sharpen the lines of demarcation between anarchism and revolutionary Marxism even as we seek broad-based cooperation to defeat the growing war on democracy.

Struggles in India

Open Letter to Indian PM

- Liberation, November, 2009.

October 12, 2009

We are deeply concerned by the Indian government’s plans for launching an unprecedented military offensive by army and paramilitary forces in the adivasi (indigeneous people)-populated regions of Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Orissa and West Bengal states. The stated objective of the offensive is to “liberate” these areas from the influence of Maoist rebels. Such a military campaign will endanger the lives and livelihoods of millions of the poorest people living in those areas, resulting in massive displacement, destitution and human rights violation of ordinary citizens. To hunt down the poorest of Indian citizens in the name of trying to curb the shadow of an insurgency is both counter-productive and vicious. The ongoing campaigns by paramilitary forces, buttressed by anti-rebel militias, organised and funded by government agencies, have already created a civil war like situation in some parts of Chattisgarh and West Bengal, with hundreds killed and thousands displaced. The proposed armed offensive will not only aggravate the poverty, hunger, humiliation and insecurity of the adivasi people, but also spread it over a larger region.

Grinding poverty and abysmal living conditions that has been the lot of India’s adivasi population has been complemented by increasing state violence since the neoliberal turn in the policy framework of the Indian state in the early 1990s. Whatever little access the poor had to forests, land, rivers, common pastures, village tanks and other common property resources has come under increasing attack by the Indian state in the guise of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and other “development” projects related to mining, industrial development, Information Technology parks, etc. The geographical terrain, where the government’s military offensive is planned to be carried out, is very rich in natural resources like minerals, forest wealth and water, and has been the target of large scale appropriation by several corporations. The desperate resistance of the local indigenous people against their displacement and dispossession has in many cases prevented the government-backed corporations from making inroads into these areas. We fear that the government’s offensive is also an attempt to crush such popular resistances in order to facilitate the entry and operation of these corporations and to pave the way for unbridled exploitation of the natural resources and the people of these regions. It is the widening levels of disparity and the continuing problems of social deprivation and structural violence, and the state repression on the non-violent resistance of the poor and marginalized against their dispossession, which gives rise to social anger and unrest and takes the form of political violence by the poor. Instead of addressing the source of the problem, the Indian state has decided to launch a military offensive to deal with this problem: kill the poor and not the poverty, seems to be the implicit slogan of the Indian government.

We feel that it would deliver a crippling blow to Indian democracy if the government tries to subjugate its own people militarily without addressing their grievances. Even as the short-term military success of such a venture is very doubtful, enormous misery for the common people is not in doubt, as has been witnessed in the case of numerous insurgent movements in the world. We urge the Indian government to immediately withdraw the armed forces and stop all plans for carrying out such military operations that has the potential for triggering a civil war which will inflict widespread misery on the poorest and most vulnerable section of the Indian population and clear the way for the plundering of their resources by corporations. We call upon all democratic-minded people to join us in this appeal.

Indian Signatories include Arundhati Roy, Author and Activist, Amit Bhaduri, Professor Emeritus, CESP, JNU, Sandeep Pandey, Social Activist, Prashant Bhushan, Supreme Court Advocate, Nandini Sundar, Delhi School of Economics, Anand Patwardhan, Film Maker, Dipankar Bhattachararya, General Secretary, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, Sumit Sarkar, Historian, Tanika Sarkar, Professor of History, JNU, Gautam Navlakha, Consulting Editor, EPW and many others.

International Signatories include Noam Chomsky, David Harvey, Michael Lebowitz, John Bellamy Foster, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Mira Nair, Howard Zinn, Gilbert Achcar.

Asia

India’s China Policy: Calling for Cooperation, Not Confrontation

- Dipankar Bhattacharya, Liberation, November, 2009.

The October 1 celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the foundation of the People’s Republic of China has attracted worldwide attention. Considering the historical baggage of backwardness with which modern China had begun its journey and the size of China’s billion-plus population, China has indeed come a long way in these six decades. With “made in China” products virtually swamping the global market, the whole world obviously recognizes China’s economic prowess. Compared to China’s economic strength, its voice in the strategic domain of international relations has of course been rather soft and subdued, but of late China seems to have begun stepping up its role in this arena too.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, for a few years the world looked quite unipolar with unchallenged US domination in every sphere. But over the last one decade, the aura of American power has started fading. With every passing month, the burden of the economic, human and political cost of the US-led military misadventure in Afghanistan and Iraq is becoming increasingly heavy and unaffordable. The US has also had to bear the brunt of the global financial crisis and the recession that has revived memories of the Great Depression of the 1930s. The steady rise of China marks a striking contrast to this unmistakable decline of an overstretched superpower.

China of course does not seem to be in any hurry to assert its status as a rising global power. The keyword in Chinese foreign policy parlance is not superpower but multipolarity as opposed to a unipolar world. In its quest for a multipolar world, China is seeking closer strategic cooperation with Russia and the Central Asian republics within the framework of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and closer bilateral and multilateral economic cooperation with major developing countries like India and Brazil (the combination of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) can indeed be a powerful bargaining bloc). Apart from pressing for restructuring of the IMF, China has also come up with the idea of ending the US dollar’s prolonged reign as the universal currency of international exchange. China has suggested that as a medium of international transaction, dollar should be replaced by a supranational currency basket like the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) used by the IMF.

While China’s record in terms of domestic economic advance is quite extraordinary and its growing role as a balancing force against unipolar imperialist domination is undoubtedly significant, a lot is however left to be desired when one judges China by the yardstick of socialism. Much of the initial post-revolution gains achieved by the toiling masses towards genuine liberation and social progress have been lost in the wake of post-1978 modernization. Disparity, social as well as regional, is assuming critical proportions, even as the working people in both rural and urban areas are faced with growing unemployment and insecurity. No wonder popular anger is also exploding in different parts of China at regular intervals, with the state often unleashing repressive measures to handle such protests.

For communistas and anti-imperialists the world over the sixtieth anniversary of the victory of the Chinese revolution is an occasion to gather inspiration and strength from the historical transformation of a backward country into a powerful modern nation even as the problems facing China demand close scrutiny and critical introspection. At the same time it is imperative that we must boldly denounce and resist the American design to encircle China. In India the pro-US lobby has been working overtime to project China as a big imminent threat. The US military-industrial complex wants to capture India’s lucrative defence market by promising to enhance India’s military capacity vis-à-vis China. Such a course will not only make India ever more dependent on the US but also cripple whatever democracy we have by subordinating the country’s economic and political agenda to the disastrous logic of war and militarization. We must learn from our past history and save the country from this US-prescribed road to disaster. Avoiding the path of confrontation, India must move towards comprehensive cooperation with China.

Workers’ Struggle in India

Pricol Tragedy: Witch Hunt Must Stop, Justice Must Prevail

- Liberation, November, 2009.

The tragic death of a senior management representative of auto part manufacturer Pricol in Coimbatore on September 22 has triggered a frenzied reaction from the Pricol management, the Tamil Nadu (TN) police and sections of the corporate media. Roy George, Vice President (Human Resources) of Pricol had reportedly suffered head injury in the course of talks with a group of workers on 21 September and succumbed the next afternoon in a city hospital.

The company describes the tragic end of its VP as ‘planned and premeditated murder’ and attributes it to a conspiracy hatched by the leadership of the fighting union of Pricol workers (Kovai Mavatta Pricol Employees’ Trade Union) as well as the central trade union (All India Central Council of Trade Unions) with which it is affiliated. The Coimbatore police have already arrested some thirty workers and a witch hunt is on against several other worker activists and their leaders including Comrade S Kumarasamy, President of AICCTU.

Newspapers and TV channels have all noted the similarity of the Coimbatore case with a similar incident that happened exactly a year ago in Greater Noida in which the local head of Italian firm Graziano Transmission was reportedly beaten to death by a group of sacked employees. It was reported that the Graziano incident was sparked off when goons hired by the management beat up workers who had been summoned on the pretext of talks. A similar incident has recently been reported from Gorakhpur. Meanwhile at Gurgaon, the killing of a worker by management ‘bouncers’ during an agitation against sacking of employees who were leading the struggle to unionise, has sparked off a massive strike in Gurgaon. A few incidents involving mill managers have also been witnessed occasionally in the jute mills in West Bengal notorious for huge PF defaults and most anarchic and arbitrary labour practices by the mill owners. The recent suicide of Manikandan, a worker at Pricol for the last 19 years, is the latest addition to the toll of human life taken by the undemocratic and repressive tactics of the Pricol management.

Yet instead of highlighting the common causal thread that runs through such cases – absence of industrial democracy, rampant violations of labour laws and complete denial of the right to unionise, miserable working and living conditions of workers, and recurrent violence by management against vocal workers, to name just a few causes – or helping us understand the incident in the context of the deep anxieties and uncertainties fuelled by the recession, most media reports have tended to join the corporate chorus defaming the organized trade union movement and calling for labour reforms to give still greater freedom to capital to dictate terms to labour. Some have even gone to the extent of demanding a ban on the AICCTU and CPI(ML).

The Pricol management has been notorious for its record of rampant violation of labour laws, court verdicts and government orders. Far from recognizing the union supported by the overwhelming majority of workers, it has constantly victimized workers for siding with a ‘Marxist-Leninist union’, hoping to break the union through coercion and intimidation. In recent months, in the name of facing the recession, it has resorted to harsh wage-cuts, robbing every worker of tens of thousands of rupees. On top of this, came the September 21 termination of 40-odd workers and the dam of workers’ patience burst asunder.

Even in the face of such a vindictive and arbitrary management, Pricol workers have actually been waging a protracted and patient battle exploring every legal avenue available for bringing the management to justice. From Madras High Court to Supreme Court to the floor of the Tamil Nadu State Assembly, the contention of the fighting workers has been upheld time and again and notice issued to the management for legal compliance. The tragic incident of September 21-22 should not blind us to this real history of Pricol workers’ struggle.

By launching a witch hunt against Pricol workers at the behest of the Pricol management, and framing the all-India leadership of a recognized trade union centre like AICCTU, the Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK) government is now playing its bit to intensify the state-corporate assault on industrial democracy and basic trade union rights. The trade union movement and the broader democratic opinion must resolutely resist this assault and stand by Pricol workers for fulfillment of their just demands.

The Centre too is trying to use Pricol-Graziano-type incidents to discredit the working class movement and push for the corporate-sponsored agenda of ‘labour law reform.’ In other words, instead of correcting the course of rampant violations of labour laws by managements which led to such tragedies, the Centre is planning to institutionalise and legalise those very violations! The Pricol tragedy cannot and must not be allowed to be utilized as a corporate handle to coerce workers and suppress the voice of justice. The deaths of Roy George and the worker Manikandan in Pricol, and of Gurgaon worker Ajit Yadav should serve as a warning bell to the government to strictly act against the anarchy perpetrated by managements across the country, legislate in favour of workers’ right to form unions, sternly penalise every violation of labour laws, and uphold principles of industrial democracy and collective bargaining.

At Coimbatore, a single day’s tragic incident is being deliberately sought to be used to prejudice public opinion against the Pricol workers and suppress the truth of the nearly one thousand days of their united and determined struggle.

Pricol: Confirmed Violator of Labour Laws

Among other basic things, a key demand of Pricol workers has been for the recognition of their unions which enjoy the support of the overwhelming majority of workers while the management has been constantly pressurizing workers to withdraw from the road of struggle and sever ties with the ‘Marxist-Leninist’/‘Maoist’ leadership.

In this long struggle of Pricol workers, the government of Tamil Nadu has repeatedly censured the Pricol management. The state government has issued three advices, passed one government order (GO) prohibiting the continuance of lockout, passed three GOs ordering references, passed two orders under section 10B of the Industrial Disputes Act (ID Act) 1947.

On 29th of July 2009 the state Labour Minister, while replying to a calling attention motion moved on the floor of the assembly by All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), Congress, Communist Party of India (CPI), CPI (Marxist), catalogued the various unfair labour practices indulged in by Pricol Ltd, and stated that the workers had given up their indefinite fast which had been continuing for the 15th day as their demands were accepted by the government. He further assured that the government would not let the workers down.

Have things completely changed in a few months and more particularly on a single day with the unfortunate death of an executive? In the heat and passion generated by this tragic incident, can we allow rational reasoning to become a casualty?

Will TN Police Consult TN Labour Department on Pricol Ltd?

Rampant violation of labour laws, court verdicts and government orders has been the trademark of the Pricol management.

Some highlights of Pricol’s notorious track record in the arena of industrial relations:

• Vindictive transfers.

• Refusal to engage in collective bargaining in good faith with the majority union.

• Illegal partial lockouts.

• Break-in-service orders.

• Stoppages of increments.

• Termination of more than 1000 employees

• Illegal deduction of wages and incentives running into crores of rupees; promises by the management to pay all these withheld dues if the workers leave the unions.

• Employment of apprentices and contract labour contrary to certified standing orders and the Contract Labour (Abolition and Regulation) Act, 1970.

• Most recently, dismissal of 44 workers without any domestic enquiry.

In almost all these issues the state government has intervened under sections 10 (1), 10(3) and 10 B of the ID act 1947. In fact Comrade Kumarasami was trying to get the Labour Minister convene a meeting at the earliest to resolve the simmering discontent and this fact is known to the Labour Department.

The management does not want Comrade Kumarasami to defend the Pricol workers in the High Court as well as the Supreme Court on the 29th of September and other subsequent dates. This is the main reason for implicating Comrade Kumarasami, the national president of a centrally recognised trade union.

Continuing Witch-hunt

Subsequent to the incident at the Pricol automotive parts manufacturing company at Coimbatore on 21-22 September 2009, the police initiated a crackdown on innocent workers and their leaders. Murder cases were fabricated against more than 20 workers, including two women. The charges of murder and of damages to properties were framed against the union’s all-India President Comrade S Kumarasamy. The same cases were also foisted against many workers’ leaders and vanguards at factory level who are under suspension or dismissal and who are not entitled to enter the factory. More than 26 innocent workers, including eight women, were arrested within 24 hours on non-bailable offences, digging up some old cases of unlawful assembly that alleged to have happened in March 2009. These arrests were made two days prior to a meeting of an AICCTU delegation with the Deputy Chief Minister and the day before the anticipatory bail petition for S Kumarasamy was filed in the High Court of Chennai. At the next hearing of the bail petition of S Kumarasamy on 15 October, the police gave an undertaking to the Court not to arrest him until the anticipatory bail hearing was complete.

Around 26 workers arrested on charges of unlawful assembly were released on bail on 7 October after having been jailed for over a week. The workers of Pricol wanted to participate in struggles on 1 October as a part of all-India Protest Day called by AICCTU at national level. The police denied permission for the demonstration. On 3rd October, a Solidarity Committee with Pricol workers sought permission to hold a demonstration in support of the struggle and was denied by police. Hundreds of supporters of the struggle courted arrest violating prohibitory orders.

On 2nd October, a state level delegation of AICCTU led by N K Natarajan and comprising of state deputy general secretaries A S Kumar and Bhuvana, G Radha Krishnan and two Pricol workers, met the Deputy Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M K Stalin. The delegation urged him to initiate suitable actions to establish the rule of law and to discipline the Pricol management which is responsible for industrial anarchy.

An all India delegation of AICCTU led by its all-India General Secretary Swapan Mukherjee, and comprising all-India Vice-President V Shankar, Secretaries N K Natarajan and Balasubramanian visited Coimbatore on 6th October. When the delegation went to address the press at press club, more than hundred policemen cordoned off the place to create a situation of terror. The delegation also addressed a well attended convention of workers of Pricol on the same evening. In spite of heavy repression and prevalence of terror situation, workers participated in the convention in good strength and displayed utmost struggling spirit and a sense of fighting unity. The convention was symbolic of the renewed vigour and resolve of workers to carry forward the struggle. The convention also paid homage to a Pricol worker who committed suicide unable to bear the management’s victimization of workers and the police harassment.

The delegation also met the State Labour Minister, State Labour Commissioner and the state police Chief, the Director General of Police and submitted a memorandum demanding withdrawal of false cases against Comrade S Kumarasamy and other innocent workers. The delegation also demanded suitable legislative amendments for recognition of trade unions that enjoy the support of majority workers.

A peace meeting on 7 October was called, under the guidance of the Deputy Chief Minister, by the Deputy Commissioner of Labour Mr. Marimuthu at Coimbatore who served notices to the union and the management. The management chose to stay away from the meeting while the union attended it. The Pricol management continues to arrogantly defy any steps for peace.

The management also declared a differential bonus formula for different groups. While the majority workers in the union were unilaterally offered the statutory minimum bonus of 8.33%, the minority loyal workmen represented by treacherous unions were offered 20% bonus plus gift. This is also a sufficient indication that violation of laws by the management is going on unabated and there is no political or legal authority competent enough to prevail on the Pricol Management. This is the usual story of corporate or Multinational corporation (MNC) influence and control over the State authorities instead of the reverse.

It is heartening that almost all Left trade unions like All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), All India United Trade Union Centre (AIUTUC) and Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS) offered support to the workers’ demands at national and state level. They also readily signed the joint statement. The struggles, rallies and demonstrations emphasizing the Pricol workers’ demands, are on in Chennai on every other day since 29 September. All India Agricultural Labour Association (AIALA) also joined the protest in support of workers in rural areas displaying the sense of unity with workers. Students and women too, joined the voice of protest in the state of Tamil Nadu.

The struggle of Pricol workers’ continues – even as the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government at the Centre is pushing the agenda of ‘reform of labour laws’ – a euphemism for rollback of labour laws to appease the corporations and to intensify the liberalization offensive.

Massive protests

Following the witch-hunt of workers and attempt to frame and implicate the AICCTU National President Comrade Kumaraswamy in the death of a Vice President at PRICOL industries, Coimbatore, there have been a flood of protests – not only in Tamil Nadu bur nationally and even outside the country.

In Delhi, AICCTU held a protest at Jantar Mantar on 24 September. On the same day, there was a demonstration in Ambattur industrial estate in which over 500 workers participated. TIDC workers held a gate meeting. Demonstrations were also held in Namakkal, Pudukottai district Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari districts too.

100s of protest telegrams were sent from all over the State to the Tamil Nadu CM and Governor. The Madras High Court Association passed a resolution against the false implication of Comrade Kumarsami.

On 25 September, a demo was held in Villupuram district. On 26 September, the first State Conference of AISA in Tamil Nadu was held in Chennai. The delegates staged a demo demanding withdrawal of the false charges against AICCTU National President and an end to the police hunt of workers.

TIDC workers held another gate meeting on 27 September. On 29 September, a demonstration was held in Chennai in which over 150 workers participated. Another demonstration took place under the banner of the Workers’ Solidarity Forum at Kumananchavadi near Poonamalli.

An AIPWA team met the State Women’s Commission Chairperson and demanded to stop police harassment on women workers. She appointed a one-woman Commission to look into the issue.

On 30 September, representatives of all Central Trade Unions in Tamil Nadu issued a resolution against the implication of AICCTU National President in the case and against violations of labour laws in the State. Demonstrations were held in Tirunelveli, Pudukottai and Tiruvallore districts.

The Progressive Advocates Association and MRF Workers Seeramaippu Movement of Tiruvottiyur releases posters on the issue.

1st October was observed as National Solidarity Day by AICCTU. Protest demonstrations were held at Ranchi, Lucknow and other centres. A demonstration was held in Chennai in which 1000 workers participated. CITU, AITUC and AIUTUC leaders attended the demonstration. Demonstrations were held in Villupuram, Kumbakonam, Cuddalore, Namakkal, Kanyakumari, Trichy, Salem, Dindigal and Madurai. In Tirunelveli, signatures collected were submitted to the Collector. A public meeting was held in Pudukottai town.

Pricol workers who arrived Chennai on 30 September met the State Labor Minister and demanded that the police harassment should be stopped. New Democratic Workers’ Union staged a demo in support of Pricol Workers.

On 3rd October AIPWA and Workers Rights’ Forum held a demonstration. In Coimbatore, over 120 people led by democratic forces held a rally. They were arrested and released later. A joint demonstration by many TUs was held in Ambattur.

On 4th October, TN Democratic Construction Workers Union organized a demo in Chennai. A Public meeting was held in Suthamalli of Tirunelveli district. On 5 October a demonstration was held in Kanchipuram and a memorandum was submitted to the Collector. A demonstration was held in Tiruvallore district by AICCTU-AIALA.

On 6th October, a hall meeting attended by 300 workers was held in Coimbatore addressed by AICCTU National General Secretary Comrade Swapan Mukherjee, Vice President Comrade V Shankar, Comrades N.K.Natarajan and S Balasubramaniam. AIPWA also held a demo in Chennai.

Also on 6th October, the Chennai Labour Court observed a boycott in solidarity with Pricol workers. On 9th October, a Court boycott was observed in Tirunelveli.

On 7th October, hundreds participated in a protest march in Chennai. A demonstration was held at Salem and Villupuram, and a public meeting at Tirunelveli. Protests continue across Tamilnadu.

Pricol Update

National President of All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) Com. S. Kumarasami was given anticipatory bail in the Pricol incident where he was falsely accused for the tragic death of Pricol’s HR VP. Fifty workers were arrested and put in jail out of which 26 have been given bail and barring one the Pricol management has taken back all 25 for work. Earlier the management never took-back the workers when there was court case involved after industrial dispute. This is the first time the workers released from jail have been allowed to resume their job. The remaining 24 workers who did not get bail have been charged with Sec. 302 of the IPC. The AICCTU is making all efforts for their bail as soon as possible.

At the heart of the incident in Pricol, Graziano and recently Gurgaon is the managements’ continuous denial to the workers to form and recognize their union and total absence of industrial democracy. The AICCTU and CPI(ML) have declared that the nation-wide struggle for workers’ right to form their union, trade union recognition and industrial democracy will be intensified and carried on until the working class win their basic rights.

Land Struggles in India

Land Reforms Sangharsh Yatra and Convention

- Liberation, September, 2009.

CPI (ML) in Bihar launched a state-wide campaign from 3-8 October to demand implementation of the recommendations of the D. Bandopadhyaya Land Reforms Commission (LRC). The Sangharsh Yatra called upon the masses to reject and oust the Nitish Govt. which is so blatantly on the side of landlords and land-grabbers.

On October 3rd, Sangharsh Yatras (struggle marches) were taken out – from Madhuban village in Patna led by All Indian Agricultural Labourers Association (AIALA)’s National President Rameshwar Yadav and Party’s MLA Nand Kumar Nanda; from Arrah in Bhojpur led by KD Yadav- State President of Bihar Pradesh Kisan Sabha (BPKS), from Karakat in Rohtas led by Arun Singh; from Biharsharif in Nalanda led by All Indian Progressive Womens’ Association (AIPWA) State Secretary Shashi Yadav, from Comrade Chandrashekhar’s statue at Siwan led by CPI(ML) MLA Amarnath Yadav, from Hathua in Gopalganj led by CCM Meena Tiwari; from Manjhaulia in West Champaran led by Virendra Gupta; in Muzaffarpur led by Jitenda Yadav; in Purnea led by Madhavi Sarkar; in Darbhanga led by Dhirendra Jha; in Begusarai led by Chandradeo Ram; in Aurangabad led by Rajaram Singh; in Patna led by Saroj Chaubey and in Bhagalpur led by SK Sharma. Apart from Yatras were also taken out in Chhapra, Vaishali, Araria, Banka, Munger, Lakhisarai, Jamui, Madhubani and Sitamarhi districts.

During the Sangharsh Yatra in 30 districts of the State more than a thousand public meetings and gatherings were organised and addressed. Foot marches and vehicle campaigns aided the intensive campaign. The Sangharsh Yatra crossed more than five thousand villages in 200 sub-divisions/blocks.

The Yatra culminated in a massive Land Reforms Convention at Patna on 10 October addressed by CPI (ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya. He said that Mandal-ite politicians like Laloo and Nitish had conveniently forgotten that the Mandal Commission too had recommended land reforms as a key component of social justice. Nitish Kumar, he said, had set up Mahadalit Commission, Common School Commission and Land Reforms Commission galore – only to turn and make a mockery of their recommendations.

He said that carnages like Amousi could have been avoided if Nitish Kumar led government had implemented the recommendations of the D. Bandopadhyaya Commission, instead of leaving the landless poor and sharecroppers to the mercy of the prevailing agrarian anarchy. Under pressure from his primary constituency of feudal forces, he is now junking the agenda of Land Reforms.

The Convention also warned the Nitish Govt. that if no action is taken within a month’s time towards implementing the Land Reform Commission’s recommendations, the movement would be intensified.

Some of the resolutions passed at the Convention -

(1) This massive Convention of landless-sharecroppers-peasants holds the policy of reluctance and feudal attitude of the Govt. towards land reforms to be responsible for Amousi massacre. The Govt. that swears in the name of Mahadalits is only repressing them and painting them as criminals instead of providing them land, food-grains, dignity and housing. The Convention condemns the large scale repression, implicating in false cases and arresting of Musahar people at Khagaria, Saharsa, Darbhanga, Begusarai and Munger districts after the Amousi massacre, and demands that all the cases be withdrawn and arrested people be released immediately, and all landless families including the Mushahar community be granted 10 decimal housing plot and one acre of farm land,

(2) This convention terms the Rajgir conference of RSS as an exercise in vitalising the feudal-communal forces and calls upon all the poor-secular people to launch resistance against its proposed Gram Raksha Vahinis (village defence squad) aimed at encouraging the aggressiveness of feudal-kulak forces.

Declarations:

(1) In the light of recommendations of the D Bandopadhyaya Commission the State Govt. must urgently enact new laws for ceiling and share-cropping. Bhoodan, ceiling and housing plot parchadharis must be facilitated in gaining possession of the said land. Sharecroppers be safeguarded from eviction and get assured access to all facilities ranging from bank loans to crop-damage compensation and other Government agricultural welfare schemes

(2) The convention strongly condemns the betrayal by past Congress, RJD and current JD(U) governments on the issue of land reforms and calls upon rural poor and peasantry to intensify land struggle. A State-level workshop will be organised at Muzaffarpur on 28-29 October to provide impetus to the struggle for land reforms

(3) A parallel registration campaign will be conducted for share-croppers, landless poor and those without homestead land. The Convention demands that all matters related to land be handed over to panchayats and panchayats be authorised to issue identity cards to share-croppers and landless. This Convention calls upon the Bihar Pradesh Kisan Sabha (BPKS) and AIALA to collect records of feudal forces holding Govt. land and launch struggle against them.

Tailpiece:

The Bihar CM Nitish Kumar has finally declared outright that he has no intention of implementing the LRC recommendation to enact a new bataidari law. Instead he has directed SPs to deal with land disputes – confirming that in his govt.’s view, land is viewed as a law and order issue, and in effect issuing a veiled threat to the CPI(ML) (i.e that we will have to contend with the police if we take up land issues).

In response to queries by the press, Nitish has declared that when even West Bengal could not implement ownership rights for the sharecroppers, how can Bihar do it? But the fact is that the LRC headed by D Bandopadhyaya does not at any point recommend ownership rights for sharecroppers! It merely recommends registration of bataidars as the most modest and minimum security of tenure and right to cultivate the land, allowing the sharecroppers to thus access government schemes of agricultural compensation and credit, etc… Nitish is setting up a straw man of ‘ownership rights’ and then knocking it down! Nitish has also summarily ruled out the LRC recommendation of uniformity of land ceiling, and even the recommendation of 10 decimals of homestead land for rural poor.

The CPI(ML) has launched a widespread awareness campaign regarding ceiling land, homestead land and bataidari rights. Alongside this, the party has also begun initiatives to organise bataidars and create a pressure from below. In 10 panchayats of Patna where the party has a hold, we have begun to extend subsidy to bataidars. In Samastipur, our panchayats have distributed Kisan Credit cards to bataidars in Bhojpur, bataidari registration forms have been filled up as part of a campaign and submitted to the district administration.

Workers’ Struggles in India

Women Workers’ Convention

- Liberation, November, 2009.

A national Convention of women workers was held on October 9 at Bhilai, to facilitate ways in which to mobilize women workers to struggle for their rights.

The Convention, presided over by Sunita, Meena Pal, Dolly Dasgupta, was inaugurated by All India Agricultural Labour Association (AICCTU) National General Secretary Swapan Mukherjee.

All India Progressive Womens’ Association (AIPWA) Secretary Kavita Krishnan presented a position paper challenging the myths that globalization has empowered women workers. Subsequently, many women workers shared their experiences.

Veena Devi, General Secretary, Bihar State ASHA Employees Association said that ASHA recruits are responsible for a range of pre and post natal care for a mere Rs. 600 honorarium – even that was not paid in full anywhere. We’re demanding the status of govt employees and until then interim wage of Rs. 5000 per month.”

Sangeeta Devi of Bihar said, “I used to work at a juice factory in Hajipur Industrial Area. This year when I participated in a May Day programme organized by AICCTU at the gate of JK Cotton Mill, my factory owner spotted me and called up my manager on the mobile directing him to terminate my employment. But I did not lose heart, and I began to organise construction workers.” Baijayanti Devi, SAHIA worker from Pakhur, Jharkhand told much the same story.

Jaswinder Kaur from Punjab spoke of the agricultural workers’ recent struggle for homestead land in which a large number of women had been jailed.

Savitri Ghatowal said the Assam Tea Plantation Labour Act 1852 is outdated and requires change. The Assam Sangrami Cha Shramik Sangh has been demanding a new Act even the rights enshrined in the old Act are being violated. Facilities provided earlier to tea plantation workers have been withdrawn – for instance the provision of houses. 90 days maternity leave, provided for by the existing Act, is denied often pregnant workers give birth while working on the plantation.”

Thenmozhi spoke of bonded labour under the ‘Sumangali scheme” in the powerloom sector, whereby unmarried young girls worked in virtual bondage to earn a lump-sum amount for their dowry. Most of these women are dalits, she said; they are often dismissed on flimsy charges before the allotted time is up, so the cash amount can be cut. Many who worked the entire period received cheques that bounced.

Shanti Sen, an agricultural worker from Raipur described how her 17 year old son was framed in a false case in order to harass villagers for challenging corruption; her son eventually committed suicide in custody.

Savitri Sahu, a cleaning worker from Bhilai spoke of being victimised by contractors, who laid those branded as ‘leaders’ for several weeks. Geeta Mandal, AIPWA leader from Jharkhand spoke of how Mid Day meal workers and SAHIA workers are underpaid and overworked.

The Convention resolved to form an AICCTU Women’s Cell, and to take up a series of programmes designed to highlight women workers’ rights and develop leaders among women.

South Asia

Tamil Nationalism: Ducking the Issues

- S Sivasegaram.

Although the prospects of a military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rose with every setback suffered by the LTTE since its retreat from the Eastern Province in 2007, its rapid collapse from early 2009 surprised many observers including opponents and critics. Many questions concerning the failure of the LTTE to assess correctly the military situation remain unanswered.

Most Sri Lankan Tamil nationalists, especially among the diaspora, think that the defeat was due to betrayal by India. Many complain that the West, especially the US, too let down the LTTE by failing to intervene. There are also those who argue that weapons supplied by China did the damage, while some seek to justify the conduct of the Indian government based on the rising Chinese and, to a less extent, Pakistani influence in Sri Lanka.

Such explanations miss the point that the West as well as India wanted the elimination of the LTTE as a military force. The US was happy to disarm the LTTE using the negotiating table while weakening it through inducing divisions, whereas the Indian establishment desired the annihilation of the LTTE.

Some think that the LTTE would have survived to return to a position of strength, had it reverted to guerrilla warfare after its defeat in the East. Although this is speculation, resorting to guerrilla warfare would have spared the lives of many LTTE cadres as well as leaders, and more importantly the tens of thousands of civilians killed in the last few months of the war. It could also have averted the ending up of 280,000 in poorly sheltered detention camps, the maiming of well over 20,000, and other known and yet unknown forms of suffering.

What are missing in the explanations above for the defeat of the LTTE are the political reasons. The LTTE, like other Tamil nationalist movements, was never a mass movement, and all along it placed armed struggle above politics. Its anti-democratic approach, resentment of criticism and intolerance to opposition had their roots in Tamil nationalist politics, but the LTTE surpassed all predecessors. Also, besides its reluctance to oppose imperialism, it pinned its hopes on the imperialists as its fortunes declined in the battlefield.

The events of the past several months lead to important questions that are being avoided by nationalists of all shades, including those who support the government.

It is probably true that the people willingly followed the LTTE as it retreated from Kilinochchi at the end of 2008. But as life became harder, many wanted to cross over to government controlled territory, and the LTTE used force, including shooting at people who attempted to leave, to prevent them from leaving. Why did the LTTE insist on the people remaining with it even as the territory held by it was shrinking and difficulties mounted in meeting the basic needs of the people under its control, especially in the context of the government severely restricting if not blocking the supply of essential goods?

The LTTE could not have been ignorant of the firepower possessed by the Sri Lankan armed forces and their willingness to use it at tremendous risk to human life. The LTTE also knew that its military supplies had been effectively intercepted and severely curtailed since 2007 with the help of the Indian military intelligence. Did the LTTE seriously expect that some major power would intervene to save it and avert the impending disaster?

Those who encouraged the Tamils at home and among the diaspora to believe that intervention in some form was impending from the US, the UN and even some European countries include the Tamil elite among the diaspora who still believe in lobbying politicians, and includes the group calling itself ‘Tamils for Obama’. Tamil elitist support in the West called for unqualified support for the LTTE, and refused to distinguish between the cause of the Sri Lankan Tamils demanding a just and lasting solution to the national question and the LTTE which claimed to be their sole spokesperson, with rapidly declining justification for such as claim. Why did the LTTE leadership wait until the last moment to announce its surrender? Why did it not let the people leave even when it was clear that military defeat was imminent? If any false hope was given to the LTTE leadership, who or what was its source?

There are also questions relating to the surrender and killing of the LTTE leadership which are as embarrassing to the government as to the supporters of the LTTE, which had demanded of its cadres to commit suicide rather than surrender.

Interestingly, LTTE spokespersons among the diaspora still debate Pirapakaran’s demise. The claim that he is still alive seems to be based on more dubious reasons than blind faith. Those who claim that he is alive seem to have control over much of the wealth accumulated for fighting the cause of Tamil Eelam. Funds came mainly from the Tamil diaspora, although contributions were not always voluntary.

The hope that the LTTE will revive as a fighting force is fast receding among the faithful. Meantime, the idea of setting up a ‘Trans-National Government of Tamil Eelam’ is being promoted by a section of the elite, who accept the demise of the leader. K Pathmanathan, a Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TNGTE) promoter who was named the leader of the LTTE among the diaspora since the fall of the LTTE, is now in the custody of the Sri Lankan government. The circumstances of his alleged abduction from a hotel in Malaysia and deportation from Thailand suggest possible surrender, the denial of which suits both the TNGTE elite and the Sri Lankan government.

Internationally, the stock of the Sri Lankan government is low, mainly in view of the detention under unacceptable condition of Tamils ‘freed from the control of the LTTE’, let alone charges of war crimes and human rights abuses by its armed forces. The Tamil elite among the diaspora is seeking solace in the prospect of the West punishing Sri Lanka, based on the some of the harsh criticism emanating from the US, UN and the EU. But they hardly realise that charges of war crimes and human rights violations only serve to bring wayward states into line and not to bring offenders to book and even less to rectify wrongs.

What is evident among the Tamil diaspora is that they are being fed with false hope to avert any serious analysis of what went wrong with the struggle for Tamil Eelam.

The situation in Sri Lanka is similar, with the Tamil nationalist leaders reluctant to discuss pressing issues concerning the plight of the Tamils. Despite superficial political differences, they are, as a whole, reluctant to seriously discuss or debate their political past and the failed armed struggle. As in the past, it is safer for them to blame ‘traitors’ and point to external factors with which they are not associated so that they can continue to fool the Tamil people the way they did for over half a century.

But changes are evident across the Tamil political landscape. Elections to the local authorities in the North were recently held by the government in a bid to show that life there was returning to normal. The New Democratic Party called for a boycott of the elections, but under prevailing conditions could not actively campaign for a boycott.

The people had their own ideas. In the election for the Jaffna Municipal Council nearly 80% of the voters kept off , with more than 6% of those voting spoiling their ballot papers. Voting in the Vavuniya Urban Council was just over 50% with over 5% of ballot papers spoilt, despite impersonation, intimidation and other ‘customary democratic practices’. There was no overwhelming support for any political grouping whether pro-government or not.

That is food for thought.

Short Obituary

Saluting the Memory of K Balagopal

- Liberation, November, 2009.

The untimely death of leading civil libertarian K Balagopal on 8 October 2009 is a great loss to people’s movements for justice and democracy.

Balagopal played a key role in building up a powerful human rights movement in Andhra Pradesh and confront regime after repressive regime in Andhra Pradesh. He was among the first to confront the State on the issue of fake encounter killings – often at risk to his own life.

At a time when both Central and State governments of every hue are intensifying their offensive on democracy and civil liberties through draconian laws, fake encounters and muzzling of dissent, K Balagopal’s memory is a source of strength and inspiration to all those involved in the struggle to defend democracy and resist state repression.

Short Obituary

Adieu to Comrade Ibn-ul Hasan Basru!

- Liberation, November, 2009.

With a heavy heart, we bid goodbye on 29.09.09 to Comrade Ibn-ul Hasan Basru, Central Committee member of the CPI (ML) and one of the leading lights of our party in Jharkhand. Comrade Basru, recently diagnosed with an advanced stage of cancer of the gall bladder, breathed his last at 1 pm on 29 September 09 at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

Comrade Basru was born in 1943 in Godda district of Jharkhand (then undivided Bihar). He received his schooling at Mirzaganj in Giridih, in the same school where his father taught Urdu. He completed his school finals from Patna College, where he first came into contact with the communist movement, joining the All India Students Federation (AISF). In the 1960s he was drawn closer to the Communist Party of India (CPI), taking a formal party membership in 1968. In 1970 he formed the Mirzaganj unit of the party, and soon led a powerful anti-feudal peasant movement, challenging bonded labour, usury and assaults on dalits, adivasis and women.

Within a very short time, this militant movement made its mark and led to the rapid expansion of the party in the district. In 1972, he also led the resistance to communal politics of the Jan Sangh-Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS).

In 1973, he was jailed for the first time; in his subsequent political life in the thick of people’s movements, he was jailed many times. In the 1980s, he again led a powerful anti-feudal mass upsurge, and the success of CPI candidates in elections was attributed in significant measure to his efforts.

However, by the 1990s, he began to be dissatisfied with the politics and tactics of the CPI, and eventually came closer to the CPI (ML), which was rising as a powerful force in Giridih and Jharkhand. In 2002, he joined the CPI (ML), and in the 7th Party Congress of the CPI (ML) at Patna in November 2002, he was elected to Central Committee of the CPI (ML).

In the extremely challenging period following the martyrdom of Comrade Mahendra Singh, Comrade Basru shouldered a very crucial part of the responsibility, striving to achieve Comrade Mahendra Singh’s goal of achieving the party’s growth in Giridih.

A very modest and down-to-earth comrade, he easily integrated himself with the toiling poor. He epitomised the communist lifestyle; even with many economic and health travails faced by his family, he always relied on the people and dedicated himself to the party.

Comrades in Jharkhand know that till the very end, he remained quiet about his illness, playing a leading role in the recent militant struggle against irregularities in implementation of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in Jamua.

Our thoughts are with his bereaved family in their hour of loss. Comrade Basru – your simplicity, your courage, your communist spirit and dedication will continue to inspire comrades!

Red Salute to Comrade Ibn-ul Hasan Basru!

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September-October 2009

Table of Contents

1) Intensify the Struggle against Price Rise and Hunger

2) India Teeters on the Brink of Food Crisis

3) Protests on Drought and Hunger

4) US Muscle in Latin America

5) Interview with MPD

6) March to Parliament against Betrayal on Women’s Bill

7) AICCTU’s Nationwide Campaign

8) Gangubai Hangal: A Brave Life

9) Chhattisgarh Government’s Cultural Fascism

Struggles in India

Intensify the Struggle against Price Rise and Hunger

- Liberation, September, 2009.

India observed her 62rd year of independence with a solemn Prime Ministerial pronouncement: not a single Indian citizen would be allowed to go hungry. The Premier was immediately contradicted and lampooned by fresh reports of starvation deaths (from Jehanabad) and farmers’ suicides (from Andhra Pradesh [AP]). More ominously, we know that for every starvation death we have at least a thousand men, women and children eking out a miserable existence on one or half-a-meal a day. It is evident that 62 years of independence have not given us freedom from either extreme hunger, which results in starvation deaths and grabs headlines, or from endemic hunger, the silent killer which slowly slaughters tens of thousands across the land unnoticed, the deaths being explained away as those caused by “disease” or “improper food habits”.

The situation is going to deteriorate further in the coming months; the Prime Minister and the Agriculture Minister have told us, with rising prices and plummeting stocks of edibles. The reason: the failure of monsoons and consequent drought conditions in 246 out of 593 districts – nearly half the country. Well, quite a plausible argument. But wait, have not food prices been rising through the roof also during the past few years of good monsoons? Did India need unusual droughts or floods to report a chilling series of starvation deaths and farmers’ suicides during the rule of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) I, or to be placed below countries of sub-Saharan Africa and all of South Asia, barring Bangladesh, in the Global Hunger Index and the India Hunger Index released by the International Food Policy Research Institute in October 2008? Food scarcity — at least for the poor — is thus perennial to this vast land of ours. Vagaries of monsoon only worsen it occasionally and do not constitute the root cause.

So we cannot just let the powers that be cover up their own policy failures by finding a convenient scapegoat in the failure of monsoons.  Why did they allow Indian agriculture, which boasts a much higher proportion of cultivable land compared to most other countries including China, to fall prey to decay and decline over the past six decades? What prevented them from expanding – rather than curtailing, as they had actually been doing – public investment in agriculture? Why does the Agriculture Minister denounce “black marketeering or hoarding” but remain silent on forward trading in agricultural commodities, a major source of speculation and artificial rise in prices?

We must confront the union government with questions like these.  We must demand: Meet the rural poor’s urgent need for a monthly provision of 50 kg rice or wheat at Rs. 2 per kg. Bring edible oils, sugar and pulses within the scope of public distribution system (PDS). Implement the recommendations, hitherto neglected, of the Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices (CACP) on Minimum Support Price. Vastly expand the scope of the NREGA, not just as a relief measure but to improve rural infrastructure such as ponds. Mete out quick punishment to all officials responsible for delays and irregularities in the implementation of the NREGA.

While conducting militant agitations on immediate demands like these against the Central and State governments as well as various local authorities, we should bring pressure to bear on the Centre to expedite the proposed legislation that vows to convert food security into a legally enforceable right. And why should bureaucrats, ministers and “experts” alone determine the contents of the proposed bill? We should demand that peasants’ and agrarian labourers’ organizations, trade unions and other mass organizations must be consulted, so that the Bill really addresses their needs and aspirations. Once the Act is passed, we should start using it as a catalyst for action, a tool for collective bargaining to pressure the state machinery, as we have been doing with the NREGA.

In a country with 200 million food-insecure people — the largest number of hungry people in the world – the struggle against price rise and for freedom from hunger including fear of hunger is both an immediate and long term movement. We must lead and win both.

Struggles in India

India Teeters on the Brink of Food Crisis

-  Sukanta Mandal, Liberation, September, 2009.

The spectre of one of the worst ever drought situations looms large over the country. Central India suffered a massive 93% deficiency in rainfall in the first week of August, while the North-West remained at 76% below the long-term average. This monsoon, the rain deficit in Punjab, the granary of India, varies from 35% to as high as 87% depending on location. In Bihar, the deficiency varies between 76% and 88%. The average all-India deficiency of monsoon stood at 25%. Desperate farmers have sown paddy twice or even thrice, only to see the crop dry up. Both the President and Prime Minister (PM) have expressed concern at the impending spectre of drought in their ceremonial addresses to the nation on the occasion of this year’s Independence Day. The PM has even gone to the extent of giving a call for a “Second Green Revolution” to underline the gravity of the situation.

In a way the PM has hinted at the right malady. It is not only ‘the monsoon, stupid’ that is responsible for this famine-like situation. It is indeed the bleak agricultural scenario that is largely responsible for the present food crisis. Hence the talk of second green revolution! It is an irony that India even after four decades of Green Revolution is still largely dependent on the ‘rain-god’ for its agricultural salvation. The UPA government has already proposed a Food Security Act. This indicates that all is not well on the food front. The questions of food security and right to food have become urgent political issues. The overall growth story so assiduously propagated by the Indian rulers has not addressed the basic issue of providing food security to the masses. Instead, stark hunger still haunts some parts of the country for most part of the year, nutrition indicators stagnates and per capita calorie consumption actually declines in most other parts, suggesting that the problem of hunger may have got worse rather than better.

At the all India level 1.9% of the households suffer from hunger (NSSO data). Malnutrition in the country as a whole, as measured in terms of underweight children below three years, is estimated at 45.9% as per National Family Health Survey (NFHS), 2005-06. The comparable estimate for 1998-99 was 47%. These rates are among the highest rates in the world and nearly double the rate of Sub-Saharan Africa. More than half of women in India (55%) and 70% of children between 6-59 months of age are anaemic.

According to the National Sample Survey Organisation’s (NSSO) data of 2004-05, population reporting a calorie intake level of “less than 100%” of the norm of 2700 kcal, formed 66 percent of the total in rural areas and 70 percent of the total in urban areas. The same survey shows that average daily intake of calories by rural population dropped by 106 kcal (4.9 percent) from 2153 kcal to 2047 Kcal from 1993-94 to 2004-05 and by 51 Kcal (2.5 percent) from 2071 to 2020 Kcal in the urban area. Average daily intake of protein by the Indian population has decreased from 60.2 to 57 grams in the rural area between 1993-94 and 2004-05 and remained at around 57 grams in the urban area during the same period.

According to the Global Hunger Index and the India Hunger Index released by the International Food Policy Research Institute in October 2008, India’s record on hunger is worse than that of nearly 25 sub-Saharan African countries and all of South Asia, except Bangladesh. The Index, which measured hunger by ranking countries on three indicators, — prevalence of child malnutrition, rates of child mortality, and the proportion of people who are calorie- deficient, — found that not a single state in India fell in the ‘low hunger’ or ‘moderate hunger’ categories. The best-performing Indian state – Punjab – displays ‘serious’ hunger and ranks 34th on the Global Index. The worst-performing state, Madhya Pradesh, falls in the ‘extremely alarming category’ and ranks 82nd, with its people hungrier than those in Ethiopia or Sudan. Bihar and Jharkhand (73rd and 75th on the Global Index) have worse hunger records than Zimbabwe, Haiti and Bangladesh. Even a supposedly successful state like Gujarat dismally displays ‘alarming’ hunger, coming 13th among the 17 Indian states in the survey. West Bengal too falls within the “alarming” category.

The question of food security is inextricably linked with the agrarian situation in the country. The country is yet to come out of the nagging agrarian crisis. This is all the more borne out by the fact that incidents of peasant suicides are still continuing unabated despite a huge waiver of agrarian loans to the tune of Rs.60,000 crore (1 crore = 10 million) during the last year. As many as 21 debt-ridden farmers committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh during the last 40 days alone. The toll goes on increasing week after week. The number of farmers who have committed suicide in India between 1997 and 2007 now stands at a staggering 182,936. Close to two-thirds of these suicides have occurred in five states. The Big 5 – Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh– account for just about a third of the country’s population but two-thirds of farmers’ suicides. The rate at which farmers are killing themselves in these states is far higher than suicide rates among non-farmers. Farm suicides have also been rising in some other states of the country.

The Economic Survey, 2008-09 informs us that the food grains production in the country is showing signs of gradual decline. As per the third advance estimates, production of food grains in 2008-09 is estimated to be 229.85 million tonnes, which is a marginal improvement of 1.97 million tonnes over the second advance estimates for 2008-09. This is, however, lower than the target of 233 million tonnes set out for the year as also the final estimates of 230.78 million tonnes for 2007-08. The overall production of cereals in 2008-09 has shown a decline of 0.2 per cent over 2007-08 and a shortfall of 0.8 per cent over target for the year. Wheat production was marginally below the target for the year and production level achieved in 2007-08. In the case of coarse cereals, there has been a large shortfall both with reference to the targeted production as also the level achieved in the previous year. The overall picture of food grains production in the country during the year 2008-09 is depicted in Table-1 as follows:

The commercial crop scenario like oilseeds, sugarcane, cotton etc. is most bleak. The production of most commercial crops (in particular, sugarcane and cotton) is lower than the levels achieved in 2007-08. Total production of the nine oilseeds is estimated at 281.3 lakh (10 lakh = 1 million) tonnes, which is about 5.5 per cent lower than the production in 2007-08 and about 11.4 per cent lower than the targeted production for 2008-09. The production of sugarcane during 2008-09 is estimated at 2,892 lakh tonnes which is lower than the production of 3,482 lakh tonnes during 2007-08. This represents a decline of 16.9 per cent over previous year and of 14.9 per cent vis-à-vis the target for 2008-09. The production of cotton, estimated at 232.68 lakh bales, is short of the final estimates of 258.84 lakh bales in 2007-08 by 10.1 per cent and as compared to the target by 10.5 per cent.

Food security essentially involves procurement of sufficient quantity of food grains by the government to be distributed to the masses through the Public Distribution System (PDS). But the overall procurement of rice, wheat and predominant cereals, which reached 42.4 million tonnes in 2005-06, declined to 35.8 million tonnes in 2006-07, but improved marginally to 37.6 million tonnes in 2007-08. The decline in wheat procurement in Rabi Marketing Season (RMS) 2006-07 is attributable to shortage of production of wheat below the targeted levels, lower market arrivals, high ruling market prices, negative market sentiments due to low stocks of wheat in the Central pool and aggressive purchases by the private traders.

Hence the government took the decision to import wheat to meet the deficit in the Central Pool for meeting commitments under TPDS and other food-based welfare schemes and emergency relief measures. Government placed orders to import 5.5 million tonnes of wheat in 2006-07 at a weighted average price of US$ 204.7 per tonne and 1.8 million tonnes in 2007-08 at weighted average price of US$ 373.8 per tonne. We are told that the buffer stock position of food grains in the country as on 1 April 2009 was comfortable. Still the talk of further wheat import is making rounds in the corridors of the Food and Agriculture Ministry. The private players have already been allowed to import White Sugar without paying any duty.

In the meanwhile food grains prices are skyrocketing. For example, the prices of pulses have increased by 10 to 45 per cent. Arhar/tur are selling at Rs.90 and Mung Dal at Rs.74 a kilo in Mumbai and the apprehension is that the prices of pulses may shoot up to Rs.100 to Rs.150 a kilo due to the pressure of international market in a globalised scenario. The central government is providing subsidy to the corporate houses to the tune of Rs.4,18,095 crore by way of tax breaks and revenue foregone, whereas the total food subsidy provided in 2008-09 is Rs.43,688 core only, which is just a shade over a meagre 10% of the former. This is the real face of inclusive growth under the UPA regime!

Apart from the faulty agrarian policies and failing monsoon, one of the principal villains behind the spiralling prices of food grains has been the adverse impact of the commodities futures market on the prices of agricultural goods. Commodities traded in the commodities futures market included a variety of agricultural commodities. The total value of trading in the commodity futures market rose from Rs.34,84,485 crore in 2006 to Rs.36,54,487 crore in 2007 and to Rs.50,33,884 crore in 2008. The average daily value of trades in the commodities exchanges increased from Rs.15,000 crore during 2007 to Rs.18,500 crore in 2008. Agricultural commodities accounted for a large share of the commodities traded in the commodities futures market. This spurt in speculative transactions in food grains has encouraged hoarding and manipulation of prices by a few unscrupulous big players through the intervention in the commodities market.

The persistence, in fact increase, of high levels of hunger in times of globalised growth indicates that, as the Resolution on Agrarian Crisis adopted by the CPI(ML)’s 8th Party Congress observed, the “severe malnutrition crisis widespread in India, especially among children and women, is inseparably linked with liberalization in agriculture.” The subversion and dismantling of state procurement and PDS, as well as high food prices thanks to widespread speculation and hoarding have aggravated hunger. The ‘targeted’ PDS regime introduced a decade ago restricts food subsidy to ‘Below Poverty Line’ (BPL) families. In practice, the poor and marginalised find themselves excluded from the BPL lists and the extent of coverage of BPL families is very low. Hence to deal with food insecurity in an effective way, it is not sufficient to restrict the PDS to the targeted sections like the BPL population alone. Because, the process of identification of BPL population adopted in the country is far from fault-free, a large number of people who are food insecure would be excluded in case PDS remains confined to the BPL section alone. For instance, the last NSSO survey found that the percentage of Indians living below the poverty line (BPL) declined from 26.09% in 1999-2000 to 22.15% in 2004-05. Whereas the Arjun Sengupta report found that 77% of India’s population subsist on Rs 20 a day. Are the 55.85% of Indian people excluded from the BPL lists in spite of subsisting on Rs. 20 a day, not ‘poor’? Can we imagine that they are not hungry, or are not entitled to food subsidy?

PDS is a major state intervention to ensure food security to people especially the poor. The Eleventh Five Year Plan has observed that PDS seems to have failed in making food grain available to the poor as is evident from falling levels of cereal consumption over the last two decades. PDS was redesigned as Targeted PDS (TPDS) where higher rates of subsidies were given to the poor and the poorest among poor. However the Economic Survey, 2008-09 candidly admitted that, some major deficiencies were also identified in TPDS. These included high exclusion and inclusion errors, non-viability of fair price shops, leakages and failure in price stabilization. Hence is the need for strengthening and universalizing the PDS mechanism.

Struggles in India

Protests on Drought and Hunger

- Liberation, September, 2009.

In Patna, CPI (ML) leaders observed a 48-hour mass fast dharna (sit-in) on 9-11 August, protesting against inadequate drought-relief measures in Bihar, and demanding a range of measures to safeguard poor peasants and landless labourers, including payment of NREGA dues, reviving of government water taps, increase in diesel subsidy, and a widespread drought-relief programme across the State. The fast and dharna demanded that small seasonal dams be made on rivers, pump sets be used to replenish ponds, debt-free water supply be provided to sharecroppers, and they be given Rs 4000 per acre as diesel subsidy. Implementation of recommendations of the Land Reforms Commission was also demanded. The CPI (ML) State Secretary Comrade Nandkishore Prasad led the fast, along with the entire range of party and mass organisation leaders of the State.

On 14 August, whole of Jharkhand virtually stood still as people led by CPI (ML) blockaded roads in most of the State. The demand was to declare the State as drought hit and urgently provide ten thousand crore rupees as relief package. The blockade was most effective in Bagodar where 3000 people led by Com. Vinod Singh (MLA) blockaded the main highway for five hours. Other prominent points were Birni, Saria, Bishungarh Chowk, Ramgarh dist., Bokaro City and Phusro, Nirsa in Dhanbad, Lohardaga in South Chhota-Nagpur, Albert Ekka Chowk in Ranchi, Bundu, Chakradharpur , Bhawnathpur, Garhwa in Palamu,  Nala, Dumka in Jamtada district and Mohanpur and Sarwan in Devghar. At about 15 places in Giridih district blockades were laid in which more than 8000 people took part.

International

US Muscle in Latin America

- Srilata Swaminathan.

Countries of Latin America are up in arms against the US decision to open seven military bases in Columbia (a move taken on the pretext of combating narcotics trade). Apart from this, the US is working towards their army, navy and air force getting a military presence in this region by the end of this year. But that’s not all – after a gap of 59 years the US Fourth Fleet is also being revived to cover South America. In just funds, the Columbia Plan has received $10 billion and another $40 billion is in the pipeline.

This build-up is necessary if US wants to continue its domination of Latin America as it comes at a time when the US is being forced to close down its infamous Manta military base in Ecuador. Ecuador’s President, Rafael Correa, has refused to renew the contract for it. In fact, this is a big month for Ecuador as it not only hosted the UNASUR conference (Union of South American Nations formed recently in 2008) but Rafael Correa starts his second term in office under the new constitution which allows him to run for a another term. This is precisely what Zelaya was hoping to achieve in Honduras when he was kidnapped and ousted by a coup in June of this year. Even though the whole world refuses to recognise the coup leaders and that the whole country has come to a halt as trade unions have now joined the peasants and indigenous people in protests, the coup leaders are frantically trying to maintain the present status quo till the elections in November when they hope that their right-wing tactics will get legitimised.

The US puppet ruler of Columbia, President Alvaro Uribe, has just finished a frantic seven-nation tour of major South American countries trying to reassure everyone that they have nothing to worry about from this US build-up but, of course, there have been no takers.

It is not difficult to understand the concern shown by Latin American countries to this build-up. Ever since the Monroe Doctrine was enacted in 1823 when the US made sure that no European country could colonise Latin America, these countries have just traded one colonial master for another. The US, for almost two centuries, has treated them as its neo-colonies, controlled and exploited their vast natural resources, cheap labour and markets. It has installed oppressive military dictatorships, and just between 1945 and the 1980s, has sponsored at least 16 coups d’état. In the present century alone, the US has sponsored and supported coups against Chavez in Venezuela, Morales in Bolivia and, in spite of all Obama’s rhetoric to the contrary, the coup in Honduras.

Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Guyana, Surinam, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela who have all condemned the US move in the recently held UNASUR conference held this week by signing a joint statement condemning the US.

Venezuela, which is the most strident anti-US voice in the region, is the most concerned as it shares a long and troubled history, and border, with Columbia. Chavez is right to be worried that the US will invade his country on one pretext or the other. Over a recent border spat he has withdrawn the Venezuelan ambassador from Columbia and has sent the Columbian envoy in Caracas packing. The US and Columbia have always accused the Chavez government of arming the revolutionary FARC guerrillas, who have been labelled terrorists, and providing them shelter. Alfonso Cano, leader of FARC also condemns the build-up and prophecies that it is going to have far-reaching political consequences in Latin America. He knows that under the guise of the anti-drug drive the US has always used its might to wipe out this Marxist-Leninist party.

The US has cause to be deeply worried about the anti-US politics spreading throughout Latin America and is trying its best to contain it. Along with the creation of UNASUR, the new-found courage shown by the OAS (Organisation of American States) which has not only denounced the Honduran coup but reinstated Cuba as a member, it is also the formation of ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) on the trade front which poses a challenge to US-dominated NAFTA. ALBA, particularly, has shown how this region can effectively counter the political-economy of exploitative imperialist trade.

The US has always cloaked its imperialistic hegemony under pseudonyms such as ‘fight for democracy’, ‘regime change’, ‘fight against terrorism’ and now, its latest charade is its ‘continuing fight against narcotics’! Unfortunately, this super-power has become so exposed that no one for a moment thinks this massive build-up is just to fight the coca farmers of Columbia. As Fidel Castro asks, “What have ships of the Fourth Fleet and combat planes got to do with stopping narcotics?”

International

“We will have to establish Socialism in Ecuador”: Interview with MPD

- Surya.

Ecuador is a country of 14 million people located in the western part of South America. It has many nationalities including the dominant nationality of mestizos (mixed). There are 17 other nationalities in Ecuador with the blacks and indigenous people (such as Quechua and Shuar) considered as oppressed people. Due to a long history of colonization and domination, imperialist culture has been imposed on these people. Indigenous people have started to assert themselves with their own political and social organizations. 80% of indigenous people are peasants. The majority of mestizo population is working class. In total 70% of working age population are workers and 14% of them are in unions. More than 60% of population lives in urban areas. Amongst the people living in rural areas, 80% are peasants and the rest are agricultural workers and artisans.

Strategic sectors of the Ecuadorian economy are oil/petroleum and agriculture (palm, banana, sugar, and coffee) with auto assembly and textiles industry playing a minor role. The Spanish (Repsol), Brazilian (Petrobas), Canadian Multinationals (MNCs) dominate the petroleum sector with US MNCs having minimal presence. In the agricultural sector, 2% of Ecuadorians own 40% of land – these are large farmers and some of them work with MNCs e.g. one landowner owns 20, 000 hectares of land which is used to grow African palm for export. Ecuador is now part of ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America). This alliance was initiated by Venezuela and Cuba as an alternative to Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

Communist Party of Ecuador (Marxist-Leninist) (PCMLE) is a revolutionary communist party of Ecuador. It has been organizing workers and peasants for more than 30 years. It has also been working inside indigenous organizations since its founding. PCMLE has significant participation in black struggles, mostly of the black workers. Afro-Ecuadorians came as slaves for plantations or as freed slaves from other regions of the Americas. They are now mostly in the coastal region of Esmeraldas. PCMLE is working to unite all workers and peasants. Cultural differences are recognized but class solidarity is emphasized.

Movement for Popular Democracy (MPD) is the front organisation of Communist Party of Ecuador (Marxist-Leninist) (PCMLE). Excerpts of interview with Luis Villacis Maldonado, the national director of MPD and their last presidential candidate follow. Jittomy served as interpreter. The interview was conducted by Surya and Tamarai at the national headquarters of MPD in Quito.

LB: Could you tell us briefly about the history and current politics of MPD?

MPD: MPD was established 31 years ago on 17th March 1978. Workers and peasants wanted an alternative program of government. The objective was to combine both the economic and political struggles. We are trying to fight the leadership of the bourgeois state and establish popular power and socialism in Ecuador. We participate in elections from the local to presidential elections. Jaime Hurtado was the first elected representative of MPD. It was also the first time that a Black person was elected to parliament.

We are able to address different contradictions in Ecuador. Namely, the interests of the workers against the bourgeoisie; anti-imperialist struggles against US imperialism; national interests against anti-national interests. This struggle of classes has led to the growth of MPD as an organization. It has given MPD the opportunity to discuss socialism in Ecuador. This is another way to represent the people and a basis to organize them.

LB: MPD has 5 seats out of 124 seats in the parliament. How are you able to coordinate work inside parliament with struggles on the streets? Through your parliamentary work have you had any recent victories in Ecuador?

MPD: The relationship between MPD and the workers, peasants, teachers, students etc… is political and ideological. This relationship is a natural one. It is important that people in the parliament come from workers’, peasants’, teachers’ etc. organization. The organizations that work directly with us are UGTE (Workers organisation – 30, 000 members; 2nd largest trade union), UNE (Teachers’ organisation), FEUE (students’ organisation – 350, 000 members), UCAE (peasant organisation), PCMLE etc. We work with and organize in total 15 of these organizations (total membership – 2 million). In the last 20 years we have been working with this structure. All candidates for the elections come from these organizations. This is the principal way in which to obtain victory for the people.

The last constituent assembly and the new constitution got some rights for the people. They prohibited the    contract labour and ensured direct payment to workers. It is addressing exploitation of workers, low salary, long working hours, and right to social security. The salary should be able to afford basic necessities of life.  Social security should be for everybody. We have also put in our constitution that no imperialist country can have a military base in the country. The other issue that is being addressed is that natural resources should be protected from MNCs. This was a good victory. MPD was the party that enabled this victory. The five parliament members are fighting to implement this new constitution.

LB: What are the workers’ struggles outside the parliament that have had an impact?

MPD: We are mobilizing workers to defend the right to free association and of collective bargaining. We want to implement the labour law, which is part of 1701 presidential decree, that will force corporations to give better wages. We have had several mobilizations of workers that have been supported by the MPD. The leader of UGTE is a militant member of MPD.

There are several other struggles of workers. We have a mobilization of teachers. Evaluation of teachers is being used to fire teachers. There was a mobilization of miners. They are fighting for better wages but also against the pollution of the environment.

LB: In the strategic sectors of the economy, how strong is the MPD?

MPD: In agrarian reform we support the land to the tiller. We are demanding that any land that has been unproductive for more than 2 years should be given to the peasants. We have peasant organizations to check the land. We are also demanding to occupy the vacant land.

We participate in struggles in the oil sector; however, our presence is small. We are fighting for nationalization of the oil sector. The textile sector is small and MPD’s presence is also small. Another important sector is water. 75% of the water is monopolised by the water capitalists. The peasants are struggling against this monopolization of water. The new constitution says that this is public property. We are leading the protests in this area.

LB: Can you tell us about your work among women, indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian people?

MPD: We look at the struggle of women from a class perspective. The system denies them their rights – such as the right of social security for the house wife. They should be getting a salary for household work. We want equality between women and men. Only by destroying the capitalist system and establishing a socialist system will we be able to achieve this right.

We are also fighting for the rights of the Afro-Ecuadorian people. Our member of parliament Rafael is Afro-Ecuadorian and we serve as the main political front for the fight of the rights of these people. We also have several assembly members and mayors from who are fighting against the discrimination of black people. Regarding the indigenous people, we have relationships with indigenous organisations but it is limited. This is not the area where we are strong. MPD is for a multi-ethnic multi-nationality and multi-cultural Ecuador.

LB: Can you elaborate on your work amongst organised and unorganised workers?

MPD: During the years of the social democratic government, from 1988 to 1992 the movement suffered a setback. The neo-liberal policies led to the flexible labour laws. The stability of work was affected and it became difficult to organise workers particularly in the private sector. Earlier the workers of the public sector could organise but today the public sector has also been affected. We are the revolutionary wing within the union movement of Ecuador. The reformist unions are influenced by trade unions in US. We are also trying to politicise the workers to achieve socialism.

LB: What is your analysis of the coup in Honduras and how it relates to anti-imperialism in Latin America?

MPD: We condemn the coup in Honduras. We think that there is the hand of imperialism and probably Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It is not important what Obama says. The nature of imperialism does not change. The government might be taking progressive positions but Obama’s government is not a socialist government. The constitution of ALBA is changing the political equation in Latin America (LA). The inclusion of Cuba in Organisation of American States (OAS) is a reflection of the changing situation in LA. The resolution that was adopted in United Nations (UN) regarding Cuba reflects the changing situation. They are worried that privileges of imperialism are at risk in LA. This coup was a threat to other countries in LA such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador. This why we think this is an imperialist plan. The army commanders were trained in US to serve the interests of imperialism.

This is the reason we said to (President Raphael) Correa that the workers, peasants or teachers are not your enemies. It is the bourgeoisie. So, do not stop the project of change in LA.

MPD is playing a significant part to change the situation in Ecuador. Today we have to support the government of Correa in the interests of people of Ecuador. We want this government to go past its reformist positions to revolutionary positions. This is the way we can challenge the bourgeoisie and imperialism. In order to meet the aspirations of all these people we will have to establish socialism in Ecuador.

[The authors thank Comrades Pablo, Oswaldo, Luis V., Edgar, Luis, Jittomy, Geovanni and Edison for sharing their knowledge and experiences of struggles in Ecuador. Comrade Pablo helped shape the introduction by sharing his profound understanding of Ecuador and Latin America.]

Women’s’ Struggles in India

March to Parliament against Betrayal on Women’s Bill

- Liberation, September, 2009.

The All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA) held a March to Parliament on August 3 to demand that the 33% Women’s Reservation Bill be passed. Thousands of women from all over the country marched from Ramlila Maidan with colourful banners and placards, and raising slogans asking, “President Patil’s speech promised Women’s Bill in 100 days – Why the broken promise?” The March reached Parliament Street where a mass meeting was held. The March also protested against the pitifully inadequate allocation for women in the Budget, and against steep price rise, and against repression and rape in Shopian, Lalgarh, Bastar, Punjab and other places. Women from Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Assam (Karbi Anglong), Delhi and other states participated in the March.

Addressing the mass meeting at Jantar Mantar, AIPWA National President Srilata Swaminathan said that the Government has shamefully delayed the Women’s Reservation Bill yet again. United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s first Budget in its new tenure had betrayed women. Women’s health and education have been neglected completely, while measures to roll back price hikes and ensure food security have been woefully inadequate. Drinking water is scarce in villages but liquor is being encouraged by government policies. She also said that the principle of equal pay for equal work for women was being violated even in national rural employment guarantee act (NREGA) work.

Addressing the mass gathering AIPWA General Secretary Meena Tiwari said this Government, in spite enjoying a full majority in the House, is dilly-dallying when it comes to passing the Women’s Bill, backtracking from the promise spelt out in the President’s address that the Bill would be passed in the first 100 days. Very few days remain for the first 100 days of the Government’s tenure to be up, yet there is no sign of any plans to Table the Bill in the Lok Sabha or pass it. She said the Congress is playing a double game – wanting to woo women by espousing the Bill, while using the opposition by Janata Dal (United) [JD (U)], Samajwadi Party (SP), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) etc as a pretext to delay the Bill. In the last 13 years, she said, innumerable Bills have been passed in spite of massive opposition – yet in the case of the Women’s Bill, the plea of ‘consensus’ is being invoked.

AIPWA National Secretary Kavita Krishnan demanded that men in uniform who are guilty of state repression and rapes of women – in Kashmir, Lalgarh, Bastar – must be punished. She demanded a law to punish Khaap Panchayats, families, and other institutions, which attempt to curb the right of women to choose partners of their own choice, and to guarantee the safety of couples who defied caste and community boundaries. AIPWA National Vice President Saroj Chaube demanded homestead plots for women and job guarantee for urban women.

Addressing the mass meeting, Comrade Jasbir Kaur Nat, who had recently been released after over two months in jail in Punjab, spoke of the struggle of women in Punjab for homestead plots, defying repression and illegal arrest. During the mass meeting, women also raised spirited slogans against the Bhartiya JAnata Party’s (BJP) agenda of attacking women’s freedom in the name of protecting ‘Indian culture.’

The mass meeting was also addressed by AIPWA leaders from Punjab, Jasbir Kaur Nat and Iqbal Kaur Udasi, Surajrekha from Madhya Pradesh (MP), Premlata Pande, Uttar Pradesh (UP) State Secretary, Bhanwari Bai from Rajasthan, Shashi Yadav, National Secretary and Sangita Singh, National Council member from Bihar, Anjali Upadhyay, National Secretary from Karbi Anglong, and others. After the demonstration, a memorandum was submitted to the (Prime Minister) PM’s office.

Workers’ Struggles in India

AICCTU’s Nationwide Campaign

- Liberation, September, 2009.

The Nationwide campaign undertaken by All India Central Council of Trade Unions’ (AICCTU) was flagged off on 9 August in most states. Some of highlights of the campaign until we go to press (21 August) are below.

In Bihar the AICCTU and Bihar State Non-Gazetted Employees Confederation (Gope faction) have jointly undertaken this campaign. The campaign was flagged off with a joint rally of workers and employees on 9 August in Patna. The rally reached R-Block where it merged with the 48-hour long hunger strike and mass dharna (sit-in protest) organised by Communist Party of India- Marxist Leninist [CPI (ML)]. On 8 August, a state-level cadre convention was organised at Member Legislative Assembly (MLA) club in Patna to discuss and chart out ways to take the campaign to maximum number of workers and employees of Bihar. More than 150 delegates from 25 districts of Bihar participated in the Convention.

The campaign in Jharkhand was flagged off with a district Convention of AICCTU in Bokaro, inaugurated by AICCTU State Secretary Comrade Shubhendu Sen, and conducted by AICCTU State President Devdeep Singh Divakar. An 11-member district committee was elected at the end of the Convention. Plans for the August campaign were enthusiastically made. In Delhi, street corner meetings were held at Kalkaji on 18 August and a dharna at the Deputy Labour Commissioner’s office on 21 August.

In Tamilnadu, a ‘Meet the People’ Campaign was undertaken. In Namakkal Dist, demonstrations were held on August 9 in 3 points and over 250 workers participated in these. Demands such as Rs.7000 minimum wages, 50 kg rice for rupees (Rs) 1 per kilo for a month in Public Distribution System (PDS), and housing for power loom workers are some of the demands raised in these demonstrations. In Salem, a cadre meeting of AICCTU was held on August 9. In Kanyakumari district, a cadre meeting was held on August 9. Since then street corner meetings have been held at over 10 points and more street corner meetings are to be held in the coming days. In Tirunelveli, on August 9, a cadre meeting was held. It was planned to organize street corner meetings and door to door campaign in 8 points among beedi and unorganized workers. On August 18, a demonstration of tailoring workers was held demanding minimum wages and other statutory benefits, in which more than 70 workers took part. In Coimbatore, a cadre meeting was held and it was planned to hold street corner meetings. On August 23, a hall meeting of unorganized workers of Workers’ Rights Forum will be held. In Chennai, street corner meetings are planned and door to door campaign is being held in our work areas on day to day basis. The Campaign is concentrated on demands such as amendments to the Trade Union Recognition Act, President’s Assent for the Standing Orders Amendment Act to protect the interests of trainees, 5 cent homestead patta (land registration) for the unorganized workers, and Rs.7000 national floor level minimum wages for all the workers.

At Karnataka, campaign yatras (tours) were held on 10, 11, and 12 August in three different parts of the H D Kote taluk (municipal set up), in more than 60 villages. The campaign culminated in a militant rally on 20 August in front of Tahsildar’s (revenue administrative officer) office, which raised issues related to construction workers and also of agricultural labourers that include expansion of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) (200 days of work, Rs 200 minimum wage), land issues, exclusion of the poor from Below Poverty Line (BPL) lists, and basic amenities, etc. More than 200 people including 150 women participated in this spirited demonstration which gheraoed (surrounded) the taluk panchayat office.

PRICOL Workers’ Struggle: Hard-won Victory

For the past two years in Coimbatore, workers of PRICOL, a auto components manufacturing factory supplying components to most leading auto majors, have been engaged in a protracted struggle against violation of labour laws by the management.

The PRICOL struggle is remarkable for the fact that permanent workers, ancillary unit workers, and contract labourers have joined a single union led by the AICCTU and launched a united battle; women workers have been at the forefront of the struggle; and the struggle is supported by other workers, law students, civil rights activists, and Dalit organizations.

The struggle had been waged against the management’s policies of violating contract labour laws through sham Contract Labour and Satellite Vendor systems, victimisation of workers through closure of so-called Satellite Vendor units, termination of workers and denial of Dearness Allowance (DA) and wage increase as per the settlements, and transfer of leading union activists through illegal transfers. The workers had been demanding that the government pass orders under Section 10B of the Industrial Disputes Act (ID Act) 1947.   Throughout 2007 and 2008, thousands of workers defied all attempts to divide and rule, braved all sorts of victimisation, and succeeded in making strikes lasting several months a popular issue for the wider society of Coimbatore beyond the factory.  Throughout the management played every devious ploy possible, and tried in vain to alternately threaten and woo workers to desert the Union led by what it mischievously branded as a ‘Maoist-Leninist’ leadership.

Finally at the end of June 2009, they won a victory, forcing the Government to pass orders under Section 10 B of the ID Act 1947, against violations of labour laws, such as employment of apprentices and contract labour in direct production activities and denial of DA and wage increase as per settlements. Apprentices and Contract Labour are engaged in direct production contrary to law in almost all public and private sector units for decades. This is a rare occasion on which a Government has invoked its powers against such violations.

Culture

Gangubai Hangal: A Brave Life

- Liberation, September, 2009.

The world of Hindustani classical music lost one of its brightest jewels recently when Gangubai Hangal, doyenne of the Kirana Gharana, passed away in Hubli, Karnataka at the age of 97.

Gangubai’s her journey in life was beset by the hurdles of poverty and caste and gender discrimination. Born in the boatman caste to a devadasi mother (an extremely talented Carnatic musician herself), Gangu was drawn to Hindustani music from early childhood. There is a particular poignancy to the image of the little girl listening with fascination at tea shops and outside people’s homes to catch the snatches of music on gramophone records by Abdul Karim Khan, Hirabai Barodekar and Narayanrao Vyas, and singing the same songs herself. It reminds one irresistibly of Ekalavya, learning from a clay image of Drona. Gangubai, with the help of her remarkable mother, survived hunger, and endured having abuse (“gaanewali”) and dung thrown at her, to find musical teachers and emerge triumphant with the highest awards and recognition. For every Gangubai who managed to overcome these obstacles, one wonders how many fell by the wayside, buried under the burden of deprivation and discrimination.

Her mother sacrificed her own music so that the Carnatic style should not interfere with her daughter’s chosen Hindustani style. Gangubai received early training from Shri Dattopant Desai and Shri Krishnacharya before becoming a disciple of Sawai Gandharva. Her early days were full of financial hardships. She recollects, in an interview, how Abdul Karim Khan once heard her sing and encouraged her, saying “Dekho beti, khoob khana, khoob gana” (Eat heartily, sing heartily); with a wry humour which never deserted her, she told her interviewer, “Where was the food?  There was only music…!” Her powerful voice (which became deep and ‘masculine’ following a tonsil operation) emerged from her frail and slight form.

Being born in a low caste and being born a woman put her in a doubly marginalised situation. She once narrated how as an 11-year-old she was part of a group which sang a welcome song at the Belgaum Indian National Congress in 1924 and she was elated to be singing in front of Gandhiji. But at the meal which followed, she was full of fear that as she was of a low caste, she would be asked to clean up after the upper castes had eaten. When asked by her guru to eat with the others, she was so mortified that she could barely raise her head. She spoke of how the Brahmin households in her native Dharwad’s Shukravaradapete were outraged when a ‘singer’s daughter’ dared to enter their orchard, and what’s more, steal mangoes. “The very same people now invite me to their houses and spread a lavish lunch for me,” she said.

Gangubai commented on the entrenched gender bias in the world of music: “A male musician will become an ustad or a pandit, but a female musician, even one of the calibre of Kesarbai or Mogubai, will always remain a bai!” As a woman, she never had the luxury of “being lost in the art of creation”. She said in an interview, “Peace of mind is very essential in anything that you do—particularly in music. But in my case, it was just the opposite. What new things could I learn when I was constantly disturbed and unhappy? This whole concept of getting lost in music and forgetting the world around you, is a myth.” Many women writers have similarly produced their creative work in struggle against the lack of privacy and economic and social security: Kamala Das wrote at the kitchen table after her family had slept; Jane Austen is said to have had to hide her writing under blotting paper when anyone entered the room; Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot and many others wrote under male pseudonyms.

Gangubai’s humour, humility, brave spirit and warmth, no less than her rich voice, will remain with us long after she is gone.

Culture

Ban on Charandas Chor: Chhattisgarh Government’s Cultural Fascism

- Pranay Krishna, Liberation, September, 2009.

True to its character, the Chhattisgarh Government on July 8 banned Habib Tanvir’s internationally reputed play Charandas Chor, which had been running since 1974. This play, based on a Rajasthani folk tale, was written by Vijaydan Detha, and was initially called Phitrati Chor. Habib Tanvir, in the process of adapting the play to suit the Chhattisgarhi language, culture and dramatic and musical traditions, introduced considerable changes in the script and dramatisation.

Charandas Chor is a contemporary classic in many ways. A petty thief makes four pledges to his guru – that he will never eat out of a gold plate; never sit on an elephant in a procession in his own honour; never become a king; and never marry a princess (pledges he thinks are far too unlikely ever to be tested). His guru imposes a fifth pledge – that he will never tell a lie. He eventually loses his life upholding these five pledges. Charandas knows all the ploys to cheat the laws and the system. He makes the powerful the target of his thieving. Charandas Chor, through its main character, playfully exposes the double standards of the power-structure, dominant classes and society. A thief turns out to be more true, honest and just than the establishment.

It is true that this play is based on folk tales and not on contemporary struggles in Chhattisgarh. Why, then, do those in power feel so threatened by this play? This play was first performed in 1974 when there was not even a remote possibility of the formation of a Chhattisgarh state. Neither could the footfalls of today’s movements in Chhattisgarh be heard then. The play was translated and performed in innumerable languages in the country and abroad. In 1975, Shyam Benegal made a film based on this play. The quality of a classic is such that is conveys meanings far beyond its literal words. Reaching across its immediate words, its characters and its time and place, it becomes relevant in entirely new contexts and eras. Why do the Mahabharat’s contradictions become relevant time and again in different eras and contexts? And of course, Charandas Chor, in the hands of Habib sahib, became entirely a part of Chhattisgarhi folk culture. Could it be that after the formation of the Chhattisgarh state, the play has begun to resonate with the character of the power-structure which is waging war against the adivasi people in favour of the corporations that are intent on looting the natural resources of the state, and jailing those like Dr. Binayak Sen, who dare protest? Is this play, by any chance, giving voice to the anti-establishment values and aspirations buried in the subconscious of readers and audience? Could it be that this play, thanks to its classicality, has in an entirely unexpected way, begun to reflect the ongoing war between Chhattisgarh’s rulers and its people? With the ban on the play, it is inevitable for all these questions to be asked.

Those who believe the Chhattisgarh government’s assertion that the ban has been imposed in the light of Satnami guru Baldas’ objections are naive. One should recall how some years ago an organisation calling itself the ‘Dalit Sanstha’ burnt copies of Premchand’s Rangbhumi. Most Dalit writers condemned this act and exposed that it was sponsored by the Sangh Parivar. Manipulating religious and caste identities as a pretext for repression and violence is a well-known tactic of the Sangh and Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). It is notable that the Satnami community and its representatives never had any objection to this play before 2004, though it had been played for four decades and most of its actors were in fact from the Satnami community.

The Chhattisgarh Government is playing a devious double game. Through the ‘Pramod Verma Memorial Conference,’ it recently gathered a range of progressive and democratic cultural personalities on the same platform as the Chief Minister and Minister for Culture. Then, within a month of this event, it imposed a ban on Charandas Chor. The letter written by Satnami guru Baldas against the play was prior to the Memorial Conference, and the Government had clearly made up its mind to ban the play well before the Conference. But that event had the immediate utility of putting many of those voices which would naturally protest the ban, on the defensive, and of undermining the credibility of their protest.

Attacks on Habib Tanvir’s plays by the Sangh-BJP are nothing new. Even in his lifetime he faced such assaults bravely. There are many versions of the ban announcement in the media. One claim is that the play has not been banned – the book has been banned from being read during the ‘Book reading week’ in schools (3-9 August), while according to other versions the book as well as staging of the play has been banned. The Chhattisgarh Government is yet to offer any clarification. However, whatever be the nature of ban, there can be no excuse or explanation except that the ban is part and parcel of the RSS-BJP’s agenda of cultural nationalism, which Habib Tanvir himself called “another name for fascism.”

July-August 2009

Table of Contents

1) Lalgarh’s Battle for Dignity and Justice

2) Verdict 2009 and the Left

3) Manmohan Government’s Second Term

4) Sri Lanka: the Nationalist Quagmire

5) Crackdown on Struggles of the Rural Poor in Punjab

6) Realities of Recession and Racism

7) People’s Health’ Seminar in Kolkata

8) Habib Tanveer

Struggles in India

Lalgarh’s Battle for Dignity and Justice

- ML Update, 23-29 June, 2009.

A concerted paramilitary campaign is now underway in Lalgarh and surrounding areas in the tribal-dominated western region of West Bengal bordering Jharkhand and Orissa, ostensibly to flush out Maoists and restore the authority of the state. The campaign though being carried out by the state government is being actively guided and sponsored by the Union Home Ministry. The Union Home Minister has warned that the operation may take longer than expected and has appealed to political leaders and civil society organizations not to visit Lalgarh while the operation is on. Mamata Banerjee has called for declaring the three districts of West Medinipur, Bankura and Purulia a disturbed area. The Union Home Ministry has meanwhile included the CPI (Maoist) in the list of unlawful associations under the recently amended Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

Chidambaram’s appeal against civilian visits to Lalgarh, coming apparently after a group of Left Front MPs wrote to the Prime Minister seeking his personal intervention to this effect, clearly shows that the government wants to keep the operation beyond the purview of public scrutiny. This is as good as an indirect admission about the real nature and purpose of Operation Lalgarh – a brutal war on the adivasis who had been offering such a determined resistance to state repression. In the absence of independent investigations, the actual extent of casualties and injuries inflicted by the ongoing operation is not really known. But hundreds of people have already been forced to flee and there are disturbing reports that the paramilitary forces are forcing local adivasi youth under duress to locate mines and explosives – under threat that they will be arrested as ‘Maoists’ if they refuse.

Lalgarh had first shot into national prominence in November last year when the local adivasis in their thousands revolted against police atrocities following an unsuccessful Maoist mine attack targeting the Chief Minister’s cavalcade. The resistance has since continued unabated and during the recent elections the state had to negotiate with the People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) which is spearheading the resistance, for setting up polling booths outside the resistance area. The state was obviously waiting for an opportune moment and pretext to go for a crackdown. The opportunity came when Lalgarh recently erupted again against provocations by local CPI (M) leaders and Maoists made tall claims regarding their leading role in the Lalgarh resistance and dared the state to intervene.

At the heart of it, Lalgarh is a typical adivasi revolt against repression and injustice. The entire history of our anti-colonial struggle is replete with many such instances and the Indian state today has no problem recognizing the leaders of those revolts as popular heroes. In the eyes of the oppressed and deprived tribal people the Indian state in all these years has not really changed much and retains many of the colonial era trappings of utter insensitivity and unbridled brutality. But when the inheritors of Birsa Munda, Sidho-Kanu and Tilka Manjhi revolt against this contemporary reality, our post-colonial democratic system knows no other way but to declare a virtual war on these seekers of justice. It should be noted that the allegations of police atrocities made by the PCAPA have been found to be true by a senior official of the West Bengal government (Backward Classes Welfare Secretary RD Meena) but instead of taking adequate corrective measures as demanded by the PCAPA the state government has only announced meagre compensation of only a few thousand rupees to the eleven women victims of police repression!

For the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and its belligerent Home Minister who managed to win the recent election by administratively converting defeat into victory, Lalgarh is a test case to unleash a new pattern of governance in which paramilitary forces will become the custodian of constitutional niceties. There is also the larger political gameplan to trap the ruling Left of West Bengal in an increasingly repressive role while the Congress plays the benefactor and monopolises the mask of welfare measures!

For the people of West Bengal, Operation Lalgarh is a political eye-opener. During the recent elections, Mamata Banerjee claimed to champion the cause of the struggles in Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh and the Trinamul Congress (TMC)-Congress combined reaped a bumper electoral harvest. Elections over, it is now time to thank the people and what could be a more suitable gift than Operation Lalgarh! Mamata Banerjee now says that the TMC expelled the PCAPA chief Chhatradhar Mahato two years ago when it came to know about his Maoist link! Chhatradhar says he was never expelled but quit the TMC when he found it incapable of meeting the tribals’ needs. He then recalls how following the killing of three PCAPA members in police firing in February, Mamata Banerjee had visited Jangalmahal, shed tears and said, ‘If these people are Maoists, then I too am a Maoist.’ “We never doubted her sincerity then”, says Chhatradhar. But he realizes that the circumstances have now changed: “after the elections, the same Mamata Banerjee got a Cabinet post, joined the government at the Centre, which in turn sent paramilitary forces to Lalgarh. Therefore, it is quite natural for Banerjee now to link me with the Maoists.”

It is also important to look at the doublespeak of the CPI (M) leadership. Prakash Karat says the Maoists need to be politically isolated from the people they are mobilizing even as Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee demands more central forces and Sitaram Yechury asks the Prime Minister to demonstrate his seriousness in tackling what his government claims to be the biggest threat to internal security! On the one hand, the government spearheads a paramilitary operation, and the MPs seek personal intervention of the Prime Minister to prevent political leaders from visiting the operation area, and on the other hand the party talks of fighting a political battle against Maoists! If the CPI (M) thinks that all this can be justified by invoking the party-government distinction and that the Centre-state or Congress-CPI (M) cooperation in ‘restoring the authority of the state’ in Lalgarh could help check the TMC’s advance, it is only deceiving itself.

As for the Maoists, they have only once again demonstrated the incompatibility of their ideas and actions with the needs of any radical people’s movement. With their penchant for exclusive and sensational military actions and aversion to the mass political process, they ultimately only produce a dampening and disruptive effect on any powerful people’s movement while letting the Mamata Banerjees reap the political benefit of people’s struggles and sacrifices.

We join the democratic opinion of the country and the justice-loving people of Lalgarh to demand an immediate end to the paramilitary offensive, withdrawal of paramilitary forces and a negotiated resolution of the conflict through fulfillment of the just demands of the Lalgarh people and quick redressal of all their long-standing grievances. We also do not support the idea of banning the CPI(Maoist) as a terrorist organization. The Maoists are anyway an underground organization and the experience of states like Chhattisgarh and Orissa where they have been banned for years clearly shows that the ban has been ineffective from the point of view of checking Maoist military actions. The ban is actually a weapon to terrorise the common people and stifle the democratic voice of protest. The case of Dr. Binayak Sen is a clear instance and for every Binayak Sen case that comes to the limelight, there are always hundreds of lesser known activists and ordinary men and women whose human rights continue to be brutally trampled upon.

Victory to Lalgarh’s glorious battle for dignity and justice!

Indian Elections

Verdict 2009 and the Left: Key Issues and the Road Ahead

- Liberation, July, 2009.

Five years ago, the 14th Lok Sabha had witnessed the largest ever presence of Left parliamentarians. Along with the defeat of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the arrival of the Left as a major player in national politics was a key message of the 2004 elections. Five years later, the 15th Lok Sabha now presents a drastically different picture. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI (M)] and the CPI, the two biggest constituents of the Left bloc in Parliament, have secured their lowest ever tallies, reducing the overall Left presence to a meagre 24.

On the face of it, this outcome appears quite baffling and out of sync with contemporary global reality. Global capitalism is passing through one of its roughest patches and in many parts of the world we can see a renewed assertion of the working people and a consequent tilt towards the Left. For quite some time India too has been in the grip of a protracted agrarian crisis aggravated by the onslaught of neoliberal policies, and now, thanks to increasing globalisation, more and more sectors of the Indian economy are feeling the heat of the global capitalist meltdown. Millions of toiling Indians are faced with the threat of outright pauperisation and ever shrinking means of livelihood.

On top of it, there has been this pronounced pro-US policy shift pushing India into a strategic alliance with the US and consequently rendering India much more vulnerable to both terror threats as well as greater American intervention in domestic affairs.

Such a context should have proved conducive to further growth of the Left, especially when the CPI (M) and its partners had already acquired a firm foothold in the 14th Lok Sabha. But the results of the 15th Lok Sabha elections tell a totally different story. Where and how did the CPI (M) lose the plot? There is a growing debate in Left circles on this question, and as the crisis of the CPI (M) deepens, the debate should also get deeper and sharper.

How does the CPI (M) look at its electoral debacle? The communiqué issued after the CPI (M) central committee (CC) meeting in Delhi on June 20-21 describes the outcome as “serious reverses” amounting to an “electoral setback”. It acknowledged “political, governmental and organisational reasons for the setbacks suffered” in West Bengal including “shortcomings in the functioning of government, panchayats and municipalities based on a proper class outlook”, “failure of the government to implement properly various measures directly concerning the lives of the people” and “alienation amongst some sections of the peasantry”. According to the communiqué, the CPI (M) CC also felt it was a mistake to extend the call for building a third alternative to the formation of an alternative government. The CC admitted that “In the absence of a countrywide alliance and no common policy platform being presented, the call for an alternative government was unrealistic.”

This CC review of course comes in the wake of a whole range of public statements already made by several CPI (M) leaders pointing accusing fingers in different directions. Kerala Chief Minister and veteran politburo (PB) member VS Achuthanandan has ruled out any ‘anti-incumbency’ factor against his government, thus indicating that the problems lie at the doorsteps of the party. Several West Bengal leaders hold the “third front” experiment responsible while some have started blaming the decision to withdraw support to the Congress. Two days before the last leg of the Lok Sabha (LS) election, a Bengali TV channel broadcast an exclusive interview with veteran West Bengal minister Subhas Chakraborty where he openly questioned the party’s choice of third front allies and described the Congress as an indispensable partner not only for the defence of secularism but also in any fight against imperialism! Only a handful of West Bengal leaders, most notably Land and Land Reforms Minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah, have dared mention the Left Front government’s forcible land acquisition drive as the main factor.

Addressing the press after the CC meeting Prakash Karat talked of “near unanimity” in the CC over the party’s act of withdrawal of support to UPA government on the issue of Indo-US nuclear deal, thereby indirectly acknowledging differences within the CC over the subject. The review which expresses the majority opinion does mention some of the key problems associated with the party and governments in West Bengal and Kerala as well as with the implementation of the party’s all-India tactical line. But these problems and mistakes are symptomatic of a deeper malady rooted in the party’s understanding and practice of dealing with governments whether in the state or at the Centre. The obsession with somehow retaining or acquiring power has been pushing the party deeper into the quagmire of right opportunism and in the same proportion the party has been moving away from the basic masses and their interests and struggles. The erosion in the CPI (M)’s votes is only a belated electoral reflection of this growing disjunction between the party and the people, between governance and struggle. The CC review of course scrupulously shies away from any inquiry into the root causes.

As far as West Bengal is concerned, the results indicate nothing short of a massive anti-CPI (M) electoral explosion and this can no longer be attributed to any one single factor. Singur and Nandigram have definitely been big issues but we need to understand why Singur and Nadigram happened in the first place. There is something fundamentally wrong with the notion of governance and industrialisation that believes that a modest Tata plant could be showcased as a Left-ruled state’s biggest achievement in ‘industrialisation’, and then pulls out all stops to appease the ‘investor’ and crush every protest of the land-losing peasants and livelihood-losing sharecroppers and labourers. After Singur, many had expected the CPI (M) to learn its lessons, but Nandigram showed that the Left rulers had lost the very will or ability to learn any positive lesson. One really had to see the CPI (M)’s election campaign in West Bengal to have a sense of its world of political make-believe. While Mamata Banerjee’s campaign endlessly invoked the now famous trinity of “Ma-Mati-Manush”, giving a highly emotive human form to the agenda of land, livelihood and liberty, the CPI (M) campaign revolved primarily around Nano, the promised lakhtakia (Rs. one lakh) Tata car! The CPI (M) believed it could win the elections by holding Mamata Banerjee responsible for the Tata’s decision to relocate the Nano plant in Gujarat and projecting her as a demon who killed Bengal’s dream of industrialisation and employment generation!

The spectacular past electoral successes of the CPI (M) in West Bengal were rooted primarily in a broad class alliance that carried the rural poor along with the middle classes, erstwhile landed gentry and the neo-rich sections. Having consolidated the rural poor base through a combination of much touted rural reforms (Operation Barga, land redistribution and panchayati raj, to name the three most well-known measures), the CPI (M) thought it could switch over to the usual trajectory of the ‘trickle-down pattern of development’. The class contradictions and popular grievances that are handled in other states largely within the matrix of competitive bourgeois politics were sought to be contained with measured doses of coercion and patronage as the party retained its overall grip over the broad social coalition. But with the rise and consolidation of a narrow nexus of corrupt officials, leaders and middlemen and steady reversal of much of the earlier gains won by the rural poor, the coalition had already started cracking and Singur and Nandigram widened the cracks and opened the floodgates for popular resentment and resistance.

The CPI (M) has suffered an equally severe setback in Kerala too. Unlike in West Bengal, the CPI (M)’s domination in Kerala has never been unchallenged and the party here has always had to operate within a highly competitive environment. Yet the intensity of the rout suffered by the CPI (M) in the 2009 elections indicates a deeper structural erosion in the party’s support beyond the alternating cyclical swings one expects in Kerala. The CPI (M) in Kerala remains mired in factionalism, the spirit of commerce dominates the official culture of the party and now we have this shocking case of major corruption allegations and CBI enquiry against the party’s state secretary. Alienation of landless dalit labourers has also assumed serious proportions in Kerala.

The poll debacle of the CPI (M) must also be analysed in the context of the party’s all-India tactical line. With a sixty-plus-strong contingent of parliamentarians at its command, in 2004 the CPI (M) had come to acquire a greatly increased visibility and say in national politics. Even after cobbling a post-poll alliance, in 2004 the Congress had to rely on the CPI (M)’s support to form government. While not joining the UPA government, the CPI (M) utilised this juncture to enter into a programmatic alliance with the Congress, limiting dissent against Congress policies to talks within the framework of UPA-Left coordination committee. Even on the one issue of Indo-US nuclear deal, the opposition came too late and encumbered in lot of technicalities and devoid of any attempt to build any significant mass resistance.

The CPI (M) now claims credit for ‘pressurising’ the Congress to legislate National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and waive farm loans. These claims would have sounded somewhat convincing had the CPI (M) ever unleashed any major mass political initiative on the issues of rural unemployment or farmers’ suicides, or for that matter, if West Bengal could top the list of states in terms of implementation of NREGA. Ironically, while the Congress derived considerable political mileage from measures like NREGA and farm loan waiver, the CPI (M) exposed itself as the most brutal defender of corporate landgrab. Indeed, the failure of the Left to oppose the SEZ Act 2005 in Parliament and the wholesale adoption and implementation of neoliberal economic policies by the West Bengal government seriously dented the CPI (M)’s oppositional claims on the economic policy front.

After the eventual withdrawal of support, instead of going to the masses the CPI (M) leadership got busy with desperate attempts to seek dubious allies. On the eve of the elections, the CPI (M) formed a programme-free “third front” with motley regional forces ranging from the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) to the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and projected it as the core of the next government. The CPI (M) now admits that the “third front” did not fit the bill of a credible and viable national alternative, yet Prakash Karat would like us to believe that it served two important purposes.

His first claim is that the third front denied the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) the luxury of finding any ally in the southern states and thus prevented the NDA from emerging as a national alternative. Well, if the AIADMK or TDP did not choose to ally with the BJP, it was because they did not expect to gain anything by entering into a pre-poll alliance with the BJP which has little presence in the southern states except Karnataka. Likewise, the BJD’s decision to dump the BJP just on the eve of the elections was also prompted by the BJD’s own electoral calculations and had nothing to do with the CPI(M)’s “third front” initiative. In the event of a hung parliament if the BJP-led NDA had any realistic chance of forming government, these parties would have had no problem in jumping on to the NDA bandwagon. Did not we all see how the TRS switched sides in anticipation of an NDA victory?

Karat’s second argument deals with the combined vote share of the “third front” parties and the BSP, a respectable 21 per cent. According to him, “this shows the potential for building up a third alternative … which is not merely an electoral alliance but a coming together of the parties and forces on a common platform through movements and struggles for alternative policies distinct from that of the Congress and the BJP.” If the combined vote share of the BJD and the BSP, and the AIADMK and the TDP shows the potential for a movement-based third front committed to “alternative policies distinct from that of the Congress and the BJP”, what prevented the CPI (M) from actualising that alliance? Karat’s answer is simple and smart: since electoral combinations were forged statewise, it “precluded any national policy platform from being projected.” But if all these parties are committed to alternative policies why could not they agree to a common policy platform? And if it was indeed so difficult on the national level what stopped the alternative policies from being projected in the respective states?

While Karat valorises the whole range of non-Congress non-BJP parties as prospective anti-corporate anti-imperialist partners, many of his comrades would love to return to the safety of a strategic understanding with the good old Congress. Both Karat and his detractors who find him ‘dogmatic’ and ‘adventurist’ actually reduce the question of revival and independence of the Left to the choice of allies and forging of convenient electoral combinations. Instead of sticking to a set pattern of alliance, Karat would prefer to swap allies and we have already seen this line in action in Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Orissa and Assam. Dumping the DMK the CPI(M) has now chosen the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu; in Andhra electoral understanding with the Congress has given way to mahakutumi (grand alliance) with TDP and even TRS (the TDP has all along been opposed to the idea of a separate Telangana and so has been the CPI (M), yet they had no problem in forging a grand alliance with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) whose sole agenda is the formation of a separate Telangana state); in Orissa the CPI (M) has tied up with the ruling BJD and in Assam it wanted to have a seat sharing pact with the Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF).

On paper, the combinations looked pretty formidable, but on the ground the results have been quite dismal. The alliance arithmetic has yielded only two seats to the CPI (M) – one LS seat in Tamil Nadu and one Assembly seat in Andhra. In Orissa and Assam, the CPI (M) has not only failed to win any seat but it has also suffered a major erosion in terms of votes. The loss must not of course be assessed only in terms of seats and votes, the credibility of the party and the morale of the party’s support base are far more important parameters. What did the CPI (M) expect to gain by glorifying and allying with Naveen Patnaik in Orissa? While Kandhamal happened, Naveen Patnaik’s government did nothing to stop the anti-Christian violence. On the eve of the elections, Naveen Patnaik dumped the BJP and the CPI and the CPI (M) rushed to glorify him as a new-found secular hero, enabling him to reduce the Orissa elections to a contrived showdown between the two estranged partners – the BJD and the BJP. The issues of displacement and deprivation of the tribal and other toiling masses were conveniently brushed aside. Will the CPI (M) ever be able to stand up in Orissa by glorifying Naveen Patnaik? (The story of the CPI’s victory from the Jagatsinghpur LS constituency that includes the site of the ongoing popular struggle against the land acquisition plans of the South Korean steel major Posco is no less shocking – while the local CPI leaders spearheading the anti-Posco movement languish in jail, a Congress leader opposed to the movement joined the CPI and won on the party’s ticket with the blessings of Posco and Naveen Patnaik!)

Basing on its stable bases in West Bengal and Kerala, the CPI (M) has over the years evolved a political line and praxis in which the oppositional role of the party is thoroughly subordinated to the agenda of power-sharing at the central level. The party programme too has been suitably ‘updated’ to provide for this scheme of things. In 1977 when the CPI (M) first came to power, it projected the Left Front government as a weapon of struggle. But now in the party’s perception state governments have been delinked from any idea of struggle and are seen exclusively as instruments of ‘development’ and ‘governance’ and, in the national context, as stepping stones towards power-sharing at the Centre. The CPI (M) now fights elections only with the slogan of government formation no matter whether the party is in a position to form one or not. The concept of a committed and vigorous Left opposition has virtually become alien to the CPI (M)’s entire tactical framework and political praxis.

While the CPI (M) has theoretically and practically ‘upgraded’ itself as a party of power, ironically the 2009 elections have pushed it closer to the oppositional slot. Nationally it has no other choice but to sit in the opposition and if the present trend continues, the CPI(M) will soon also have to reinvent itself as an opposition party in West Bengal too.

The other big question that confronts the CPI (M) is the issue of its attitude to people’s struggle and the democratic intelligentsia. While the CPI (M) has developed considerable expertise and experience in forging fronts with disparate forces and brokering peace among sparring bourgeois parties, it exhibits a near-pathological inability to deal with popular movements and people’s outbursts. To take a few examples, we can recall the CPI (M)’s response to the Naxalbari movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s in West Bengal, the 1974 youth movement in Bihar, the Assam movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Gorkhaland agitation in the 1980s which resurfaced again in the recent past and most recently the Singur-Nandigram movement in West Bengal. It has been a habit of the CPI (M) to dismiss every such popular movement as a conspiracy and side with the state in crushing these movements. And now in Lalgarh, the Congress has once again trapped the CPI (M) into discharging its repressive ‘responsibility’.

In the 1970s the Congress had usurped powers in West Bengal through highly dubious means and gone on to unleash systematic state terror on all sections of the Left. Even though the CPI (M) could not put up any significant resistance to the Congress-led reign of terror, and the CPI (ML) had already suffered a massive setback, the overwhelming public mood in West Bengal remained very much against the Congress. The semi-fascist terror in West Bengal soon gave way to a countrywide reign of Emergency that was overthrown by the people through the historic mandate of 1977. The CPI (M)’s ascent to power in West Bengal was an integral part of that larger democratic upsurge. But today, West Bengal is witnessing a reverse phenomenon when the CPI (M) is being rejected not only by large sections of the democratic opinion but also a significant section of its own base.

Prakash Karat is right when he says that the CPI(M) has in the past overcome many difficult periods, but the present juncture poses a different kind of challenge when the party is fast losing ground in what used to be its most stable and powerful stronghold. Karat is again right when he says that “anti-Communist quarters who have been rejoicing at the setbacks suffered by the Left … will be proved wrong.” But the point is not just to counter anti-Communist canards and wild dreams, but more importantly to address the questions that have emerged from within the CPI (M)’s own base and the larger Left and democratic circles that once provided such tremendous support to the party.

It is quite clear that the ruling classes see the poll outcome as a handle to malign and marginalise the Left. As mentioned in the CPI (ML) CC communiqué of 27 May, “Armed with a security doctrine that identifies Maoism/Naxalism/Left extremism as the biggest threat to internal security and an electoral outcome which has handed out the worst ever electoral drubbing to the parliamentary left, the ruling classes are now all set to launch a comprehensive assault on the Left as a whole.” The Left can thwart this design only by mounting a powerful counter-offensive. Reclaiming the Left role as a consistently secular, democratic and anti-imperialist opposition and reasserting the Left identity as the most committed and trusted champion of people’s interests and struggles is the need of the hour.

Indian Elections

Manmohan Government’s Second Term: Early Signals and New Rhetoric

- Dipankar Bhattacharya.

South Asia

Sri Lanka: the Nationalist Quagmire

- S Sivasegaram.

Struggles In India

Crackdown on Struggles of the Rural Poor in Punjab

- Liberation, July, 2009.

Soon after the Lok Sabha elections, the Akali-BJP Government of Punjab has unleashed an all-out offensive on the rural poor in Punjab, and on the Communist Party of India- Marxist Leninist [CPI(ML)], which was leading their struggles. Since 21 May, over 1300 agricultural labourers and labour leaders, of Mansa, Moga, Sangrur and Bathinda districts, including 511 women and 42 children, were confined in Punjab’s jails. As we go to press, virtually all activists and leaders of the Mazdoor Mukti Morcha and the CPI (ML) in the state – nearly 40 – remain in jail. In spite of the fact that many of them got bail, the government contrived to keep them in jail by naming them in ‘open First Information Reports (FIRs)’ which they had earlier filed against unnamed persons. Jasbir Kaur Nat, a National Council Member of the All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA), was among those jailed.

The arrests have happened in the course of a struggle for homestead plots and NREGA job cards which the SAD-BJP State Government had promised but failed to deliver. The Shiromani Akali Dal- Bharatiya Janata Parishad (SAD-BJP) Government launched this offensive immediately following the Lok Sabha elections, where the results reflected the disenchantment of the rural poor with the government.

A state of undeclared and selective ‘emergency’ continues to be imposed on the CPI (ML) and its mass organisations. Even the most peaceful protests and ordinary political activities are facing a crackdown.

In Punjab, where agriculture is highly mechanised, rural poor often get very few days of employment a month. As a result, the rural poor had pinned their hopes for survival on the extension of NREGA to all rural districts in the country. Consequently, the failure of the administration to provide NREGA job cards to many who had applied became a major issue.

The Akali-BJP Government had moreover reneged on its promise to provide homestead plots (5 marla plots for every rural poor family was initially promised, but Akali leaders had also declared to give 10 marla plots). It was in protest against this denial of basic rights of livelihood and housing, that agricultural labourers of Mansa district, led by the Mazdoor Mukti Morcha and CPI (ML), occupied a portion of panchayat/commons land allotted to be leased to workers. Under the Land Consolidation and Fragmentation Act 1961, one-third of panchayat land is meant for agricultural workers on lease for cultivation – and it was this land that the agricultural workers used to build their hutments, until such a time that the Government would keep its promise to allot house plots.

This movement for land and work began prior to the elections and continued even during the elections. Akali leaders, during elections, came campaigning with promises that post-poll, the land occupied by the labourers would be allotted to them. The Akali-BJP Government waited till the elections were over, to begin an all-out crackdown. The agricultural workers had begun a peaceful dharna (sit down protest) on 17 May and held a massive Rally on 19 May, which put enough pressure on local officials to effect an agreement to ensure job cards within one month and house plots to all within three months. The very next day, local upper caste land owners began a road-roko (block) protest demanding eviction of the poor from the panchayat land, and, one cue, on 21 May, labour leaders, including even the General Secretary of the All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), Comrade Swapan Mukherjee, were all arrested. On 22 May, police indulged in indiscriminate lathicharge, and over 1000 workers including a very large number of women and children were arrested and jailed – from the dharna site, from their homes, and from the office of the Mazdoor Mukti Morcha and CPI (ML).

The ostensible excuse for the arrests was the need to vacate the so-called “illegal occupation” of the panchayat land – but the arrests have continued even after the forcible eviction of the poor from that land, and the demolition of their makeshift homes.

In Punjab, when rich farmers habitually occupy common land, land allotted for waste disposal, etc. the government never lifts a finger against them. It is a shame that the same government, having blatantly broken its promises of housing and livelihood, has unleashed severe repression when poor rural workers are demanding fulfillment of the government’s own promise.

The struggle took place in 26 villages of Mansa district and 9 villages of Bhatinda and Sangrur districts of Punjab. The bulk of the agricultural workers are Dalits. Also of note, a protracted struggle has also been on in many of the villages against social boycott and other kinds of humiliation and intimidation of Dalit poor labourers by the upper caste landlords in connivance with the administration.

Diaspora

Rosy Hype of Globalisation vs. Realities of Recession and Racism

- Tapas Ranjan Saha.

The continuing spate of attacks and violence against Indians and Indian students in particular in Australia has once again exploded the much touted myth that globalisation promotes and respects pluralism and multiculturalism.

The Australian government initially tried to cover up and even deny the racist dimensions of the attack, terming them as just routine robberies and muggings. If that were so, why do Indians constitute a disproportionate share of the victims – 30% in Melbourne? One of the important demands of the protesting Indian students is to make the records of the assaults public – which would bring out the actual extent and dimension of these racist crimes. It is revealing that while the Australian police swooped down on the Indian students to thwart their protests against racist violence, the same police hardly displayed any urgency or sensitivity to stop the spate of crimes and violence.

The Australian authorities deny racism – but their own pronouncements and assumptions are racist. Take for example the “advice” of one Inspector Scott Mahony of the Melbourne police force, who asked Indians “not to talk loudly in their native language in public or travel around with expensive items such as mp3 players on display.” Is it not racist to blame the victims for the “display” of their “native language” and their electronic equipment?! Even more shocking is the fact that such racist “advice” has been echoed by the Indian authorities too! The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), in guidelines issued by it in the wake of the attack, advised Indian students in Australia not to venture out alone at night, to avoid flaunting gizmos and, curiously, to keep their homes clean. The implication – that Indians provoke attacks by being unclean, and that the attacks would stop of Indians would only keep their heads down and avoid flaunting their identity or presence – could not be more offensive.

Attacks on Indians, though not a new phenomenon in Australia, have been especially violent during the last few weeks. There have been at least 60 to 70 incidents of serious nature. According to police records at least three cases of crime against Indian students are registered on a daily basis. Partly, of course, Indian students are being targeted for shining academically and because they are perceived as getting better jobs than local Australian unemployed youth. But that is not all the story.

Remember that not long ago, taxi drivers of Indian and Pakistani origin had protested against the Australian police’s indifference to a series of attacks on them. That story had not been highlighted much by the corporate Indian media because it made less interesting copy for elite India than the attacks on “people like us.”

The truth is that racism is deeply entrenched in Australia’s state policy: the worst of its racism is directed at its Aborigine population, from whom the country itself was stolen by colonial Europeans. Today, a disproportionate percentage of Aborigines are jailed, or killed in ‘encounters’ on the streets, and there is no Aborigine representation in Australian parliament. Australian Ministers have time and again got away with racist remarks against immigrants – the “boat people” who come seeking refuge to Australia. Australian policy treats such immigrant refugees as criminals – penning them into jail-like detention centres for months. And of course, that is not to mention the rampant and rising racism against Muslims in Australia, in the wake of the “war on terror.” The episode of Dr. Hanif was only the tip of the iceberg – the Australian Government’s racism today is reinforced by its role in the occupation of Iraq, and its partnership with the US in sponsoring Islamophobia. The attacks on Indian students are no aberration – they are part and parcel of the deep-seated racism in Australian society and politics finding renewed expression in the wake of the globalisation, war and recession.

Commentators have dubbed the recent developments as the “present day Pauline Hanson phenomenon.” Pauline Hanson was the conservative politician who got elected to the Australian Parliament in 1996, who spoke openly of the “swamping” of Australia by people from Asia and the consequent unemployment of “Aussie battlers”.

Racism is a simmering phenomenon not just in Australia, but also in other countries like the US and the UK which are championing globalisation. For them, globalization means the free mobility of capital to usurp the land and livelihood of people of developing countries; it has never meant the free movement of labour to their countries. It is important to note that within the framework of globalisation, immigration laws act not to prevent migration but to control it to meet the needs of capital. This is achieved particularly by creating the phenomenon of ‘undocumented’, and ‘illegal’ workers who can be denied all rights – and it is these workers who are doing the crucial but undervalued, lowest paid jobs; jobs like care work of various kinds which cannot be outsourced. Predictably, in the wake of the current economic recession spawned by their disastrous policies, we are seeing a renewed offensive of racism against migrant workers from the third world in these countries – from attacks on Sikh cab drivers and retrenchment of Asian teachers in the US, to Gordon Brown’s call for “British jobs for British people”, the drum of racism is clearly being beaten by the ruling class to divert and mislead the anxiety of the working class in the face of recession.

Some quarters in Australia have raised the demand for a multi-racial police force. It must be emphasized that such measures cannot change the institutionalized racism of the police in the West (emanating from the political economy) – against which there has been a long history of struggles. 2009 marks 30 years the Southall Uprisings in Britain where Asian (mainly Indian Punjabi) working class youth took to the streets to protest against violence by the neo-Nazi National Front, and specifically to stop the National Front marching through Southall. The police brutally attacked the protestors, killing Blair Peach, a teacher and left activist from New Zealand.

While the Indian media has extensively covered the racist assaults on Indian students, it has failed even to mention racial harassment of Pakistani students in Britain in the name of “anti-terror” actions (see accompanying story). The British police has, shockingly, evolved a phrase – ‘clean skin,’ to connote those who have “blameless backgrounds” and show no sign of terrorist involvement, but who are nevertheless “highly trained professional killers.” This definition allows the police to brand any and every Muslim as a “terrorist” without having to furnish any evidence. When we speak of racism against those of ‘brown skin,’ we cannot ignore the linkages with the racism levelled against ‘clean skin’ – innocent Muslims targeted not by racist individuals or groups but by the might of the state.

As we protest against the attacks on Indians in Australia, we must also, however, remind ourselves of India’s own homespun variant of ‘anti-migrant’ chauvinism – such as the violence unleashed by MNS and Shiv Sena against North Indian migrants in Mumbai, or the ethnic targeting of students from the North East India in India’s capital city of Delhi.

It is high time that the people of the third world and the working class all over the world speak out against the present spate of racist assaults and the politics of hate and chauvinism in which the promoters of recession-hit globalisation are seeking a convenient refuge.

Struggles in India

People’s Health’ Seminar in Kolkata

- Liberation, July, 2009.

Dr. Binayak Sen and Dr. Ilina Sen recently visited Kolkata responding to an initiative taken by People’s Health. They addressed the Calcutta press at Calcutta Press Club on 29th May. Dr. Binayak Sen’s two year long unlawful detention in a Chattisgarh jail ended on 25th May. “I want to resume my unfinished work as early as possible,” he said. “I could finally come out of jail but many colleagues and comrades of mine are still in Chattisgarh jails on fictitious charges – we have a long fight due for their unconditional release.”

Dr. Debasish Dutta, President, People’s Health, initiated the press conference by introducing Dr. Binayak Sen and Dr. Ilina Sen as pioneering figures in the people’s health movement who have been working for the last three decades in different corners of India where the Indian State has been absent completely in providing even the basic medical care. Dr. Sen was arrested on 14 May 2007 by Chattisgarh government on the charges of sedition, accused of being a Maoist conspirator.

People’s Health organised a seminar on 30 May on ‘Whither People’s Health’ and dedicated the seminar to the efforts of Dr. Binayak Sen. Speakers from different parts of India spoke at the seminar. Dr. Kaustav Roy presented an audio-visual documentation to expose the underdevelopment in primary health care services. He shows that some diseases which we assumed nearly extinct from the world are coming back, often in the form of epidemic. The last UPA government, Dr. Roy says, closed down three public sector factories which were there to produce a few crucial vaccines. The govt offered the tender to private companies and they supply low quality medicine at unusually high prices.

Swati Bhattacharya, researcher and journalist, focused on the poor scenario of primary health care services for women in West Bengal. According to the statistics, 57% of the pregnant women in WB are deprived of primary health care during child-birth. Dr. Sudip Chakrabarty of Medical Service Centre, Mr. Ramkishen of All India Central Health Care Services and Com. Suresh from Jharkhand addressed the audience.

Dr. Ilina Sen remarked that issue of people’s health must be seen from the point of view of equality and social justice. In India, Dr. Sen explains, primary health care progammes are more bureaucratic than participatory. She said that the demand for the primary health care must be framed in the perspective of the people’s rights movement. Dr. Binayak Sen said that anyone having body-mass index less than 18.5 is said to be suffering from malnutrition. And when most of the members of a population have body-mass ratio less than 18.5, the population is said to be affected by famine. He says that most of the tribal villages in Chattisgarh by this parameter are affected by famine.

Dr. Sen also spoke on the human rights conditions in Chattisgarh and said that as Chattisgarh is full of valuable minerals lying under land occupied by adivasis, Salwa Judum is often found deputed by mine barons to snatch the land from the poor villagers. In the name of encounters, police kill innocent poor people in villages. The villagers in Chattisgarh are living in a state of terror. The industrialists, with the direct help of the govt. are robbing the land, water resources and forests from the villagers. The poor people are becoming poorer every day. The issues regarding health, nutrition, education and occupation are entirely neglected.

Culture

Habib Tanveer

- Pranay Krishna, Liberation, July, 2009.

Habib Tanveer, the doyen of Indian theatre breathed his last on June 8, 2009. He was not only a theatre personality, but an organic cultural personality; one of the greatest products of the Marxist cultural movement in India. His lifelong association with Indian Peoples’ Theatre Association (IPTA) and Progressive Writers Association (PWA) shaped his ideological orientation and unflinching commitment to the development of a cultural movement dedicated to social change.

Probably no one else relied upon and learnt so much from the common masses in the arena of Indian theatre as Habib saheb did. Common Chhatisgarhi villagers and their art traditions were the biggest source of his theatrical arsenal – from costumes, music, dances, conversational styles, themes to actors and languages. He believed that every individual was an actor in her day-today life. Every space was a theatre where the unending drama of life unfolded itself continuously. These simple, yet profound insights made him develop a theatrical praxis which is unique. He found versatile actors from amongst the artisans, peasants, labourers and students. Actors of his troupe such as Madan Nishaad, Bhulva Ram, Madan Das, Thakur Ram, Lalu Ram, Jagmohan, Shiv Dayal and Govind Ram had no formal education. He discovered excellent themes and characters in traditional folktales, dances, songs and theatrical devices amenable to infusion of new consciousness critiquing contemporary realities. More than anybody else he displayed that theatre was not a ‘close-up’ art. He could turn a street, a marketplace, a village, practically any space into a stage.

Well- versed in the ancient Sanskrit drama tradition as well as modern European theatrical traditions, he was able to rope in both to the service of a distinct kind of Indian People’s theatre developed from the base of Chhatisgarhi folk theatre, firmly grounded in traditions, memories, and dreams of the struggling common masses. Chhatisgarhi dialect, Chhatisgarhi dance-drama ‘Nacha’, musical story-telling from Mahabharata in folk style – Pandavani got recognized globally through Habib’s theatre.

Habib successfully blasted the bourgeois myth that art forms committed to social change lacked in craft, technique and entertainment. Habib Saheb himself was a poet. He has been credited with introducing music and poetry as essential components of realist theatre in the country. He acted in almost all his plays and many films too.

Among his many inspirations, the greatest probably was that of Brecht. He internalized the spirit of Brechtian epic theatre, while developing his own variety of People’s Theatre. His continuous experimentations, improvisations and innovations with classical as well as folk forms, myths and legends made him evolve a distinct form suitably adapted to the Indian ethos. Habib always had a message in his plays totally comprehensible to the common people, yet his style was never didactic. The progressive consciousness echoed in all the dimensions of his plays.

The first play which brought the Habibian style into prominence was ‘Agra Bazaar’ (1954) based upon the songs and poems of 19th century Urdu poet Nazir Akbarabadi, not even considered a serious poet in his own time. Nazir was a poet of common people. A contemporary of Mir and Ghalib, Nazir was, in a way, re-discovered and represented to the people through ‘Agra Bazaar’. In this play, Nazir’s simple verses depicting the lives of artisans, small shopkeepers, vendors and common folks written in a spoken form of Urdu mingled with other dialects of area around Delhi and Agra, interspersed with the colloquial usages and idioms, was turned into commentary and chorus by Habib Saheb. The play had hardly any plot. Scenes were created on the basis of poetry itself. When the play was staged at Jamia in an open ground, the villagers passing by with their cattle would stop for a moment out of curiosity. Habib Tanveer announced to them that they could come to the stage and sit there along with the cattle. Many of them did so and ‘Agra Bazaar’ came alive with real characters of a marketplace on the stage. Habib’s rediscovery of Nazir through drama can only be compared to Kabir’s rediscovery by Kumar Gandharva through music.

‘Mitti ki Gadi’ (1958) based on Shudrak’s Sanskrit play ‘Mrichchakatikam’ was a marvelous display of how ancient Sanskrit drama could be adapted to modern sensibilities, that too through folk devices. ‘Charandas Chor’ (1975) based on a Chhatisgarhi folktale is an epic, yet hilarious commentary on state of social, political and religious affairs from the vantage point of a thief, which ends on a tragic note. Habib’s ‘Jin Lahore Nahi Dekhyan, Wo Janmyan Hi Nai’ based on Asghar Wajahat’s play is a masterpiece which posits the best of sub-continental composite culture against communal consciousness. ‘Jamadarin’, later renamed as ‘Ponga Pandit’ is a play based upon a folktale which attacks religious bigotry and caste atrocities. In the post-Babri Masjid demolition era, this particular play was attacked many times by Bajrang Dal and Sangh outfits during live shows at Gwalior and elsewhere. Each time Habib Tanveer refused to go backstage amidst stone pelting and hooliganism. ‘Zahreeli Hava’, an adaptation of an English play based on Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984 by Rahul Verma, is a thorough critique of the multinational corporate onslaught on the people of this country. ‘Hirma ki amar Kahani’ questions the official paradigm of ‘development’ and assimilation of tribals in the so-called ‘mainstream’ of the nation from an authentic tribal worldview and successfully problematises the hegemonic discourse of ‘development’. Habib Saheb’s plays were never short of viewers, even after the arrival of Television in India. He made many small T.V. documentaries for UNESCO.

Habib Saheb won numerous international and national awards. He was nominated Rajya Sabha member, awarded Padmabhushan, and provided 5-6 acres of land near Bhopal for his ‘Naya Theatre’ complex by governments. Yet, his stature as an artist is far above such official recognitions.

Brief Life sketch

Habib Tanveer – Born on September 1, 1923 at Raipur, Chhatisgarh. Died 8th June, 2009 at Bhopal. Bachelor’s degree from Nagpur University. Learnt theatre at Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, London; Theatre School, Bristol and British Drama League, London.

Started career in film journalism as Assistant Editor of ‘Film India’ magazine, Mumbai in 1946. Was involved in acting, writing dialogues and songs and making documentaries at the Bombay film industry from 1946 to 1953. Active in IPTA, Bombay along with Shambhu Mitra, Dina Pathak, Balraj Sahni, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and others during 1948 to 1953. Founded ‘Hindustani Theater’ at Delhi in 1954. Founded ‘Naya Theatre’ at Delhi in 1959. Married theatre artist and director Moneeka Misra in 1961. Member of Rajya Sabha during 1972-1978. Awarded Padmabhushan in 2002.

Major Theatrical Productions

Agra Bazaar (1954), Mitti ki Gadi (1958), Lala Shohratrai (1960), Gaon ke naon sasural, mor naon damaad’ (1973) , Charan Das Chor (1974), Bahadur Kalarin (1978), Hirma ki Amar Kahani (1985), Ek aur Dronacharya (1988), Jin Lahore nai vekhyan, wo janmya hi nai (1990), Dekh rahe hain Nain (1992), Kamdev kaa apna, vasant ritu ka sapna (1994), Mudrarakshas (1996), Ek Aurat Hepatia kee thee (1999), Zahreeli Hawa (2002), Veni sanhaar (2002), Visarjan (2006)

May-June 2009

Table of Contents

1. 15th Lok Sabha Elections and Beyond

2. Indian Government Must Stop Intervention in Nepal

3. Sri Lanka: Playing Games with a Crisis

4. Stop Supporting the Genocidal War Against Tamils in Sri Lanka!

5. May Day Reports from India

6. Dr Binayak Sen: Punishment by Trial

7. Appropriating Ambedkar

8. World at the Crossroads Conference

9. Adieu Iqbal Bano!

Indian Elections

15th Lok Sabha Elections and Beyond

- ML Update, 5-11 May, 2009.

In vain were the galaxy of film stars and other celebrities pressed into service for encouraging citizens to pay ballot tributes to the great Indian democracy. The third phase of polling — which the Election Commission described as”extremely satisfactory” — saw a voter turnout of just about 50%, down from 55 per cent in phase II and 60% in phase I. The EC blamed it on “heat conditions”, but the argument does not sound convincing. West Bengal for example is witnessing an almost unprecedented heat wave this year, but polling has been relatively better at 64%. Behind this lies a combination of two factors: the people’s eagerness to teach the CPI(M) another lesson after the punishment meted out in last year’s panchayat polls and the ruling party’s desperate attempt to minimise the inevitable decline in its MP tally.

However, the general picture in the country as a whole (a degree of regional variations notwithstanding) is that today the major national and regional parties do not find themselves in a position to mobilise the dominant social groups and powerbrokers to ‘manage’ the polling the way they have done in the past. Here lies the most important political reason behind the very low voter turnout in the 15th Lok Sabha elections. The mainstream parties’ track records while in office have been extremely poor and they have no credible future plans for redressing the economic and other woes of the masses. As for the different alliances they belong to, these are either shattered by centrifugal forces or remain too amorphous to carry conviction with the voters. In a word, politically they are very much on the defensive.

On the other side of the same coin we see, most notably in large parts of the Hindi heartland, a correspondingly higher assertion of popular forces in the election process. Hopefully, this may also get translated into the emergence of a revolutionary opposition in Parliament — a genuine people’s opposition to consistently fight for the downtrodden. Even otherwise, the gains made by the revolutionary Left during the campaign will not be lost. The militant activism of the people unleashed during the campaign has already opened up broader avenues for further development of mass movements after the elections and for us this is the main thing, the permanent core agenda of left politics.

In sharp contrast to our perception and priorities, the national leadership of CPI(M) is zealously pursuing “politics as the art of the possible” in the meanest and most vulgar sense of the phrase. A very prominent Politburo member of the party was recently in Patna openly inviting the RJD, the JD (U) and the LJP — the very forces against which his party is currently locked in a pitched battle in alliance with the CPI (ML) and CPI — to help form a “secular government” at the centre. Even as resentment against this act of sabotaging the fledgling left unity in Bihar ran high in Left circles in the State, the senior leader reiterated his party’s position in subsequent interviews/press meets in Delhi and Kolkata. He had personally met Sharad and Nitish to advance the cause of this alliance, he added. (Curiously enough, Rahul Gandhi also has since called upon Nitish, Jaylalita and Chandrababu — the main opponents of the Congress in the States concerned — to help form a Congress-led government.) In Kolkata he also reaffirmed the Biman Basu- Budhhadev Bhattacharya line that on the question of supporting a Congress-led government the party will take a decision only after the election results are out. Clearly, this contradicts in no uncertain terms Parkash Karat’s previous statement that his party would rather sit in the opposition than support the Congress.

The political implication of all these overtures is clear. The leading party of the Left Front/Third Front as well as the leader of the UPA are both keeping all doors and windows open and bracing for a nasty post-poll game of numbers where anything can happen and everything can be justified in the holy cause of cobbling up a so-called secular government. Naturally the BJP too will be playing all its cards. For a time the pragmatic power politics of the ruling elite will thus dominate the Indian scene. But there is yet another kind, a very different kind of politics — the turbulent politics of the masses on the move demanding urgent solutions to the economic crisis they have been thrown into and the plethora of other unresolved problems. Sooner rather than later this kind of politics will come to predominate, the more so because none of the existing political formations will get a clear mandate to rule and instability will be haunting the assembled government of assorted opportunists from the very start. To redouble our efforts to lead this people’s politics of resistance remains the absolute priority and responsibility of all genuine left forces in the country.

South Asia

Indian Government Must Stop Intervention in Nepal

- ML Update, 5-11 May, 2009.

The fledgling republic of Nepal seems to be standing on the verge of a new phase of civil war. Chief of Army Staff (CoAS) Rookmangud Katawal had been asked by the civilian government to explain why he had continued military recruitment despite the government’s halt order and reinstated eight brigadier-generals who had been retired by the defence ministry. Backed by its foreign patrons and right-wing parties in the country, the military high command openly defied the authority of the elected government. The government responded by removing General Katawal, who refused to accept this and the government’s decision was then illegally overturned by President Ram Baran Yadav of Nepalese Congress. With their coalition partners in government refusing to support the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) [UCPN(M)], Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal (Prachanda) announced that he had no choice but to resign.

Both New Delhi and Washington had been mounting a strong pressure on the sovereign Nepali government not to remove their trusted CoAS who was doggedly resisting the integration of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with the national army as agreed in the peace accord. Senior Maoist leader and Finance Minister Baburam Bhattarai was perfectly right in his sarcastic comment that “The so-called democratic forces specially headed by the so-called democrats in New Delhi have been dictating their patrons in Kathmandu to side with the army and fight against the democratic forces”. We denounce in strongest possible terms the brazen foreign intervention and demand that it must be stopped immediately and for good.

We believe the abolition of the monarchy requires not just the removal of the King but a thorough restructuring of all organs of the state including the army, judiciary and bureaucracy. In this context we consider it very unfortunate that the UCPN (M) and Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist Leninist) [CPN (UML)] could not arrive at an understanding on sacking the most powerful remnant of the monarchial order. Only a firm political unity of the main left forces on such matters could provide a solid core around which the required consensus in the coalition government could be built up. As things stand now, the fragile consensus has broken down and the apparent process of a peaceful transition to People’s Power has proved deceptive. From a Marxist viewpoint this was not unexpected and we are confident that, led by the communists of Nepal, the brave people will once again rise to the occasion and overcome all obstacles to carry the democratic revolution through to the end.

Meanwhile, progressive and left organisations around the world have condemned the Nepalese President Ram Baran Yadav’s actions and foreign intervention while noting that the Nepalese Army is infamous for its human rights abuses, including murder, torture and rape and has a history of coups against civilian governments. The top ranks of the army recently admitted to planning a fresh coup against the current elected government! These organisations have demanded upholding of the peace accord and democracy for which the majority of the Nepalese people and poor people in particular had voted for the CPN(M).

The Democratic Socialist Perspective (from Australia) has said in a statement posted on its website (www.dsp.org.au) –”The removal of the Maoists from government is nothing less than a coup. It reveals the real situation in Nepal — that despite its democratic mandate for change, the Maoist-led government is being prevented by the old elite from implementing such change.” It further stated that the “…military high command, backed by right-wing parties tied to the country’s elite, has openly defied the authority of the elected civilian government, led by the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M)” and “the UCPN-M’s proposals for a peaceful and democratic pro-poor transformation of Nepal that were endorsed at the ballot box have been frustrated by opposition within the parliament, the state and even the coalition government.” There is nothing more terrifying to the ruling classes globally than the sight of a people winning power. The right-wing forces in Nepal are counting on the support of foreign powers, especially the United States and the right-wing forces in India.

The Progressive Nepali Forum in Americas (PNEFA) has urged the Supreme Court to nullify the President Yadav’s unconstitutional action and restore civilian supremacy.

South Asia

Sri Lanka: Playing Games with a Crisis

- S. Sivasegaram.

Introduction: The number of Sri Lankan national flags on public display since early this year exceeds many fold that on any previous occasion including Independence Day, 1948. It is significant since President Rajapaksha recently said that the country will soon celebrate its second independence after defeating terrorism. Undoubtedly, there is enthusiasm among the Sinhalese for the military successes of the Sri Lankan armed forces against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The consequent surge in support for the government has been evident in the outcome of the four Provincial Council elections held since mid-2008, amid a visibly weakening economy, rising cost of living, unemployment, poverty, and an impending economic collapse, which the government hopes to avert with a massive IMF loan with stringent conditions that are sure to make life a bigger misery for the low income groups.

The war-induced popularity the government is supplemented by the preoccupation of the media and the main political parties with military gains in the North and will, at least for some months, divert attention from the crises faced by the country on various fronts.

Resumption of War and the Humanitarian Crisis: The scale of the human tragedy was large when the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) recaptured LTTE-held territory in the East. Bombing of public places, hunger and disease displaced around 200,000; civilian deaths were in the lower hundreds. Taking the war to the Vanni, the vast stretch in the North under LTTE control then, was certain to kill thousands and displace several hundred thousands.

Although supplies to the Jaffna peninsula by road ceased after August 2006 when the GoSL closed the A-9 highway, limited supplies went to the Vanni. As hostilities escalated, the GoSL and the armed forces restricted the supply of essential goods to the Vanni, including food, fuel and medical supplies. This was followed by the restriction of Non Governmental Organization (NGO) and media presence there, and around mid-2008 all media personnel and NGOs were ordered out. This to many was a sign that the GoSL was planning indiscriminate aerial and missile attacks. While the GoSL insisted, as always, that only identified military targets were being attacked, survivors of bombing and shelling told a different story. But in the absence of local and foreign media and NGOs, except for the limited presence of the Red Cross (ICRC), it has been hard to verify the number and nature of the casualties.

Whenever international organisations accused the GoSL of serious violations of human and fundamental rights, its spokespersons responded with vigorous denial, often in abusive language. A few European governments reacted with suspension of aid programmes, with no visible impact on GoSL attitude. The LTTE was accused too, mainly with conscription of children, and also of murderous attacks on innocent Sinhalese civilians.

What seemed a strategic retreat by the LTTE early this year with the fall of Kilinochchi, the civil administrative centre of the LTTE, turned out to be a prelude to defeat. By late March the area under LTTE control reduced to less than 100 square kilometres, and following a major blow suffered in early April the LTTE is confined to a 12 km long strip of land designated a “Safety Zone”. Without immediate ceasefire, that area too could fall to the GoSL forces before long, but with severe civilian casualties. It should be noted that a large section of the Vanni population opted to follow the LTTE as it retreated, so that through March, an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 were in the fast shrinking area under LTTE control. The GoSL claimed that they were held against their wishes as human shields, while the LTTE has denied the charge. It has, however, been reported that the LTTE had forcibly recruited people including children and that its cadres had fired at escaping civilians.

The GoSL, amid its intense aerial and artillery attacks, had declared Safety Zones for the people in LTTE-held areas; but charges have persisted that hundreds of civilians had been killed and many more wounded by attacks on these zones. Again, independent verification of eye witness account and photographic evidence available on Tamil nationalist web-sites is not possible. The Sri Lankan media, polarised and intimidated as it is, publishes little, but for comments by international bodies of some repute.

The casualty rate rose sharply in the past few months, and victims were mostly from the Safety Zone. To illustrate the high casualty rate: UN figures for minimum number of civilian casualties from 20th January to 7th March 2009 in the conflict area of Mullaitthivu (the last bit of territory held by the LTTE) was 2,683 deaths and 7,241 injuries. Strangely, the information was withheld by the UN until internal documentation leaked in the latter part of March. The GoSL rejected the figures and accused the UN of relying on hostile sources.

International Concern: When undeclared war came to the East in 2006 amid efforts to revive the stalled peace process, international concern seemed to be about getting the parties to abide by the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) of 2002 and reactivating negotiations. Attitudes shifted as the GoSL won control of the East in 2007 and launched its offensive to capture the LTTE-held region in the North. India and the ‘international community’, meaning imperialist powers with interests in Sri Lanka, always paid lip service to restoring peace but did little to persuade either party, the GoSL especially, to end hostilities. Declared concerns drifted with the progress of war: calls for a negotiated settlement and an end to hostilities became calls for a ceasefire in 2008, and early this year concern for the safety of civilians entrapped in LTTE controlled areas. The way the concern manifested itself has been hypocritical if not cynical.

The tragedy of Tamil nationalism, its leadership and the Tamil Diaspora is their misplaced faith in the UK, US, EU, UN, as well as India, since the birth of Bangladesh. Despite evidence to the contrary, many hoped that one or several of them would come to the rescue of the Tamils. The hope still lingers on, in the light of GoSL disregard for ‘international opinion’. But lobbying has so far achieved little more than empty assurances.

India provided the biggest disappointment if not shock. What was seen as Indian indifference not long ago has now been found to be encouragement of the war effort of the GoSL and active political and military collaboration, including on-ground logistic support. Protests in Tamilnadu have thus far failed to make a serious impact on Delhi, where there is no love for the LTTE. The forthcoming Indian parliamentary elections are, however, a factor in the shifting stands of the various political parties of Tamilnadu; and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Congress are desperate to keep the Sri Lankan Tamil tragedy out of the electoral arithmetic.

In whatever form the LTTE may emerge from its present plight, it cannot return to its earlier claim to be the ‘sole representative’ of the Tamils or its politics by command or its purely militaristic line. On the other hand, even if the LTTE is thoroughly humbled or eliminated as a military force, the struggle of the Tamils will go on as long as the underlying issues remain. The approach of the GoSL hitherto gives little room to hope that it will address the issues. What is most likely is that national oppression will intensify with the blessings of imperialist and hegemonic patrons. That is a bad thing. But it could be changed into its opposite by Tamils learning from past mistakes of not just the LTTE but Tamil nationalism as a whole.

The struggle for Tamil national rights will soon need to link itself with the struggle in the rest of the country for democratic, human and fundamental rights, and against globalisation, imperialism and hegemony; and with anti-imperialist and progressive liberation struggles internationally. The impending economic and political disaster throws the challenge at the genuine left among the Sinhalese to take the initiative towards building a broad united front.

South Asia

Indian Government: Stop Supporting the Genocidal War Against Tamils in Sri Lanka!

- ML Update, 28 April – 04 May, 2009.

A shameful spectacle of opportunism is being played out in Indian politics even as Sri Lanka is waging a chilling ‘final solution’ to its Tamil national question. In the name of a war to eliminate the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Mahinda Rajapakse’s regime in Sri Lanka is waging war on the Tamil people. Independent observers, international rights groups and even journalists have been prohibited from covering the reality of the war. Conservative estimates, trickling through, put civilian deaths at a minimum of 5000, including at least 500 children, since January. At least 100,000 civilians are estimated wounded. The Sri Lankan army (SLA) is using cluster bombs and chemical warfare in blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions. Tens of thousands of innocent Tamils are caught up in the war zone, starved of food, water and medicine. Some 100,000 others, fleeing in desperation are being rounded up behind barbed wire fences in ‘camps’, where by all accounts they will be kept under detention for three years. Sri Lankan journalists questioning their government’s brutal policy have been silenced by assassination and arrest. International journalists reporting on the detention camps for Tamil civilians have been detained and deported.

Herding the Tamil population into detention camps after slaughtering thousands cannot end the question of Tamil nationality in Sri Lanka. It cannot wipe out the fact that it was bloody pogroms in the 1980s that catapulted the Tamil protests against systematic discrimination into a full-blown insurgency. The Sri Lankan Government is trying to justify its massacre in the name of fighting the LTTE. But there can be no getting away from the fact that it is the Sri Lankan Government’s brutal suppression of the right to self-determination of its Tamil population that is the biggest obstacle to peace.

The SLA’s gains are largely due to aid from imperialist powers. Israel has supplied Kfir jets to the Sri Lankan air force, which has used them to bomb Tamil areas. India’s role is the most dubious. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and its constituents like the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), under pressure from emotions running high in Tamil Nadu, have taken the posture of pressurizing the Sri Lankan Government to call a ceasefire. Opposition parties like the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) in Tamil Nadu, seeking to reap a rich harvest of votes from the resentment, have suddenly woken to the need for a ‘Tamil Eelam’ or separate Tamil state for Sri Lankan Tamils. DMK leader and TN Chief Minister Karunanidhi went on a ‘fast’ for a few hours, and claimed that Sri Lanka had in fact called a ceasefire as a result. The facts are otherwise: Sri Lanka, far from calling a ceasefire, has merely promised to avoid the use of ‘heavy artillery’ as far as possible – but has made it clear that the war will continue. The promise, in any case, carries little weight – coming as it does from a regime that has had no compunctions about using even chemical weapons against civilians, and that is in any case planning to treat all surviving Tamil civilians as potential terrorists.

The reality behind the Indian Government’s rhetoric of concern for Tamil civilians is exposed when one looks at a shockingly candid statement by the Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee in the Parliament on 23 October 2008: “We have a very comprehensive relationship with Sri Lanka. In our anxiety to protect the civilians, we should not forget the strategic importance of this island to India’s interests… especially in view of attempts by countries like Pakistan and China to gain a strategic foothold in the island nation…Colombo had been told that India would ‘look after your security requirements, provided you do not look around’. We cannot have a playground of international players in our backyard…” While the Indian Government has consistently denied providing military support to the Sri Lankan Army, one wonders what shape the promise of “looking after security requirements” of Sri Lanka has actually taken.

The Congress party and UPA Government has also been suggesting that the ongoing war on Tamils is just punishment for Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. How can Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka be held responsible for that assassination? The Congress party and the Indian State cannot deny the fact that the assassination was a fallout of the disastrously opportunist Indian policy of first extending support to the Tamil insurgency, and then sending in Indian ‘peace-keeping’ forces to help crush the militancy. J N Dixit, who was National Security Adviser to the Indian Prime Minister in 2004-05, and was Indian High Commissioner in Sri Lanka between 1985-89, has candidly admitted that “Tamil militancy received (India’s) support…as a response to (Sri Lanka’s)…concrete and expanded military and intelligence cooperation with the United States, Israel and Pakistan,” justifying this and the volte face of sending in the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) on the grounds that “Inter-state relations are not governed by the logic of morality. They were and they remain an amoral phenomenon…” It is shameful that a Government and a party that has in such an ‘amoral’ way played with the lives of millions of Tamil people, is today trying to offer the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi as ‘moral’ justification for the bloody end-game being played out against innocent civilians in Sri Lanka today.

The silence of the international community and the complicity of India on the ongoing slaughter and repression in Sri Lanka deserves the highest condemnation. It is urgent that democratic forces in India and the international community demand prosecution of the highest functionaries of the Sri Lankan state and the Government of the countries that supplied these bombs for commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Working Class Struggles

May Day Reports from India

- Rajiv Dimri.

May Day 2009 was organized by All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) independently as well as jointly with other left central trade unions (CTUs) and state/sectoral level fraternal trade unions. As May Day was being organized in the midst of India’s general elections, on this occasion the AICCTU called upon the working masses to reject and defeat the Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA), in power before elections, and communal-fascist BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and ensure the victory of struggling and fighting left. Some of the preliminary reports are as follows:

Delhi: Amidst preparations for elections in Delhi (on 7th May) the workers under the banner of AICCTU offered their Red Salute to the martyrs of May Day in an industrial area of Narela by hoisting the red flag and organizing a rally. This area falls under the parliamentary constituency- North West Delhi- from which Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) [CPI-ML] has fielded a workers’ leader for the elections. Apart from this, a joint rally and mass meeting of left CTUs including our union – AICCTU and CPM led Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and CPI led All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) – was held which was led by, among others, our leaders Coms. Santosh Roy and NM Thomas. Addressing the gathering, Com. Santosh Roy called upon the workers to vote for all left candidates including ours in the elections and reject Congress and BJP. The gathering released declaration demanding Rs. 8500 as minimum wages in Delhi, strict implementation of labour laws, benefits of employee state insurance (ESI) and provident fund (PF) to all workers, stop Foreign investment in Retail sector and bringing all unorganized workers under the social security net, among others.

Tamil Nadu (TN): Amidst election preparations, May Day Rallies were held in Chennai and Tirunelveli. In Chennai more than 500 workers participated in the rally led by Com.G.Radhakrishnan, State Vice President of AICCTU. Com. S. Kumarasami, president of AICCTU addressing the gathering called upon the workers to rise as real opposition as any formation at the center after elections would only be anti- people and anti-workers. Comrades S. Sekar, K. Palanivel, S. Eraniappan, State Secretaries, AICCTU addressed the gathering. Com. Bharathi, Sriperumbudur candidate of the Party claimed that no party other than CPI-ML, in the country can mobilize people for their election meetings without giving them money and biriyani and those assembled here are the real forces who will change the course of anti-people, anti-worker policies in the country. He called for the workers to take pledge on May Day to throw away the opportunist UPA and NDA combines and the so-called third front in TN and vote for change, vote for CPI ML.

In Tirunelveli, a rally of over 200 workers was held in the town area. Com T. Sankarapandian, state state committee member (SCM) and Tirunelveli candidate of the Party addressed the gathering. Com. N. K. Natarajan, State General Secretary, AICCTU also attended the rally and the public meeting.

In Perianaickenpalayam, Pricol factory workers hoisted AICCTU flags in 6 points around Pricol. In Coimbatore, in another 6 points flags were hoisted. Other than this all over the state, in over 35 points workers participated enthusiastically in May Day flag hoisting programs in Trichy, Kanchipuram, Tiruvallore, Villupuram, Mayiladudurai, Tanjore, Kanyakumari, Madurai, Dindugal, Pudukottai districts and vowed to teach a lesson to ruling Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK) and opposition All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) in the forthcoming elections.

Punjab: Amidst the preparations for elections, rallies were held under the banner of AICCTU and CPI-ML in districts like Mansa, Bhatinda and Sangrur. In Mansa a big rally was held with the participation of around four thousand workers (4,000) which was addressed by AICCTU general secretary Com. Swapan Mukherjee.

Assam: In Guwahati rallies were held in various districts. In Tinsukia town of this district a big rally with the participation of around 2000 workers was held under the banner of May Day Celebration Committee which includes AICCTU and various fraternal and close sectoral TUs. National Secretary, Com. Subhash Sen addressed the rally on behalf of AICCTU.

Patna (Bihar): A joint rally and a mass meeting of left CTUs was held in Patna, the capital of Bihar state. On behalf of AICCTU, national secretary Com. RN Thakur addressed the meeting. Besides, flag hoisting took place in the various factories and institutions in which AICCTU has its unions.

Apart from these states and areas, May Day was organized in Pondicherry led by National Secretary Com. S. Balasubramanian, in Bangalore led by vice president Com. Shankar, in Mumbai led by National Secretary Uday Bhatt and Haldwani (Uttarakhand) led by KK Bora.

Struggles in India

Dr Binayak Sen: Punishment by Trial

- Satya Sagar.

Every Monday, since 16 March this year, a group of between 50 to 100 protestors have been marching down the streets of Raipur, the capital of Chhattisgarh province, demanding the release of well-known paediatrician and human rights activist Dr Binayak Sen.

They are part of the Raipur Satyagraha campaign that involves courting arrest while marching to high security Raipur jail where Dr Sen has been incarcerated for the past nearly two years now on false charges of being an accomplice to the banned Maoist insurgency in the state. The campaign, which brings activists from around the country to Raipur every week, plans to go on indefinitely till Dr Sen is finally released. Till now hundreds have been arrested and released as part of the satyagraha.

While such classical Gandhian methods are not likely to melt the hearts of the BJP run regime of Chief Minister Raman Singh the campaign is having a positive impact by helping change the climate of fear that has enveloped the entire state for several years now. At last the local media and civil society is mustering the courage to take a critical look at the state’s brutal response to the Maoist insurgency instead of blindly toeing the official ‘war on terror’ rhetoric .

Since 2005 the government sponsored Salwa Judum operations, which pit paramilitaries armed by the state police against Maoist guerrillas and their supporters have claimed hundreds of lives and displaced thousands from their homes in what is a virtual civil war like situation. The draconian ‘anti-terorrist’ laws that the Chhattisgarh authorities have promulgated ensures there is hardly any discussion or dissent allowed on the subject with all opponents- like Dr Sen- themselves branded as Maoists.

State prosecutors claim Binayak, who was arrested on 14 May 2007, passed on a set of letters from Narayan Sanyal, a senior Maoist leader in Raipur jail to Piyush Guha, a local businessman with allegedly close links to the left-wing extremists. He was supposed to have done this while visiting Sanyal in prison both in his capacity as a human rights activist and as a doctor treating him for various medical ailments.

The trial of Dr Sen , which began in a Raipur sessions court late April 2008, has however not thrown up even a shred of evidence to justify any of these charges against him. By end 2008, of the 83 witnesses listed for deposition by the prosecution 16 were dropped by the prosecutors themselves, 6 declared ‘hostile’, while 30 others have deposed without corroborating any of the accusations against Dr Sen.

Dr Sen has never denied meeting Sanyal, which he did with prior permission and in the presence of jail authorities. To prove there was a ‘conspiracy’ the prosecutors for example have to establish that apart from meeting Sanyal in prison, Dr Sen also met Piyush Guha in person some time or the other, in order to pass on the letters. So far not a single prosecution witness has confirmed this charge and without the thread connecting him to Guha however there is no connection at all between Dr Sen and the cases against the other two defendants, Sanyal and Guha.

With the floor falling out of the entire case against Dr Sen, a desperate prosecution, during the course of the trial, has even been caught red handed by defence lawyers, trying to plant forged evidence of his ‘links’ with the Maoists. A number of witnesses too, under obvious tutelage from the police, have been found trying to ‘improve’ their original written statements presented to the court.

Even more disturbingly, in their attempt to keep Dr Sen in prison for as long as possible the court hearings themselves are being dragged on with breaks of up to a month or more at times thus making the trial itself a punishment. Several neutral observers following the case, including from the Commonwealth and the European Union, have expressed concern at the denial of Dr Sen’s right to an open and speedy trial.

Given the weakness of the prosecution’s position Dr Sen should have been given bail by now but mysteriously this has not happened as yet. Normally bail is refused only in cases where the courts believe the accused can tamper with evidence, prejudice witnesses or run away. In Dr Sen’s case none of these apply as shown by the simple fact that at the time of his arrest last year he chose to come to the Chhattisgarh police voluntarily and made no attempt to abscond despite apprehensions of his possible detainment.

Instead of taking all this into account, on 2nd December 2008, a High Court judge in Bilaspur summarily rejected a bail application filed by Dr Sen, confounding all known principles of law, fair play and justice. As if that were not enough a few days later the provincial police authorities, taking their political vendetta further, filed supplementary charges against him, adding on another 47 witnesses to the 83 already listed in the case.

In September 2007 too the same Bilaspur court had rejected a similar bail application after which on 10 December, the Indian Supreme Court in Delhi too had refused to admit a Special Leave Petition to consider bail. The Supreme Court bench initially heard the petition and even asked the Chhattisgarh government to file a reply but strangely dismissed the same petition at its next hearing without any explanation.

The real ‘crime’ for which Dr Sen is being punished for is his courageous work exposing the human rights violations carried out by police forces in Chhattisgarh. As national vice president of the Peoples Union of Civil Liberties, one of India’s oldest human rights groups, Dr Sen produced several reports criticising the Chhattisgarh government’s ‘Salwa Judum’ campaign.

The Salwa Judum campaign, according to many of its critics, is a thinly veiled attempt to relocate villagers – in the name of ‘protecting’ them from Maoists- while in fact plotting the handover of their land to corporations eyeing mineral wealth in the area. By focusing national attention on the brutalities accompanying this campaign Dr Sen obviously seems to have stepped on some powerful and sensitive toes somewhere.

Dalit Issues

Appropriating Ambedkar

- Kavita Krishnan.

Around 14 April, the 118th Birth Anniversary of Babasaheb Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Prime

Ministerial candidate L K Advani accused the Congress of having mistreated Dr. Ambedkar, referring among other things to his resignation from the Congress Cabinet in 1951, and said it was the BJP-backed V P Singh government which bestowed the Bharat Ratna on him in 1990 and not a Congress Government.

Once again, the BJP and Advani have made a bid to appropriate Ambedkar – based, as usual, on deliberate distortion and suppression of facts and shameless duplicity. Ambedkar did indeed resign from the Congress cabinet in 1951 in protest over the dilution of the Hindu Code Bill – a legislation intended to do away with gender discrimination in Hindu marriage and property laws. It is also perfectly true that the legislation was opposed by a powerful conservative section within the Congress itself, including leaders of the stature of Dr. Rajendra Prasad. But the opposition to the Hindu Code Bill was undoubtedly led by Shyama Prasad Mookerjee – founder of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, and Advani’s hero. Mookerjee said the Bill would “shatter the magnificent structure of Hindu culture”, as Dhananjay Keer recorded in his book Dr. Ambedkar: Life and Mission (1962, page 429, cited by A G Noorani in ‘Power Drive’, Frontline Volume 26 – Issue 08: Apr. 11-24, 2009). Advani’s mentor Guru Golwalkar also led the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (of which Advani is a proud member) in opposing the Hindu Code Bill, claiming that granting of rights to women would “cause great psychological upheaval” to men and “lead to mental disease and distress.” (Paula Bacchetta, Gender in the Hindu Nation: RSS Women as Ideologues, p.124). Ambedkar drafted the Constitution, while Golwalkar suggested that the Manusmriti, which is abhorrent and discriminatory towards women and deprived castes, should be the Constitution of Independent India, declaring that Manu was the “first and greatest lawgiver of the world.” Clearly, for Mookerjee, as for the BJP-Sangh Parivar-Ram Sene etc…today the subordination of women (and preservation of caste hierarchy) is essential to maintain what they proclaim is the ‘magnificent structure of Hindu culture’ – while for Ambedkar, caste and gender discrimination were abhorrent and had no place in a democratic India.

Advani’s brethren in the Sangh Parivar recently launched a campaign of massacre, rape and arson in Kandhamal – targeting Dalits who had converted to Christianity. It is well known that Ambedkar had seen conversion as a gesture of ‘opting out’, in protest, of the caste order justified by Hindu religion. Advani is a man of great gumption to attempt to appropriate Ambedkar, after endorsing such murderous assaults on poor Dalits for the ‘crime’ of conversion.

Ambedkar has faced the maximum vilification and distortion at the hands of BJP ideologue Arun Shourie (Worshipping False Gods, 1997). At the time, Advani spoke not a word in condemnation of this vicious and slanderous attack, and Shourie continues to be an apologist for the BJP. It is interesting that neither Manmohan nor Mayawati nor any of the self-proclaimed ‘social justice’ leaders challenged Advani’s claims with any of the above facts.

The BJP is undoubtedly the party that is most fundamentally opposed – both in self-avowed programme as well as practice – to Ambedkar’s social vision. But what of the Congress? And of parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) which claim to espouse Ambedkar’s agenda and revere Ambedkar? Of course, the first thing that strikes one is that anti-Dalit atrocities like Khairlanji and the assault on Bant Singh occur in Congress-ruled states of Maharashtra and Punjab. And it is a BSP candidate who is responsible for the heinous murder of a Dalit candidate Vijay Bahadur Sonkar in Mayawati-ruled Uttar Pradesh.

But these parties have an even more fundamental discomfort with Ambedkar’s socio-economic vision. Ambedkar championed social dignity for dalits – but he believed that such dignity did not fall from the sky when written into the Constitution, but rather must be underwritten and set into motion by economic rights generated by a radical programme for economic democracy.

Ambedkar’s anti-feudal vision led him to propose nationalization of land. Ambedkar had actively backed the Mumbai textile workers’ strike in protest against the British Government’s draconian Bill against workers’ strikes, asserting that the right to strike was “simply another name for the right to freedom.”

Ambedkar held that the State’s role is to protect workers’ rights, not privileges of private capital, “Anyone who studies the working of the system of social economy based on private enterprise and pursuit of personal gain will realize how it undermines, if it does not actually violate, the last two premises on which democracy rests…Ask those who are unemployed whether what are called Fundamental Rights are of any value to them. If a person who is unemployed is offered a choice between a job of some sort, with some sort of wages, with no fixed hours of labour and with an indirect restriction on joining a union and the exercise of his right to freedom of speech, association, religion etc can there be any doubt as to what his choice will be? How can it be otherwise? …What about those who are employed? Constitutional lawyers assume that the enactment of Fundamental Rights is enough to safeguard their liberty, and that nothing more is called for. They argue that where the state refrains from intervention in private affairs, economic and social, the residue is liberty. What is necessary is to make the residue as large as possible and state intervention as small as possible. It is true that that where the state refrains from intervention what remains is liberty. …To whom and for whom is this liberty? Obviously, this liberty is liberty to the landlords to increase rents, to the capitalists to increase the hours of work and reduce the rate of wages. … Liberty from the control of the state is another name for the dictatorship of the private employer.” What a contrast these words are to the programmes of liberalization-privatization-globalisation espoused overtly by the Congress and covertly by the BSP!

To quote Comrade Vinod Mishra, from the 6th Party Congress Document of the CPI(ML), “A calculated move has been witnessed in recent times to denigrate Ambedkar and project him as having been opposed to Indian freedom….Meanwhile the BJP is seeking to appropriate Ambedkar for its communal ends. We must oppose these moves. In socio-economic terms, Ambedkar was much more radical than Gandhi, and even Nehru. Politically too, he was more conscious of the complexities of nation-building in India. Rather than trying to project himself as a national leader at the expense of everything else, he made a strong plea for making dalit emancipation an integral part of the freedom movement. And this is a question which India is struggling with even fifty years after independence.”

International

World at the Crossroads Conference

- Kavita Krishnan.

(A ‘World at the Crossroads Conference’ was organized by the Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP), Resistance and Green Left Weekly at Sydney on 10-13 April. Kavita Krishnan, who represented CPI(ML) at the Conference, reports.)

As the world reels from a severe recession, as wars, occupation and repression scar the entire globe, and as climate change threatens the very future of humanity, it is widely acknowledged that the world is in a crisis. But the nearly 500 people from six continents gathered at Sydney on 10-12 April weren’t there for a mere academic discussion of the crisis. They were there to say the world has a choice. The same choice that Rosa Luxembourg spoke of so long ago: a choice between socialism and barbarism – one could say today, socialism and devastation. The theme of the Conference – “World at a Crossroads” – expressed this choice, and its slogan – “fighting for socialism in the 21st century” – declared the determination to struggle to make the world turn left at the crossroads!

At the Conference, more than 70 activists representing a range of countries, movements and revolutionary parties, addressed 42 workshops and several plenary sessions, sharing experiences and strategies, and engaging in debates on issues ranging from climate change and meltdown to nationality struggles, cultural resistance and struggles and revolutions taking place across the world.

The Conference opened with an ‘Acknowledgement of Aboriginal Land’ by Aboriginal activist Jenny Munro, who reminded a packed hall that the conference was being held on land stolen from the indigenous Gadigal people of the Eora nation.

Capitalism’s Crises and Our Solutions

The opening session was on ‘Capitalism’s Crises and Our Solutions’ – addressed by Reihana Mohideen, leader of the newly formed Party of Labouring Masses in the Philippines, David Spratt, co-author of Climate Code Red, and Michael Lebowitz, renowned Marxist economist, now at the Centro Internacional Miranda, Venezuela, and author of Build it now: Socialism For the 21st Century.

Speaking at the session, Michael Lebowitz, said that the crisis notwithstanding, capitalism would not collapse by itself; it could restructure itself to ride over the crisis. To prevent this, it was important to educate people regarding the crisis. Struggles of the working class and the people in themselves were not enough – but these struggles are important because people change in the course of struggles. The task for revolutionaries is “to make the crisis in capitalism become a crisis of capitalism”, he said.

US Imperialism and the “War on Terror”

The next session featured a discussion on the “war on terror” in Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the world, assessing the situation after the election of US President Obama and his promises of ‘change’. Speaking at this session, DSP leader Pip Hinman confronted the lie peddled by US and Australian governments that the war in Afghanistan is the “good war”. Pointing out that Obama had intensified the US offensive in Afghanistan, she called for “all Australian troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan now.” Salim Vally, spokesperson for Palestine Solidarity Committee (South Africa), spoke of how there were photographs of Obama, as Illinois Senator, attending Arab fund-raising dinners with Palestinian academic Edward Said. This is marked contrast to his silence on Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and his declaration that “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and must remain undivided.” He reminded of the racist remark that the father of Rahm Emanuel had made on his son’s appointment as Obama’s new Chief of Staff: “Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn’t he be? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to clean the floors of the White House.” Vally concluded that “Martin Luther King spoke the truth to power, Obama spoke lies to get into power.”

Two young medical doctors from the Australian Tamil community, Arun Murali and Pramod Devendra, held the hall captive with a quietly moving talk on the Sri Lankan government’s war on Tamils. Sri Lanka spends 45% of its gross domestic product on the war against the Tamils, they said. They said that after the Holocaust, the world said ‘Never again’ – and yet, at Palestine, at the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka, the genocide continues, and “the world continues not just to ignore it but continues to fund it.”

“Change the System, not the Climate”

Addressing another major session on ‘Confronting the climate change crisis: an eco-socialist perspective,’ Ian Angus, founder of the Eco-socialist International Network and editor of Climate and Capitalism, said that the ‘worst-case scenarios’ painted by the IPCC on climate change had proved too optimistic. ‘Green’ capitalists, he said, could offer nothing more than ‘greenwash.’ Now, increasingly, even those like James Gustave Speth, called the “ultimate insider” within the environmental movement, once part of the Carter and Clinton administrations, has penned a searing critique of capitalism. In his 2008 book Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability, he concluded that thanks to capitalism’s built-in tendency to unbridled growth, “Capitalism as we know it today is incapable of sustaining the environment.”

Angus fervently advocated the espousal of ‘eco-socialism’ as a kind of socialism that embraced and expanded the legacy of ecological views embedded in socialism. Stressing that only such a socialism could save the planet, he quoted Walter Benjamin’s remark (in the context of Marx’s description of revolutions as the locomotives of history) that “Perhaps revolutions are not the train ride, but the human race grabbing for the emergency brake.”

Socialism: For a Full Development Human Potential

In a lucid and energetic talk that provoked much discussion and debate, Michael Lebowitz outlined the contours of what socialism really was. It’s easy to say what socialism is not, he said; but socialism is much more than the mere opposite of capitalism. Socialism is nothing less than society that creates conditions for the “fullest possible development of human beings.” In this context, he discussed the experience of building the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela.

Revolt and Revolutions in Latin America

One of the sessions which generated the maximum enthusiasm was the one discussing the tumultuous developments in Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia. Representing Cuba here was Abelardo Curbelo, no ordinary Cuban ambassador to Australia, because he is also a veteran of the Cuban revolution and central committee member of the Cuban Communist Party. He asked his audience to closely watch the developments at the impending Summit of the Americas at Port of Spain on April 17-19, from which Cuba was excluded, warning that Obama might be confronted by a remarkable display of solidarity for Cuba from the very countries which the US had taken to be pliant pawns. For decades, he said, the USA had isolated Cuba in Latin America – but now, among all the nations of the Americas and the world, the only country to have no relations with Cuba is the USA!

Nelson Davila, founding member of Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement (MBR-200), and head of Venezuela’s diplomatic mission to Australia reiterated that ‘US hegemony in the region is finished!’

Luis Bilbao, Argentinean Marxist and participant in the construction of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, comprehensively analysed the spectre of Latin American solidarity that haunted US imperialism. The revolutionary assertion of indigenous nationalism in Bolivia was also discussed.

The conference celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution, the 10th anniversary of the Venezuelan revolution, and the electoral victory of the FMLN at El Salvador. Slogans of ‘Uh! Ah! Chavez No Se Va’ (Chavez isn’t going anywhere) rent the air, and toasts were raised the revolutions. Representatives of the Communist Party of Vietnam also addressed the Conference and were greeted enthusiastically.

Resistance to Neo-liberalism in the Global South

Another session, on the growing resistance to neoliberalism in the global South was addressed by representatives from East Timor, Zimbabwe and India. Addressing the session, Kavita Krishnan, of the CPI(ML) spoke of movements in India against the economic and foreign policies imposed by the Indian ruling class committed to remaining in the US’ strategic embrace. Challenging the myth of India’s ‘neoliberal success story,’ she spoke of the reality of farmers’ suicides – but also of peasants’ resistance to corporate land grab, and the struggles of agricultural labourers and unorganized workers led by CPI(ML) for employment and food security. Condemning the denial of visa to the comrade of Labour Party Pakistan who was to attend the Conference, she hailed the victory of Pakistani people on the street as an assertion of democratic spirit, and said CPI(ML) had mobilized students and youth against the anti-Pakistan hysteria whipped up by India’s ruling class. She also expressed solidarity with the aspirations of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka for self-determination, and condemned India’s ruling class for its support to the Sri Lankan war on Tamil people.

At the final session of the conference, Canadian socialist Ian Angus, M. Saraswathy, deputy chairperson of the Socialist Party of Malaysia, Daphne Lawless, central committee member of Socialist Worker (New Zealand), and Peter Boyle, DSP national secretary, spoke of the future of socialist struggles and stressed the need for unity among socialist forces.

Throughout the Conference, a series of workshops took place, with lively discussions. A sample: ‘Why be a Marxist today’, the French Left and the remarkable people’s struggles and workers’ strikes in France, cultural resistance, and detailed discussions of the struggles and debates on the left in a range of countries. Kavita Krishnan addressed two such workshops: one on ‘Sexism and the System,’ along with Reihana Moideen (Philippines) and Jay Fletcher (Green Left Weekly), and another on ‘Young socialists’ fighting back’ – where she discussed AISA’s experience along with a Resistance activist Jess Moore. And last but not least was the music, poetry and performances by cultural groups which made the Conference a celebration of the spirit of resistance.

The final session of the Conference passed two resolutions – demanding that the US Government immediately and unconditionally release the five Cubans imprisoned in the US since 1998 as alleged spies, but whose only ‘crime’ was to dare to resist the denial of the rights of Cuban people to determine their own social system and future; and expressing solidarity with the people and President of Bolivia (who was on hunger strike at the time of the Conference) in the struggle to have their democratic will respected and to advance the process of changing Bolivia in the interests of its majority.

Culture

Adieu Iqbal Bano!

- Liberation, May, 2009.

Adieu Iqbal Bano! You will live on as the sub-continent’s voice of defiance against tyranny

Iqbal Bano, the sub-continent’s beloved ghazal singer, born in India and trained in the Dilli Gharana by the legendary Ustad Chand Khan, passed away on April 21 2009 in Lahore at the age of 74.

In the hearts of all who knew and loved her music is the memory of that day: when, in protest against the jailing of the subcontinent’s foremost Left poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz by General Zia-ul Haq, she sang Faiz’s immortal song ‘Hum Dekhenge’ (We shall witness) at a Lahore stadium full of 50, 000 people, wearing a black sari in defiance of Zia’s ban on the sari. As her liquid voice reached the crescendo – declaring ‘Certainly we, too, shall witness that day … When these high mountains/Of tyranny and oppression turn to fluff and evaporate/And we oppressed/ Beneath our feet will this earth shiver, shake and beat/And heads of rulers will be struck/With crackling lightening and thunder roars/When crowns will be flung in the air — and thrones will be overturned….,” people joined with slogans of ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ (Long Live Revolution!). In future years, Faiz would be requested, “Please recite that song of Iqbal Bano’s” – because she had made it her own. Smug Indian commentators like to contrast the supposedly superior democratic culture of India’s people with the supposed passivity of Pakistan’s people – but it is Pakistan that gave us that immortal moment of democratic culture – where thousands of people sang in defence of a jailed atheist and communist poet – who had drawn upon progressive traditions within Islam to confront the zealot Zia.

Iqbal Bano – As the people of the sub-continent confront the tyrannies of their governments, of imperialism and of jingoistic hate-mongering, yours will be the voice that will reflect their unity, their defiance, their confidence that one day, tyranny will be defeated and the people will triumph…

]]> http://mlint.wordpress.com/2009/05/10/75/feed/ 0 mlint http://mlint.wordpress.com/2009/03/08/65/ http://mlint.wordpress.com/2009/03/08/65/#comments Sun, 08 Mar 2009 19:08:08 +0000 mlint http://mlint.wordpress.com/?p=65 ]]>

March-April 2009

Table of Contents

1) Forward to a Vigorous Election Campaign on People’s Issues!

2) Budget: No Relief for Indian Poor Ravaged by Economic Crisis

3) CPI (ML) Protests against the War in Sri Lanka

4) Sri Lanka: A Matter of Judgment

5) Crackdown on Health Employees, Students

6) Defending Workers During Meltdown or Countdown for Elections?

7) Participation of AICCTU in the Indian Labour Conference (ILC)

8) Red Flag Hoisted on Satyam’s Lands

9) Film Review: Slumdog Millionaire

Indian Elections

Forward to a Vigorous Election Campaign on People’s Issues!

- Liberation, March, 2009.

India is bracing up for Lok Sabha polls under the dark shadows of a deepening economic crisis that our ruling elite has managed to import from the United States of America. The UPA government’s response to the crisis/recession has been essentially two-pronged. First, they are shifting the burden onto the shoulders of the common people while pampering the corporate biggies. Soon after the financial tsunami struck India, the government announced tax cuts to the tune of some 50,000 crore (1 crore = 10 million) rupees and in the recently held Indian Labour Conference Pranab Mukherjee suggested wage cuts as a pretext for avoiding job cuts — this at a time when corporate honchos are taking astronomical sums — anywhere between rupees 20 to 50 crore — as what is now called compensation! In the name of stimulus spending the interim budget has left a gap of 5.5 percent of gross domestic product in the coming fiscal year, way above the three per cent estimate made earlier. This will further worsen stagflation: the deadly double curse of price rise combined with economic stagnation and slowdown. The government says spending to revive the economy is more important now than worrying about the deficit. This would really make sense if the funds were utilised for facilitating employment in badly affected segments like textiles, gems and jewellery, leather, construction, retail trade etc.; for helping farmers of crops like cotton, rubber and coffee who are facing sharp price falls; and for expanding the scope of NREGA as well as introducing similar schemes for the urban poor. But the focus of the interim budget is not on expanding the home market by augmenting people’s purchasing power; it is on corporate welfare and unproductive sectors. Thus defence expenditure has been raised by a whopping 35 per cent on top of a 10 per cent increase last year, the major chunk of which will flow out to arms exporters like the US and Israel rather than creating effective demand within the country.

The second plank of the government’s policy orientation continues to be dependence on and concessions to footloose foreign capital. To cite one recent example, it is actively considering a proposal to lift restrictions on foreign investors to buy up stakes in its domestic airlines. True to tradition dating back to the early 1990s, the Congress-led government is utilising the crisis for selling out the country’s residual economic sovereignty to imperialist powers. Naturally this is accompanied by further erosion of our political independence, the direct FBI involvement in Mumbai investigations after the terrorist attacks being a case in point. The real meaning of “strategic partnership” between India and the US is thus getting clearer.

Economic woes and imperialist intervention apart, the pre-poll scene is marked by the growing menace of communalism. LK Advani in his inaugural election rally at Gorakhpur responded to the loud chants of “Jai Sri Ram” by saying that this will be realised only after the Ram temple is built in Ayodhya. Advani’s promises of Mandir and hanging of Afzal Guru indicate the BJP’s overtly communal plank in the coming election. Advani was audacious enough even to claim that Muslims were very happy in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, where they reportedly enjoyed the highest per capita income in the country.

It is against these and other enemies like draconian laws and the repressive state that popular resistance must be intensified. A vigorous election campaign of genuine left and democratic forces focusing on people’s issues can serve as a very good instrument for this.

Resist the ravaging expedition of unbridled capital!

Uphold the banner of self-reliance and people’s welfare against the present reign of elitist and pro-US policies!

Champion the cause of people’s unity and democracy against the twin threats of communalism and terrorism!

March forward to raise the people’s voice inside Parliament!

Indian Budget

No Relief for Indian Poor Ravaged by Economic Crisis, Bailout for Global Arms Industry

- Liberation, March, 2009.

The interim budget presented by the Finance Minister – the last in the tenure of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government – displays a total unconcern for those ravaged by the global economic crisis. There is no indication of any measures to bring relief to those lakhs (100, 000s) of people who have lost and are fast losing their jobs in various sectors – like textiles, garments, gemstones, jewellery etc. No announcement of an effective and adequate stimulus package was made. No concrete promise was made of increased public spending in various crisis-ridden sectors of the Indian economy and society. However, keeping impending elections in mind, further concessions and bail-out packages for the India Inc. has been kept off for the post election general budget; there are therefore no changes in tax rates, exemption limits and the fiscal policy for the time being.

Even the much-touted increase in allocation for “flagship” schemes like NREGA is also an eyewash. Actually, the Plan allocation for the current fiscal is Rs. 30,000 crore (1 crore = 10 million) – revised from the previously declared allocation of Rs. 16,000 crore. This reflects only what the Government has already spent on NREGA: which is far below the actual needs of the scheme. The Plan allocation for the next fiscal year 2009-10 is just Rs. 30,100 crore, a tiny and far from adequate increase indeed. Further, while the total revised allocation for the Rural Development Ministry for the current fiscal is Rs. 64,854 crore, for the year 2009-10 the allocation has actually been slashed by 14.93%.

Pranab Mukherjee’s excuse is that the Government has “no mandate,” in its fag end, to introduce any far-reaching measures. This fact, however, did not stop the UPA Government just prior to the Budget session from bypassing Parliament to introduce new investment norms that virtually throw open the entire economy to foreign direct investment (FDI). According to these changed norms, FDI caps stand nullified, since investments by companies “owned or controlled” by Indians having substantial foreign capital are excluded. Even as legislation is pending in Parliament to raise the FDI cap in insurance, and working-class protests have prevented caps from being raised further in various other sectors, this piece of subterfuge allows FDI and foreign players to take control of sensitive sectors of the Indian economy via the backdoor. The very same forces responsible for the global economic crisis are being allowed to rampage into India unchecked.

The stipulations of the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act have been thrown to the winds. As against the original FRBM target of achieving zero Revenue Deficits (RD) by 31^st March, 2009, the RD for 2008-09 has zoomed to 4.4% of GDP-1% higher than the budgeted figure. Similarly, Fiscal Deficit for 2008-09 also escalates to 6% of GDP as against 2.5% target. The projected corresponding figures for 2009-10 are 4% and 5.5% of GDP respectively. The government has already printed 1 lakh crore of paper money to make good the deficit.

The government is presently tinkering with the monetary policy to manage the economic slowdown and liquidity crunch. Government borrowing has jumped to two and a half times the budget estimates from 1.3 lakh crore to 3.3 lakh crore.

Unmatched with the fund crunched exchequer defence outlay has suddenly been increased by 34%. The pretext of “no mandate” has not caused the UPA Government to have any hesitation in introducing this massive hike in defence allocations – a whopping Rs 1,41,703 crore. This, when the Government was unable to utilise Rs. 7000 crore from last year’s allocation. Last year itself, the country’s defence budget shot past Rs 1 lakh crore for the first time, three times more than the expenditure on health and education. This time, the Mumbai terror attacks have provided the pretext for yet another steep hike in defence spending.

The Defence Ministry has “assured” the arms industry at the recently held arms expo near Bangalore that defence spending is “recession proof.” At the expo, it was Israeli and US arms manufacturers who dominated the show. In the past decade, India has emerged as Israel’s largest client and also the largest arms importer among the developing countries. In effect, at a time of recession, the UPA Government with its hiked defence budget has chosen to bailout the global arms industry rather than the Indian poor.

The slowdown in manufacturing and capital goods sector is not likely to be arrested by this budget. The Service sector is also to follow suit. The manufacturing may slip down to recession in the next year. The attrition in white-collar employment in finance, IT and information technology enabled services (ITES) is sure to go up in view of the global recession and blue-collar employment in sectors like gems and jewellery, garments, textiles, construction etc. is already gripped with huge attrition. The country is already in a state of stagflation and may slip into a deflationary situation due to acute slump in demand. The US, UK, Euro Zone and Japan, which account for more than 50% of India’s exports, are in the grip of nagging recession and hence the exports scenario appears very gloomy. As a result, both balance of trade and balance of payment position of the country is likely to deteriorate badly.

The Interim Rail Budget too is nothing but populist eyewash. The Rail Minister claims to have reduced fares – but was silent on the pre-budget hike in freight charges on agricultural commodities, iron ore and steel. This measure will inevitably further hike the price of essential commodities and is yet another burden on the shoulders of the recession-hit aam aadmi (common person). Also, the very day the Interim Rail Budget was presented; there was a major accident on the Coromandel Express in Orissa, followed by another in Bihar the very next day. These accidents point to the total neglect of public spending on rail safety, something the Rail Minister’s boasts cannot explain away.

In a budget speech that shamelessly doubled as election propaganda for the Congress party, Pranab Mukherjee ended with the claim that “our people will surely recognise the hand… that alone can help our nation on the road to peace and prosperity”. We can well say that the people of India in the impending elections will surely recognise the hand that gave succour to the imperialist US when its credibility was lowest and dragged the Indian people deeper into the abyss of the global recession.

South Asia

CPI (ML) Protests against the War in Sri Lanka

-  ML Update, 17-23 February, 2009.

The Delhi State Committee of CPI (ML) held a demonstration outside the Parliament in New Delhi on 16 February in protest against the ongoing war on the Tamils in Sri Lanka. The protest meeting was addressed by CPI (ML) Delhi State Secretary Sanjay Sharma, All India Students Association (AISA) State Secretary Rajan Pande, Delhi State Committee member Santosh Rai, All India Progressive Women’s Organization (AIPWA) National Secretary Kavita Krishnan and others. Coinciding with the Delhi demonstration, all over Tamil Nadu and Puducherry CPI (ML) activists came out on streets demanding the Manmohan-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to stop all military aid to Sri Lanka and pressurize the Rajapakse government to stop the war massacring the Tamil minorities in Srilanka immediately and start a political process for a democratic resolution. Starting from Kanyakumari to Chennai, Sirkazhi (Nagappattinam dist.) to Coimbatore, Party and mass organization leaders and activists assembled on the streets. Politburo member S. Kumarasamy participated in Pudukottai demonstration. Balasundaram, State Secretary of the party took part in Ulundurpet (Villupuram district). Apart from these, demonstrations were held in Salem, Kumarapalayam, Kattu Mannar Koil (Cuddalore district) and Tirunelveli. In Puducherry, Balasubramanian, State Secretary and Balasundaram, State secretary of Tamil Nadu, led the demonstration. Also on February 4th, CPI (ML) State units of Tamil Nadu and Puduchery observed a state-wide general strike on the same issue. Party cadres were arrested in Villupuram district for enforcing the strike call.

South Asia

Sri Lanka: A Matter of Judgment

- S Sivasegaram.

In bourgeois democracy, the legislature and the judiciary avoid treading on each other’s toes. Yet there is the occasion of questioning the legality of an act of parliament or a controversial verdict of a court of law. Sadly for Sri Lanka’s fragile democracy the number of occasions have been a few too many. The most recent one followed the Supreme Court (SC) ruling on a fundamental rights petition on a controversial oil hedging deal entered into by the state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) that made it liable for around US$ 750 million to five commercial banks; and flared up after a subsequent ruling on the pricing of petrol.

On 28th November 2008 the SC issued an interim order to the CPC to suspend payments to the banks, to which it had already paid US$ 32 million. The SC also ordered the suspension of the Chairman and the Deputy General Manager of the CPC and asked for the removal of the minister in charge. The officials were removed after some hesitation; but not the minister. A succession of pointing fingers led to much discomfort for the government. A ruling on 17th December by the SC on the pricing of petrol called for a price reduction from Rs. 122 per litre to Rs. 100 or less. The CPC, on government instruction, refused to comply while its only rival, the Lanka Indian Oil Corporation (LIOC), reduced on the price to 100 rupees on 19th December but reverted to its earlier price under pressure. The SC rulings infuriated the President as they undermined the government’s credibility and meant a drop in CPC profits earmarked for purposes including the bulging defence budget. Open threats were made about impeaching the Chief Justice (CJ), which, under the constitution, needs only a simple majority in an impeachment motion in parliament. It was also unnecessary as the CJ is due for retirement in a few months and until then would only be a temporary discomfort. The CJ, meantime, in view of non-compliance by the CPC, cancelled all earlier rulings regarding the CPC making it once again liable to pay the banks.

Earlier Issues

The Supreme Court has intervened earlier in issues of greater consequence. Its power was not an issue when the rulings suited the government, like the one in mid-2005 (under the previous President) against the setting up of a provisional body for tsunami relief in the North-East, the de-merging of the Northern and Eastern Provinces in 2007, and rulings against strikes. The SC has embarrassed the government by ruling against proposed changes to school admission procedure, and against the expulsion of Tamils from Colombo by the police in 2008, which were resented but complied with. However, judges have continued to be intimidated from time to time.

The roots of the present contradiction go back to February 2006, hardly three months since the President took office, when two senior judges of the three-member Judicial Service Commission suddenly resigned based on ‘matters of conscience’, and no other reason. It was an expression of the simmering state of discontent within the Commission, but the President, as the head of state, did not ask the judges for details of the ‘matters of conscience’ mentioned in their resignation letters addressed to him.

In May 2006, the President bypassed the Constitutional Council (CC), whose term had lapsed in May 2005, to fill vacancies in the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal, without following the constitutional provisions. The government, despite protests from the opposition parties, the legal profession, other professional bodies, and public interest organisations, has delayed the nomination of six new members to the CC from among members of parliament.

Roots of the Crisis

The plight of the judiciary begins with the Constitution of 1978 granting sweeping powers to the executive president. The legal fraternity hailed its provisions to protect the independence of the judiciary, in the context of irritating aspects of the earlier Constitution of 1972 which declared Sri Lanka a republic. Practice proved to be otherwise. The President and the parliament where his party, the United National Party (UNP) had a massive majority since election in 1977 systematically undermined the judicial system; and by a ‘referendum’ held in 1983 improperly extended the term of the parliament to 1989.

The government disposed of judges it did not like, appointed others, and gave preferential treatment to some, as part of a process of “reconstitution” of the courts under the provisions of the Constitution. Even the favoured ones, including a former Chief Justice who fell foul of the President, were humiliated. The government went a long way to ensure that the law of the land did not obstruct its vindictive agenda. On 20th November 1978 a law was passed with retrospective effect to declare as “null and void and of no force and effect whatsoever” the judgement and order of the Court of Appeal in a writ application by former prime minister Sirima Bandaranaike against a ruling by the Special Presidential Commission of Inquiry (SPCI), set up for the express purpose of depriving her of civic rights. Hand-picked members of the judiciary in the SPCI loyally delivered the goods without further legal hindrance.

There were attacks and threats against the members of the judiciary for giving verdicts hostile to the interests of the government. Verdicts had been spurned. On 8th February 1983 a bench of the SC ruled unanimously that the seizure by the Superintendent of Police, Gampaha, of pamphlets carrying an appeal by Pavidi Handa (Voice of C1ergy) to hold the genera1 election due in 1983, was an illegal infringement of the right of expression and publication, and awarded Rs.10 000 costs and Rs. 2 000 damages to the petitioner. On 2nd March the Cabinet decided to promote the offending police officer, and to pay the damages and costs out of state funds. In another instance, the Supreme Court delivered judgment, again unanimously, on a fundamental rights case relating to the unlawful arrest of former MP Mrs Vivienne Goonewardene at an International Women’s Day demonstration on 8th June 1983, by a sub-inspector of police, awarding Rs. 2 000 as damages, and recommending police investigation of further allegations by her. The next day, an official communiqué from the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence announced that the work done by the sub-inspector in dispersing the procession has been gone into and that it has been decided that he should be given a special promotion. Accordingly the he was promoted to the rank of Inspector Class II.

Attempts at Salvation

It was as a result of such blatant abuse of power by the government that in 2001, well after the defeat of the UNP government in 1994, the 17th Amendment to the Constitution was unanimously passed by parliament to stipulate independent supervision over important appointments in public service and key commissions. Hailed domestically and regionally as a creditable effort towards remedying a highly-politicised police and public service in particular, the Amendment made it necessary for appointments to the commissions and offices concerned to be approved by an apolitical, 10-member Constitutional Council (CC). The intervening authority of the CC was to be an external check over the unrestrained presidential fiat in appointments. Its composition envisaged a process of consensual decision-making by the constituent political parties in parliament. It is that very CC that has been prevented from functioning for the past three and a half years.

It is not my case that the judiciary has been whiter than white. The present CJ was himself subject of an impeachment motion for personal misconduct, proposed by members of the opposition UNP in 2005, which was abandoned as a part of a shady deal to resurrect the political career of a UNP leader who was behind bars for contempt of court. The latter part of the deal was not honoured.

The prospects for the independence of judiciary seem no better than those for democracy and human rights in the country, let alone its economy and the national question. But the situation is not hopeless. The country has had a tradition of sustained struggles for democratic and human rights which need to be revived and restructured to encompass a larger number of issues based on an anti-imperialist, anti-chauvinist democratic agenda.

Working Class Struggles

Crackdown on Health Employees, Students:

Paving the Way for Privatisation of Health and Education

- Liberation, March, 2009.

Behind the imposition of Essential Service Maintenance Act (ESMA) and arrest of leading union activists among health workers in Delhi and the rustication of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Students’ Union leadership and student activists in JNU lies the covert agenda of privatisation of health and education.

2.5 lakh (1 lakh = 100, 000) health employee workers across the country, under the banner of the All India Health Employees and Workers Confederation, have been struggling for the past several months against the recommendations of the 6th Pay Commission of contractualisation and outsourcing of health services. When repeated appeals to the Prime Minister and Health Minister, as well as a massive demonstration at Parliament and nation-wide protests, failed to result in any dialogue with the Central Government, health employees and workers were forced to go on strike on February 23. The Government responded with threats and imposition of ESMA in Delhi. Five leaders including Comrade Ramkishan, Convenor of the Confederation were arrested, homes of at least 30 leaders of the Confederation were raided and individual letters were issued to all employees threatening termination and eviction from their homes. Comrade Ramkishan was taken into police custody on the night of 27 February; charges of violation of ESMA were imposed on him on 28 February and he was sent to Tihar jail (he has now been released on bail). Following the arrest of the leaders, the agitation intensified in Delhi, and the Delhi Government eventually conceded some of the major demands of the employees and workers of hospitals and health services administered by the Delhi Government. Those of centrally-administered health services like the central government health services (CGHS) are yet to get any relief, since the Central Government has done little except issue threats. However, the strike has been called off, keeping in mind the partial victory achieved vis a vis the Delhi Government, and also keeping in mind the inconvenience caused to the public by continuance of the strike – something for which the Central Government showed no concern.

At the Jawarhalal Nehru University (JNU), students for the past month have been engaged in a protracted struggle against a whole package of commercialization measures unleashed by the Administration. Making calculated use of the Supreme Court stay (based on the Lyngdoh Committee’s recommendations) on the JNUSU elections, the JNU Administration has bypassed the JNU Students’ Union [JNUSU] (now led by the AISA) to push through measures like hiking of the Prospectus fee by 67%, razing down trees and flattening out the ecologically-sensitive area of Parthasarathy Rock area in order to make it available for shooting of films and advertisements on a commercial basis, installing individual meters in hostel rooms with plans to levy ‘user charges’ on students for electricity, and violations of modalities for implementation of OBC reservations. Literally thousands of students turned out in massive protests – forcing the administration to withdraw some of the measures like the renting out of PSR rocks and user charges for electricity.

But on the issue of hike in the prospectus price, the Administration remained adamant. However, to maintain the pretence of being ‘pro-poor’, the JNU Administration proposed a clause that applicants from Below Poverty Line (BPL) families could avail the prospectus free of cost – a piece of tokenism that amounts to 100% subsidy for 0% applicants, when it is well known that availing a BPL certificate is a process fraught with many problems, and there is no adequate data on the extent to which such families are able to avail education, let alone enter the realm of higher education and apply for a JNU prospectus. As a symbolic response to the closing down of dialogue by the Administration, the JNU students’ union closed down one of the admission counters. Within a few hours of this symbolic protest, the Administration responded by rusticating the JNUSU President Sandeep Singh for two years, and Vice President Shephalika Shekhar and Joint Secretary Mobeen Alam, as well as two other senior activists for a year each. 9 students have been on hunger strike for the past five days, accompanied by many others on relay hunger strike, in protest against this draconian measure.

The AISA had conducted a national campaign in February against the ‘virtual emergency’ in campuses, arguing that the crackdown on student union elections in many campuses including JNU is necessary for governments that intend to privatise and commercialise education. The events in JNU, happening in the wake of the stay on the JNUSU elections by the Supreme Court, are proving the point of the campaign.

Privatising and commercializing health and education are policies dictated by the imperialist funding agencies and imposed by India’s ruling class. Unions and struggles of workers and students are the biggest hurdle in the path of such policies – and this is why the promoters of such policies seize every opportunity to victimize activists leading the movements. But crackdowns have never deterred movements – and the UPA Government can be sure that in the impending elections, it will pay for the crackdown on central government health employees and students of a leading central university.

Working Class Struggles

Indian Labour Conference: Defending Workers During Meltdown or Countdown for Elections?

- Liberation, March, 2009.

The 42nd Session of Indian Labour Conference (ILC) was held recently in Delhi. While at the inaugural session Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes took the opportunity to extol a range of Congress leaders down the generations, and to showcase the ‘achievements’ of the UPA Government, such as NREGA. As workers face a crisis of survival due to the meltdown, the ILC was being used as a platform for a countdown to elections! Instead of any review of the sorry record of implementation of schemes like NREGA, the ILC was instead being used to project these schemes. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee prescribed austerity and ‘wage cuts’ as an alternative to job cuts. Obviously such ‘austerity’ was not meant by the finance minister (FM) to apply to rich CEOs who, as recent reports show, continue to earn obscenely high salaries and indulge in unabated conspicuous consumption and lavish lifestyles. These latter continue to get huge sops and subsidies unabated – while the FM preaches ‘wage cuts’ for workers! This, while the Government’s own Arjun Sengupta Committee revealed that 77% of India’s people survive on Rs. 20 a day.

As a result of the made-in-USA crisis being imported by the Indian ruling class onto Indian shores, at least 20 lakh workers have been rendered jobless in just a few months. Several industries face ruin – particularly export-oriented ones like textiles, diamond etc., as well as automobile, steel, construction; and workers all around face severe wage cuts and increased workload. For the past several years, lakhs of farmers have been committing suicide – a haemorrhaging wound refusing to heal in spite of some band-aids applied by governments time and again. Now, there are ominous signs of this trend shifting to workers too – seventy-one laid-off diamond workers have committed suicide in Gujarat:; the state admiringly hailed as a ‘development model’ by the corporate class.

Meanwhile there is an all-pervading contractualisation of jobs in the name of promoting competitiveness – even in public sector units like steel, coal, oil and government departments like Railways, and core and perennial jobs too. The Central government, which used to be termed the ‘model employer’ has emerged as the greatest violator of contract labour laws. Through the ILC, the Government should have at the very least promised to implement their own laws regulating contract labour with the utmost strictness. Instead, for the last five years the Government has been pushing for amending the labour laws – thereby sending a clear signal to the employers that it condones their violations of the law of the land, and wants to turn those violations into policy!

Even the Government’s showpieces like the Unorganized Workers’ Act is far from adequate (with no provision of permanent fund and empowered boards) to address the needs and aspirations of the unorganized workers: the largest component of workforce. The crying need of the situation is that the Government must come out with a declaration to halt retrenchment/lay offs, wage cuts and closure on the pretext of financial crisis; and take measures to increase the purchasing power of common people.

Nothing less than reversing the disastrous economic policies – that favour corporates at the cost of the labouring poor – and delinking from the disastrously sinking ship of US imperialism – can correct the course and benefit the working people of India. No amount of window-dressing or manipulation of platforms like the ILC can change this fact.

Working Class Struggles

Participation of AICCTU in the 42nd Session of Indian Labour Conference (ILC)

- Liberation, March, 2009.

The 42nd Session of Indian Labour Conference (ILC) was held on 20-21 February 2009 in New Delhi. It was inaugurated by the Minister of External Affairs, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee and the Presidential address was delivered by the Minister of State (IC) for Labour & Employment, Mr. Oscar Fernandes. The representatives of workers, employers and the central & various state govts./UTs and central ministries/departments participated in the conference. The agenda of the conference was: 1 (a) All Issues connected with contractualisation of Labour (b) Issues related to Migrant Workers. 2. Role of Social Partners in appropriate skill development for employability. 3. Issues relating to Sales Promotion Employees in India. 4. Global Financial Crisis – its effects viz., large scale downsizing, layoffs, wage cut and job losses, etc. On behalf of the All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), General Secretary Com. Swapan Mukherjee addressed the inaugural session. Led by him three more representatives participated in the different agenda items of the conference, namely Com. R. N. Thakur on agenda regarding issues related to contractualization and migrant labour; Com. S. Balasubramanian on global financial crisis, and Com. Santosh Rai on issues of sales promotion workers in India.

This is the first time AICCTU officially participated (as delegates) in the ILC after getting national recognition (in the last session it participated in observer category). The participation was organized and effective. Com. Swapan addressing the inaugural session lambasted the Congress Party for using the ILC as election propaganda platform while prescribing wage cuts for workers. The delegation submitted its concrete suggestion on various items with effective participation on discussion on item nos. 1, 3 and 4.

Struggles in India

Red Flag Hoisted on Satyam’s Lands

- Liberation, March, 2009.

The Satyam scam has exposed corporate corruption and greed, protected by governments and even ‘watchdog’ institutions. Among the many aspects of the scam was the aspect of massive benami land transfers effected by Satyam. It became apparent that thousands of acres of land were acquired by Satyam – literally by hook or crook.

Land is a burning issue – in Andhra Pradesh (AP) as well as all over India. Land ceiling laws and laws against land grab have been openly violated, and the state has an abysmal track record of implementing land reforms. Governments, mouthing virtuous slogans of ‘development,’ have justified massive land grab to feed corporate greed. In AP, too, there have been fierce struggle against SEZs and other kinds of corporate land grab. Also, AP has seen militant struggles confronting the YSR Reddy Government on why it failed to keep its promise of house sites for the poor.

Now, the question arises, why rural poor are met with bullets (as at Mudigonda, Khammam) when they raise a legitimate demand for land; why anti-SEZ activists (as at Kakinada) are jailed; why, when the rural poor wage struggles to occupy ceiling-surplus and other kinds of land illegally grabbed from the poor, they are branded as ‘terrorists’; yet Ramalinga Raju and Satyam-Maytas were freely allowed to grab thousands of acres of land illegally – and both the previous NDA Government of Chandrababu Naidu as well as the present Congress Government of YSR Reddy turned a blind eye for so many years?

The CPI (ML), which has been at the forefront of land struggles in AP, acted promptly to corner the Government on this question as soon as the Satyam scam came to light. In Krishna district, the CPI (ML) Liberation and All India Agricultural Labourers’ Association (AIALA) unit of Andhra Pradesh conducted an investigation which revealed that the Prapurna Estate, an agricultural firm, is a benami company of Satyam computers located in Kondaparva village of Vissannapeta mandal in Krishna district. The Prapurna Estate holds about 375 acres of land out of which 232 acres were purchased from small peasants. 44 acres was purchased illegally from poor Dalits allotted land by the State government. Moreover hundred acres of revenue bungar lands have been illegally captured by this firm. An application to the government to lease this land to develop a medicinal plants farm was rejected by the District Collector a year back.

CPI (ML) and AIALA activists decided to mobilise masses of six villages to seize the Prapurna Estate lands illegally in control of Satyam-Maytas. On February 13, hundreds of people from Vissannapeta, Kondaparva, Jannardhanavaram and Chatrai village, (led by CPI(ML) District Secretary Comrade D Harinath and AIALA State President Comrade Pulla Rao), marched to the lands held by Satyam carrying red flags and entered the Prapurna Estates. They successfully managed to occupy some 250 acres of lands illegally acquired by Satyam. Initially the employees of Prapurna Estate tried to put up a resistance but were soon overwhelmed by the militant mood of the masses. Attempts by the police to chase away the people were in vain. Prapurna Estate employees and the police claimed that these lands were legally purchased by some person of West Godavari district to develop as an agricultural farm. Revenue officials also said to the media that these lands are legally purchased but not owned in any way by Satyam. The police, though hesitant to arrest the activists, has been open in its defence of the Prapurna Estate.

The CPI (ML) has demanded that the State should confiscate the lands from Satyam and redistribute them among the poor. The struggle brought to the fore the question of Government double standards over the question of land: its complicity with the bid by the rich and the corrupt to grab (and literally steal) land over which they have no right, and its repressive attitude towards the struggles of the poor for land which legitimately belong to them.

Film Review

Slum-lord Aesthetics and the Question of Indian Poverty

- Nandini Chandra, Liberation, March, 2009.

Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire (based on Indian diplomat Vikas Swaroop’s novel Q&A) is about a Bombay slum boy with his ample street knowledge who wins a twenty million dollar reality quiz show and then turns this into a universal tale of love and human destiny. In the quiz, Jamal is unable to answer questions that test his nationalist knowledge but is surprisingly comfortable with those that mark his familiarity with international trivia. For instance, while he knows that Benjamin Franklin adorns a 100 dollar bill, he has no clue about who adorns the 1000 rupee note. This is obviously meant to suggest the irrelevance of the nation to its most marginalized member but less obviously also indicates its supposed redundancy in a globalized neo-liberal setup.

The film is on an awards-winning roll, having won four Golden globes, it has won 8 Oscars this year, something that surely adds rather than subtracts from its imperial charm. The centrality of the neo-gothic structure of the Victoria Terminus as the transformative point in the film thus heralds a Dickensian aura as much as an imperial vision.

In contrast, Indians cannot quite see it in nationalist terms.

For one, Amitabh Bachchan’s blog has officially announced and sanctioned the hurt pride of nationalist Indians occasioned by the film’s exposure of its dirty underbelly. While one is unsympathetic to the chauvinist argument that outsiders have no right to depict the seamier side of native life; the way this hyper-nationalist sentiment has been refracted in the international press says something about the film’s motivations. For instance, most reports translate Bachchan’s statement as the Indian peoples’ inability to take a brutal look at themselves, assuming both that the so called west has a hotline with the underclass, and that Bachchan represents ‘the Indian people’.

Given this intermeshing of an Indian and global context surrounding the film’s production and reception, it becomes pertinent to frame the question of the specific nature of Indian poverty raised in the film. The film is hardly unique in addressing the spectacle of the Bombay poor, their dismal conditions of living and defecating. But what it does crystallize in very concrete terms is a general consensus achieved in recent years on the disengagement of labour from questions of poverty and wealth. Partha Chatterjee’s much talked about essay, Democracy and Economic Transformation (EPW, 19 April 2008), mobilizes the concept of a “political society” to merge the realm of peasant detritus and urban poor with petty-entrepreneurs as well as the more shadowy criminal class. His argument reads something like this: since this informal and irregular community has not been and cannot be integrated into the corporate-style capitalist structures, they not only lose out on the benefits of civil society, their only salvation lies in being appropriated by governmental structures and schemes. The idea therefore is to translate the poor’s lack of proletarian consciousness as an automatic admission into political-governmental terms without adequately addressing either the question of capital accumulation by forcible dispossession, through the judicious use of that very government’s repressive instruments in the first place or how to usefully channel this dispossessed labour surplus in a direction that will precipitate class struggle.

While the film in its neo-liberal optimism contradicts this understanding of the poor, seeing them as immediately appropriable within the interstices of corporatized service industries, it participates in the denial of the potential usefulness of the work they do and its lack of reward. However, like Chatterjee, it also insists on placing them outside the purview of the juridical civil state, where law and order do not prevail in the same familiar way, thus surrounding their lives with a mystique that films like Boyle’s can successfully unravel for a neo-liberal audience. Having been endowed with humanity and dignity, the poor cannot be seen through what is perceived as instrumental categories of labour or class anymore. They are instead seen as denizens of a shadowy, illicit realm which can be made comprehensible only by integrating it within certain humanist tropes like love and freedom. It is remarkable that the topography of the places in which the poor live is seen largely through aerial shots  mountains of garbage, huge green forests of wasteland, rivers of feces  and the little boys jumping back and forth through this panoramic natural landscape acquire the characteristic of blooming lotuses in mud. The goo scene in the beginning and the scene where a massive bogeyman-type figure gouges out the eyes of little children with a spoon are of course tightly framed to render the horror of the other world, which may be packaged for a poverty tour (like the one where Shantaram took Angelina Jolie by the hand and led her through the giddy lanes of Dharavi). The slum, the common tank where the mother was felled by one swoop of the Hindu fundamentalist sword, the brothel, the child labourer, the exploitative policemen, the curious school master in a dhoti and the mafia bosses are all stops on this guided tour which is only superficially different from the commodification of poverty one finds on the sets of more popular Bollywood fare. In fact, the new Bollywood aesthetics find an echo here in its severe eschewal of the institutions of state and civil society. But while Bollywood is equally welcoming of foreign capital, a non-Bollywood production like Slumdog takes on more immediately imperialist overtones. This is because the impetus of its rhetoric of good will and benevolence strives to conceal the conditions of its production, encapsulated by a patchy realism which seems to suggest that its real commitment is to the true heart of India, rather than a Bollywood imaginary which it uses merely as the scaffolding for its conventional plot’s unfolding.

The direct connectivity with an international public via tourism, call centres, media and other service industry networks makes the proximity to foreign capital extremely clear. The absence of an organized labour force or any political platform makes it possible to render the terms offered by this capital free of any vested interest.  For instance, the film is produced by Celador Films, the very company which originally created the “Who wants to be a Millionaire” contest, an idea never once mocked throughout the film. In fact, reality television with big money in rewards encourages the contestants to alternatively think of themselves as obligated to the jury and managers and entitled to earn or deserve the disproportionately large sums of money. At the same time, the ruthlessness with which the contestants are evicted draws brief attention to the bosses’ less than benign status as business entrepreneurs, only to deflect it to a professional ethic, which seeks to dignify its lottery or gambling mode. The dynamics of reality television get enacted when little Jamal is being propped up to be a singer by the beggar kingpin Mamman, and the little fellow really thinks his time has come. In true reality television fashion, he demands a fifty rupee note from him before he sings his piece, announcing that he is after all a professional.

The hotel kitchen seems like a refuge of freedom for the child waiter, who gets plenty of time off even as Salim complains of the utopian life they have left behind thieving tyres in the by-lanes of Agra. The tourist industry seems like a utopia of cast-offs and gullible ‘whities’ waiting to be ripped off by these wily self-appointed guides. In short, the film tries to show that for those who can think on their feet, access to wealth is not a problem. Child labour is not really seen as exploitative, but as enabling the education of these young adults. In fact, hardly do we perceive their contribution in terms of real labour. They are seen as gaining rather than giving to the system, sabotaging, picking up the leftovers, staying in empty hotel rooms, stealing from it. Their labour is forever in the background. What is in the foreground is the readymade wealth they are continually grabbing. Wealth is seen not as something created by labour but as already always there to be accessed like the 20 million to be won for the answering of 10 odd questions, a clear repudiation of the true dynamics of labour and class. Moreover, by making the state and civil society evaporate, the film is interested in showing that real harmony is ultimately produced by a direct interaction between capital and labour, in a context where capital will always be benefiting labour and not the other way round. This is probably an acknowledgement of the fact that under the present phase of free market enterprise, the state has proven itself such a good accomplice of capital that it need not even be reckoned with. The police, initially evil, are eventually reconciled to the market’s impartial dynamics when the Inspector comes round to Jamal’s story and escorts him to the media room.

The upper class body language of its avowedly slum-dwelling protagonists is a serious lapse in realism, as is the characterization of Anil Kapoor treating the slumdweller in an exaggeratedly condescending fashion. The use of English could have been justified by a simple suggestion that the boys picked it up from the streets of Agra or even the call centre. But what irritates the most is the fact that while they make an attempt to imbue the film with a self-consciously heroic Muslim profile, they overwrite it with a totally Hindu concept of destiny. Ironically, even the credit song jai-ho seems to suggest an orchestrated mass- pilgrimage to Vaishno-devi rather than the triumph of the Muslim underdog.

January-February 2009

Table of Contents

1) Workers, Students and Youth March to Parliament

2) India Must Not Succumb to the US Strategy of Proliferation of Terror

3) Corporate Governance and Nuclear End Games Cannot Make Us Secure

4) The Battle Now Begins for the Lok Sabha

5) Obama and ‘Change’: Analysis of the 2008 US Election

6) CPI (ML) Sankalp March on 6 December

7) Convention on Dalits’ Rights in Tamil Nadu, India

8) Sri Lanka: the State and the Media

9) New Book Examines the Character of the Deepening Crisis in Capitalist Globalization

Mumbai Attacks

Workers, Students and Youth March to Parliament

against Terrorism, Communalism, and Regional Chauvinism

- ML Update, 16-22 December, 2008.

On December 12, the streets of Delhi saw the largest mobilisation yet since the Mumbai terrorist attack of November 2008, with many thousands of students, workers and youth marching condemning the heinous attack in one voice, and paying tribute to the memory of its victims.

The media may be full of war cries trying to whip up a communal jingoistic frenzy, especially amongst youth, against Pakistan, and promoting army rule or dictatorship as an antidote to terror. This din is trying to drown out all the saner voices speaking out against US imperialism, or demanding investigation into the Sanghi terrorist network, punishment for regional chauvinists and communal hate-mongers, and justice against fake encounters and framing of innocents by the police. The March to Parliament on 12 December was a spirited rebuttal of these attempts to silence the voices of democracy and whip up a communal, anti-democratic and jingoistic frenzy.

Thousands of workers, students and youth from all over the country, under the banner of AISA (All India Students’ Association), Revolutionary Youth Association (RYA), AICCTU (All India Central Council of Trade Unions) and AIALA (All India Agricultural Labourers’ Association) marched towards Jantar Mantar from Ramlila grounds, holding up banners and placards and raising slogans proclaiming “Stop importing terror and economic crisis from the US,” “Shame on BJP for garnering votes in the name of terrorism,” “People’s Security = Democracy + Secularism + Anti-Imperialism; Recipe for Terrorism = Dictatorship + Communalism + Pro-US policies,” “Ban Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS)-Shiv Sena,” “Why bail for Raj Thackeray and Jail for protesting students – United Progressive Alliance (UPA) – National Democratic Alliance (NDA) must answer.” At the head of the March were CPI (ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, Politburo member Swadesh Bhattacharya, AICCTU general Secretary Swapan Mukherjee, AISA General Secretary Ravi Rai, RYA President Mohd. Salim and General Secretary Kamlesh Sharma, as well as Shri Kundan Singh, father of Rahul Raj, the young job-seeker killed in a police ‘encounter’ in Mumbai, and Prof. Naval Kishore Chaudhury, Head of Department, Economics, Patna University. Shri Kundan Singh held up a portrait of his son along with one of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh. The March culminated in a massive meeting at Parliament Street.

The meeting began by paying homage to the victims of terrorism, communal violence and regional chauvinism. Conducting the meeting, AISA General Secretary Ravi Rai was greeted by enthusiastic slogans and thousands of people clapping when he declared, ‘No war on Pakistan; united struggle of India and Pakistan against US Imperialism and the forces of terrorism!’ The meeting was addressed by AISA Vice President Abhyuday and RYA National President Mohd. Salim who recounted experiences of AISA’s and RYA’s leading role in the struggle against the MNS-Shiv Sena violence, which exposed the opportunism of UPA and NDA alike. AICCTU General Secretary Swapan Mukherjee said that the US economic crisis was being imported into India by the Manmohan Government – and workers were being laid off as a result. He demanded that instead of layoffs for workers and bailouts for corporates, the Government should resolve the crisis by reversing pro-US economic policies, and enhancing public expenditure in pro-poor schemes.

Addressing the gathering, Shri Kundan Singh said that the Maharashtra police, which had treated the marauding Shiv Sena and MNS cadre with kid gloves, had cold-bloodedly killed his son, Rahul. The fact that those in power were avoiding to order a probe into the ‘encounter’ proved that they had something to hide. In the quest for justice for Rahul, he expressed his sense of betrayal by the parties that swore by the cause of Bihar, and said that it was the students, youth and workers of Bihar who were his partners in the struggle.

Prof. Naval Kishore Chaudhury said that governments were showing double standards by soft-pedalling communal and chauvinistic forces. He demanded a ban on the MNS, Shiv Sena, as well as Bajrang Dal. Opposing war-mongering and jingoism, he said that democracy, peace and justice were the best guarantee against terrorism.

Addressing the mass meeting, CPI (ML) General Secretary Comrade Dipankar said that “some sections of the media and politicians are trying to peddle dictatorship, army rule, war with Pakistan and partnership with the US as solutions for India’s security. Pakistan’s own experience is proof that this is a recipe for disaster. India’s ruling class – both Congress and BJP – are hell-bent on shackling India to the globally hated US imperialist policies, and thus importing the US’ economic crisis as well as terrorism onto Indian soil. To fight terror India must first of all de-link her foreign policy from the American strategic stranglehold, and must engage Pakistan in a shared struggle against terror.”

Condemning the UPA and NDA parties and Governments for failing to protect the migrant workers, students and job-seekers of North India from the regional chauvinistic violence of the MNS-Shiv Sena, Comrade Dipankar said that “the Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Lok Janashakti Party (LJP), as well as Nitish’s Janata Dal (United) [JD (U)] have all proved equally hollow on the issue of confronting the MNS-Shiv Sena. It is the students and youth of Bihar and UP who challenged the MNS-Sena and yet they were punished with lathi-charges and jail.”

AIALA General Secretary Dhirendra Jha read out several resolutions, which were passed unanimously. A memorandum was submitted to the Home Minister as well as President of India. Apart from the above-mentioned concerns and demands, the memorandum also demanded legislation to ensure the security and dignity of migrant workers, and raised the concerns of the victims of the Kosi floods. The memorandum demanded year-long work under NREGA in these areas, as well as free and regular monthly rations, immediate temporary shelter and a time-bound provision of housing to all affected families.

Resolutions Adopted at the March to Parliament

1. This gathering expresses the deepest grief and condolences for the victims of the heinous terror attacks at Mumbai last month and for all the victims of bomb blasts and terrorist violence.

2. This gathering resolves to struggle against every brand of terrorism, communal violence and regional chauvinism, for a secular, democratic and united India. This gathering expresses the strongest condemnation of the political forces seeking to gather votes from the bloodshed in terror attacks and communal and regional-chauvinistic violence.

3. This gathering condemns the attempts to whip up demands for war, army rule, or partnership with the US as solutions to terrorism. We hold that a stronger democracy and de-linking from the pro-US policies as the foundation of our security. We condemn any attempt to whip up war between Pakistan and India, resist US meddling in the sub- continent, and call for a united struggle by India, Pakistan and Bangladesh against the shared problem of terrorism.

4. This gathering condemns the corporate bailouts and layoffs which can never be the way out of the current economic crisis. We demand that the Indian government reverse the disastrous policies of globalisation and stop importing the US economic crisis onto Indian soil, put an end to layoffs and instead enhance public expenditure and invest more in schemes for the poor in order to rejuvenate the economy.

5. This gathering condemns the UPA-NDA parties and governments for doing nothing to protect the migrant workers, job-seekers and students of North India who have been victims of regional chauvinistic violence by the MNS and Shiv Sena. We demand a ban on the MNS-Shiv Sena, prosecution of Raj and Bal Thackeray for murder, and withdrawal of all charges against students who were arrested for protesting against the violence. We demand a judicial enquiry into the ‘encounter’ in which Rahul Raj was killed in Mumbai.

6. We demand legislation to ensure the security and dignity of migrant workers, including rights like identity cards and comprehensive social security.

7. This gathering condemns the Nitish Government of Bihar for retreating from its promises to the victims of the Kosi floods. Relief camps are being closed and people forcibly evicted, and people are being forced to face the approaching severe cold without even minimum temporary shelters. Hunger and starvation loom large there. We demand year-long work under NREGA in these areas, involving their own rehabilitation work, free and regular monthly rations, immediate temporary shelter and a time-bound provision of housing to all affected families.

8. This gathering condemns the killer Soren Government for the recent police firing on adivasis protesting peacefully against land grab in Dumka, Jharkhand, and demands scrapping of all Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) and moratorium on land acquisition without people’s consent.

9. This gathering demands the immediate release of Dr. Binayak Sen and disbanding of the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh.

10. We demand a time-bound judicial enquiry into the Batla House ‘encounter’ and action against the Special Cell operatives found by the CBI to be guilty of framing two innocent Muslim youth as terrorists.

11. We demand a thorough probe into the role of the Sangh Parivar and Sanghi elements in the armed forces in terrorism.

Mumbai Attacks

India Must Not Succumb to the US Strategy of Proliferation of Terror

- Dipankar Bhattacharya, Liberation, January, 2009.

The recent siege of Mumbai for nearly three days by a small band of well trained terrorists has almost universally come to be described as India’s 9/11. In terms of sheer audacity of planning and execution, the places targeted and the sc