Debates, Left watch, Violence/Conflict

बीच का रास्ता नहीं होता, कॉमरेड!: ईश्वर दोस्त

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This is a guest post by ISHWAR DOST

ध्रुवीकरण की खासियत यह होती है कि वह बीच की जगह तेजी से खत्म करता जाता है। चाहे वह सांप्रदायिक ध्रुवीकरण हो या अस्मिता पर आधारित या किसी और मुद्दे पर। राज्य की दमनकारी हिंसा बनाम माओवादी हिंसा एक ऐसा ही ध्रुवीकरण है। इस सरलीकरण में छिपी राजनीति पर सवाल उठाना जरूरी हो गया है। युद्ध की भाषा बोलती और बंदूक को महिमामंडित करती इस राजनीति के निशाने पर क्या जनसंघर्षों की लोकतांत्रिक जगह नहीं है? माओवादियों के सबसे बड़े दल पीडब्ल्यूजी के नाम के साथ ही जनयुद्ध शब्द लगा हुआ है। छत्तीसगढ़ सरकार ने एक सरकारी जनयुद्ध को सलवा जुडूम के नाम से प्रायोजित किया हुआ है। केंद्र सरकार ने पहली बार माओवाद के खिलाफ युद्ध की शब्दावली का इस्तेमाल किया है, फिर उस पर सफाई भी दी है। अगर माओवाद लोकतंत्र के प्रति अपनी नफरत नहीं छिपाता तो उत्तर-पूर्व से लेकर गरीब आदिवासी इलाकों तक कई सरकारें भी राजनीतिक-सामाजिक गुत्थियों को महज सुरक्षा के सवाल में तब्दील कर बंदूक की नली पर टंगे विशेष सुरक्षा कानूनों के जरिए सुलझाना चाहती हैं।

अन्याय के खिलाफ जनलामबंदी, संघर्ष और प्रतिरोध की सुदीर्घ परंपरा को युद्ध के अतिरेक में ढांपने की कोशिश की जा रही है। युद्ध सीधा सवाल करता है कि तय करो किस ओर हो तुम? यह सवाल एक-दूसरे से युद्ध करता या उसके लिए पर तौलता कोई भी पक्ष किसी से भी पूछ सकता है।
Continue reading बीच का रास्ता नहीं होता, कॉमरेड!: ईश्वर दोस्त →

Left watch, Movements, Violence/Conflict

Maoist Revolution, Liberal Naivete

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Responding to the call by the Home Minister and prime Minister of India to halt violence to facilitate talks, Maoist leaders ridiculed them and asked them to get their history right. According to them it was wrong to say that the ‘war’ that is now being played out in the theatre of the jungles of  Chhatisgarh, Jangalmahal of Bengal, Jharkhand , Orissa and other states is of recent origin. This is only the latest   phase of the “people’s war” that is being waged since 1967 and would not stop until the ultimate objective of establishing Communism is achieved.  The Constitution of the CPI(Maoist) is very unambiguous, “The ultimate aim or maximum programme of the party is the establishment of communist society. This New Democratic Revolution will be carried out and completed through armed agrarian revolutionary war i.e. the Protracted People’s War with area wise seizure of power remaining as its central task.”

Area wise seizure of power is what the Maoists are busy with. They have succeeded, partially or fully in many areas of different states. What needs to be understood is that it is not development they are opposed to as is evident from the statements of their leaders.  They are ready to let development activities take place, provided it is under their supervision. They are interested more in making themselves the lone political voice of the people. One should ask why do they keep abducting, harassing, threatening or killing the members and leaders of other political parties in the areas where they rule using the strength of their guns? Why do they force people to resign from other political parties? Their answer is very simple: whoever is seen to interrupt or impede the armed people’s war is either a class enemy or an agent of the class enemy represented by the state and is therefore on the other side of the war.
Continue reading Maoist Revolution, Liberal Naivete →

Law, Technology

The long arm over-reaches

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Last week, the Delhi High Court struck down an RTI application filed at the Election Commission of India, bringing an unprecedented standoff between two of India’s towering institutions of state to a temporary halt.

In the case of Election Commission of India (EC) versus Chief Information Commission & others, the decision came in favour of the EC, ruling that a citizen had no right to ask for confirmation of the results of the assembly elections of 2007 in three constituencies in Manipur.

To understand the implications of the Court’s order, imagine you suspect your ATM incorrectly displays the money available in your bank account. You could compare the printed account statement with the information displayed by the ATM, but what if your bank refuses to let you?

Continue reading The long arm over-reaches →

Capitalism, Countryside, Ecology/Environment, Everyday Life, Politics

The curses of Paikdev. A lament for water: Hartman de Souza

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My very old and lovely friend Hartman sent me the following:

To keep the blues at bay I am back to carving logs. This one attached is titled ‘The Curses of Paikdev, A Lament for Water’. It was a birthday present for my sister and is planted on her farm [in Goa]. It faces Paikeachi Zor (Paik’s Spring), which will disappear very shortly hanks to the rampant mining in the area. My sister plans to court arrest again, and this time refuse bail. She hopes that at least will get the Goans out.

In the thickly forested hills between the villages of Maina and Kawrem, to the south east of Quepem Town, a poignant story once fortunate enough to have had a happy ending, is now destined to end more sadly than it could ever have begun.

800 overloaded trucks groaning through the town throughout the day barring a few hours respite to let schoolchildren in the area to scamper to and from school is testament to this. It is this very same business, though ‘greed’ may be a better term, that is ‘legally’ destroying a myth of almost epic proportions, and with it, again ‘legally’, the water sources and bodies of the area.
Continue reading The curses of Paikdev. A lament for water: Hartman de Souza →

Capitalism, Countryside, Debates, Ecology/Environment, Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

WHOSE LAND IS IT ANYWAYS? Public Meeting organized by National Alliance of People’s Movements

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An open discussion on the relevance and implications of Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill  and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill 2009
Saturday, November 21, Gandhi Peace Foundation, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg, New Delhi 2 – 6 pm.

Friends,

The current economic model of growth prevalent in India , with strong neo-liberal leanings, needs to be re-assessed in the wake of increasing alienation and dispossession of vast populations from their land and the wave of resistance, both violent and non-violent, against such activities that are being played out in many parts of the country.

In the wake of an armed operation against escalating Maoist insurgency; adivasis, particularly in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra are stiffly resisting the industrial development that threaten their traditional way of life; farmers around the country raging against acquisition of their lands in the name of growth and development – the importance of revisiting the proposed Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, 2009 (LAA) and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill 2009 (R&R) is paramount, if not imperative.

We the struggling communities from different regions of the country have resisted the government’s machinations of enacting a faulty Resettlement and Rehabilitation Act and introducing amendments to the Land Acquisition Act, promoting private and corporate interests over public good. We gathered recently in Delhi in July 2009 and our struggle gained a significant boost when the Acts could not be passed in the Budget session of the Parliament. We have been in Delhi since 18th November and held meetings at Kanjhawala, Jantar Mantar and JNU and explained our concerns on these two Bills but also on the fires raging in the country and the path of growth on which the country is being pushed today.

It is in this context that we invite you to discuss the relevance and implications of these half hearted measures for the millions of people who are struggling to retain their means of livelihood and seek meaningful rehabilitation from a system in which they no longer seem to have faith.

The panelists for this meeting are :

K B Saxena, Former Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development and Agriculture, Union of India now at Council for Social Development, New Delhi

Ramaswamy Iyer, Former Secretary, Ministry of Water resources, Union of India and Government’s nominee on the Sardar Sarovar review Committee now at Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi

Sanjay Parikh, Senior Counsel, Supreme Court of India.

Roma, Kaimur Kshetra Mahila Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, NFFPFW  (Sonbhadra)

Gautam Bandopadhyay, Nadi Ghati Morcha , Chattisgarh

Dayamani Barla, Adivasi Mulnivasi Astitva Raksha Manch, Jharkhand, INSAF [to be confirmed]

Sandhya Devi, Kalahandi Mahila Mahasangh, Orissa

Praffula Samantray, NAPM Orissa

Medha Patkar, Narmada Bachao Andolan & NAPM

MODERATOR : Anand Mazgaonkar, Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti, NAPM Gujarat

Capitalism, Countryside, Debates, Ecology/Environment, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Dhinkia to Beladal: A Protest Padayatra to Make the Orissa Coast Free of Capitalist Investments

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An Appeal to join this  Padayatra November 29 to December 5, 2009

(Mail sent by Mamata Dash)

Dear Comrades/Friends,

Coastal Orissa and hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants who have been living for generations on its precious resources such as agriculture, beetle-vines, fisheries and village art and craft industry are facing today a great crisis of existence imposed on them all over the coast by capitalist investors with the active patronage of the state at the centre and in Orissa.  Be it POSCO or Vedanta or any other name, the most favorite investment destination for everyone is our natural resources and our rich coast line. No iron and steel factory can manufacture sustainable livelihood systems and life centric ecology. No world class university can take care of education of economically deprived who can’t even afford minimum primary education. The Nabin Pattnaik government knows this truth. But they also know another truth-the amount of black money these corporations can pump in for the benefit of the ruling elites no other work in the state can ensure that much for them.  The farmers, the peasants, the workers protest and they take the shape of powerful people’s movements in the form of Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti or Vedanta Viswavidyalaya Virodhi Sangharash Samiti. The people threatened by a project resolve not to give in, but they take the pledge to fight back even if they have to pay a price. Many fighters have been killed but the fight continues in Kalinganagar, Kashipur, Keonjhar, Sundergarh, Lanjigarh, Hirakud, Dhinkia and Beladal. Hundreds of false cases have been filed against the people resisting destruction. But it has only added their resolve to fight with determination. In order to spread the messages of continuing the fight against unjust capitalist aggression on our resources the PPSS has initiated along with the help of Vedanta Viswavidyalaya Virodhi Sanghrash Samiti and several other mass movements, a Padyatra which will start on 29th November 2009 from Dhinkia and culminate on the 5th of December 2009 at Beladal.

We request you to please join this Padyatra to raise your voice against the powerful corporations who are eying shamelessly on our resources. The coast is to protect our livelihood and also to protect the environment. Let us not allow any private investment in the coast of Orissa. Let us make Padayatra a great success. We meet at Dhinkia in the evening of 28 November 2009. The Dhinkia villagers have arranged for food and stay for every pad Yatri. On 29th, the Yatra starts from Dhinkia (Centre of anti POSCO struggle) which ultimately will end on the 5 December 2009 at Beladal (Centre of anti Vedanta University struggle) where everything will be taken care of by the Beladal villagers.

Yours Sincerely

Abhaya Sahu, Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti, Dhinkia, Jagasingpur-( Mobile 9437571547)

Pitambar Das, Jatadhar Bacao Andolan, Ersema

Babuli Behera, Devi Muhan Surakhya Samiti

Benudhara Pradhan, Vedanta Viswavidyalaya Virodhi Sangharsa Samiti,

Bhagaban Majhi, Prakrutika Sampada Surakhya Parishad, Kucheipadar

Lingaraj Azad, Niyamgiri Surakhya Samiti

Rabindra Jarika, Vistapan Virodhi Janmanch, Sukinda

Ashok Pradhan, Paschima Odisha Krushak Sangathan Samanwaya Samiti

Muralidhar Sardar, Mittal Virodhi Manch

Khirod Singh Deo, Hirakud-Rengali Budi Anchal Sangram Samiti

Akhaya Das, Jala Surakhya Jan Manch

Prafulla Samantra, Lok Shakti Abhiyan

Budha Gamango, Lok Sangram Manch

Sibaram, Jiban Jibika Surakhya Samiti

Natabar Sarangi, Prachi Chasi Meli

Narayan Redy, Gana Sangram Samiti, Ganjam

Jogendra Gadanayak, Sidheswar Anchalika Surakhya Committee, Naraj

Nikunja Bhutia, Odisha Jana Adhikar Mancha

Dandapani Mohanty, Odisha Forest Majdoor Union

Jayadeb Nayak, Basi Surakhya Manch

Nitu Chakhia, Rajdhani Basti Unayan Parishad

Culture, Everyday Life, Sex

Notes on Comfort: Akhil Katyal

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This is a Guest Post by AKHIL KATYAL

To make our point let us begin with a story of a salon. It might have all the necessary noise of being new and first-of-its-kind but finally it is quite an unremarkable story. Of ‘NYC’ in Hauz Khas market in Delhi. It sells itself as India’s first LGBT salon. Its owner S. Mehta recently filled up all possible online LGBT forums with its ads, mass mailed on to Delhi list serves and dropped tiny text-ads into unwitting facebook groups, robustly selling it as the latest asset of Delhi’s LGBT community. I am not quite interested in how an otherwise 7 month old – some say not-doing-too-great – business venture is viably repackaged as a LGBT paradise in the wake of the Delhi high court judgment. After all, post the repeal of Sec. 377 in July we are only to expect more of this happening around us, more spectacles of the pink rupee. Nor am I presently interested in how a reigning sense of an LGBT community is proffered by such spectacular announcements of things shared – be it historic events or commercial joints, shared among few or many – but instead, I am interested in the all too common rhetoric that this salon uses in its publicity. A rhetoric that is becoming so widespread as to become almost commonsensical and this is the rhetoric of comfort.
Continue reading Notes on Comfort: Akhil Katyal →

Excavation, Government, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Where Is Hemant Karkare’s Bullet Proof Jacket?

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I.
Hemant Karkare’s family – his wife Kavita, his son and daughters and other near and dear ones – have slowly albeit silently come to terms with the fact that he is no more. Yes, there are occasions when his son takes out the laptop and scans the family album icon to see his father in various moods. There are a few photographs he really loves to watch again and again, where his dad looks a different person and not the usual policewallah.There are times when his mother also joins him and every photograph reminds her of the beautiful days they spent together.
It is known that born and brought up in Madhya Pradesh, Karkare did his engineering (mechanical) in Nagpur and worked at the National Productivity Council and Hindustan Lever before making it to the IPS in 1982. An avid reader of books Hemant during his stint in the Chandrapur forests near Nagpur in 1991 took an interest in driftwood, discovered artistic shapes in them and converted them into wooden sculptures, making about 150 of them over a two-year period.
Continue reading Where Is Hemant Karkare’s Bullet Proof Jacket? →

Debates, Left watch, Politics

माओवादी नेपाली कॉमरेडों से सबक लें

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भारत के माओवादियों को नेपाल के माओवादियों से सबक लेना चाहिए, ऐसा पिछले दो साल से कहा जा रहा है. समझ यह रही है कि नेपाली माओवादियों ने सशस्त्र संघर्ष का रास्ता छोड़कर संसदीय लोकतंत्र में भागीदारी का फैसला किया . लेकिन नेपाली माओवादियों के प्रति भारतीय वामपंथियों के आकर्षण की वजह शायद यह भी रही है कि उन्होंने दीर्घ जनसंघर्ष के रास्ते वह हासिल कर लिया जो यहां की  कम्युनिस्ट पार्टियों ने  अलग-अलग समय में हथियारों के सहारे हासिल करना चाहा था और जिसमें वे सफल नहीं हो पाईं. संसद में हिस्सा लेने के उनके निर्णय को उनकी परिपक्वता का सबूत  माना गया. संसदीय लोकतंत्र को लेकर माओवादियों या आम तौर पर कम्युनिस्ट दलों का रुख क्या रहा है, यह उनके दस्तावेजों को पढ़ने से मालूम हो जाता है. वे इसे लोकतंत्र  की एक हेय या हीन अवस्था मानते हैं और इसे अपना ऐतिहासिक दायित्व मानते हैं कि वे लोकतंत्र को एक उच्चतर अवस्था पर ले जाएं. चूंकि समाज के विकास का एक नक्शा उनके पास है, जिसमें सामंतवाद के बाद पूंजीवाद का आना अनिवार्य है और तभी समाजवाद  के लिए आवश्यक  उत्पादन-पद्धति और उत्पादन संबंध की ज़मीन बन सकती है, यह जिम्मेवारी भी वे अपने ऊपर ले लेते हैं कि सामंतवाद से पूंजीवाद के संक्रमण को वे पूरा करें.
Continue reading माओवादी नेपाली कॉमरेडों से सबक लें →

Government, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Did Goa Government ‘Partially Finance’SS Terrorists?

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Sanatan Sanstha’s link to Margao blast conspiracy just got thicker with all five accused arrested in the case having allegiance to the Hindu right wing organisation operating from Goa police said.

The latest arrest of 20-year old Dhananjay Ashtekar, an engineering student from Khed in Ratnagiri is also associated with Sanatan Sanstha’s activities. Ashtekar was arrested on Wednesday evening by state police’s Special Investigation Team, which is mandated to probe the blast. “He is related to Sanstha and has made it clear during his interrogation,” Superintendent of Police and spokesperson for Goa police department Atmaram Deshpande told PTI on Thursday.

Ashtekar was studying in an engineering college at Ichalkaranji, a town in  western Maharashtra. Deshpande said that the youth was being interrogated over blast case and only when there was sufficient material on record to prove his involvement, he was placed under arrest. Ashtekar is the fifth Sanatan Sanstha activist found to be linked with the blast conspiracy which went awry on the eve of Diwali.

Earlier two accused, Malgonda Patil and Yogesh Naik, who died in the Margao blast and two arrested persons, Vinayak Patil and Vinay Talekar, have confessed their links to Sanstha, which operates through its Ashram at Ramnathi. Deshpande had earlier said that the Sanstha is under scanner as its activists are part of the blast conspiracy. The police have, however, refused to move for a ban against Sanstha as there are no enough evidence to rope in it for the conspiracy. The Margao blast took place on October 16 killing two persons.
© Copy 2009 PTI. http://www.rediff.com, November 12, 2009 15:49 IST)

I.

How to keep Procrastinating When It Comes To Hindutva Terror ?
With every passing day it is becoming apparent that Indian state has different yardsticks to treat terrorism of the  Hindutva kind and that of the ‘Jihadi’ kind. It is not for nothing that more than four weeks after the bomb blasts in Goa – which saw deaths of two activists of Sanatan Sanstha, a emergent fanatic group cloaked in spiritual clothing – there has not been any significant move on part of the Goan government.
Continue reading Did Goa Government ‘Partially Finance’SS Terrorists? →

Debates, Everyday Life, Genders, Identities, Politics, Sex

Tatte Girao, Hijra Hattao: Satya Rai Nagpaul

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This guest post was sent to us by  SATYA RAI NAGPAUL, Transman, Cinematographer, Founder Member: SAMPOORNA: A Network for Asian & Diasporic Asian Trans Persons.

‘Tatte Girao, Hijra Hattao’ was written in response to Farrukh Dhondy’s article ‘The male eunuch & other chromosomes’ in The Asian Age newspaper, August 29th, 2009.  The Asian Age did not publish Satya’s response, and so it has been circulating on relevant e-lists for a while.


 Caster Semenya’s record breaking run in the Berlin World Athletic Games this August, not only raised doubts in the organisers about her ‘real sex”, but back home, has precipitated our very own Mr Farrukh Dhondy’s jounalistic activism to save our boys from falling into any possible sexual/gender ambiguity.
His prescription: Get ‘the apparatus’ and you shall be a ‘man’!

If the medical and legal communities were not enough, we have now to fight our so called “progressive” journalists who write columns about ‘so called eunuchs’, who their medical friends tell them ‘were not eunuchs at all’.

The transphobia, gender essentialism and high moral ground in Mr Dhondy’s article couldn’t have been more naked. What appears throughout the article as his well meaning and sympathetic concern, finally reveals its true face in that last draconian sentence: ‘Make hijras history’. How could the corporeal realities of the hijra be so lost on a journalist [and one who is himself a minority, being a parsi, as stated in his article] that he can wish for the wiping out of an entire way of life? Instead of espousing their human rights, he wishes them not to exist at all?!

Mr Dhondy’s statement that all hijras suffer from Cryptorchidism, and that it is a simple medical procedure that will make men out of them, not only reveals his journalistic smugness but also that he has been completely absent from all discourses on sex/gender emerging ever since the years of the second world war. The binary conceptualisation of sex/gender is long dead in cutting edge academia and even the medical sciences have begun to open out their sex/gender categories to the new conceptualisations.
Continue reading Tatte Girao, Hijra Hattao: Satya Rai Nagpaul →

Genders, Identities, Sex

Interview with Ins Kromminga, German intersex activist and artist

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Below are excerpts from an interview I did with a fascinating artists and activist who initiated a process in me, simple and obvious, and yet complicated and hardly ever embarked upon- vis-a-vis the politics of gender and sexuality. Ins has challenged the routine of the politics we engage in and the world view we sometimes unintentionally take for granted and thus make static, Hoping for an engaging discussion on the issues Ins lays out below.

Also, something to think about: how we write articles in popular media about difficult, unspoken of issues to just put them out there. To bring about some visibility but at the cost of some of the complexity? Sometimes visibility even at the cost of compromise on our politics of how we speak of pain and pleasure in all our lives and in the context of the frameworks of oppression? I see myself having done this below in my fleeting account of Ins’s life and work. How then do we engage with the mainstream media and find the language to articulate complexities approachably and regularly? It’s the eternal question but lets ask it again because, as we all know, we have to. :) Continue reading Interview with Ins Kromminga, German intersex activist and artist →

Excavation, Identities

Caste and Modernity

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A friend remarked the other day that this is an “unendingly interesting” country. The phrase is stuck in my head, and it recurs when I come across stuff like this:

There were no Hindu untouchables in the West Punjab, and such work as that of sweepers, skin-flayers and leather workers was done by Muslims. They were presumably untouchable Hindus who had at one time become Muslims to escape their lot, which they apparently did not manage to do…

As I boy I would feel quite ashamed when my mother, asking for a glass of water at some Muslim house, would be told with ingratiating courtesy that both the glass and the water had come from a neighbouring Hindu family. But slowly I saw the change come in. Our father made no bones about eating with Muslims and bringing them home. Interestingly, this problem was solved in our home, as in many other homes where a similar change was at work, by the introduction of chinaware. Continue reading Caste and Modernity →

Countryside, Everyday Life, Government, Violence/Conflict

Maoist Martyrdom vs. State Barbarism: Satya Sagar

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This is a Guest Post by SATYA SAGAR.

Satya Sagar is a writer, journalist and videomaker based in New Delhi. sagarnama at gmail dot com

Is Maoism in India really the only response to poverty and lack of development? Is an armed rebellion the only way to change the way the Indian State operates? Will such a movement lead to a better future for underprivileged people in this country? Are other forms of mass democratic struggles an alternative option at all?  These are the questions that haunted me as I sat through a public hearing on drought at Daltonganj in Jharkhand’s Palamu district late October this year. Questions that are not new and have been debated repeatedly within the various strands of the Indian left movement for several decades now, with no clear answers as yet.

While I mused, there was this young woman standing on the stage, slowly edging towards the mike, patiently waiting for her turn to speak. She need not have said anything at all. Her emaciated, frail frame, the harassed look on her face and the tears silently welling up in her sunken eyes had already conveyed to us this was another tale of unmitigated tragedy. Barely in her early twenties, she had been diagnosed with tuberculosis a few months ago. Her husband was already on his deathbed due to the same affliction as there was no public health center near her village. Treatment in town was obviously unaffordable. The drought raging in the district, reported to be the worst in over half a century, would end up wiping out her entire family she explained in a quiet, matter of fact tone.

As we sat there, the small ‘jury’ of three or four of us who had come from Delhi and Ranchi to listen to the woes of Palamu’s villagers felt much, much smaller. For her horror story was only one out of some 3000 similar ones of neglect, deprivation and outright desperation that tensely waited to be recalled that early winter afternoon.
Continue reading Maoist Martyrdom vs. State Barbarism: Satya Sagar →

Debates, Left watch, Politics, Violence/Conflict

The New Face of Capitalist War and Duty of the Left:Progressive Students Union

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This guest post is an appeal circulated by Progressive Students Union (PSU) – Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) – about the state’s war on “Maoist violence” , adding to the growing criticism of the CPI(Maoist) that cannot be conveniently dismissed as pro-state or anti-Left.

As has already been declared all across the national media, the state has declared war on “Maoist violence” across the country and is about to unleash its might on some of the most neglected regions and people of this country. While the Maoists are the declared target of the State, it is needless to say that they have hardly any qualms about “breaking a few eggs to make an omlette”! The thousands of adivasis and civilians going to be caught in the crossfire would be portrayed by the media as an inevitable but necessary price to pay for the eradication of the Naxal ‘menace’. That may well be only less than half the story, because another reason for state operations in this area is the immense mineral wealth there which can not be passed on to Indian capital unless adivasis living there are displaced, and their survival systems completely destroyed. According to reports from Chhatisgarh, the state sponsored Salwa Judum has displaced more than three hundred and fifty thousand adivasis in the old Bastar area. Fifty thousand have moved to neighbouring states, another fifty thousand are living under the surveillance of para-military forces in state controlled camps, the remaining two hundred and fifty thousand have moved deeper into the jungle to escape the violence and pillage of Salwa Judum. While the adivasis of Central India have faced, and resisted state violence for long, the Central Home Ministry – under the leadership of the suave and genteel Home Minister and Prime Minister –  has made plans for a larger offensive named ‘Operation Green Hunt’ (with the open possibility of aerial bombardment) to be launched in November this year. Progressive Students Union (PSU) condemns in the strongest terms these actions of the state which amounts to nothing but declaring war on its own citizens.

Continue reading The New Face of Capitalist War and Duty of the Left:Progressive Students Union →

Everyday Life, Law, Right watch

Narendra Modi – Murdabad! Murdabad, murdabad!

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Can you even imagine Indian politics, or even India, without Murdabad? Who in this country has not seen a protest with people shouting “murdabad” after the name of a politician? Murdabad literally means death be upon you. In Gujarat, though, wishing death upon Narendra Modi can land you in jail. After the chief minister contracted swine flu, one Umesh Anupchandra Jain in Surat sent his friend Nirav Jagdishchandra Rana an SMS that read: “Jay Shree Ram. Narendra Modi ne swine flu positive. Bhagwan ene jaldi uthavi le aevi prarthna. Jaisi karni vaisi bharni.” That translates as: ‘Jai Shri Ram. Narendra Modi is swine flu positive. Let’s pray that god takes him away soon. As you sow, so you reap.’

So what if the recipient, Nirav, further circulated this to another 500 people? And so what if some of those were Modi fans, who were infuriated enough to go to the police station with it? What in those words gives the police the right to arrest Umesh and Nirav under charges of promoting enmity between groups, criminal conspiracy and abetting a crime, besides the IT Act. The irony of the Narendra Modi government accusing somebody of promoting enmity amongst groups. You may say it’s in bad taste, you may invoke Gandhi and say and eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. But jail for an innocuous SMS makes Gujarat a police state. Continue reading Narendra Modi – Murdabad! Murdabad, murdabad! →

Government, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Resurgent Hindutva Terror: Will Goa Blast Investigations Go the Nanded Way?

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PANAJI: Goa Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders like Manohar Parrikar have expressed support for the Sanatan Sanstha, the Hindu outfit blamed for the pre-Diwali blasts that killed two people  on Wednesday.
Virendra Marathe, managing trustee of the Sanstha, named BJP state president Shripad Naik, leader of opposition Parrikar and party legislator Dayanand Mandrekar as politicians who stood by them in the aftermath of the blasts in Margao, 35 km from here.
Police say the blasts were engineered and executed by members of the Sanstha.
“The BJP MLAs supported us. They advised us to sue the media for defamation, for slandering the Sansthan. Dayanand Mandrekar, Parrikar and Shripad Naik supported us,” Marathe said at a press conference in Panaji.
Goa BJP leaders support us: Sanatan Sanstha
IANS 28 October 2009, 02:35pm IST ( Times of India, 28 th October 2009)

1.

How much time do the powers that be need to make any significant move when they unearth a conspiracy hatched by a self proclaimed ‘spiritual group’ to massacre dozens of innocent people supposedly to vindicate their weltanshauung and instigate a communal riot? Do they keep quibbling over minor details and let the real masterminds obfuscate their obvious links with the executioners? Do they keep talking in multiple voices and make themselves vulnerable over attacks by oppositional parties supposedly for their ‘dilly-dallying’?
It has been more than a fortnight that one witnessed a blast in Margao, where two people belonging to ‘Sanatan Sanstha’ carrying explosives in their scooter were killed and another bomb was detected – around twenty kilometres from the first spot – in a truck carrying 40 youth and a Narkasur for competition – which exposed a sinister conspiracy to instigate communal riots, but one is yet to see any concrete step on part of the government to nab the real terrorists and break their wider network.
Continue reading Resurgent Hindutva Terror: Will Goa Blast Investigations Go the Nanded Way? →

Debates, Left watch, Violence/Conflict

An encounter with Chhatradhar Mahato: Monobina Gupta

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This guest post by MONOBINA GUPTA is the original of the article published in The Times of India today.

Monobina’s book on Left politics, Postcards from the Margins, is in press with Orient Blackswan, forthcoming in 2010.

The Delhi bound Rajdhani Express held up by supposed ‘Maoists’ for seven hours in West Medinipore had emblazoned on its body: Chhatradhar Mahato is a good man. He is not a criminal.

People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA) Chief Mahato was put behind bars in the aftermath of waves of violence lashing West Bengal post 2009 general election results. There was speculation that the PCPA was demanding Mahato’s release. Equally, there was curiosity about Mahato who till a couple of months ago, did not seem to fit the bill of a gun-toting Maoist, a cold-blooded executioner.

When I met Mahato in Lalgarh on the eve of general elections in March earlier this year, he spoke a democratic language far removed from guns and killings. On my arrival that day I found Lalgarh abuzz with news of police picking up three villagers supposedly Maoists, and a murdered PCPA activist.  Mahato was in the midst of an organizational meeting under a tree in Lalgarh’s sublime, verdant surroundings. A tall, lanky man, smartly dressed, with a pair of sunglasses to beat the piercing July sun he was sitting with his comrades putting inside envelopes hand-written notices for PCPA’s next public meeting. Brother of Sashadhar Mahato, a Maoist fugitive, Chhatradhar was catapulted to the PCPA leadership virtually overnight, following a brutal police attack on villagers in the aftermath of a Maoist plot targetting Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.
Mahato said he would talk to me after lunch. The PCPA was running a community kitchen inside a mud hut where activists had their meals – rice and vegetable curry. This was where I met Mahato relaxed, lying down on the refreshingly cold mud floor.

Continue reading An encounter with Chhatradhar Mahato: Monobina Gupta →

Debates, Government, Left watch, Violence/Conflict

What happened with the Bhubaneswar Rajdhani? Reflections on Dissent and Violence

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From passengers’ eyewitness accounts, and those of the driver and assistant driver of the train (congratulations, for once, to Times of India and to Indian Express reporter Debabrata Mohanty for going beyond statements from police and other officials of the Indian state), this is what happened:

The train was running on schedule when the driver noticed logs on the tracks and a large mob of about 300 waving red flags,  rushing towards the train. As the train screeched to a halt, stones were pelted (some passengers reported minor injuries from shattered window glass) and some men climbed into the driver’s cabin.  Said the driver, K Ananth Rao and his assistant K G Rao to the ToI reporter, Sukumar Mahato, “They said they were holding up the train because the state had waged a war on tribals. We followed them and sat by the tracks.”

[The Indian Express story by Ravik Bhattacharjee and Kanchan Chakrabarty, unattributed to any source, claims “The Rajdhani Express was intercepted by a 1500 strong mob and its driver and his assistant were taken hostage.”]

The PCAPA (People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities) claimed

a) it was not hostage-taking, but a rail abarodha (a blockade) of the train for flouting the rail roko call, when an indefinite bandh against atrocities by the joint security forces in the district had begun since morning.

b) it was meant to draw attention to the arrest of Chhatradhar Mahato, the PCPA leader.  One of the slogans sprawling in red letters across the side of the train says, in English, Chhatradhar Mahato is a good man.

Continue reading What happened with the Bhubaneswar Rajdhani? Reflections on Dissent and Violence →

Bad ideas, Countryside

The Pleasure of Release

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While there is always the thrill of holding people hostage against their desire, the Maoists, of late, seem to have discovered the pleasure of release.

Having spanked the state into submission by beheading Francis Induwar; by freeing policeman Antindranath Datta and “peacefully” vandalizing the Bhubaneswar-New Delhi Rajdhani, the Maoists appear to be signaling a new phase in their troubled relationship with the State.

Now that the State and the media know that the Maoists are capable of taking the pleasure equals pain principle to its logical climax, freeing hostages and good-naturedly scribbling slogans on trains appears like a far more civilized way of fomenting revolution.

Just yesterday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi expressed their willingness to break free from the handcuffs of current discourse and engage with those who abstain (from violence).

Maoist leader Kishenji has insisted that while the rebels shall not lay down their arms, talks with the West Bengal and Central Governments must be preceded by the unconditional release of all prisoners taken captive since military operations began in Lalgarh in June, a withdrawal central forces from the area and a declaration of ceasefire by both sides.

In the meantime, the Home Minister, P.Chidambaram, has warned that he can keep his velvet gloves on for only so long; thereafter it’s steel fisting all the way. The victims of military operation shall inevitably be the poor tribals who have love for neither State nor rebel.  Now if only the Maoists would take themselves in hand.

First published in the Hindustan Times

Everyday Life, Excavation

Five Days with VS Naipaul

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By NASIR ABID

(An edited, shorter version of this essay had
appeared some years ago in Man’s World magazine.)

*

Call me the man who met V.S. Naipaul.

It all started innocently enough. A journalist telegraphed from Bombay that he was reaching Lucknow on such and such a date with V.S. Naipaul.

My excitement knew no bounds and I fixed it with a mutual friend, Azad, to go to the airport to pick them up. As luck would have it we got stuck in the traffic jam and reached the airport late. With hindsight I shudder to think what a close shave I had, what with Naipaul’s antipathy to people being late for an appointment.

We shook hands and since there was hardly any luggage we got into the car and headed back to the city. In spite of the intense summer heat Naipaul was wearing a summer suit and a felt hat. He was wearing a checked shirt with the collar buttoned but without a tie, white socks and loafer shoes, the kind in which the socks show.

His skin was dark like walnut, and because the felt hat hid his thick head of hair the initial impression which had become familiar to us from Hollywood gangster movies. The expression was fixed in a perpetual grimace with the lips pursed as if he was just enduring being stuck in a place like this. There was not a hint of a smile.

I told Naipaul that A House for Mr Biswas was one of my favourite books and I am sure that he must be pleased with it too. He modestly said, “It just got written and yes I am very fond of Biswas too.” Modestly because in one of his interviews Naipaul said that he knew that it was going to be a big one. I referred to the ‘skin tights’ episode and Naipaul gave an amused chuckle. In my younger days, when I had read the novel, I had felt that it was very cruel to write this episode however amusing it might have been. But I did not say so to him. Continue reading Five Days with VS Naipaul →

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