Are we living in a State that mouths peace but shoots its messengers?

Tehelka

FAKERY HAS always been a key instrument of power. But last week, as the President and Pr ime Minister of India made their Independence Day speeches, cocooned symbolically in towers of glass, the scale of that fakery shot skyward. Both leaders augustly urged the Maoists, yet again, to “abjure violence” and come for talks. Few among the millions of Indians who heard them would have caught the cynicism.

Swami Agnivesh certainly would have. It’s just over a month since the State shot down a man called Azad. There’s been some fitful noise over it. Civil society has protested valiantly; Mamta Banerjee has asked for a judicial inquiry. But for the most part, Indians have gone about their business, registering little and understanding even less. (I tried sharing some of its indignant shock with a public icon from Mumbai. He replied: “So what if they shot one guy?” The chasm was so wide, I subsided into silence.)

But the hard truth is the killing of Azad is a desperate new low in Indian public life. Azad was not just a key leader of the CPI(Maoist) — a mans whose death would be a face-saving notch on the carbines of competitive violence, one big fish to even the score for 76 jawans. He was a man mid-stream in a peace process initiated by the government itself. How could the State just ignore his death, then stand coldly on the ramparts of the Red Fort urging a new round of talks? Where are the certitudes that make the foundation of a civilised society?

Much of the events leading up to Azad’s death has been reported earlier in TEHELKA (The Maoist and the Undelivered Missive, 17 July, 2010), but it bears a quick retelling. Some months ago, as pressure mounted on him to defuse the civil war in the heartland, Home Minister P Chidambaram called Swami Agnivesh and asked him to bear a letter for the Maoists, urging them to come for talks. Agnivesh acted in good faith and sent the word out. It was a hopeful time. Significantly, Chidambaram’s letter did not merely make flamboyant demands asking the Maoists to give him “72 hours” to set the world right.

Instead, it asked them to announce a date for talks so the government could plan its response. It also promised that if the Maoists would lay down arms, “it goes without saying” the security forces would also suspend operations for the duration of the talks. The Maoists — mandating Azad to be their point person — responded positively. A mutual cessation of hostilities suddenly seemed possible. Apparently, a fixed date was imminent.

Then on 2 July, shockingly, Azad was shot dead. The Andhra Police claimed there was a pitched battle with 20-30 Maoists in the jungles near Adilabad in Andhra Pradesh. But, inexplicably, no security forces were hurt, the villagers claim there was no firing, and only two hand-picked people lay dead: Azad and a journalist called Hem Chandra Pandey. Pandey’s colleagues claim they saw him in Delhi on the morning of 1 July, far from the jungles of Adilabad. And the Maoists claim Azad was nowhere near Adilabad at all and was actually picked up from Nagpur and killed in cold blood, while on his way to Dandakaranya to build consensus for the talks.

So was Azad deliberately bumped off by the State?

It is incredibly self-defeating to dismiss those asking for an inquiry into this as “anti-national” or “Maoist sympathisers”. Or, in Mamta Banerjee’s case, to question why she isn’t falling in with the UPA’s line. Before the propriety of electoral alliances, there is the principle of natural justice. Don’t Indian citizens have a right to know what really happened? To know if we are living in a State that mouths peace but shoots its messengers?

Guest relations Maoist leader Azad, shot dead in suspicious circumstances

The story of what happened after Azad’s death strikes an even deeper chill. A mortified Swami Agnivesh went to Chidambaram and asked him for an explanation: How could he compromise him as an interlocutor? How could his forces kill his own emissary? Reportedly, Chidambaram said he knew nothing about the killing and was not concerned about it. Either way, his response is disturbing. Here is a man who is helming a “coordinated strategy” against the Maoists, and the police killed a key person involved in his peace channel without his knowledge? What kind of “coordinated strategy” is that? And if that killing has set back his peace process, why is he not concerned about it, if not downright enraged? There is only the darker alternative to confront: He knew. And was unconcerned. Azad’s death was part of the strategy.

But Chidambaram is not the only door Swami Agnivesh knocked on after Azad’s death. He went to LK Advani, Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh, Sharad Yadav, D Raja, AB Bardhan, Jaipal Reddy and a host of other politicians. Each of them promised to ask for an inquiry. Agnivesh even met jailed Maoist leaders Kobad Ghandy and Narayan Sanyal to keep the dialogue alive. And wrote letters to Sonia Gandhi. Finally, on 20 July, Agnivesh met the Prime Minister. The mild doctor promised to heal the wound and requested him to take the peace process forward. Acting on his word, Agnivesh sent another letter to the Maoists on 22 July. But barely a week later, Sukant — another Maoist bearing Agnivesh’s letter — apparently found himself surrounded by the police. Somehow managing to escape, he sent an email to Agnivesh urging him not to send any more letters. Agnivesh was being used as a pawn by the government, the mail said. His letters were sniffer dogs for the security agencies. The call for peace was just a sham.

And there the move for “talks” now stands. Agnivesh sends a daily message to the PM’s office, but has had no reply. Sonia Gandhi has declined to meet him, directing him to Chidambaram instead. And the Left and the BJP have segued into each other. “What was it about,” says Swami Agnivesh quietly. “Was it just an empty PR exercise? How can the President and Prime Minister read out these written speeches spouting old platitudes like ‘abjure violence’ and ‘come for talks’, as if nothing has happened in between? This is absolute hypocrisy.”

But Agnivesh is just a symptom. If the State fails to act in good faith — by either laying to rest ugly suspicions or by redressing its own wrongdoing — how can anyone dare to engage constructively with either party?

If Azad’s death has set back his peace process, why is the Home Minister not concerned about it, if not downright enraged?

OVER THE last year, the Maoist threat has been used by media and State to outlaw many crucial pieces of a democracy. Anyone who criticises the excesses — or the absences — of the State is immediately branded a Maoist. Being pro-poor is seen as potential insurrection. In just the last three years — astoundingly — a 100 people have been arrested in Maharashtra alone for the ‘heinous’ crime of reading Bhagat Singh and BR Ambedkar. Public figures like Mahasweta Devi, Arundhati Roy, Prashant Bhushan, Medha Patkar, Binayak Sen — to name just a few — have been brushed aside as “Maoist sympathisers”. And dozens of pro-livelihood activists have been arrested.

As TEHELKA’s own critique of the government’s stand on tribal issues has grown louder, sources say the home minister has begun to dismiss it as a Maoist publication. Where does this paranoia end? Contrary to perception, in June this year, TEHELKA had, in fact, sent a 10-page questionnaire to Azad, asking combative questions about Maoist ideology, intention, vision, reliance on guns, summary killings, and the efficacy of class war in a post-ideology world. Ironically, his reply reached us a day after his death. It said, “Thank you for your questions. I am on a journey and I apologise for the delay but will send you my answers by the end of July.”

As I folded the letter, there was a call from Husendi, a Maoist commander. Urgently, I asked him the same questions. “You’re raising such important issues of social justice,” I said. “But because of your ambition of capturing State power and establishing Communist rule, the Indian State is able to sidestep the focus on justice. Isn’t there a way of mobilising people without a gun?”

“Communist rule is a very distant ambition,” he replied in Hindi. “Just now we are fighting for democracy. We are fighting for the Constitution. Houses are being burnt in the jungles. Women are being raped. Hundreds of Adivasis have petitioned the district collector peacefully asking for food. But nothing happens. No media covers all this. What are we to do? Should we just abandon these people and go back to our homes?”

For the moment I have no answers. A spectacle of images rises before me: men like A Raja and the Reddy brothers walking free, destituting the country, secure in the armour of electoral politics. The bloody picture of an old, unarmed farmer in Hyderabad shot for protesting the takeover of his land. A 13-year-old boy shot in UP for being part of another demonstration over land. The vacant faces of tribals in Dantewada staring at the ashes of homes burnt for the tenth time. The fact that in 64 years, not one Governor has used the provisions of the Fifth Schedule to intervene on behalf of indigenous people.

As this story goes to press, Maoist leader Kishenji has sent a fresh offer for peace, contingent on two things: a mutual ceasefire for three months and a judicial inquiry into Azad’s death.

Is the offer sincere, is it not? Only events will tell. But the inquiry should indeed be non-negotiable. The State might think that makes me a Maoist. I think it makes me a concerned Indian citizen.

Camilo Mejia: Iraq War is Not Over — Just Privatized

Last troops leave -- 10s of thousands remain

“My reaction is that this is just another media stunt, because what is not being reported as strongly as the final troop leaving Iraq is that we’re still leaving 50,000 troops in country, not to mention that the 4,000 who are leaving are being replaced by 7,000 security contractors, called “dirty gangs” by Iraqis. I think that basically what we have is just a recycling of forces in what effectively could be called a transferring of military duties from the US military into the hands of corporate paramilitary forces in Iraq.”

This appeared on Democracy Now.

JUAN GONZALEZ: The news networks had hours of coverage of the so-called withdrawal throughout the day yesterday. Much of it was interviewing the troops coming home and their families. Well, we’re also joined by an Iraq war veteran, one you probably won’t see on CNN or MSNBC: Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejía, the first US combat veteran to publicly resist the war.

Camilo Mejía served six months in Iraq in 2003 with the Florida National Guard. While on a two-week leave in the United States, he decided never to return. Mejía went into hiding to avoid redeployment and was classified as AWOL, or absent without leave. After five months on the run, he surrendered to the military at Fort Stewart, Georgia, and submitted a formal application for discharge as a conscientious objector. His application was denied. In May 2004, a military jury convicted him of desertion, and he was sentenced to one year in prison. He served nine months behind bars, prompting Amnesty International to declare him a prisoner of conscience. He wrote a book about his experience called The Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejía. He is the former chair of Iraq Veterans Against the War, and he joins us now from Miami.

Welcome to Democracy Now!

CAMILO MEJÍA: Good morning, Juan and Amy.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Camilo, your reaction now to this so-called news of the withdrawal of the last combat brigade from Iraq?

CAMILO MEJÍA: My reaction is that this is just another media stunt, because what is not being reported as strongly as the final troop leaving Iraq is that we’re still leaving 50,000 troops in country, not to mention that the 4,000 who are leaving are being replaced by 7,000 security contractors, called “dirty gangs” by Iraqis. I think that basically what we have is just a recycling of forces in what effectively could be called a transferring of military duties from the US military into the hands of corporate paramilitary forces in Iraq.

AMY GOODMAN: Camilo, as you see the coverage over the last twenty-four hours, first, you know, as one of the leaders of Iraq Veterans Against the War, do you think this is the right move, what President Obama is doing? And then, what are your thoughts, hearing, watching soldiers talking about their experiences?

CAMILO MEJÍA: I have not been really tracking the testimonies of soldiers about the alleged withdrawal of the troops. But I do think that it’s very troubling to see how the corporate media are covering this withdrawal, because very little to nothing has been said about the fact that we are privatizing just absolutely everything. Now we have the situation in Iraq where huge contracts are going to be given to these corporations to do what the US Army used to do, not that one is better than the other. I think there probably will be less accountability for private security contractors to be doing the job that soldiers, who are at least subject to be court-martialed, but are now going to be in the hands of people like Erik Prince and people like that.

We already have over 100,000 contractors in Iraq operating, many of them operating in the capacity of mercenaries. If you read the coverage by the New York Times, you realize that these are not just going to be security guards, these are going to be highly specialized former military personnel who are going to have the skills and the ability to operate radars, to go out there and find improvised explosive devices, so we’re talking about EOD personnel. You’re talking about people who are pilots. You’re talking about people who are going to be operating drones in Iraq. So this is not just people who are going to be bodyguards. You’re talking about highly specialized individuals who are going to be replacing soldiers from the US military and other special operations units within the Army. So, basically, it’s the privatization of a military occupation. It is what we’re witnessing right now, the transferring of military authorities and duties from the US military into corporate paramilitary forces.

AMY GOODMAN: Camilo, we have to break, and then we’re going to come back to you and have a debate on the issue of the DREAM Act. Camilo Mejía, first GI who served in Iraq to have publicly resisted the war. He’s with Iraq Veterans Against the War. He was imprisoned for almost a year for, well, what the military said was desertion.

Bhagat Singh and Ambedkar are no longer national icons in India. You can be arrested for reading them

Tehelka

BY RANA AYYUB

Indicted icon Dalit students in front of an Ambedkar statue

BANDU MESHRAM’S schoolgoing daughter hides behind the curtain as she spots us. She tugs her mother Seema’s saree and tells her to send us away. Seema, a teacher, tells us the little girl has been afraid of strangers ever since the police took away her 38-year-old father. On 21 February, barely a few metres away from his home in Nagpur, a police team picked him up. It was only the next day his wife learned that the “abductors” described by neighbours were a squad sent by the Chandrapur district police.

Three days after his arrest, Bandu was charged with sedition under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). His arrest was based on “classified information” received by the police that Bandu was the absconding zonal secretary of a banned Maoist outfit. “He was working as a tailor in a reputed garments showroom,” says his wife. “They say he was in hiding whereas we stay in the lane next to the police station.”

When questioned by TEHELKA, Superintendent of Police Cherring Dorje admits the name in the 2008 chargesheet is not Bandu Meshram but alleged the tailor uses an alias. His wife says that even the literature the police showed as “seizure” was just a book on the Vidarbha farmers movement. “Will they hang him because he was a part of an agricultural movement? Next they should hang me because I am a follower of Ambedkar,” she says.

TEHELKA tracked many such stories — stories of arrests scattered across Maharashtra, told by people we met across districts, in blue-coloured houses, at rallies.

A book seller. A student. A lecturer. A wedding guest. All found, or so the police say, in possession of literature like an interview of Arundhati Roy, Maxim Gorky’s Mother, material on the Khairlanji atrocity or Bhagat Singh. “If you are a Muslim, you are a terrorist. If you are a Dalit, you are a Naxalite,” a Dalit rights lawyer and activist told TEHELKA.

That seems to be the twisted logic at play, for close to a hundred arrests have been made since 2007 under the UAPA, used by the government to label all kinds of political activity as ‘terrorist’, ‘anti-national’ or ‘seditious’. TEHELKA has details of 18 such cases, which demonstrate that the state seems to have no real understanding of the socio-economic conditions under which Dalits turn to activism. Or the fact that Bhagat Singh is a national hero who fought against the British and Gorky’s writings are inspiring but he did not advocate, like Chairman Mao did, that power flows from the barrel of a gun. This, in a country where state governments are wooing Dalit votes by building statues of Ambedkar and Jyotiba Phule, and school students are told they are national heroes.

EVERY YEAR, Dalits from across the world converge on Diksha Bhoomi, Nagpur, to commemorate the day Ambedkar embraced Buddhism along with 15 lakh Dalits. In October 2007, four Dalit youths were headed that way:

Living hell Bandu Meshram’s wife and children await his return Mind bender Anil Mamane, sociology lecturer, accused of spreading radical ideas

• Anil Mamane, 27, lecturer of sociology, MA (gold medallist)
• Dinkar Kamble, 23, MPhil first year student, ranked 2nd in selection
• Bapu Patil, 20, BA first year student
• Babasaheb Saymote, 27, MCom.

Mamane wanted to awaken the collective conscience of people through his writing. Books like Ya Jagaat Dev Aahe Ka (Does God Exist?), Ramabai to Khairlanji were either written or distributed by him. So he and student Dinkar Kamble, who used to sell books in his neighbourhood, boarded the Maharashtra Express. The other two accused, Babasaheb Saymote and Bapu Patil, took the same train and were, unfortunately for them, in the same compartment.

At Ajni, two hours before Nagpur, the police entered the compartment and picked up the four. They were taken to Nagpur police station and a case was registered that they were part of a group carrying incriminating literature that asked Dalits to kill in the name of Khairlanji. The chargesheet said, “Literature seized from the applicants is highly objectionable and provocative, and was intended to provoke a large number of Dalits to join the cause of Naxals.”

It was an outright frame-up. If one were to go by the logic of the police that the material was incriminating, why not punish the writer and the publisher? They arrested two people who were going to sell books already in the market and two who were not even linked to them. While the police could frame a case against Mamane and Kamble, building up a case against Bapu Patil and Saymote was more difficult. Saymote’s house in his village and Patil’s hostel room were raided. “They picked up my BA books as proof,” says Patil. Saymote was shown to be a member of Kabir Manch, a cultural organisation, which the police claimed was under surveillance on suspicion of being engaged in subversive activities.

‘If you are a Muslim, you are a terrorist. If you are a Dalit, you are a Naxalite,’ remarks a Dalit rights lawyer and activist

When the matter went to trial, the two “alleged accomplices” got bail immediately. The judge said, “There is no prima facie evidence to even suggest that Dinkar Kamble knew what was written in the books. Bapu Patil, residing in a hostel, too just possessed some books. Mere possession of books is not sufficient to infer that the applicants are instigating armed revolution. Hence bail be granted.”

Mamane and Saymote were not so lucky: their bail applications were rejected. But where the law did not help, hunger strike did. A 14-day hunger strike by Saymote and Mamane ensured that the same judge gave them bail six months later on the same grounds mentioned in the earlier bail applications.

Activists from across the country including Anna Hazare came out to protest, forcing Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil to make a visit to the area and to the hostel. While the mainstream media largely ignored the case, processions were taken out with letters being written to the government by college professors and writers asking whether the state is scared of Bhagat Singh’s ideology. Students displayed placards outside the minister’s residence asking if the state was ashamed of Bhagat Singh and Ambedkar.

Kamble says, “I was always proud of the fact that in spite of coming from an impoverished family, I had managed to clear my MPhil . But the taunts they threw at me in jail broke me. They would ask me if we Ambedkarites were trying another 1857.”

BAPU PATIL, now 23, has a 65-year-old ailing mother and a sister to care for. He works for an NGO that stages street plays to create awareness on medical issues. His hostel room still has a huge poster of Ambedkar adorning the wall. “I live in fear. They can still come and arrest me saying that in the name of spreading awareness on disease, I am helping the Naxal cause”. This college student also has to spend `600 from his meagre pocket money travelling two times a month to the Nagpur court to attend the hearings.

Usually, such arbitrary arrests break a man or destroy his livelihood. But Anil Mamane’s arrest and release meant a big leap for him, as he now has scripts from 75 authors waiting to be published and has the complete backing of publishing houses. When he came out of jail, he married a Brahmin girl whom he knew since college. People collected `2 lakh to give them a lavish wedding. He has written a book on Khairlanji and is re-publishing books on Bhagat Singh. “Truth can’t be silenced,” he says.

But two Dalits who paid a heavy price for being socially aware are journalist Dhanendra Bhurile and shopkeeper Naresh Bansod, residents of Gondia. When produced before the Nagpur magistrate, the policemen said they had been arrested along with two other alleged Naxalites — Arun Ferreira and Mahesh aka Murli Satyareddi — and that they had plans to go to Diksha Bhoomi to hatch a conspiracy.

The police stated that when arrested in May 2007, the four started throwing away their SIM cards, Naxal literature, envelopes and pen drives. Sessions judge RB Patil questioned how it could then be proved that this material belonged to them.

Grassroots Babasaheb Saymote back at his farm Heartbreaking news Dhanendra Bhurile and his wife Sarita

It was on the basis of this literature and ‘confessions’ from police witnesses that these two were accused under Sections 10, 13, 18 and 20 of UAPA, which amount to knowingly or unknowingly facilitating terror acts as well as recruiting people for terror-related activities, besides sedition.

The two were granted bail by the high court for lack of evidence to prosecute them under UAPA, giving the police two months to appeal against the bail. However, the police went to the Supreme Court to apply against the bail and got a stay. Thus, after spending three months in jail, the duo were rearrested and this time the police slapped an additional charge against the two of burning a police vehicle and killing police officials. Then started the rounds of torture and casteist insults, adding to the injury inflicted by the police. “One of the police officers who used to hang me upside down asked me to face the repercussions of trying to be another Ambedkar,” recalls Bansod.

Having spent close to three years in jail, justice finally opened its eyes for the two, who were acquitted and released in July this year. In a landmark judgement, the judge said the police had been simply unable to prove not just the provisions of UAPA but also discharged the other case of rioting that the police had slapped on them after their re-arrest. The judge observed that the police erred right in the beginning when it did not even obtain sanction under UAPA while filing the chargesheet.

Why did the police want to brand Bhurile and Bansod as Naxalites? Is it a caste war being waged by feudal elements under the cover of ferreting out Maoists? Bhurile hints it is prejudice and a desire to oppress those tasting liberation. “It’s simple,” he says. “A Dalit does not read Lenin or Gorky. If he does, unlike you, he is a criminal.” That he heard the word Naxalism for the first time in court is something nobody will believe, he says, as he shows us his collection of books on Ambedkar.

TEHELKA CAUGHT up with Bhurile and Bansod after their release from custody in January. The broken pieces of their lives will take a long time to put together, especially where their personal lives are concerned. The friends were nabbed at a railway station en route to a wedding. Bansod was employed by an organisation that opposed superstition and traditional beliefs. “I worked with the likes of Baba Amte, not just for the uplift of Dalits but also the poor, even amongst Brahmins. Our aim was to help people live a life of dignity”.

Students held placards outside the minister’s residence asking if the state was ashamed of Bhagat Singh and Ambedkar

Bhurile worked for two of the bestknown Marathi newspapers. He still remembers the day the police caught him on charges of aiding Naxal activity and also of being a Naxal and produced him in a press conference. “All my friends and colleagues were there,” he recalls ruefully, hinting at he embarrassment and humiliation he felt. “A couple of them stole some glances at me while the rest pretended they didn’t know who I am. They dutifully filed reports for their newspapers that the police have nabbed two dreaded Naxals.”

If inside jail the husbands had to bear the brunt of an ideology taught in school, the wives had to suffer for supporting their husbands. Sarita Bedarkar taught sociology at a local college. Within days of her husband’s arrest, she was told by the college principal that her services were no longer required. “I started borrowing books on Indian law and decided to become a lawyer. The cops would come to my residence frequently and taunt me about reading law books,” says Sarita.

Bansod’s wife, on the other hand, could not take the police harassment and decided to leave her husband. She left for Chhattisgarh to marry again, leaving her school-going son behind.

Bansod is yet to come to terms with the twists in his life. “It was a mockery of the law. We paid the price of who we were and what we represented. You can’t turn it all back.” He was self-employed before his arrest, running an electrical goods shop but the police ransacked it, looting most of the merchandise. Now he has lost his livelihood.

‘I worked with the likes of Baba Amte, not just for the uplift of Dalits but also the poor, even amongst Brahmins,’ says Naresh Bansod

In another case, a group of 10 college students professing allegiance to the teachings of Bhagat Singh and Jyotiba Phule were arrested and charged with conducting covert operations for Naxalites in Chandrapur. The logic seems to be that since Bhagat Singh justified violence against evil-doers, students impressed by his revolutionary ideas are about to get violent.

Police is now on the lookout for Veera Sathidaar alias Vijay Bairagade. His home is a one-room residence doubling up as a library where local students borrow books and magazines. His wife Pushpa has a list of the publications seized by the police in a raid that scared her into telling her husband to avoid coming home. Among the seized books is one with the title Monarchy vs Democracy. We meet Veera where he is hiding. He tells us his son has been named in the FIR lodged by the police. A family is torn asunder.

So what can one say of the mentality of the state, symbolised by the constable who spat at jeans-clad Shantanu Kamble, “So, you sing? So come on sing for us, just like you sing for the Naxalites.” This softspoken college dropout who works as a labourer by day and pens his thoughts at night says that it is his poetry that helps him forget the trauma of being arrested. Fortunately, Additional Sessions Judge AA Khan could not help saying, “He is a poet, not a Naxalite. Release him.”

Don’t Call It Combat: US Troops Still Fighting Iraq War in Everything But Name

Even Claim That Last Official Combat Troops Left Yesterday Wasn't True

by Jason Ditz, August 19, 2010

antiwar.com

It was business as usual in Iraq today for 56,000 US troops, despite the canned “victory” celebration yesterday the troops, though by and large redefined as something, anything, other than “combat troops” were still out and about, doing the exact same things they were doing when they were still engaging in combat.

Its just that its called “counter-terrorism operations” instead of combat now. The “last brigade” may have left yesterday, but six more brigades are still there, wondering when or even if it will be their turn to be the “last” to leave.

And while the celebration must have been thrilling for that “last” brigade, it must be somewhat bittersweet for the troops still there, who as far as the media are concerned are an afterthought, probably doing training or some such.

In fact even if we were to ignore the 50,000 renamed troops the claim of an end to combat operations yesterday wasn’t true, as some 6,000 troops which are still designated as combat troops still haven’t left, though they are scheduled to do so at some point in the future.

Still these 6,000 combat troops leave one wondering why yesterday of all days was selected as the official “end of the war” day, and makes the date seem even more arbitrary than it already was.

New World Order from the Ashes

Saba Navalan

From Pope to Barack Obama, everyone is feels the need for a New World Order and come out with statements every day. World’s most influential economists have been debating alternative economic policies. The economies of US and Europe have been protected for just three years from an imminent downfall.

This is not the first time a New World Order is being proposed. In the 1940s, capitalism and world economy were redefined according to the ideas proposed by economist John Maynard Keynes. When world economy took a hit in the 1970s, neo-liberalism and globalisation helped recharge a new world order.

The economic crisis of the 1990s aggravated globalisation. The structural crisis faced by global economy led to the downfall of capitalism.

In 2009, 150 years after Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital, leaders of world monopolies remember him for the third part of his treatise. The knowledge world requires both Marx and electronics to sustain itself in the new era of politics.

In 1940s, a summit similar to the present G20 summits was held to discuss the then economic crisis. The summit which was attended by 66 countries discussed a new world order. The conference created new superpowers and new alliances. The economic contradictions of the that era created Germany’s dictator Hitler.

Tthe new world order of 2000s enact several genocides, the then world order killed innocent Jews in its first genocide.

The acceptance of economist John Maynard Keynes’s proposals in the 1940s saw formation of International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, World Trade Centre and led to global dominance under United States.

When this economic structure faced a crisis in the early seventies, Marxism and its related dialogues witnessed a revival. The G5 meet held in Paris in 1975 discussed a new world order again. It was then that the concept of globalisation and related paradigms originated.

The structural crisis created by globalisation helped Asian economies take centrestage. The basis of capitalism is maximizing profit and is a variable factor. Only if this factor has an ever-increasing quality, functioning capitalism is a possibility.

The varying nature of profit forms the basis of many factors defining functioning capitalism

Workforce and the process of converting money into capital.

The growth of technology which is an important part of the forces of production.

Mediating the varied interests of production relationships.

The process of maximizing profits ensures the continuance of functioning capitalism. During the period of Karl Marx, capitalism extracted all the work from labourers and made them as a class which has nothing to lose.

There was a clear classification in the society he lived. There were two classes: the capitalists and the workers. That is why he mentioned in the Communist Manifesto that capitalism exhibited contradictions clearly.

But post-1940, the clear contradiction was deliberately altered. A new managerial class was created in between the two classes. The creation of a class beyond capitalists and workers brought about qualitative changes in the character of the classes.


A class without the ability for production.

A working class with the ability for production.

The managerial class without the ability for production has several layers and many inner contradictions. The direct control by the owner of the capital was made possible by the managers. From the top manager to the office assistant, a new class without production capabilities was born. The entire middle class was attracted towards capitalism by the creation of the new class. This has also made the owner-worker relationship an indirect one. This new capitalist order is called managerial revolution.

The owners of the capital acquired the power to create their own managers following the managerial revolution. Capitalist owners can convert governments into their agents or managers and this has led to the present structural crisis of capitalism. Governments have come to a point when they cannot even control owners of the capital in the interests of capitalism.

The unlimited powers acquired by the capitalists made them leave their high-ranking managers – the governments – in the lurch. They moved to Asia to maximize their profits. The capital which moved to Asia has made China and India superpowers in the region.

The production relations which formed the basis of Western superpowers created countries which are dependent on banking credit mechanisms. The owners of capital – who are not controlled by anybody – moved their capital from the western countries to Asia in order to increase their profits.

The neo-liberalism developed after the economic crisis of the 1970s created an all-powerful world capitalism. The neo-liberalism which established the power of the giant corporations across the globe has created Barack Obama in the US and Mahinda Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka.

In the backdrop of the dominance of world capitalism, the future of Indian people presents a bleak picture. During the initial phases of globalisation, a part of the money earned by the monopolist owners in the third world countries went to the jobless and the poor in the West in the form of social security guarantees. In many western countries, the stipend for the jobless was as high as basic pay of regular workers.

The tax money required for the social security programmes was extracted from world corporates by their respective managerial governments or managerial states. As the production costs of giant corporations went up due to their contribution to social security schemes, they moved towards third world thereby creating a society without production capabilities in the West.

With the absence of production, the credit mechanism of the bank capital decided the relations of production at local levels. Bank capital also moved to the Asian countries at the behest of capitalism, leading to the downfall of western economic structure.

Giant corporations which moved to countries like India to evade tax in the West introduced massive structures of production in Asia. The corporations modernized the forces of production in agriculture, information technology, service sector and other areas. The class of people who lose jobs in this process of modernization will never get any social security in Asian countries.

If the large section of people alienated from production should be given social security, it should be extracted from large corporate organisations. If a social security amount is fixed, the basic pay of regular workers should be above that. It will lead to an increase in the price of labour. While fixing the basic cost of living, the tax on profits of the corporates will also go up. If such a development occurs, the corporates will leave countries like India. It will lead to another crisis and destabilise the new world order and Asian economy. This will create another structural crisis.

Capitalist countries like India who cannot offer social security programmes will only have solutions like annihilating the people living below poverty line (BPL). That is how two lakh farmers committed suicide. People are killed in Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh for the same reasons. Maoists who try to represent these sections are annihilated in police operations without any mercy.

While American supremacy is on the wane, a resurgent India is killing its own people. A research done by US intelligence center says that the biggest problem of India in 2020 would be unemployment.

If India follows the western model of social security to deal with unemployment, its economy and capital will slip away. In the coming years, Indian democracy will create an economy favourable to its upper middle class amidst countless murders without evidence and unprecedented bloodshed. All the sections of people who cannot withstand the upsurge of the economy are doomed to be annihilated.

No Western power will worry about these annihilations. Indian Establishment rehearsed only this in Sri Lanka. All the massacres will be enacted in full public glare of the United Nations (UN) and other human rights organizations of the West. The genocide in Sri Lanka and the police operations in Singur only proved this.

Thus, the world constructs a new world order with a new power configuration. The creation of a new Indian upper middle class, the poor who lose their jobs and production capacity and driven to death, Indian capitalism which stands tall with world capitalism, the disintegration of feudal system, the new power configuration – all these have to be studied and the new means of struggle have to be devised accordingly to safeguard people from the upcoming human catastrophe and to win power for the oppressed people.

With the new monopolist capitalism emerging as a mature and experienced form, the people opposing it are equally experienced and mature. This gives us a new hope. Open debates, new research and the coming together of progressive forces on a common minimum platform is the immediate need of the hour.

This is your Army Mr Chidambaram!

(And the people belong to this country)

Sanhati

by Reyaz-ul-Haq [Translated by Priyanka Srivastava, Sanhati]

A picture could very well be a tide turner. The one image that makes a nation sit up, shake itself off its torpor and ask itself, how much more of this repetitive official nonsense can we accept and justify in our quest to become a developed nation and overlook the rampant denial of due process and decency. A picture can be a conscience raiser, the final straw, the one blow that cuts up the fine line between what a civil society will accept and outright barbarism. Not too many people remember the name of Nguyen Ngoc Loan. But a lot of people remember this picture.

The man who took this picture, Eddie Adams, won a Pulitzer prize. It helped turn the tide of one war-The Vietnam War.

Trevor Selvam, Pictures that Turn a Generation, Armies that Lies (Countercurrents)An anti-people war has been launched in our own country and the descriptions provided in the following paragraphs are from our own country.

***********

A year ago we were in Lalgarh where women were telling us how they experienced freedom for the first time in their lives. They said that their ancestors were living a life of slavery since British times and it is only recently that they could claim to have gained rights over their days and nights.

To them this independence was not simply a right to vote. Rather, this was a freedom to go to the jungles for defecating without getting assaulted by the policemen. This freedom allowed them to get their wood from the jungles without having to strip in the name of security inspection. Their nights had become more peaceful because the police and paramilitary no longer ransacked their houses and beat them in the name of conducting search operations. This freedom ensured that their cattle could graze freely and not get caught by the security forces. Moreover, they could get their just wages under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) or the employment provided by the Gram Panchayats. Now government employees would think twice before asking villagers to pay bribes. For instance, the applications for Indira Awas Scheme were processed efficiently and without bribes. The chappal (slippers) police (CPM’s Harmad Vahini in local parlance) and the British (Indian Paramilitary Forces) could not terrorize the villagers any more. They could freely access their forests now and rightfully use the ponds adjacent to their houses. Their womenfolk had become fearless and their boys safer. There was no fear of the men getting caught and killed indiscriminately by the forces. In short, the villagers could assert their rights over their lives and surroundings.

Mr Chidambaram, till 19th June of last year, this was PCAPA’s Lalgarh.

The images and news of this year present a sharp contrast to this…there is the picture of a young tribal woman who was hauled by the security forces like an animal. In Chhattisgarh where you are desperately trying to grab land and resources for your corporate bosses, women are routinely raped by the security forces and the police. The news from the area reveals that often these women are shamelessly presented as war booties.

Your police and army are correct. The brutalized women have indeed become symbols of victory. You and the system you represent could acquire no better trophies of your conquests. From northeast (Manorma Devi), Kashmir (Shopian) to Jahanabad, Lalgarh, Orissa, Bastar your system has left the same imprints of its victory everywhere.

In fact, you and your security forces seem to be proud of committing rapes because you have never issued any apologies or statements regretting these gory cases of brutalization. You want to establish ‘peace’ and ‘democracy’ in these regions by deploying your supposedly civilized, just, and democratic police and security forces. Probably your definition of civilization justifies these brutal methods of establishing peace and justice.

However, the contrasts are obvious. Before your forces invaded the region, the PCAPA had made considerable achievements in the villages of Lalgrah. It had done things, which the Indian state (with all its might and command over resources) had failed to achieve in the last sixty years. They (PCAPA) were distributing land to the landless; they were providing seeds and fertilizers to the villagers according to their needs. They had dug canals for irrigating the land. Through their activities, the PCAPA had articulated new definitions of administration and development. They were imparting new lessons in democracy to the Indian state. In their village committees, fifty percent positions were reserved for women and without the required number of women, no committees could be formed. In about 1200 villages such committees were successfully established. Moreover, PCAPA had its own women’s wing with crucial decision making power. The women active in the PCAPA successfully led an anti-liquor campaign. The consequent prohibition continued till 19th June. Similarly, PCAPA attempted to undo the harmful impact of Eucalyptus trees on land fertility. Your government had used World Bank funds to plant these trees without any consideration for its adverse affects on land fertility. PCAPA had also been fighting against the illegal and highly polluting sponge-iron factories, which had adversely impacted the agriculture and livestock of the region.

During those days, there were dozens of meetings in Lalgarh every evening. Equipped with their traditional weapons, tribal men and women, elders and younger people sat together and discussed their current activities and their future strategies. They indulged in politics but their politics was fundamentally different from the mainstream politics of false hopes and betrayals. Based on democratic principles, their politics displayed a commitment to deliver, to make plans and to execute them. Every village committee determined the needs of a particular village according to the needs of its most marginalized and impoverished sections. All decisions of digging canals, repairing dams, paving roads or irrigating farm lands were taken with a view to improve the conditions of the poorest of the poor.

Along with their plans, the committees presented an estimate of cost to the higher committees, which in turn visited the concerned village, discussed the plans with villagers and reviewed the estimated budget. The funding for these plans came from small contributions collected from villagers themselves. The people of a concerned village and adjoining villages labored jointly to complete a project. The workers were paid their wages and machines were also paid for. This kind of development had nothing to do with your Sensex or embellished growth charts. The most sophisticated machines used here were tractors and yet the projects improved the lives of the people of this area.

The vacant and unused buildings were turned into hospitals. In a region where people had not even seen a doctor, they could now avail medical treatment, thanks to the efforts of the PCAPA. Have you ever heard the name of Alchiki Mr. Chidambaram? I am sure you have not. This is the language spoken by the inhabitants of Lalgarh. For the first time, this language had received some attention as some people had started serious research on it. There was a hope that this language and its speakers will not be relegated to oblivion.

However, all such efforts to improve the lives of people and to preserve their linguistic traditions were brutally suppressed by your forces last year, which arrived with the claimed intentions of ‘liberating’ Lalgarh from the Maoists. According to the inhabitants of this region, your forces have brought back the days of slavery. After the arrival of your police and paramilitary, schools have been turned into barracks while hospitals have become torture chambers. The brutality of your forces is evident in numerous instances. Impersonating journalists, it was your treacherous police that arrested popular leader Chatradhar Mahto. It was your same police that savagely murdered the popular tribal leader Lalmohan Tudu in front of his family members and later claimed that it was an ‘encounter’ death. Your government has imprisoned several aged and innocent tribal women claiming that they were dreaded terrorists. And you assert that you have a moral authority to conduct these ‘security’ operations!

Indeed, you have the moral right to abandon the impoverished millions of this country. Your system has seemingly gained the legitimacy to suppress the gloom of farmers’ suicide with the statistics of our ‘unprecedented’ economic growth. In a situation where millions of children die without medical treatment, this ethical right of yours encourages you to favor privatization and rising cost of health care in India.

Probably this is the unavoidable cost for perpetuating a constitutional democracy. The price for this must be paid by the most ‘unconstitutional’, ‘undemocratic’, and most ‘uncivilized’ sections of the population. These ‘barbaric’ people are frequently discussed in considerable details in your national and regional newspapers. After all, a ‘democracy’ has its own responsibilities.

However, Mr Chidambaram, have you ever felt accountable to the acutely malnourished bodies publicized in your media ads? They are the rightful citizens of this country. Aren’t you and your government responsible for their dismal conditions? How much money your government spent on these people when they were alive? Do you have any data on when was the last time these people renovated their dilapidated huts or how many times were they able to eat a full meal? How many times have the people of this region obtained any medical facilities during illness? Although these basics living amenities were denied to them, the government willingly spent lakhs of rupees advertising the dead bodies of these people. Our government truly has a high ethical character.

Your troops have raped tribal women, have treated them like animals and flaunted them as the symbols of their victory. We do not know what ethical principles justify such inhuman actions; probably you have gained the moral right for these acts as well.

Your moral and ethical principles are guided by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. They are articulated in the high corporate offices of Enron, Reliance, Vedanta, Jindal, and Tata. Their ethics of profit and plunder has defended inexcusable human tragedies such as Bhopal Gas accident and fraudulent corporate projects like Enron. To facilitate their plunder of natural resources these corporate houses and imperialist interests have created a new set of ethics, which endorses the extremely unjust and exploitative SEZs and MOUs. Their ethics justify brutal mass massacre and impose civil war on people.

Mr. Chidambaram, the millions who are being massacred and displaced in Chhattisgarh, Lalgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, and, Orissa are not your people. Nor is this your country. You belong to those multinational corporations whose interests you have been championing shamelessly. This nation belongs to those who derive their sustenance from the bountiful land, rivers, and forests of this country. This country belongs to the people who think about its present (i.e., preserving its resources) and sustainable future, who oppose rape and atrocities, who have risen up against loot, land-grab, and displacement.

This country belongs to all those who dare to dream of a new world.

We know very well Mr. Chidambaram that you will never apologize for the atrocities committed at your behest. This brutal army represents the real face of your government.

if you don't come to democracy, democracy will come to you!

First Report on Demonstration at Indian High Commission - London 15th August 2010

The protest at the Indian High Commission in London on the 15th August 2010 attracted hundreds of people. There were Kashmiri's, Sikhs, Sri Lankans and Nepalese and other Indian nationalities present at the protest.

There were also representatives of progressive organisations in Britain all protesting Indian Expansionism and Operation Green Hunt and the murder of Comrade Azad spokesperson of the CPI Maoist and Hem Pandey a progressive journalist by the murderous comprador Indian state.

The protest organised on India's National Day exposed the crimes of the Indian State and the sufferings of it peoples.The newly formed Alliance for People's Rights in South Asia is to be congratulated for organising a successful protest.

Maoist land reform in India

[The Times of India looks into Maoist land reform, and describes it in contrast to the practice of the CPM, a bourgeois party that still uses, disingenuously, the name of "Communist Party of India (Marxist)"

MIDNAPORE: It was land distribution under Operation Barga that brought CPM to power in 1977. Thirty-three years later, the Maoists in Jangalmahal are treading a similar route to consolidate their support base in 200 villages from Goaltore to Midnapore town. The 60-kilometre stretch forms the ” Maoist core zone”, where men most wanted by the police like Manoj Mahato, Asit Mahato and Gopal Pratihar have a free run.

But this new avatar of Operation Barga is different from the one implemented by the CPM. Maoists have set their own parameters for land reform here. Family income and connections with the ruling party get maximum weightage in this reform process.

The jotedars close to mainstream political parties CPM and Jharkhand Party are the targets, and the beneficiaries are the landless farmers. The Maoists have begun this process in two villages Chandabila and Malkuri under the Midnapore Sadar block, six kilometres from Midnapore town.

First, they drove out Toton Singh and Naru Singh jotedars of Malkuri village, who have 150 bighas [about 50 acres] of land and own a huge ancestral house. Like CPM zonal secretary Anuj Pandey’s house, this building too was pulled down by Maoist-led labourers of around a month and a half ago. Then the guerrillas took possession of the entire land and distributed it among 53 local landless labourers. Naru Singh’s son Ajit, who is known for his proximity to CPM minister Sushanta Ghosh, could do little to prevent it.

One such beneficiary is Satrughna Mahato who has been tilling the land as a wage labourer since long. “We are five brothers with a total land holding of one bigha, including our homestead land. That was not enough to run the family. But now, we can make ends meet,” said Mahato.

However, there are not too many such jotedars in West Bengal where the government has carried out the primary land reforms. In the last 33 years of Left Front rule, villages in the Jangalmahal saw the emergence of a new breed of CPM leaders who have been enjoying vested government lands and even forest land distributed to some non-existent land labourers. Villagers call it kalo patta a false tiller’s deed. Such a practice has been rampant in the villages under Salboni block Rameswarpur, Kolshibhanga, Malbandi, and Madhupur. The Maoist-led People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA) has occupied such lands and has started distributing those among the landless.

This is not all. Maoists are also distributing seeds and fertilizers to the landless to begin cultivation. Kamal Middya of Chandabila has already received it. “I used to till Singh’s land in Chandabila. Now I have three bighas in my possession,” Middya said.

Similar is the scene at Belasol village under Salboni block. Here Maoist-led committees have installed deep tubewells and have set up a water reservoir to provide irrigation water to villagers. Other development activities include running of medical camps and also a rural hospital to treat locals.

India’s Maoists’ solidarity with Kashmir: ‘Support the just national liberation struggle’

Kashmir Monitor

Srinagar: In an emphatic statement issued a few days back CPI (Maoist) extended the party’s backing for right of self determination to Kashmiris and appealed to people of India to support the “just national liberation struggle of the people of Kashmir”.

The party said ‘Kashmir belongs to Kashmiris’ and appealed people of India to “strongly oppose daily firing of Kashmiri people”, raise their voice against state atrocities and “heartless killing of youth by armed forces”.

“Fearlessly support the just national liberation struggle of the people of Kashmir,” the statement from the central committee of CPI (Moaist) said. “We appeal to all citizens and pro-people activists of India to demand the withdrawal of Indian paramilitary and military from Kashmir and take stern action against their officers.”

The party appealed to the people to see through the media propaganda about Kashmir that distorts its history. “Those who are aware of Kashmir’s history know that it was never a part of India.”

The two-page detailed statement indicates the depth of knowledge the party has about the details of day-to-day happenings in Kashmir.

“The Indian ruling class may claim that ‘militancy’ has ended and ‘separatist’ organizations have been crushed but the truth is that Kashmiri people keep struggling daily over one issue or another.”

The statement also castigates Omar Abdullah led coalition government in the state for its brutal response to “democratic resistance”.

“Government of India and its puppet government under Omar Abdullah have responded with firing, teargas, lathicharge and curfew to the peaceful and democratic resistance by the Kashmiri people which is still on.”

The statement also criticised recent attributions of stone throwing protests to having been instigated by LeT and elements from Pakistan. “Attribution (of protests) to LeT is disrespect of the freedom loving Kashmiri people.”

Through the statement CPI(Maoist) presented its revolutionary salute (Inqalabi Salam) to the struggling Kashmiri people.

“The armed struggle may have weakened, but the youth have used stones as weapons in their hands to fight the state armed forces. This only indicates their deep desire for liberation,” the statement said likening the “resistance” in Kashmir to that by the tribals of Dandakaranya. “Kashmiris are fighting Indian paramilitaries and police forces with stones just like tribals under the party are fighting in Dandakaranya using bows and arrows.”

“The enemy is the same here (Dandakaranya) as well as there (Kashmir).”

The central committee of CPI (Maoist) on behalf of the party, People’s Army and the revolutionary people vowed that it will wholeheartedly continue supporting “your struggle” in Kashmir.