Vol :8 No:1,January 2007, Rs. 12 PEOPLE’S MARCH

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PEOPLE’S MARCHVol :8 No:1,January 2007, Rs. 12http//;peoplesmarch.googlepages. com

Dandakaranya:

Qualitative Leap inPeoples’ War!

Maharashtra:

Dalit Wrath Engulfs State!

2 PEOPLE'S MARCH, January 2007

EDITOR: P. Govindan Kutty E-mail: [email protected]@[email protected]@rediffmail.com

Owned, Edited, Printed & Published by P. Govindan Kutty, Peroor house, Tripunithura, N.F. Ernakulam, Kerala — 682 301,Printed at Chithira Printers, 63/321, Poruvelil, Kannachanthodu Road, Kochi — 18

ContentsVoice of the Indian Revolution

14Gruesome Massa-cre of Dalits

3

Remembering1857

Vol : 7, No.8,January 2007, Rs. 12

Salwa JudumFalters!Retaliation takes areal People’sWarCharacter

Political

21

PEOPLE’S MARCH

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Mobile No. : 99472 76692

Press ReleaseInternationalKhairlanjhi dalit killings 9Farmers death are not suicide

Memorandum 18In commemoration of MartyrComrade Kamul Islam 28 Demand unconditional release

of Maoist leader ComNarendra(alias Chintan) 27

Latin America – a volcanoabout to explode 25

Global trends, challenges andopportunities after 9/11 11

PEOPLE'S MARCH, January 2007 3

Gruesome Massacre of DalitsDalit Fury Scorches Maharashtra

Avanti

MARX’S famous phrase, “peoplemake history” was witness this

past one month in Maharashtra when theDalits rose as one to protest against thegruesome killings of four Dalits inKhairlanjhi village. It is a fact that peopledevelop the tactics and revolutionariesmust learn from them. The manner in whichthe protests in Maharashtra spread, thedetermination and fury of the masses asthe movement built itself up over theperiod, the focus in the targets of theirattacks were not planned, but they pointto how the people have devised their ownmethods to express their protests.. SurekhaBhotmange, her teenaged daughterPriyanka, and sons Roshan and Sudhirwere killed on September 29, but theprotests began in the first week ofNovember as the realization came that theentire case was being suppressed by thepolice and political authorities to protectthe perpetrators of the crime. As thecasteist nature of the police andGovernment revealed itself over the daysthe masses pressed their protests forwardsparing none, not their opportunist,compromising leaders, nor the corrupt Dalitofficials who were also party to the cover-up. It was as if the protests rose from thedepths of their beings, their frustrations atthe casteist oppression they continue toface in daily life, the lack of economicopportunities in “globalizing India” inspiteof their struggle to educate themselves andtheir children. Young school educatedyouth and women were in the forefront ofthe protests. Neither the large forces ofthe police nor the rapid action force couldstop them. They faced arrest only to beback on the streets the next day. TheMaharashtra Government was just unableto stop these protests though they triedstrong repression and disinformation. Theappeals of the established Dalit leaders andthe Buddhist clergy to use peaceful meansfell on deaf ears. Though only 10 per centof the population of the State, the Dalitmasses proved their strength and capacityto paralyse the entire economic life of theState.

The Maharashtra Government hasunleashed repression on the masses.

Hundreds have been arrested, the policehave resorted to firings and lathi-chargesat innumerable places, combing operationshave been conducted in various bastis inthe different cities in the state, hundredsof youth have been detained. They haveeven imposed sedition cases on some ofthem, as if protesting against casteistviolence is equal to overthrow of the State.Indeed the brahminical Indian State reallyis fearful of the militancy of the Dalitmasses. They have prevented all morchasplanned by the people if there is a whiff ofmilitancy. The Long March from Nagpurto Khairlanjhi was forcibly stopped.

But to prevent the march to the VidhanSabha in Nagpur on December 4 the StateGovernment pulled all the forces in itsarsenal. Nagpur was converted into apolice camp with ten thousand specialpolice including the Rapid Action Forcedeployed all over the city to ensure thatthe march would not take place. All theDalit leaders were detained. Trucks fromvillages were turned back and people notallowed to leave their villages. The dalitmasses in the bastis in Nagpur wereimprisoned in their homes and were notallowed out of their houses. Repeatedlythe Government has been saying that allthe demands of the masses have been metand now there should be no agitation. TheGovernment’s crass undemocraticapproach is exposed before all. So theGovernment now decides when the peopleshould agitate and when they should not.They decide whether the demands of themasses have been met or not.

The assertion of the masses was sostrong that even Sonia Gandhi cut shorther trip and the Maharashtra CM flew backfrom Singapore and rushed back to dodamage control.

Four members of the Bhotmange family– A Mahar Buddhist family residing in thevillage Khairlanjhi were killed in full viewof the entire village on September 29, 2006.Mother Surekha, daughter Priyanka (19yrs), son Sudhir (17 yrs) working in a townnearby and blind son Roshan (18 yrs). Thetwo women were dragged out of theirhouse by some women from the peasantOBC families of the village and taken tothe centre of the village near the panchayat

office. On the way they were, beaten andtheir clothes torn in the process. There theywere tied to a bullock cart stripped andbeaten and their private parts injured withblunt weapons. The two sons rushed totheir defence but they too were caught andthrashed and plummeted around like afootball. The women were molested andgang-raped and the boys asked to rapetheir mother and sister in full view of thevillage. When they refused their privateparts were crushed. In this gruesome dramathat was enacted for almost two hours allthe four died on the spot. Their mutiliatedbodies were thrown more than 2 kmsoutside the village near a canal. The fatherBhaiyyalal Bhotmange who was in thefields when this attack began came backto the village and saw the entire horrifyingevent by hiding himself. He crawled awayto the neighbouring village to inform theirpeople about this incident. Two other Dalitfamilies in the village also realized whatwas happening but hid themselves in theirhouses out of fear.

What caused this gruesome masskilling ?

The incident is a reflection of thehorrifying conditions in rural Maharashtrawhere semi-feudal relations still prevail,caste prejudices, lack of development,concentration of land and land hungerhave led to severe contradictions thatsimmer under the surface and burst out inthis and other ways occasionally. It is areflection of what dalits face when theyassert themselves through acquiringeducation and a burning desire for equality.The Bhotmange family migrated to thisvillage in 1988 because they got about fiveacres land to cultivate. They struggled onthe land and dreamt of educating theirchildren. Son Sudhir managed to becomea graduate, Priyanka was studying in the12th standard, son Roshan was blind buthe was studying. Priyanka had been amerit student in the 10th Std, was an NCCcadet and was studying political scienceand sociology. Surekha Bhotmange wasthe driving force in the family. They gotinto a conflict with another family,neighbours Shivshankar Tilkar’s familyover access through their land to his land.He wanted to drive his tractor through their


land which they refused. This led to adispute and police complaints in 2002.Through the mediation of SiddarthGajbhiye, a relative of Surekha and policepatil of nearby village Dhusala, they agreedto allow 15 feet of land for a road. Gajbhiye,also a Dalit was a better off farmer whoalso sometimes employed women from theOBC castes to work in his fields. He wasthe police patil of the village. The otherpeasant families, most of them from theOBC Kalar, Powar, Kunbi castes could notstomach the struggle of these two dalitfamilies to come up economically, and theirconfidence and self assertion. Casteprejudices were manifest openly in manyother ways in the village. BhaiyyalalBhotmange has said that they faced casteoppression all through their stay in thisvillage. Priyanka was the only girl in thevillage to study beyond school level. Inthe village of about 800 with 125 familiesthere were only three Dalit families.

On 3rd September Siddarth was beatenby some villagers in Khairlanjhi overdispute over agricultural wage paymentthey say. He was openly abused in hiscaste name. When he went to lodge acomplaint in the Andhalgaon policestation he was chased away. He admittedhimself into a hospital in Kamptee townwhere the doctors insisted he register apolice complaint. The case was registereddays later and Surekha gave evidence inthis and named several villagers. They werereleased on bail immediately on 29th

September. As soon as they were releasedthey took their tractors etc and headedstraight for Siddharth Gajbhiye’s house.Not finding him at home they returned totheir village, held a meeting in the villagesquare and then the crowd proceeded tothe Bhotmange’s house to punish them forstanding witness. Thus Surekha and herchildren became the targets of the attack.

All attempts to bring the police initiallycame to naught. Though they wereinformed they deliberately delayed coming.Only when the first body was found on 1st

October that the police started moving.Even then they claimed that the bodieswere unrecognized. Various lower levelpolicemen and police officials have nowbeen suspended. Even the doctors whoconducted the post-mortem weresuspended after the pressure of theagitation built up. Among those

suspended (including the asst policeprosecutor Leela Gajbhiye) some are Dalitsthemselves. Money played a big role inslowing down the police investigationsand weakening the charges. But nowinvestigations have brought the wholematter into the open. As revealed in thereport filed by the Government instituteYashada, there was a conspiracy from thebeginning to suppress the facts, wipe outthe evidence and downplay the crime. Thelocal BJP MLA is very much involved inthis conspiracy, the IG Police, Pankaj Gupta(he is special IG in charge of anti-Naxaliteoperations) is also involved in thisconspiracy. All of them, with a blatantlycasteist approach tried to spreaddisinformation and fudge the evidence.The Maharashtra Government and HomeMinister R.R.Patil (NCP) also tried hard toprotect the real culprits and hide thisconspiracy. Even the Sarpanch and Up-Sarpanch of the village who werepersonally present through the entire attackhave been arrested only at the end ofNovember.

They spread the rumour that Surekhahad an extra-marital affair with Gajbhiyeand the village women objected to this andthus attacked them. This rumour is stillbeing kept alive, inspite of all the factshaving come to light as is evident in thearticle in Hindustan Times by theircorrespondent Sarita Kaushik onNovember 27, 2006. Then they said thatthe Bhotmange’s sold liquor and this wasobjected to by the villagers. Thus in truepatriarchal fashion they maligned a boldand unbending woman like Surekha. Theytried to justify the murders by maligningher character. But in the beginning ofNovember the incident became an issueand protests began. Then as the protestspicked up momentum all the disinformationand conspiracies came to be exposed oneby one. Only the determined struggle ofthe Dalit masses could bring out a part ofthe truth behind the incident and killings.The main culprits, the instigators andmanipulators, the BJP and NCP politiciansare still at large.The Protests:

The first major protest was a 1000strong morcha in Bhandara on the first ofNovember 2006. It was organized by theDalit women’s front the Samrudha BaudhaMahila Sangathana. Many democratic

forces including women from othersections also participated in this protest.Then, on November 6, the protests spreadto Nagpur where the dalit Buddhistsconstitute a sizeable section of the poorand even the middle class. Spontaneouslythe youth and women came out into thestreets, attacking police stations, policevehicles, burning tyres, and the house ofCongress MLA Nitin Raut. They attackedall symbols of the Government and thepolice. The protests began in the Indoraarea and then spread to all other areaswhere Dalit Buddhists are concentrated.For several days Nagpur was aflame. Thepolice started picking up activistsindiscriminately. Youth went aroundholding corner meetings, staging plays,putting up posters, distributing handbills.The mood of the masses was to reject theestablished dalit leadership and press theirprotests forward. There was no organizedforce behind this protest but the massesrevealed their creativity, fearlessness andcapacity to struggle. Then the call for theLong March to Khairlanjhi starting onNovember 12 was given. People ralliedaround this call but the State’s repressiveadministration swung into action toprevent the march. Women in largenumbers courted arrest when they were notallowed to start the march.

All efforts by the people to reachKhairlanjhi have been forcibly stopped bythe police. The village itself is under siege.Now there are three police barricades topass in order to reach the village.

As news of these protests spread theagitation picked up other towns and cities.The entire month of NovemberMaharashtra resounded with the sound ofprotest. On 8th November the morcha tothe Mantralaya gave a rude shock to theChief Minister and the Home Ministersending their precious security into afrenzy. As the Chief Minister wasaddressing a Cabinet meeting a group ofabout 50 women belonging to Dalitwomen’s organizations including UrmilaPawar (a dalit woman intellectual) managedto sneak into the Mantralaya and stormedinto the office of the Chief Ministershouting slogans. Bandhs were observedin various towns and big villages inBhandara and Gondia districts.Pandharakwada, Yavatmal were alsorocked by protests. Over 15, 000 people


participated in a protest march inChandrapur on November 13. Then theprotest spread to Amravati. On 14th

November a morcha spontaneouslyplanned turned into a mammoth march of20,000 as the Dalits responded to the callin large numbers. It was the first majorprotest in the town and became the meansto release their pent up anger. The policeresorted to lathi-charge and firing and onedalit youth Dinesh Wankhede wasmartyred by the police bullets, while severalothers were seriously injured. The peopletargeted police vehicles and some privatecars to register their anger and severalpolice were injured in this agitation. Thepolice firing and death of one youth inAmravati sparked off further protests andled to an intensification of the agitation inother districts. People have beendemanding the resignation of the HomeMinister and the Chief Minister. The HomeMinister had the gall to state in a functionof the police in Pune that the agitation wasbeing conducted in “Hitlerite fashion”. Asreports of this speech spread the HomeMinister became a target of the people’sprotest. Sholapur exploded with protestsand the police clamped curfew to stop theagitations. For over four days the curfewwas on. Aurangabad went aflame and theretoo lathi charges, firing in the air could notcontrol the people. Aurangabad was undercurfew for several days. So also Pune.

After the firing in Amravati the capitalcity Mumbai came under the wave ofprotests. It started with a huge protestmorcha in Chembur. The protests spreadto the outlying suburbs like Ambarnath,Ulhasnagar, Karjat, Kalyan, Bhiwandi,Badlapur, Navi Mumbai. These towns havewitnesses repeated protestdemonstrations and bandhs on this issue.The bandh call was being given in atleastone suburb or the other every day for overa fortnight. In every locality and suburb inmajor cities like Pune, Mumbai and NaviMumbai local organizations have gottogether and protested in whatever formthey could. Those with less strengthorganized dharnas while others organizedmorchas and still others bandhs. It was agood lesson in how sprawling metropolisescan be made to feel the impact of thepeople’s voice. Protests engulfed cities likeNanded, Parbhani and other towns in theinterior of the State.

Sensing the mood of the people, andtheir leadership slipping away the eversquabbling dalit leaders of the Republicanparty of India’s various factions cametogether to salvage their leadership.Mahamorchas were organized in Kolhapur,Satara and Sangli. They started plans for amorcha to the Vidhan sabha on December4th, the first day of the assembly.

This being the fiftieth anniversary ofDr Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhismbig functions have been organized in Dalitlocalities. Ambedkar ’s rejection ofHinduism and his conversion to Buddhismled to a wave to conversions in the Stateand all the Buddhists in the State are dalits.The deep sentiment and faith the peoplehave in this symbolic rejection of the castebased Hindu religion makes them mark thisevent widely. The Buddhist clergy andleadership of Buddhist organizations(some funded from Japan and Thailand)too have been active this year tocommemorate this occasion. Thisleadership tried their very best but couldnot make the masses stay within thebounds of the law and restrict their proteststo peaceful marches and dharnas.

In some areas this Buddhist clergyitself came under repression. In Nandedthey were brutally lathi-charged.

The efforts of the police top brass tomalign the movement by claiming that it isa result of naxalite conspiracy and to justifytheir repression came to nought. Theyattempted to frighten the people intosilence in this way. But masses gave thema good slap. From November 8th itself afterviolent protests began in Nagpur theHome Minister and IG Pnakaj Gupta hadbegun this disinformation campaign.

The incident of the desecration of theAmbedkar statue in Kanpur on November30 again proved to be a spark that led to afresh round of protests. The suburbs ofPune exploded. Pimpri, Chinchwad,Dapodi, Khadki erupted and the fury ofthe masses had no bounds. All vehiculartraffic came to a halt, train traffic came to ahalt. The nerve centre of industry and IT –the Pune-Mumbai belt was affected.Mumbai and Thane came to a halt. Morethan 200 buses of the public transport weredamaged and the prestigious DeccanQueen train from Pune to Mumbai washalted near Ulhasnagar and set on fire. Theprotesters, though, took the trouble to

empty the entire train and escort the enginedriver to safety before setting fire to thetrain. Stone pelting and rasta/rail rokoswere reported from every nook and cornerof the city and about 90 busses weredamaged. Police firing also took place inBandra. Curfew was imposed in parts ofNanded, Osmanabad and Pune. InAurangabad clashes took place betweenthe dalit crowd and police resulting inpolice firing in the air (a sub-inspector wasinjured). In Nasik 100 buses were damagedand one dalit was killed by casteist upper-caste mobs for stone-pelting. In Pune thedalit fury was intense and here too 100buses were damaged. Intense agitationsalso took place in most towns ofMaharashtra including far-away Sholapur.

The struggle was anti-state and everysymbol of the State has come under attackwhether public transport or police vehicles.The agitation spread to districts that hadbeen relatively silent. Osmanabad, Laturalso witnessed widespread agitations.Response of the Parties

The BJP/Shiv Sena and Congress-combine together with the entire statemachinery was entirely against the dalitsand outright casteist in their approach. Thestate was so corrupted with its casteist biasthat though many of the police and doctorsinvolved in the case were themselves dalitsthey sided with the powerful and acted attheir behest. Ironically many of whomaction (suspension) has now been takenare dalits themselves. All the other rulingclass parties only lent lip-support to thedalits. The dalit leaders have long beendiscredited amongst the dalits and theagitations were totally spontaneous withno leaders to be seen. In fact the rulerswere wailing that there were no leadersaround to pacify the situation. In a bid torebuild their credibility on the eve of theNagpur assembly some of them werearrested.

In fact it was only the Maoists wholent full and open support to the dalits andcalled a Vidarbha bandh on this andfarmer’s suicide issue on December 8th. Thepress reported that the bandh wasparticularly successful in Nagpur andYavatmal districts as also in Gadchiroli,Chandrapur and Bhandara.

In a press release on Nov.10th itself theMaharashtra State Committee of the

.....continued on page 8


Repression — Exracts from the Civil Liberties Fact Finding ReportAmravati

AFTER the rally of women’sorganizations at Bhandara on 1st

November, a Kharlanji Hatyakand VirodhiKruti Samiti was formed at Amravati where anumber of Dalit activists and intellectualscame together. These activists do not belongto any Political party but felt that they oughtto express their protest against the atrocities.They invited various Micro credit groups(Bachat Gat) of the bastis to participate. Ameeting to plan this rally was held on 5th

November. The Convenors of the ActionCommittee was Prof. Satishwar More, NishaShende, a lecturer and Women’s movementactivist and Nanda Taywade, a social activist.Shri Sonule of Samata Sainik Dal was alsoactive in this endeavour and SSD had alreadyvisited Khairlanji and brought out a Fact-Finding report of the incident. The organizershad many meetings with the police and eventhe CP in the process of obtaining permissionfor the rally. The CP indicated that the rallywould draw thousands of participants whichthe organizers would not be able to handle.The organizers told the police that handlingthe public and maintaining law and order wasthe work of the police department and thatthey had every intention to conduct apeaceful protest. After a lot of discussionpermission for the rally was eventually givenon 14th Nov.

On 13th November, The Republican Partyof India (RPI) (Gavai Group) took out a rallyin which, according to observers, about athousand people participated. However, onthe 14th, when the Kruti Samiti began theirrally, people just started pouring in endlessly.Some journalists who spoke to the team saidthat about 20,000 must have come. One ofthe organizers said that it was about 3 kmslong, that people were coming even after themorcha had ended.

The rally started around 1 p.m. andreached the District Collectorate within anhour. Some of the leading activists gavespeeches and handed a memorandum to theCollector, while the others were shoutingslogans outside. When the organizers cameback, Nisha Shende addressed the gatheringand announced that the protest action hadbeen concluded and asked everybody to gohome. It was after the people had dispersedand were going home that some stone peltingtook place. A lot of slogan shouting againstthe police inefficiency in handling the

Khairlanji case took place and the youth,between 18-20 years were in a militant mood.It was then that the lathi-charge suddenlybegan and indiscriminate arrests took place.The policemen themselves picked up stonesand hurled them at the people. The copschased men, women and children withbatons, beating them mercilessly. Peoplerushed into gullies to save themselves. Manywomen rushed into the compound of theTreasury Office to hide. Perhaps, seeing thepolice brutally beat women and childrenangered the mob and some two-wheelerswere set on fire near the Treasury. A water-tanker was also burnt. Some rounds of teargaswere fired, the teargas being of the kindwhose expiry date was over and could havecaused greater harm to the people.

Suddenly, ACP Rahane gave the orderto fire. 26 rounds were fired. Four people wereinitially injured and one of them, DineshWankhede succumbed to the injuries. Twoof the others are teenage boys whose veinsin the ankles have been shattered and it isdoubtful whether they will be able to walk.The fourth is about 16 years old and threebullets hit him on the upper back, but not toodeep. Dinesh was hit straight in the headand the bullet lodged in his brain. He waspicked up by his arms and legs, with hisbleeding head almost touching the groundand dragged to hospital by the police. Hewas kept in the IG Medical Hospital atNagpur, in a coma for 8 days till he died. Manyof the others injured by the lathi-charge arestill at the Civil Hospital Amravati while manywere treated and discharged. There was large-scale beating and arrests of activists.The Firing

The exact moment of the firing was 14hours 12 minutes. The spot was before theDistrict Collectorate where in fact, there wereno major incidents of violence. The sporadicburning of two-wheelers etc took place ingulleys far away.

At first the CP did not even concede thata police firing had taken place to thejournalists. An excuse for the firing is beingcooked up; viz. the mob was going to lootthe Treasury. However the Dist TreasuryOfficer, R. V. Yewale says that the womenhad entered the Treasury premises to takeshelter and respite from the police lathi-charge. They have however filed a report withthe police about the vehicles being burntnear the premises.

Adv. P.S. Khadse, Adv. SiddharthGaikwad, who helped save Dinesh, and someothers feel that the firing was totallyunjustified since the rally was over andpeople had dispersed. Many feel that the rallycould have been handled better. For instanceinstead of firing, a water-canon could havebeen used. When asked about this, theCommissioner of Police said that there is nowater-canon and it cannot be helped thatsmaller places do not have these facilities.The Injured

The Fact-Finding Team visited CivilHospital Amravati (Irwin) and spoke to allthe injured who were there. The team metNishikant Harne, aged about 16 and hismother. Three bullets had grazed his upperback. He works in a hotel. He says that hedid not know what the rally was for and thathe had just gone there to have a look. Theother two with bullet injuries are students.One of them, a tall well built youth is in theClass XII. The veins and arteries in their shinsand ankles are shattered and one cannot sayif they will be able to walk. There were manywith fractured limbs due to the severe lathi-charge, including a 70 year old man who wastrying to prevent the police from beatingwomen.

A large number of other women withinjuries were interviewed by the team.

In the Civil Hospital all the victims’statements have been recorded and theyhave received a compensation of Rs. 5000each…a paltry sum for those whose futureis lost.Arrests, Detention and State Terror

While some participants were picked upfrom the spot itself, many arrests continuedfor days on end. In fact, the policeannounced that 12,000 unknown personshad been named as accused in the violentincidents, which had made it possible foranybody at random to be arrested and manyothers were in hiding and could not carry onwith their day to day activities. NandaTaywade told the team that large numbers ofwomen had participated in the rally. On thatday itself, 24 women who had not evenreached the rally, but were nearing it werearrested by the police. Later, Nanda herselfwas arrested and she was in jail with them.Nanda was arrested when the day after therally and the firing, the leading activists wereon their way to meet the Home Minister. Atfirst they had gone to Irwin Hospital to see


the injured, but since R.R. Patil was coming,they were told to go away. They thoughtthat they should go to meet the Minister too.On their way they were stopped by ajournalist who started interviewing them forStar News. As they were speaking, they wereencircled by the police and soon arrested.Prof Satishwar More and others were alsoarrested with her. They were produced incourt the same evening and taken to jail. Agirl student, studying in Class XII, who wasarrested with them, was crying inconsolably,indicating that most of thewomen arrested were neitheractivists nor miscreants. Someof the women from the groupof 24 (who had not evenreached the rally) were yet tobe released on bail when theteam met Nanda. They were injail from 15th to 22nd November.In all, 52 people had beenarrested, 10 of them who werejuvenile were released and 22men and 20 women had beenkept in jail.

Most of those arrestedhave been charged with Sec.307, 148, 149 etc. The activistsand citizens who met the teamfelt that since no policemenwere seriously injured, whywas Sec 307 (attempt tomurder) slapped on them? Infact some alleged that copswho had tiny wounds, on afinger for example had beenhospitalized to create theimpression of grievous hurt. Onthe other hand, hundreds ofordinary people had beengrievously hurt in the lathi-charge, remarked some of theactivists, police have been evenshown on the news on TVpelting stones back at people,yet there are no charges on the police.

Even days after the rally, some fresharrests have taken place. A school teacher ofthe Navodaya Vidyalaya, Bhaurao Sarkate,was arrested because he had in hispossession some posters and“inflammatory” literature. The poster was onethat has been up on the walls in Nagpur andother places on the Khairlanji issue, whilethe literature was nothing but the Fact-Finding report of the SSD on Khairlanji.

Sarkate was so shocked that the middle agedman suffered a stroke. His letter ofsuspension from his job was handed to himon his hospital bed! Others are arrests underpreventive detention. In spite of this, whenthe body of Dinesh Wankhede, deceased inNagpur, after being injured in the police firing,was brought, about 7000 people turned upfor his funeral.The Commissioner of Police

Basically the CP of Amravati,Commissioner Dhar, refused to comment on

the firing because it is pending a magisterialinquiry. He felt that charging the huge numberof people under Sec 307 was justified becausethe people had upturned one of vehicles andset it on fire and a number of cops have beenhurt. Regarding the arrest of the schoolteacher, he felt it was justified since he wasgoing house to house telling people to riseup against injustice. (Were the cops followinghim? And is the right to organize not afundamental right?) As for who is likely to be

yet arrested and why, were all a matter ofinquiry which the concerned members of thedepartment knew about, he said. Basicallyhe was satisfied by the way the police hadhandled the situation, or the violence couldhave been much worse, he said.The media

The team met the editor and publisher ofa local daily, Dainik Matdar, Mr. Dilip Edatkar.He belongs to the OBC community and isstrongly a secular person. He severelycriticized the mainstream media for

misrepresenting the news aboutKhairlanji and blacking out much ofthe state repression after the protestagitations.Responses of intellectuals

Going into the reasons why themassacre at Khairlanji took place, andwhy Dalits have spontaneouslycome out into the streets in such largenumbers, Mr. Edatkar felt that certainsections of society resent theupwardly mobile trend among dalitsand other backward castes. Most feltthat it was definitely due to growingcasteism. Nisha Shende said that itwas an attempt to crush a section ofthe people on whom society is somuch dependent. Mr. PrabhakarGambhir said that this was a processof the dalit revolt, which had begunin the 60s with the Panthers andbecome co-opted. Most people feltthat the masses are disillusioned withthe leadership and this rally saw theBuddhijeevi and Shramjeevi cometogether without the usual leaders.The dalit masses were comingforward to occupy negative space,said Mr. Gambhir.“Long March Chowk” South Nagpur

The area where the poorersections of dalits live has a bluecolumn with the Panchsheel wheel,This is not a Chinese Long March,

but built in memory of the Long March toMarathwada during the Namantar agitation,for the renaming of the MarathwadaUniversity after Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, anagitation which had martyrs in its time. Weentered the basti with Raju and visitedinnumerable houses where people had beenbadly beaten, bones fractured, ligaments torn.People held out bandaged legs, bruisedshoulders, and arms in slings. A woman whowas beaten all over and had a broken arm

One of the Sons of Bhiyyalal Bhotmange


abused the police strongly saying that shewas a daily wages labourer and who wouldearn for the family now. Two women whobought and sold waste-paper asked cynicallywhat was going to happen to their injuredboys. Nanda Meshram has broken limbs andwas beaten by three male police personneltogether till she fell unconscious. A ten yearold boy had a fractured hand with thegovernment hospital papers saying, “brokenby lathi”….without even a mention of whowas behind that lathi.Extreme Cruelty

The way in which the police action tookplace shows extreme cruelty. At first tear gaswas discharged all over, suffocating andconfusing the people. Then the police rushedinto the houses, even into the minutest gulley,the most ramshackle hut and thrashedpeople. The police are using a new kind ofbaton made of fibre that splits open the skinand also causes deep injuries.Anti-Caste and Sexual Abuse

Women were abused in filthy language.Women who were bathing were even pulledout of bathrooms. People, especially womenwere threatened by the commandos andother policemen that if they don’t submit,“Tumhara bhi Khairlanji kar dengey.”Khairlanji has, in such a short while becomea metonym for Caste-Gender backlash.Loss of Property and Livelihood

Some of the residents showed us theirauto-rickshaws, with smashed windscreen,motorcycles with smashed petrol tank,making us wonder what gives the police theright to take the law into their own handsand punish people in this revengeful way.For the poor, every bit of items acquired arethe result of hard-earned struggle and

sacrifice and what right does the state haveto snatch even that away?

a) Most of the people attacked insideand outside their homes in the abovementioned planned operations had notparticipated in the protests or in the burningof public vehicles etc. They were targetedsimply because they were Dalits living in Dalitlocalities.

b) Male policemen openly draggedwomen out of their homes and viciously beatup women. Women breast feeding theirbabies and bathing inside bathrooms werenot spared either. Likewise children and theelderly were similarly attacked. TwoPolicewomen for namesake accompanied anentire contingent of male police and SRP.

c) In the course of this attack the SRPand Police called people out of their homessaying that the ‘Jai Bhimwallas’ should comeout of their homes

d) The SRP personnel were guided bythe local SP Yadav and a few other officialswho were directing the attack

e) Severely injured people were dumpedinto police vans, taken to the police station,charged and sent to Central Jail without anymedical attention being administered exceptwhen Grameen Rugnalaya doctors werecalled to the police station. In most instancesthe victims were not given any medical casepapers so no evidence of the brutal andwidespread attack would be available. Outof the six localities visited by the team inKamptee and South Nagpur, only at onelocality in South Nagpur people were inpossession of medical papers. For examplethe case paper of 12-year old Pawan Ingle,son of a ‘hathmajur’, who has missed schoolfor a month due to his broken hand, reads:“History of being hit by a lathi”

f) During the severe beatings and attackthe victims were invariably showered withcastiest abuse

g) Two wheelers and three wheelersparked outside homes were systematicallydestroyed as were household belongings

h) After the Police and attacked theDalits in their homes and localities many weretaken to the Police Station and the CentralJail where they were charged with seriousoffences like attempt to murder, sedition. Thisis to ensure long term harassment of thevictims in an attempt to quell future protest.The team saw as many as 164 case papers inone locality alone; one among these had thefollowing sections applied: 305, 384, 306, 986,985, 941, 826, 343, 332, 336, 214, 406, 901, 129A!

When those victims who were chargedwere presented before the magistrate, he madea mockery of their serious injuries by askingthem whether they were beaten in policecustody without asking them whether theywere beaten by the police within their ownhomes or how they had sustained suchobviously grievous injuries like broken limbsand swellings all over the body which factfinding team members witnessed first handeven 3 weeks after the attacks

2) Team members met several victimswho drew attention to a very disturbingfactor. During curfew hours on the nights ofNovember 6-10, groups of lathi and talwarwielding people numbering around 100 ineach group, moved around freely shoutingslogans like, “Hare Hare Mahadev” and “JaiBhavani”. SP Yadav openly declared thatthese groups were for “his protection”.

CPI(Maoist) issued a statement saying :The CPI (Maoist) Maharashtra StateCommittee strongly condemns the casteistattack on and massacre of the members ofthe Bhotmange family in Khairlanjhivillage of Bhandara district on September29, 2006. We also condemn the stand ofthe State Government which has done itsbest to shield the perpetrators of thismassacre for the past one month and isinstead launching a campaign ofrepression against the dalit masses whohave protested strongly against this

massacre and the inaction of theGovernment.

The Khairlanjhi carnage throws up towhat extent of casteism exists still amongstall the major political parties and also theentire State machinery. This too in a statethat boasts of a powerful dalit movementagainst caste oppression anduntouchability. But the fierceness of thedalit response is also an indication of theenormous revolutionary potential of thedalit masses. They are not willing to takeattacks on them meekly and are preparedto fight back. At least in Maharashtra theyhave long since thrown off the yoke of their

corrupt leaders and are searching for analternative. This alternative lies with theMaoist who alone are able to fight not onlyall the manifestations of casteism and itshorrifying form in untouchability but alsoeradicate it from its roots by destroyingthe very basis from which it emerges —the semi-feudal base and the feudal culture.It is they who are in the forefront fightingboth class and caste exploitation andoppression and it is only a matter of timebefore the dalits realize where their trueemancipation lies.

.....continued from page 5

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THE Maharashtra State Committeeand the Dandakaranya Special

Zonal Committee (DKSZC) of theCPI(Maoist) calls upon the oppressed andexploited masses of Vidarbha to enforce ageneral Bandh on 8th December 2006. ThisBandh is to express our outrightcondemnation of the Maharashtragovernment and the ruling classes on thefollowing two issues-

a) The killing of dalits in Kairlanjivillage, the utter failure of the governmentto promptly take action on the main culprits, the attempt to cover up the casteistkillings and protect the real culprits, andthe brutal and violent suppression of theheroic dalit masses who protested againstthe casteist killings.

b) The implementation imperialistglobalisation which is compelling thefarmers to commit suicide. In reality thesefarmers deaths are not sucides but coldblooded mass murders by the lackeyIndian ruling classes.

The killing of dalits in Khairlanji andthe daily ‘suicides’ of farmers in Vidarbha,more clearly than any other events in therecent past, bring out the true characterof the Indian ruling classes – that not onlyare they casteist and feudal but also utterlackeys to the imperialist. These eventsalso clearly point out to the utterly antipeople and reactionary character of theIndian state apparatus. That events like Khairlanji continue tooccur even 59 years of Indian ‘democracy’– speaks volumes about the character ofthis so called ‘democracy’. Immediatelyafter the casteist killings in Khairlanji wesaw how this ‘democracy’ moved intoaction to deliver ‘justice’. The entire policedepartment was active to protect theculprits. The hospital administration,doctors and everybody in authority triedtheir best to conceal the real facts, throwblame elsewhere, or dilute the extremeseriousness of the event. The‘democratically’ elected government ofthe day exerted every effort to ensure that

Press Statement Of CPI(Maoist):OBSERVE VIDARBHA BANDH ON 8TH DECEMBER

CONDEMN THE KHAIRLANJI DALIT KILLINGS AND POLICEBRUTALITY ON PROTESTING MASSES!

FARMERS DEATHS ARE NOT SUCIDES! IT IS GENOCIDE BY THEDALAL INDIAN RULERS AND THEIR IMPERIALIST MASTERS!!

the incident was forgotten and buried.The so called dalit ‘leaders’ living off thetit bits and left overs from the dining tablesof those presiding over this ‘democracy’thought it prudent to keep quite and notrock this ‘democratic’ boat lest theirmasters get annoyed.

But then the dalit masses upset theircalculations and came on the streets. Thedalit masses throughout Vidarbhafollowed by the dalit masses in rest of thestate came out in their hundreds andthousands to demand justice, to questionthis democracy. The government greetedthe masses with the lathis and bullets. Thechief minister and home minister issuedthreats to the dalit masses – “be tame andquite or else we will treat you like we treatthe Naxalites”. But the dalit massescontinued to come out in larger numbersbraving the arrests, lathis and bullets. Theruling classes had to pretend to dosomething about the killings and thereforeafter shedding some crocodile tears, sometoken arrests were made and the tokentranssfers of officials was done. Tokenamounts and jobs were offered to thesurviving member of the Bothmangefamily. The ‘brave and daring dalitleaders’ now came out to shout someempty slogans and pretend to be at theforefront of the dalit masses. But the dalitmasses had gone far ahead by then andno amount of tricks by these leaders topacify and tame them could succeed. Thedalit masses had decided that they hadenough of these sham leaders.

The Congress/NCP government inconnivance with the BJP and Shiv Senahave tried to mobilise the non dalit castesagainst the dalits in order to crush theirstruggle. But they have not so far beenable to have significant success in theseefforts. We call upon the oppressed andexploited among the Kunbi, Maratha, OBCand higher castes to see through thesetricks and come forward to support thedemocratic and just struggle of the dalitmasses. We call on them to join the

struggle to eradicate caste oppression andexploitation.

The police have been dealing with thedalit masses in an extremely casteistmanner. The lathi charges have beenextremely brutal inspired by anti dalitsentiment; they have fired on the masseswith the intention of killing. In order toprevent any propaganda of the Kairlanjikillings or of the police brutalities on theprotesters, the police have been arrestinganyone circulating pamphlets or bookletscondemning these atrocities. Printingpresses have been threatened not topublish any material in favour of theagitating masses. In this way Indian‘democracy’ implements the fundamentalright to freedom of speech and assembly.

Now the Chief Minister and homeminter are making hectic plans to crushand prevent any display of dissent orprotest in Nagpur at the time of the winterstate assembly session. Thousands ofadditional police and para-military forceshave been brought there to prevent theprotest which are due to take place at thetime of the assembly winter session. Theyare also going to raise the bogey of some“naxal” or “terrorist” attack to justifytheir repressive measures.

It is clearly evident how the ruling classparties and the state apparatus aredefending and preserving the authority ofthe feudal and caste elite.

Not a single day goes by without newsof farmers’ suicides. While the largestnumber is in Vidarbha the incidence ofseverely indebted farmers being driven tosuicide are taking place in all other parts ofthe state. Recently there have beenincidents in Nasik, Thane and Nanded

The fact that thousands of farmershave been driven to suicide not only inMaharashtra but also in other parts of thecountry indicate that the reasons for thisact of desperation is social and notindividual. The pro imperialist policies ofthe Indian ruling classes and theirgovernments are at the root of this. At


imperialist dictates the subsidies to farmershave been gradually withdrawn, the costsof agricultural inputs has kept onincreasing, the farmers have not beengiven even the cost of production for theirproduce, all protection for the farmers havebeen removed and they have been leftopen to face the ill effects of the changesin the international market. It is thesepolicies which have driven the farmers todeep indebtedness from which they arenever able to come out. It is these policieswhich are killing the farmers as surely asif someone was holding a gun to theirforeheads and pulling the trigger.

Each day as the numbers of farmersdying from these policies increases thegovernment refuses to do anything toeither reverse these policies or even toprovide any immediate relief. The various‘relief’ measures announced by the centraland state governments are nothing but ajoke.

The ‘relief’ announced by ManmohanSingh a few months back made no dent inthe deaths of the farmers. The ‘relief’package announced a few days ago islikewise a laughing matter. The amountspromised to the farmers will not be enougheven to feed the cows that they are beinggifted with. The government is totallyunwilling to cancel all the debts of thefarmers to the financial institutions as wellas to private money lenders who arefleecing the peasants. Immediately firstaid and relief can only really be in the formof canceling all debts of the entirepeasantry and making it illegal for anyoneto recover the debts of the peasant masses.The government is willing to give tax reliefto the imperialists and big capitalists whoinvest in the new SEZ to the tune of over1,00,000 crore rupees. But is unwilling

to give such relief (which will only cost afraction of the above amount) to thefarmers who are on the brink of death. Itis clear whom the government and theruling class parties represent.

To add insult to injury, the jokers likeSri Sri Ravi Shankar have taken time offform servicing their ruling class patronsand have taken it upon themselves to teachthe farmers the “art of living”. As if thefarmers are dying because they don’t knowhow to live or are suffering from somepsychological imbalance. Ravi Shankarand his type should restrict themselvestheir elite class clientel whose corrupt, lazy,empty and vacuous lives may require suchservices.

We call upon farmers to unite and fightagainst the pro imperialist policies beingimplemented by the government. This isonly way to get out of the conditions whichare driving them to suicide. Farmersshould realise form this experience that theIndian ruling classes are only representingthe interests of the big feudal landlords,the dalal capitalist of this country and theimperialists. Therefore they should jointhe fight to overthrow the rule of theseexploiters and establish a worker-peasantrule.

Immediately the peasants shouldunilaterally cancel all their debts to eitherthe financial institutions or money lenders.They should mobilise in large numbers andseize all debt related records with thefinancial institutions and the moneylenders and burn them. In order to tideover the immediate crisis the farmers shouldraid the godowns of the landlords and thegovernment and take the food grains andother materials that they need to farm thenext season without taking loans. Suicideis no alternative. If life has to be taken it

should be that of those who have forcedus into to such conditions.

We draw your attention to the fact thatin all the areas where the peasantry is beingled by the Maoists, the masses have neverhad to resort to suicide. They haveattacked the enemies, punished them andseized what is necessary for their existencefrom the exploiters and government.

1) Make the Vidarbha bandh on 8th

December a complete success.2) Punish the Kairlanji killers! Arrest

the NCP/BJP leaders behind the killings!3) Red Salutes to the dalit masses

who have uncompromisingly struggled.Carry on the militant struggle! Exploitedand toiling Kunbis, Marathas, OBCsupport the struggle of the dalits!

4) Fight the imperialist policieswhich are killing the farmers!

5) Seize all debt records and burnthem. Loot the big traders and governmentgodowns for our needs.

6) Demand the resignation of theChief Minister and the Home minister!

7) Without armed struggle we canneither achieve immediate needs or achievepolitical power of the exploited!

The two state committees –Maharashtra State Committee and theDandakaranya Special Zonal Committeepledge to avenge the death of thestruggling dalits and the farmers who havebeen forced to death by the ruling classespro imperialist policies. The people willalways pay back their blood debts.ChandrakantSecretary, Maharashtra State Committee,Kosa,Secretary, Dandakaranya Special ZonalCommittee (DKSZC)December 2 2006 P M

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GLOBAL TRENDS, CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES AFTER 9-11By Prof. Jose Maria Sison

(Chairperson, International Coordinating Committee International League of Peoples’ Struggle)

ON behalf of the InternationalLeague of Peoples’ Struggle

which is co-sponsoring this conference, Iwish to express warmest greetings ofsolidarity to all delegations from Nepal andother countries and congratulate theNepali colleagues for organizing andhosting this conference and all relatedactivities.

I am deeply pleased to be asked tospeak on the subject of global trends,challenges and opportunities after 9/11. Ishall make a general presentation of these,with the hope that you can relate thesefurther to the struggle of the people ofNepal for national liberation anddemocracy.

I propose to give a brief backgroundand discuss major socio-economic andpolitical contradictions within the US andthose in the relations of the US with otherimperialist powers, with countries andgovernments that invoke nationalindependence or express anti-imperialistpositions and with the proletariat andpeoples of the world.

I shall restate the three fundamentalcontradictions in the epochal strugglebetween the proletariat and thebourgeoisie and then point to the fourmajor contradictions that I observe in thecurrent world situation and arrange themaccording to their current order of strategicimportance.Brief Background

The US has enjoyed the position of solesuperpower since the disintegration of theSoviet Union and end of the Cold War. Itis the No. 1 imperialist power in economicand military terms. It still dictates thepolicies governing the world capitalistsystem through the Group of 8, OECD, theIMF, World Bank, WTO, NATO, the UNSecurity Council and numerous bilateraland regional treaties and agreements withother countries.

But while the US has apparentlybecome the strongest imperialist power, ithas become fundamentally weaker andmore vulnerable in a number of definableaspects. It has undermined its owneconomic, commercial and financialposition by expending huge amounts of

resources for the military aspect of its anti-communist crusade and promoting sincethe late 1940s the reconstruction andgrowth of the German and Japaneseeconomies and the industrial developmentof some economies like South Korea andTaiwan since the 1970s.

By providing financial and tradeaccommodations to the manufactures ofthe aforesaid countries, the US has beenable to maintain and head an all-roundimperialist alliance. It has reaped hugebenefits from the alliance but in certainimportant respects it has also paid a heavyprice for containing socialist countries,encouraging revisionism to subvert theseand coopting the newly-independentcountries through neocolonialism. It hasstunted its production of many types ofexportable goods by providing economicand trade accommodations to its allies. Ithas long assumed the main burden ofspending public resources heavily onmilitary production, deployment of USmilitary forces abroad and wars ofaggression.

In countering stagflation in the 1970s,the US has blamed so-called wage inflationand social spending by government as thecause of the problem. It has obscured thestagflationary effect of big governmentspending for military purposes and that ofthe ever-increasing cost of import-dependent consumerism. Since the end ofthe 1970s, it has shifted its policy stressfrom Keynesianism to monetarism andneoliberalism. It has sought to keep upthe rate of economic growth through sheermanipulation of interest rates and moneyflows.

The Reagan regime is known for itspolicy of providing the giant corporationswith tax cuts and other favors, itshighspeed high tech military productionand a high level of consumerism financedby foreign debt. Reaganism eventuallymade the US the biggest debtor in the worldand placed the succeeding regime of theelder Bush in a difficult economic situationthat would require the raising of taxes.Basically, the problem of stagflation hasremained unsolved and has been covered

up by heavy local and foreign borrowingand financial manipulation.

The Clinton regime is known forbuilding a “new economy”, supposedlycharacterized by inflation-free growth dueto the US lead in high technology and dueto the pressing down of the wage level,loss of regular jobs, erosion of workers’rights and reduction of social spending.Since 2000, the high tech bubble in the UShas burst and a protracted financialmeltdown has been going on, exposing theoverproduction of high-tech goods in theUS and the huge trade deficits due to theheavy importation of other types of goodspriorly in overproduction in other countries(basic industrial goods, raw materials andlow value-added consumer goods).

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union,the US has become more rapacious andaggressive. Under the policy of “free marketof globalization”, it has accelerated the flowof foreign funds to the US, it has reapedsuperprofits on certain exports andinvestments and has imported cheap theproducts of other countries. Manifestingthe brutal character of imperialism, it haswaged wars of aggression against Iraq(twice) Yugoslavia and Afghanistan andengaged in military intervention elsewherein order to tighten its grip on sources of oiland other natural resources, on marketsand fields of investment. It has takenadvantage of the weaknesses of the formerSoviet bloc countries before Russia canoffer any significant kind of economiccompetition to further cramp the world forimperialist profit-taking.Contradictions within the US

For a while, Bush has been benefitedgreatly by 9/11. This has given him thechance to stir up war hysteria in order tocapture bipartisan support for his role aswartime commander-in-chief and thus toconsolidate his political position againstcharges of cheating in the elections of 2000and 2004. Relatedly, he has used the warhysteria and the fear of terrorism to justifybigger government spending for militaryproduction and for wars of aggressionagainst Afghanistan and Iraq and to pushstate terrorism both within the US and ona global scale.


He has the Reaganite notion of revivingthe US economy through heavygovernment spending for militarypurposes. He has thus combined militaryKeynesianism with “free market”globalization. Moreover, he is consciouslycarrying the “neoconservative” scheme ofusing a full spectrum of weapons to makethe 21st a century of Pax Americana byundertaking preemptive actions againstcurrent adversaries and potentialchallengers to US hegemony andconsequently spreading “democracy” andthe “free market”.

It has seemed for a while that militaryKeynesianism could revive the USeconomy. But contracts with the militaryindustrial complex for military productionin the US and for other war requirementsin the field employ only a few people andprovide a limited amount of income for USworkers and consumers. So, the USeconomic planners have encouraged the“housing bubble”. The rapid appreciationin value of private homes has allowed manypeople to use these as collateral for furtherborrowing for the purpose of consumption.

US imperialism has expected to benefitgreatly from its invasion and occupationof Iraq by taking over its oil wealth and allkinds of enterprises. But the problem ofthe US is the resistance of the people ofIraq. The resistance keeps on blowing upthe oil facilities and pipelines and cuttingdown oil production to a low level. The USbudgetary deficit has been ballooningbecause of the war. And the Americanpeople observe that the US easily spendsUSD 250 billion for the war butappropriates only USD 3 billion for thevictims of the Katrina disaster and evenreleases this in driblets.

The “housing bubble” has begun toburst. This is expected to further harm theUS economy in a big way. Those who havebeen encouraged to engage in highconsumption will pay dearly. This is thesecond huge financial disaster forAmerican families in less than a decade.The preceding disaster was the burstingof the “high-tech bubble” and thewidescale loss of pension funds in stockmarket speculation. The extremely highlevels of federal, state and household debtscan have far-reaching adverseconsequences to the US and globaleconomy. Any sharp drop in USconsumption can put China and other

countries dependent on exports to the USin an economic tailspin.

The American people in their millionshave opposed the US war of aggressionagainst Iraq before it even started. Theiropposition is fast growing and is fastisolating the Bush regime. The Americanpeople denounce Bush for spouting liesto push the war. They cannot accept theheavy casualties suffered by both theAmerican troops and Iraqi people as wellas the huge amounts of resourcesexpended. An increasing number of theAmerican people are offended by the Bushmisuse of 9/11 for further misdirecting USeconomy and politics, for pushingrepressive laws and human rightsviolations and for promoting aggressivewars and fascism.

The US has overreached andoverextended itself in the world in the vainhope of expanding the scope of its politicalhegemony and economic territory. Theconditions of socio-economic and politicalcrisis in the US are worsening and arepushing the American working class andthe rest of the people to rise in resistance.They have risen up in great number againstimperialist war. The millions of migrantworkers have also risen up against thecriminalization and harsh conditions thatthey suffer.

There is a high potential for the broadmasses of American workers and peopleto rise up against exploitation andoppression, especially the loss of jobtenure, the decrease of jobs, includingpart-time jobs, the inadequacy of incomes,the lack of pension, health insurance andother social benefits and the continuingerosion of workers’ rights. The USmonopoly bourgeoisie and its state areincreasingly hard put in devicing new waysfor deceiving and appeasing the public.Contradictions between the US andOther Countries

Following the pattern set during theCold War, the imperialist powers of theWest and Japan have by and largecontinued to find common interest underthe chieftainship of the US against theproletariat and people of the world andagainst countries that take the line ofnational independence and anti-imperialism.

In the wake of 9/11 the imperialistpowers easily united behind the US to

wage a war of aggression againstAfghanistan, because the Talibangovernment was held responsible forcoddling al Qaeda. But France, Germanyand Russia together with China objectedto the war of aggression instigated by theUS and United Kingdom against Iraq in2003. There were clear contradictionsbetween the US and UK on one side andthe other imperialist powers on the other,based on differing interests in Iraq. Butthe US and UK had their way and ultimatelythe other imperialist powers compromisedwith them within the framework of the UNSecurity Council.

There are contradictions among theimperialist powers with regards toeconomic, trade, financial, political andsecurity issues. But the imperialist powerscan still make compromises amongthemselves so long as these can be madeat the expense of the proletariat and peopleof the world and the semi-colonies anddependent countries. The variousframeworks for imperialist compromise andagreement are still intact and operative. Iffor a time no agreement can be arrived at,the imperialist powers simply postpone theresolution of the problem, let the statusquo remain and work around the problem.

But the crisis of the world capitalistsystem and the crisis in each imperialistcountry is worsening. The economic andfinancial crisis is relentlessly driving theimperialist powers to redivide the world andexpand their respective sources ofmaterials and cheap labor, markets, fieldsof investments and spheres of influence.What appear to be constant amicablerelations among the imperialist powers caneventually break after a period ofimperceptible changes in the balance ofstrength among the imperialist powers. Ifthey become strong capitalist countries,Russia and China would cramp the worldcapitalist system and upset its balance. Ifthey become countries of turmoil, they cangenerate big problems.

The US has overextended itself inoutsourcing the production of goods, inover-borrowing from certain countries likeJapan and China and in “staying thecourse” in the quagmires of Iraq andAfghanistan. In the process, it hasaggravated its weaknesses andvulnerabilities in so many ways. Its ownimperialist allies can become relatively


stronger than before and can move intoareas where US attention and strength havethinned out. As a result of itspreoccupation with Iraq, the US capabilityto deal with other regions of the world haslessened.

The European Union has a growingeconomic interest that is at odds with thatof the US in the entire of Europe, Africaand elsewhere in the world. Russia andChina have made border agreements withcertain Central Asian countries to counterUS incursions. China is steadily spreadingits interest and influence, mainly in thewhole of East Asia, even as Japan bankson its partnership with the US andmaintains a prominent imperialist role inthe region. North Korea asserts its nationalindependence and continues to defy andoppose US imperialism.

In Latin America, Cuba, Venezuela andBolivia have anti-US governments andmass movements and are encouragingother countries to follow suit. Even in theMiddle East, the US is far from being ableto stop the initiatives of Syria and Iran incooperation with Russia and China. It haspenetrated South Asia in a big way but ithas difficulties in gaining complete controlover the region.

The imperialist powers can still dictateon most countries. They have beensuccessful in undertaking neocolonialism.But there are countries and governmentswhich are driven by bourgeois nationalistmotivations or socialist aspirations andassert national independence in order tofend off the unacceptable impositions andthreats of the US and other imperialistpowers. We have seen how Iraq ofSaddam, Yugoslavia of Milosevich andAfghanistan of the Taleban have come intocross purposes with the US and be at thereceiving end of US aggression. We haveseen the governments of China, NorthKorea, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and Syriainvoke and assert national independenceagainst the worst dictates of the US. Butthe US has so far refrained from attackingany of these countries for various reasons.

The sharpest and most dramaticcontradictions resulting in war have arisenbetween the imperialist powers and certaincountries whose governments refuse toaccept imperialist dictates. It is also in thiskind of contradiction, as in the run up tothe 2003 US-UK invasion of Iraq, where

significant contradictions among theimperialist powers have surfaced. That isbecause imperialist powers have their owndrive to compete for advantages offeredby non-imperialist countries. The Saddamgovernment attempted to counter the US-UK combine with concessions to the otherimperialist powers.

Under pressure of the crisis of the worldcapitalist system, imperialist countries canengage in proxy wars among their clientstates or back different conflicting partieswithin a client state. Another majorpotential cause for hostility amongimperialist powers would be the rise topower of fascist forces within any or someof them. The severe socio-economic andpolitical crisis of imperialism and thecurrency of the so-called global war onterror have laid the ground for fascism andinter-imperialist wars. In fact, the makingof so-called anti-terrorist laws in the wakeof 9/11 has intensified repression andspawned state terrorism within the US andon a global scale.The Resistance of the Proletariat andthe People

Throughout the world, the broadmasses of the people have engaged onvarying scales in protest mass actions andstrikes to resist imperialist plunder andaggression. The largest massmobilizations on an international scalehave involved tens of millions of people inhundreds of cities against the US war ofaggression in Iraq. In various countries atdifferent times, millions of people haverisen up against the exploitative andoppressive policies and practices of theirrulers.

In the US, Western Europe andelsewhere, strikes and protest marcheshave broken out against attacks on therights of working people, deterioratingworking conditions, racial and minoritydiscrimination, the criminalization ofmigrant workers and discrimination againstthe youth in employment. In the formerSoviet bloc countries, struggles betweenthe exploiting and exploited classes andbetween the dominant nationality and theminorities are intensifying. In China, theworkers, peasants and the lower pettybourgeoisie are frequently rising in largenumbers against the ruling bourgeoisieand their accomplices in private business.

In the imperialist countries, certainfactors check the continuous vigorousdevelopment of anti-imperialist massmovements. The monopoly bourgeoisieerodes the rights and social benefits of theworkers and people but in a gradual orsurreptitious way so as not to provokerevolt. The major bourgeois parties, massmedia, trade union bureaucracy andschools cloak big bourgeois interests withpetty bourgeois rhetoric. There are yet noMarxist-Leninist parties and revolutionarymass movements that are large and strongenough to challenge the monopolybourgeoisie and its agents.

It will take sometime before the internalcrisis of monopoly capitalism and the anti-imperialist resistance of the people in thenon-imperialist countries can acceleratethe sharpening of the class strugglebetween the proletariat and the monopolybourgeoisie in the imperialist countries. InRussia and other former Soviet bloccountries, the proletariat and people shouldbe more inclined - to wage armedrevolution against the new bourgeoisiethat privatized the social assets that theyhave created for decades. But therevisionists masquerading as communistsdid their work for decades to undermineand destroy socialism from within. That isalso the case in China. However, imperialistplunder and aggression are generating thepeople’s growing armed resistance toimperialism in a number of countries.

The peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan,Palestine, Lebanon and other countrieshave waged armed resistance against USimperialism and its lackeys. The war ofnational liberation in Iraq is of greatsignificance and has far reachingconsequences in weakening USimperialism. The people’s resistance inAfghanistan is growing and is deliveringlethal blows to the US and NATO forces.The people of Palestine and Lebanon andother Arab peoples have successfullycombated the US-directed and US-suppliedIsraeli Zionists.

There are many armed conflicts ofdifferent types in Asia, Africa and LatinAmerica. There are those between theimperialists or the reactionary state on theone hand and the revolutionarymovements for national liberation anddemocracy on the other hand, as in Iraq,



Salwa Judum Falters!Retaliation Takes a real People’s War Character!!

THE revolutionary masses ofDandakarnya area (DK) moving as

a massive wave under the guidance of theCPI (Maoist) and its armed wing the PLGA,dealt crippling blows on the statesponsored campaign of terror, the SalwaJudum, by launching a series of attacks onthe marauding Salwa goon gangs, theSpecial Police Officers ( SPO), and on theparamilitary and other special armed policeforces . The force of the blows theydelivered was such that the genocidalSalwa Judum campaign lost its wind. Thestates’ desperate attempts to extend thiscampaign of mass murders from southBastar to the entire DK region came tonaught. The heroes of the much toutedNaga Police Battalion are licking theirwounds they received from the defiantmasses. As the revolutionary massesstarted meeting out punishment to the mostnotorious of the Salwa goons, attackingthem even inside heavily guarded policecamps, many other such goons aresurrendering before the people as theystarted realizing that police camps cannotsave them from the wrath of the people.Raman Singh, the CM of the state, whowas boasting earlier that he will wipe outthe Naxalites by the end of 2005, is nowclamoring for pressing hard for thedeployment of additional paramilitaryforces.

The adivasi masses of DK who have avery rich experience of 25 years ofunrelenting revolutionary struggle, havein the past successfully repulsed each andevery one of the state sponsoredcampaigns of suppression which precededthe latest one, the Salwa Judum campaignSo, with that valuable fighting experiencethey fought back against the present SJcampaign too, right from its inception. Butdue to the unprecedented scale, nature andbarbarity of the latest fascist suppressiononslaught of the state they faced manylosses during the first six months. This timethe suppression campaign assumed the

shape of a genocide. During the first sixmonths itself these marauding gangsliterally butchered around 200 adivasipeasant masses, hundreds of women weregang raped, thousands of houses andscores of village were burnt to ashes andcrores worth valuable earnings of thepeople like grain, livestock, householdutensils and money were looted. Notcontent with this murder and mayhem thestate forcefully herded thousands ofpeople into the so-called relief camps whichwere in fact nothing but concentrationcamps guarded by armed police andparamilitary forces. More over, the state,with an intention of making one adivasikill another appointed thousand of youthdrawn from the ranks of the most notoriousmurderers among the Salwa goons andsome surrendered naxalites, as SpecialPolice Officers (SPOs). The Salwa goonsand the SPOs went on carrying out theirheinous activities basing themselves inpolice camps or in the so-called relief campsheavily protected by armed policepersonnel and were using the peopleherded in the camps as human-shields.The Revolutionary MassesStrike Back With The Slogan“Resistance Is The Only Way -Not Surrender!”

But, the above situation started to takea turn towards the better by the early daysof 2006. The revolutionary masses quicklyrecovered from their initial losses,reorganized themselves and moving alongwith their own peoples’ militia and otherwings of the PLGA, launched a powerfulcampaign of counter attack — calledTactical Counter Offensive Campaign —on the murderous Salwa Judumexpeditions attacking their villages, on thestates’ paramilitary and other armed policeforces and on the ringleaders of the Salwagoon gangs and SPOs. With death defyingcourage and valor hundreds of adivasimasses attacked or raided the so called

relief camps heavily guarded byparamilitary forces, captured and punishedthe most notorious leaders of the Salwagoon gangs and SPOs. The Peoples’ militiaand the other wings of the PLGA fired onthe oncoming Salwa Judum expeditions atmany places, exploded land mines andbooby traps and attacked police stations.The revolutionary masses raided dozensof villages capturing and punishing themost cruel ring leaders of the Salwa goongangs. At some places, they even seizedthe properties of the Salwa goons anddistributed them among the victims of theSJ campaign.

The revolutionary masses of DK, whiletaking up counter offensive operations, didnot neglect either measures for selfdefense or production work. People ofmany villages have set up sentry postsalong the four corners of their village tomaintain a 24 hour vigil.

Some others constructed temporaryshelters in deep forest pockets. Peopleremoved all their grain, livestock, moneyand all other valuables to safe dumps inthe forest. They are continuing theiragricultural activities under the protectionof the peoples’ militia and other wings ofthe PLGA. It will not be an exaggeration tosay that almost each and every village fromKotrapal to Kunta have become bastionsof mass resistance. The police forces whichearlier were able to attack villages one afterthe other in one sweep have now to make10 to15 attempts lasting months. In oneword, with people coming forward inthousands to militantly defend their ownrevolutionary movement in all possiblemanner with all the strength they canmuster, their armed resistance struggleis taking the shape of a genuine Peoples’War.

We present below some of the reportswe received about the year long campaignof revolutionary resistance —The TacticalCounter Offensive Campaign.

(In continuation of our articles against revisionism, which was unfortunately missed in the lastissue, we now present an example of the concrete practice of advacning people’s war. Many M-L organisations talk of protracted peoples war, but their practice is often at variance with their

theoretical postulations......Editor)


The adivasi masses and the PLGAforces launched series of daring attackson police camps and on the so-called reliefcenters, mainly targeting the mostnotorious leaders of the Salwa goon gangsand SPOs.

(i) Attack On Gangaloor ‘Relief’ CampA three hundred strong contingent of thePLGA forces inclusive of fighters of thelocal peoples’ militia launched a daringmulti-pronged attack on a so-called reliefcamp at Gangaloor in South Bastar, on thenight of 29th January. While one batch tieddown the paramilitary forces by attackingthe police station inside the camp, otherbatches attacked the campsite shelters ofthe SPOs and ring leaders of the Salwagoon gangs. The peoples’ fighterscaptured and killed four SPOs and fiveleaders of the Salwa goons. Five moregoons and four SPOs were wounded in theattack.

(ii) The Land Mine Blast That Put AHalt To The Rash Advance Of The SalwaJudum Campaign.

The Salwa Judum campaign wasextended to Dornapal and Kunta areasThere too those goons attacked manyvillages and burnt down hundreds ofhouses. An SJ meeting was held atDornapal on 27th February. The worst lotof the SJ goons and some SPO went tothat meeting by trucks. Coming to know ofthis, the guerillas waited in ambush andexploded a landmine under a truck full ofhome bound SJ goons and SPOs. 26 goonsdied on the spot, another three died in thehospital while many others were injuredgrievously. With this incident the Salwajudum campaign started loosing its steamas the goons and the SPOs who earlierwere raiding villages at will, were now notdaring to come out of their camps.

(iii) Surprise Attack On TheBaasagudem Police Camp – Lulling ThePolice By Deceit

Since the beginning of this year thestate put strenuous efforts to extend thegenocidal Salwa Judm campaign toBaasagudem and Kunta areas of SouthBastar. A group of Salwa goons werechosen and they soon started theirnefarious activities, basing themselves inthe Basagudem police camp. These goonsaccompanied by paramilitary forcescreated a reign of terror over scoresofvillages near Baasagudem, maiming and

murdering many innocent peasants. Theyattacked villages at will and burnt downhundreds of houses. They became such abig scourge that people decided that theonly way to stop them is to attack andpunish them in their secure shelter itself.So, on 4th March, just as the shadows ofthe night began spreading, a 400 memberstrong column of fighters, comprising ofpeople around Baasagudem and PLGAguerillas easily gained entry in to thepolice camp by simply raising pro SalwaJudum slogans. The paramilitary forcesguarding that camp took them to be one oftheir own flocks and allowed them in withsmiles. As soon as they gained entry thus,a batch of the fighters surrounded thepolice station and engaged the policeforces with rapid firing, while the rest ofthe peoples’ column made a thoroughsearch of the entire camp and arrestedsome ring leaders of the Salwa goon gangs.Then they isolated the most notoriouscriminals of that gang and killed them fortheir crimes against the people — five men.The people left the other goons with a direwarning that they too will have to face thesame fate if they do not mend their waysand atone for their crimes before thepeople.

(iv) Daylight Raid On Murkinar PoliceCamp

The state as a part of its fascist SalwaJudum campaign of suppression has setup new police camps at many points, eachcovering a 5-10 km area, aiming to securewhat it terms as carpet security. Ten suchcamps were set up in a small area extendingfrom Kutru to Bairamgarh. Each such areawas further divided into sectors and sub-sectors in a true military fashion, to facilitatepinpointed combing operations. All theseadditional police camps also serve as theoperational headquarters of the Salwa goongangs and the SPOs. One such camp wasset up in Murkinar village, which issituated on the Bijapur-Aavapelli highway,at a distance of 14 kms from the policedistrict headquarters, Bijapur.

A contingent of around 300 guerillas,inclusive of fighters of the local militia,launched a surprise raid on this camp onthe morning of 16th April. Four jawans ofthe special armed forces including anassistant commandant and seven SPOswere killed in this attack and four otherswere grievously injured in this raid. The

victorious peoples forces seized 49weapons of various calibers inclusive ofAKs, SLRs, LMG and 2" mortars andthousands of rounds of ammunition.

The entire raid was planned andexecuted with high military precession. Onthe morning of that raid, a raiding party offifty fighters seized a passenger bus whichwas on its way to Jagadalpur from Oosoor.They requested the passengers to getdown and rode the bus towards the camp.As soon as the bus reached the camp sitethe fighters launched a lightning attack.They successfully completed the entireoperation within an hour and retreatedsafely without any losses on their side.

At the same time while the main partywas raiding the camp, the other guerillaswaited in ambush as along the routesadditional police forces were likely to comefor the rescue of their colleagues in thecamp. The guerillas spotted a batch ofCRPF personnel on patrol nearDuggaigudem village. They exploded land-mines and booby traps as soon as thepolice came on to the ambush spot. Threepolicemen were grievously injured in thatattack.

(v) Attack On Vinjiram Relief CampOn 13th May, at about 4am a contingent

of 500 people, led by PLGA forces mountedan attack on a camp of SPOs located withinthe Vinjiram relief camp and which is beingprotected by the Naga Police Battalion.While a batch of guerillas tied down theNaga police with concentrated firing, therest of the fighters attacked the SPOs camp.They killed 4 SPOs and wounded anotherfive.

On the night of February 24th, a batchof guerillas attacked a shelter of the SPOslocated inside the Vellisnar camp. Theykilled two SPOs and injured 20 Salwagoons.

(vi) The Much Hated Naga PoliceForces Get A Good Drubbing

Within a few days of launching itscampaign of suppression, the SalwaJudum, the state rushed in and deployed abattalion of Naga Special Armed PoliceForces, which was much loathed in its ownstate for its cruelty in exterminating its ownpeople. Simultaneously a big word ofmouth propaganda was launched about itsferocious and inhuman nature to createpanic among the adivasi masses. The Nagapolice personnel lived up to this reputation


in Bastar too, through which they won theirnotoriety. In particular, they have beenplaying a most barbaric role in the SJcampaign. Raiding and attacking villagesalong with the Salwa goon gangs theybutchered scores of adivasi peasants inmost heinous ways, chopping off headsand limbs, breaking their skulls byrepeatedly banging them against trees;cutting off genitals, piercing their chestswith bayonets and gouging out their eyeballs. Their cruelty was not confined tomen alone. Horror lies in front for anywoman who happen to come in their way.There are several ghastly incidents inwhich they gang raped and murderedwomen. They had no sense of shame whenthey paraded women nakedly; scores ofinnocent adivasi women became theirvictims in such a way. Equally loathsome,

at least to the adivasi masses of DK of thehabit of the Naga police of killing and eatingtheir pet hunting dogs — each adivasipeasant rears at least two or three huntingdogs with as much love and care as hebestows on his children, in fact no peasantever moves out of his house without hisfaithful dogs following him. Hundreds ofsuch loved companions of the massesended up in the stomachs of the Nagapolice personnel. The Naga policemen aftereating dogs often threatened people that

they will eat them too if they continue toprotest. Thus the Naga policemen, swelledby their initial successes went onterrorizing the people, committing oneghastly atrocity after the other, with out abother for about six months. But theiroverweening egos started gettingpunctured through a series of heavy blowsthey received at the hands of therevolutionary masses and their PLGAforces since January of this year.

In the north Bastar area, a batch ofNaga policemen accompanied by anotherposse of special armed forces went on theprowl, starting from Pakhanjur villageraiding one village after the other, beatinganyone they could lay their hands on andarresting members of revolutionary massorganizations. Proceeding in that mannerthey entered a village called Mendri. There

they captured the area leader of the massorganization and murdered him in a brutalway, breaking his scull by repeatedlybanging his head against a tree. Thusquenching their blood thirst for the day,they halted in that village making a campin the local school. The local militia andthe PLGA forces who were keeping a tabon their movements launched an attack onthat camp. One Naga policeman died in thatattack while some others were severelywounded. With this the Naga police

became panicky and all of them left thatcamp in a hurry as soon as the day lightbroke.

On 6th February, the PLGA forcesblasted a landmine under a truck carrying19 Naga policemen near a village calledKothachervu of South Bastar. 9 Nagapolicemen died on the spot while 9 otherswere grievously wounded, two of themdied later in the hospital. Incidentally theseNaga policemen were on their way toInjiram village — which is near the blastsite — to set up a camp.

Hundreds of guerillas raided a policecamp at Injiram village in the early hoursof 13th May. This camp was under theprotection of the Naga police. The guerillaskilled four SPOs and injured another 5,right in front of the Naga police.

(vii) Lightening Raid On An ExplosiveMagazine Of The NMDC

The National Mineral DevelopmentCorporation maintains an explosivemagazine at a site near Hiroli village in theBailadilla hill range. A police outpostmanned by 17 CISF jawans guards it.

On 9 th February 70 fighters of thePLGA accompanied by hundreds ofmembers of the local militia launched asurprise raid on the above magazine. 8CISF jawans including the thanedar diedin the attack while 8 more jawans werewounded, The victorious guerillas seized20 tons of Gelatin, thousands of detonatorsand rolls of cardex wire. They also seized14 SLRs, 1 9mm pistol and thousands ofrounds of ammunition. Astonishingly theyaccomplished all this within a short spanof just 20 minutes. Hundreds of militiamembers then carried away the 20 tons ofexplosives and other seized articles to thefour corners of South Bastar transportingthe material on their carrying poles.

The guerillas knowing well that anintensive combing operation will be carriedout by the police forces after the raid, madepreparations accordingly, to launch attackson the combing police parties. Asanticipated, on 10th February, a policebatch on combing mission, made a nighthalt in a village called Peddam. The guerillaswho were shadowing that batch allthroughout the day, attacked the policemenin the night. One policeman was injured inthat attack. That police batch went backnext morning carrying the wounded.

Guerrillas release Police Jawansunharmed!

Earlier this year guerrillas were on patrol in searchof Salwa Judum goons in the South Bastar region.In the process they stopped and searched a bus.In it were found six jawans in civil dress belongingto the Chintalnar police station. The guerrillas tookthem away and after keeping them in their custodyfor one day they released them without causingthem any harm. They were warned not to harassthe masses and not to identify with the SalwaJudum hoodlums. This indicates just one moreexample of how the Maoist do not resort to so-called mindless violence, much talked of by someliberals.


Another batch of the guerillas attackeda CRPF combing team as it was on its wayfrom Gumpur to Hiroral. Two CRPF jawanswere injured in this attack. Scared by thesetwo attacks the police halted their combingoperations. Later a batch of NSGcommandos was rushed to carry outcombing operations. They stayed for amonth creating much noise, but ultimatelywent back without any success.

(viii) Luring The Enemy In To A TrapA batch of PLGA guerillas launched a

dummy raid on a police station in Podagattavillage of Gadchiroli district on the nightof 8th April, while another batch of theguerillas laid an ambush at a spot nearPosatola village to attack the additionalpolice forces that are likely to rush in tothe rescue of their colleagues under attack.As anticipated, a sixty men batch of theMaharashtra Special Commando policeforces rushed in, in a mine-proof vehicle.The waiting guerillas exploded land minesas soon as that vehicle came in to theambush spot. One SI and a commando diedon the spot while three others wereseverely injured. The guerillas of Gadchirolikilled another 3 commandos through anambush attack at a site near Penolri policestation on 14th March.

(ix) Pressure Mine Kills A CRPF JawanMahendra Karma, the main enemy of theadivasi masses of DK and architect of theSalwa Judum campaign, was desperate toextend that terror campaign to the areasnorth of the river Indravati by hook or bycrook. As a part of that effort he plannedto hold a meeting at Taklode village bymobilizing his trusted goons from villagessouth of the river. He himself planned toarrive there by a helicopter. Accordingly ahelipad was built in that village on 9thJanuary. The local guerillas fixed boobytraps around the helipad sight. On themorning of 10th, sighting the approachinghelicopter the heavy posse of CRPF jawanswho came for protection duties startedtaking positions to offer three ringedprotection to Karma. In the ensuing mêléea jawan stepped on a pressure mine whichexploded injuring him severely, hesuccumbed to the injuries later in thehospital.The Exemplory Role Played ByThe Peoples’ Militia Forces

A particular mention must be made ofthe exemplary role played by the Peoples’

militia forces all through out the TacticalCounter Offensive Campaign. The membersof the militia moved in hundreds tocourageously resist the forces of fascistsuppression. 850 members of the miltiaparticipated in the raid on the NMDCmagazine depot, two hundred participatedin the attack on the Gangaloor relief camp,and three hundred of them participated inthe attack on the Vinjiram relief camp. Apartfrom such massive actions, the militiaparticipated in hundreds of major or minoroffensive operations taken up by thePLGA forces. Not only that, taking theinitiative and showing much ingenuity,they are launching attacks on their own,when ever opportunity arises, with whatever means that are available to them. Infact through such actions they are notallowing either the security forces or theSalwa goons any sense of security orpeace of mind. For example, there is aschool in Paded village of South Bastarwhich the police forces turned into aregular halting camp when ever they touchthat village on their combing operations.Well aware of this the local militia set upland mines in the place where the policestay and when a batch of CRPF men camethey exploded the mines injuring fourjawans. We report below some moreincidents of such actions of the militia.

On 7th April, at a place nearBairamgarh, a batch of the local militiacaptured and killed a notorious Salwagoon. Then they arranged a booby trapunder the dead body. On learning aboutthis incident a team of policemenaccompanied by some SPOs came to thatspot to take the body back. To their shockthe booby trap exploded as soon as theyover turned the body, killing two SPOs onthe spot and severely injuring anotherthree. From that day onwards the policeare not daring to touch any dead body.

There is a police station in Chintalnarvillage of South Bastar. That village holdsa weekly bazaar. The local militia membersobserved that the policemen get deaddrunk on the bazaar day and move aroundthe bazaar in a careless manner. So on 12th

February, a batch of militia members wentto that village when the bazaar was on,carrying swords and axes in their bags.They made rounds of the bazaar keeping asharp eye on the drunken policemen. Soonthey found two drunken policemen and

immediately attacked them injuring both ofthem. They seized one SLR from them andretreated safely.

Vexed with the looting spree of theSalwa goons the militia wanted to teachthem a bitter lesson that would have lastingeffect. A Salwa Judum meeting wasscheduled to take place at Takilode village.The local militia fixed a bomb in a radio andkept it under a tree, on a path the Salwagoons will pass on their way to the meeting.On 9th January a batch of Salwa goons camethat way. Two of them rushed to grab thatradio which exploded as soon theyswitched it, injuring them.

Such has been the ingenuity of themilita forces in countering the governmentoffensive that has created panic in theenemy camp, not knowing where they arelikely to be attacked from. The entireoffensive has led to the defeat of the enemyforces and even their camps lie bare withthe masses having fled. Today there areless than 10,000 left in these camps, mostlyfilled with SPOs and their families. Themassive enemy offensive has beendefeated only because the proletarian partywas able to turn the war into a real peoples’war, involving the entire massesthemselves in the war. This was possiblebecause of the high level of consciousnessof the masses and the real fruits of therevolutionary movement that they havewitnessed of the past two decades. Theywere not willing to lose the fruits of thosevictories and go back to the slave-likeexistence they had witnessed forgenerations.

No doubt the government will comewith more brutal attacks. In such acondition it is imperative that the war isfought on many fronts all over the countryand lakhs rally in support of the oppressedmasses fighting for a new bright future.As the peoples’ war is just and for a trulydemocratic system it is bound to win nomatter what be the ruthlessness of theenemy. The heroic masses of Bastar, ledby the Maoists, have shown the peoplethat victory is possible against even themost sophisticated forces of the State ifthe correct polices of peoples’ war arefollowed and if the entire masses areorganised systematically for the war effort.

P M


Memorandum

WE, the members of concernedorganisations and citizens, wish to

invite your kind attention to the horrendoussituation that has developed in the hitherto oneof the most peaceful area of South Bastar,inhabited by one of the most innocent tribalcommunities of our country. This region ironicallyhas remained virtually isolated even afterIndependence but for the mining complexestablished in Bailadila, the richest iron oredeposit in the world. The roads and railwaysthat were laid for this project dedicated to exportof ore to Japan and later for Steel Plant atVishakhapattanam in A.P. has had the worst formof backwash effect in the Region. Even theNational Mineral Development Corporation, oneof the Nava Ratnas of this nation, preferred toeconomise on establishment of washeries, putthe untreated water in Dankini river that afterskirting the most sacred shrine of the tribal peopleof Dandakaranya, Danteshwari temple atDantewara meets Indravati, the lifeline of Bastar,125 miles downstream. The flowing red waterof Dankini, rendered unusable by humans oreven denizens including cattle, symbolises thebloody-red terror that has been let loose in thisregion by the State in the name of development.The entire area around Bailadila (the hillock likethe hump of a bullock) has been ravaged forcingthe people to recede into the neighbouring forestwhere they continue to be haunted by the minionsof the State. While the innocent tribal girls areallured, seduced, trapped or literally forced intoservitude under different garbs, the male of thespecies has no use in the new urban/ industrialhabitats except perhaps in their substratum asvirtual slaves.

And this fabulous inheritance of the peoplehas been leased out to private parties like Tatas,Esser who are determined to take the mineral out‘untouched by human hand’ through pipelinesout to the sea, dispensing with the need of slave-like participation of the people in the respectiveeconomic ventures not to speak of the remotepossibility of honouring people’s aspirations toenjoy the traditional command over their fabledvasundhara with reigns of the chariot of realdevelopment firmly in their hand.

The deep resentment in this region againstthe anti-people development has been simmeringin this area for decades. But the story of the restof the extensive forest and hilly region, withfabled Abujhamar (the unknown hills) in thenorth was no different but for different reasons.There was virtually no administration in theseareas except the stray presence of forest guard,

policeman and patwari who ruled the roost withunfettered terror. Even the formally assigned landsin scores of villages have remained withoutsarkari pattas rendering the simple people mostvulnerable to action of the minions. Threesanctuaries have been established in this regionjust through the fiat of the State as the simpletribal remained totally unaware about theseprocesses, which themselves were questionableif not legally but on considerations of naturaljustice, until the officials struck at their most basicand natural right, the Right to Life with Dignity,in their traditional natural habitat. The verypresence of their hamlets and collection and useof forest produce, which they had been enjoyingthrough the ages, was questioned by the minionsresulting in untold harassment and even atrocities.

It is at this stage that Maoists appeared inthis area some 25 years back that gave instantrelief from this low profile State terror throughits minions. The message of ‘new friends aliasDadas’ gradually spread in this media-less terrainthrough word-of-mouth and deeds-on-ground thatwas taken note of by the administration ironicallyonly when the vested interests got hurt such astendu-leaf traders, forest contractors and exploresof hidden mineral wealth.

The carving out of Chhattisgarh has provedto be a turning point in the relationship betweenthe tribal people and the State. The state wascreated for facilitating the loot of rich mineralresources by the multinationals in accordance withthe Imperialist Agenda with USA in the lead.Scores of MOUs running into thousands ofcrores of rupees have been signed with nationaland multinational companies unmindful ofeven the elementary fact that a substantial partof Chhattisgarh is declared as Scheduled Areaby the President under the provisions of Article244 read with the Fifth Schedule of theConstitution. The first Policy Vision Documentissued by the State Government after theformation of Chhattisgarh preferred not tomention even the very existence of ScheduledAreas for fear of raising inconvenient questionsamongst the ‘indigenous rights conscious’,albeit as ruthless violators, imperialistentrepreneurs on the prowl to grab the globalresources.

It is a pity that the position of Indian Rulingelite is not much different notwithstanding themost powerful Constitutional mandate for theprotection and advancement of the tribal people.It may be mentioned here that the Provisions ofPanchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas,

1996 that acknowledges the ‘competence ‘ of thecommunity at the village level in the form of GramSabha to manage all its affairs in accordance withits customs and traditions. This, inter alia,includes its command over land, water and forestsas also ownership over minor forest produce,consultation with the Gram Sabha beforeacquisition of land, which has to be deemed asconsent in view of the fact in a true democracythe verdict of the people’s body ahs to be bindingall representative institutions and the executiveauthorities. This law has not been implementedin its true spirit in any of the States even after adecade.

The situation in relation to the place ofpeople, especially where mining and industrialcomplexes are being established is still worse. ACommittee appointed by the Government of Indiain 1995 (Chairman: Dileep Sing Bhuria),comprising Secretaries of all concerned Ministriesand sixteen tribal M.Ps had unanimouslyrecommended that the command over the habitatof the tribal people is non-negotiable. Accordingly50% of the shares shall be assigned to thecommunity in lieu of its allowing the use of thelocal resources. The entrepreneur has to be a juniorpartner with 26 % share holding for the capitalinvestment, provided the community agrees tothe establishment of the venture in its habitat.The GOI has taken no steps in this regard so farnotwithstanding the fact that the Hon’bleSupreme Court in the historic Judgment inSamatha case have held that even the State isnot competent to grant lease of land includingminerals to any person who is not a tribal. PartIX A of the Constitution has not been extendedto the Scheduled Areas now for more than 12years because of the indecision in theGovernment of India on this vital issue. Theresult is that all urban bodies including theestablishments of mining and IndustrialComplexes in the Scheduled Areas of thecountry, are being run without any authority oflaw.

It is within this frame of reference that theconfrontation between the State and the peopleis sharpening. The attempt to establishment of aSteel Plant at Mavalibhata in Bastar in 1991 wasfoiled by the people. The State had to beat retreatfrom Hiranar in Dantewara in the year 2000. Thestruggle in Nagarnar is not yet over even thoughthe people had to face worst repression and deceiton the part of administration by forging consentof Gram Sabha. The story is being currentlyrepeated in the case of two proposed steel plants,one at Lohandiguda in Bastar by Tatas and the

Subject: State Terror against Tribal People in Bastar, Chhattisgarh, under the Garb ofSalwa Judum

Hon’ble President of IndiaRashtrapati BhawanNew Delhi


other at Kameli-Bhansi in Dantewara by Essar.In both these cases the concerned areas werevirtually converted into police camps withclamping of prohibitory provisions underSection 144 forcing the people to sign or puttheir thumb impressions on blank sheets for thepurpose of manufacturing consent of theconcerned Gram Sabha to the State’s proposalfor the industry.

Thus the raw struggle for command over theresources by the State and their capitalist alliesand multinationals on the one hand in the face ofstiff opposition by the tribal people is on nowfor more than a decade. This natural upsurgeamongst the people is being projects as handiworkof outsiders. The powerful presence of theMaoists as champions of the people’s cause istaken as the real hurdle as the State is used todealing with simple people without any qualmsabout their natural rights and even specialConstitutional dispensation, the narration aboutthe situation in Bastar is a living proof there of. Itis in this frame of reference that a notoriousprogramme under the banner of Salwa Judum(Gondi word for Collective Hunting that is isportrayed as Movement for Peace by itspromoters) has been organised under theleadership of Shri Mahendra Karma currently theleader of the opposition in Chhattisgarh Assembly,with the active support of the State blurring thedividing party line in this initiative aimed atbreaking the resistance of the people against themultinationals. It is now continuing for more thana year in the most ruthless form.

The government has virtually sealed the entirearea from which no news is allowed to be sentout with a clear warning of dire consequences tothe violators of the code. Nevertheless many visitsby citizen’s committees, dedicated journalists,women’s organisations and such like have bravedthrough the impregnable cordon of the goons andState’s own police and paramilitary forces. Theyhave their own stories to say which proves thatthere is virtually on administration in the regionexcept as allies of the Salwa Judum outfit. It isunfortunate that in the misguided mission ofthe State against the people’s struggling for theirright to life with dignity, the very essence of ademocratic polity, hundreds of villages have beenliterally burnt down, thousands of tribal havebeen uprooted and huddled together in campsreminiscent of the war-time concentration campsand notorious regrouping exercise in Mizoramthat has left a permanent anti-Indian mark onthe suffering people of that area. It is estimatedthat by now over 250 people have been mercilesslyand brutally killed, about 100 women have beengang-raped (and many killed after the ghastlyact). Over 60,000 tribals have been forciblyuprooted from their homes and ‘resettled’ in whatare de facto concentration camps. The objectiveis to re-group the villages and hand over the

empty land to the multinationals and otherinterested parties. The habitation less territoryfor obvious reasons would become incapable ofsustaining the Naxal elements, the real case of theState’s worry and hurdle in the execution of thenefarious game plan.

The GOI has been blindly supporting theState without even caring to verify even theauthenticity of the situation of the officialReports. Besides other paramilitary force, a NagaBattalion has been drafted in this area, which hasearned notoriety for its brutality in the area. AMizo Battalion has also landed in Bastar recently.Back home young boys and girls, many of themminors, are being drafted as Special Police Officersat Rs 1500 a month who are being armed withouttraining and with no clear line of command. Theyare functioning lid terror brigades at the commandof Mahendra Karma.

Less said the better about the so-called camps.They are located next to the camps of Para -military/police camps at a regular interval of 5kms. in the name of carpet security. They are‘guarded’ by Salwa Judum SPOs. The peoplehave to work like slaves without even the minimalcivic facilities. They may be brutally attacked atthe slightest pretext as sympathizers of Maoists.The case of women being picked up from campsand raped, even gang-raped by SPOs and securitypersonnel is a common occurrence.

To the best of our knowledge, the Hon’bleGovernor, who has draconian powers under theConstitution for protection of the tribal people,should he so deem fit to do, has not submittedany special report under Para 3 of the FifthSchedule of the Constitution. Nor have the annualreports of the Governor relating to this period orearlier have made any mention of the unusualsituation developing in this sensitive area. On thecontrary the Union Government has been liberallyhelping the State Government in theunprecedented repression of the tribal peoplewhose protection and advancement is its specialresponsibility under the Constitution. No specialTeam even at the official level has beencommissioned for any special report. Even theParliament, which sent an immediate team toBastar in 1966 when Pravir Chandra Bhajadevand scores of tribals were killed in ghastly policefiring, has cared to have a direct report by its ownmembers when the tragedy is of incomparabledimensions.

As the President of this great country, yourHonour is the highest repository of the conscienceof the nation having taken the solemn pledge touphold the Constitution, which has salutaryprovisions for the protection and advancementof the tribal people. Here is the most unusualsituation when the protector State is standingagainst the people in their raw struggle forsurvival in face f incommensurable forces thatare being let loose in these areas guided by the

selfish interests of the ruling elite guided by theglobal Imperialist forces. As illustrated aboveall democratic institutions have failed to rise tothe occasion in the worst crisis that has beenforced on the tribal people of Bastar jeopardisingtheir very survival. We urge on your good self toinvoke your special powers implicit in the pledgeabout upholding the Constitution and take suchsteps that you may consider fit in this unusualsituation. In particular your Honour mayconsider the following:

1. Issue necessary directions, as you maydeem fit, to the Union and the Government ofChhattisgarh to stop state repression forthwiththat is being perpetrated in the name of SalwaJudum;

2. Ask the Governor of Chhattisgarh tosubmit a special Report covering , inter alia, thepoints raised above, under Para 3 of the FifthSchedule of the Constitution which should formthe basis of further directions to the State underthe same Para;

3. Constitute a Special Team, which mayinter alia comprise concerned citizens, select legalluminaries, MPs and sensitive officials forassessing the situation in South Bastar on yourbehalf and submit a report directly to the Presidentthat may help your honor to uphold theConstitution that has been blatantly ignored eversince the dawn of independence so far as the tribalpeople are concerned.

We are also enclosing the solemn pledges ofcountless people against Salwa Judum inresponse to the presentation of the horrendousreality by the cultural team of young artists. Weare also submitting the Reports of various groups,which have visited the area facing the vicissitudesof the hostile State and the so-called SalwaJudum goons.With best regardsNew Delhi9.11.2006Yours truly,

1. Dr. B.D.Sharma Former Collector Bastar,Former Vice Chancellor NEHU, and formerCommissioner for Scheduled Castes andScheduled Tribes

2. Rajkumar, Chhattisgarh Adivasi KalaManch

3. Vinayak Sen, Chairman PUCL,Chhattisgarh

4. N. D. Pacholi, Advocate Supreme Court5. Sivmanagal Siddhantkar ICTU6. Varavara Rao Revolutiony Poet7. Rajkishor Revolutionary Democratic

Front8. Kumar Sanjya Singh Delhi University9. G N Saibaba, Revolutionary Democratic

Front

P M


P M

In a sort of insane attitude Lula said in arecent National PT Congress that he was thepresident who did more for the workers inthe whole world history! In fact, instead ofdefending the interest of the working classin general he tries to fulfill a unionist andlabour reformist agenda to divide and destroythe combative trade-unions, to finish off thefew union liberties and to make flexible thestill existing union rights. In the meantime hekeeps the minimum wage at 155 dollars andfreezes the public officials salaries who havenot had any increase for 12 years.Unemployment during his government hasreached the official rate of 12%; the realunemployment rate reached 20%. Misery andhunger have grown while Lula give alms tothe poor accomplishing programmes ofcompensatory policies prescribed byimperialism which they call “incomedistribution”.

Lula paralysed the precarious agrarianpolicy adopted by Fernando Cardoso andintensified the concentration of landproperty; he stimulated land speculation andcontinues financing the agro-business forseed exporting. In the countryside violencehas increased a lot; only this year more than100 peasants have been arrested; amongthem leaders and militants of the peasantmovement according to data from thegovernment.

Lula participated in the FTAA as a co-president at the side of Bush. By obeyinghis orders he sent Brazilian troops to Haiti.Lula’s government intervenes in the politicalcrisis of the neighbouring countries asEcuador, Bolivia and Venezuela with help fromthe North-American embass, to deviatepeople’s rebellions to the opportunist side.

Different in their forms, the ‘left-wing’governments of Latin America follow thesame manual. In Bolivia the election of EdoMorales has not meant as well a solution forpeoples’ problems because what supportshim is the maintenance of the same system.Morales, with his government programmenamed “Andean-Amazon Capitalism” triesto neutralise the fears of the Bolivianindustrialists, to maintain the people’ssupport and tranquillise the yankees with hisproposal of a capitalist way out for thecountry’s crisis. But the radicalisation levelof the last rebellions in the country shows

the decision of the Bolivian masses topromote deeper transformation and not onlychange the old State manager. Nowadays thecontradictions have been developing inBolivia and the masses - mostly the Indians- and the pro-imperialist oligarchies are in forgrowing shocks. The country is on the vergeof a civil war.

The same is the situation in Ecuador; thepeasant masses went back to the streets forre-vindicating their rights. In Uruguay, thepopulation rejects Tabare Vasquez’sgovernment and his policy submitted to theIMF which paid in advance 230 million dollarsconcerning the foreign debt. In Argentinathe factory workers, unemployed and retiredpeople keep fighting Kirchner’s government.In Paraguay, with the failure of NicanorDuarte’s government, the opportunistsprepare the candidacy of a catholic bishop, aliberation theology follower. However thereis in Paraguay a growing people’s movementled by the Peasant National Front ofParaguay which stands for a revolutionaryway out.

In Chile, the ‘socialist’ president,Michelle Bachelet, has broken herelectorialist commitments less than a monthafter the election. Among other anti-peoplemeasures she has conditioned the increaseof the assistance pensions to the increase ofthe Rate of the Aggregated Value, one of thehighest in Latin America. Her administrationhas been creating protests and a greatfrustration in the masses that have electedher.

In Peru the first presidential election turnhas displayed, quite clearly, the people’srejection to the demagogism and electoralfarce. More than 30% of abstentions havebeen registered; the masses have rejectedthe process disputed by corrupt andgenocide candidates.

On the other hand, though the people’swar in Peru has stepped back, it has been themost important revolutionary movement inthe continent and in its whole history. Beforethe perspectives of explosion of new andmore radical rebellions, this experience of thePeruvian masses will be decisive in thedevelopment of the classes struggle all overthe world and especially in Latin America.

In Colombia the masses keep strugglingagainst the reactionary State.

But as said before the mistakes of theleadership of the peoples’ fights in Latin

America, along the years, have caused gravedefeats. Revisionism, opportunism,reformism, pacifism and electorialism withinthe revolutionary and communist movementhave been a serious problem in our history.The greatest challenge for therevolutionaries, the authentic anti-imperialists and particularly the communistsnowadays is to unmask opportunism raisingthe revolutionary energy of the massesthrough a correct programme, form andmethod of organisation of the struggle undera proletarian leadership.

Presently, when imperialism has to, again,adjust its tactics for maintaining itsdomination, its preferred way is ofmilitarization and fascism in the continent.Fascism is the policy of imperialism that isfacing acute crisis in the metropolis and it isthe policy to be permanently applied in thecolonies and semi-colonies. For that it utilisesclear fascist regimes or dissimulated forms inpseudo democratic orders, which are nothingbut sophisticated versions of the samefascism.

The role of opportunism in themanagement of the old State, at the serviceof imperialism, is to sell the idea of existenceof a ‘democracy’ while exploiting andsuppressing the broad masses. Although ittries to have a different image whendefending the ‘bourgeois institutions’, the‘parliament’, the ‘press freedom’, the ‘humanrights’, the ‘citizenship’, its action is of a totalintolerance to peoples’ movements.

However the crisis of imperialism is deepand irremediable. And the flame of revolutionis rising in Latin America, while learning fromthe experiences acquired by the developmentof the class struggle all over the world andlearning from the mistakes and triumphs thathave occurred in the history of the massstruggles in the regions.

Imperialism will face great storms in theyears to come. And in several parts of theworld, particularly, in Latin America,considered its ‘backyard’. With thedevelopment of the people’s revolutionarystruggle in the continent, Latin people,exploited and massacred for years, will befollowing a no return path for its liberation.

May, 2006

.....continued from page25


Remembering 1857Tipu

THIS year—2007—the people ofIndia are celebrating the one

hundred and fiftieth anniversary of theGreat Revolt of 1857 ….. India’s first Warof Independence. It was the first clarioncall for india’s democratic transformation.One hundred and fifty years ago in the year1857, the land of India witnessed anupsurge of national dimensions that‘stormed the gates of heaven’ and shookthe foundations of British colonial rule.The movement began with the mutiny ofsoldiers at Berhampur and Barrackpurduring February-March that yearapparently in protest against the servingof cartridges greased with the fat ofbullocks and pigs, which was consideredas an infringement of their religion. Whatstarted as a mutiny of the Indian soldierssoon turned into a prairie fire and becamea great people’s war. This people’s warengulfed large parts of India embracingOudh, Rohilkhand, Bundelkhand, Sagar,Narmada, Nagpur, Hyderabad, manydistricts of Bihar, Agra, Meerut, Punjab,Delhi, parts of Bengal and other places. Inmagnitude, depth as also in significance,this rebellion was unparalleled in the longhistory of both independent and colonialIndia. Primarily anti-colonial, it was at thesame time directed against the feudalforces. It was described as the ‘First Warof Indian Independence’ by Karl Marx.Although the Great Revolt took place one-and-a-half centuries ago, it has not outlivedits relevance and is very much alive in theminds of the people. The causes for whichthe people fought heroically during thosedays of colonial rule both against theforeign aggressors as also their domesticcollaborators have not lost their relevanceand need to be addressed anew in present-day India. We will deal with that part in theend.

The Revolt of 1857 was the obviousand bitter response of the Indian massesto a century of British colonial policy ofplunder and ruthless exploitation. Thesociety that had withstood the ravages oftime and foreign invasions for manycenturies fell victim to Western capitalistaggression and got dismantled. Marx wrotein 1853: “All the civil wars, invasions,revolutions, conquests, famines, strangelycomplex, rapid and destructive as the

successive action in Hindoostan mayappear, did not go deeper than its surface.England had broken down the entireframework of Indian society…” The Indianagricultural system was uprooted,handicraft industries were destroyed andthe Indian economy was converted into araw-material supplying appendage tometropolitan Britain. The old feudalstructure was thoroughly dismantled anda new semi-feudal and semi-colonialstructure was raised atop the old order. Allthe social groups and classes—the rajas,princes, landlords, traders, artisans,soldiers and the overwhelming majority ofpeasants, irrespective of their creed, casteor religion, had to bear the brunt ofimperialist exploitation. The British ruledoomed millions of Indians to starvationby breaking up hand-weaving and hand-spinning industries and flooded the Indianmarket with Lancashire cotton fabrics.

The month of April was signalized byincendiary fires in several cantonments ofthe Bengal army at Allahabad, Agra,Ambala, by a mutiny of the 3rd Regiment ofLight Cavalry at Meerut, and by similarappearances of disaffection in the Madrasand Bombay armies. It was the soldiers ofMeerut who set the ball rolling on the 10th

of May. Mutinies followed in severalstations of the north. In Bundelkhand,Jhansi took the lead. In many areas, Britisharmy officials were attacked and killed. AtJhansi, the rebel soldiers released allprisoners. The jail daroga and thebarkandazes joined them. Confiscation andthe looting of property of the Europeansand their Indian collaborator-officialsfollowed. All houses and offices of the‘firinghis’(foreigners) were burnt down.Official records were taken out and abonfire was made of them in the open field.Delhi—the traditional symbol of politicalpower—was captured and Bahadur ShahZafar II—the last Mughal—was proclaimedemperor of India. In the Punjab, openrebellion could be prevented only bydisbanding the Indian troops. In Oudh,regiments revolted literally everywhere,escaped with their ammunition, treasuresand horses, burnt down all the bungalowsto the ground and joined the local peoplewho had taken up arms. The BombayNative Infantry broke out into successive

mutinies at Nagpur, Aurangabad,Hyderabad and Kolapur.

Widespread mutiny of the soldiersevoked rebelliousness among civilemployees as well. During the outbreaksat Jhansi and Nowgong, S.Thornton, thedeputy collector of Jhansi tried to raise abody of men from among the localBundelas in Gorotha to suppressinsurgency. The attempt failed miserablyas the police and tahsil chaprasis refusedto cooperate. The chaprasis even refusedto give any money from the treasurywithout orders from the Emperor in Delhifrom whom they said they had received asealed letter. The first set of actions wasaimed at eliminating British authority. Theessential prerequisites for its normalfunctioning, the treasury and the arsenal,were the first to be captured. This, on theone hand, made it difficult for the Britishto retaliate and, on the other, endowed therebels with the powers of the displacedstate. Then the officials were physicallyeliminated and all tangible forms of Britishrule destroyed. Records and the jail werethe two most natural targets. Theseactions were not peculiar to any oneregion; on the contrary, these were moreor less a universal feature.

In areas of mutiny, action was startedby one of the three units of the army—infantry, cavalry and artillery, while theothers followed. In fact, the basis on whichsoldiers were organized to becomeinstruments of the state machinery nowprovided the groundwork for violentactions against the state. Regimentalformations and arrangements were notonly retained, but furnished the essentialstructure within which the mutinies werecarried out. A mutiny in the headquarterscaused battalions in the sub-areas to risein response (R.Mukherjee, Awadh inRevolt,1857-1858-A Study of PopularResistance, 1984). After Jhansi, mutinybroke out in Nowgong while regiments inHamirpur and Banda awaited news fromtheir corps in Kanpur.

Although the Revolt started in Bengal,it did not generally have any connectionwith the local people. The mutiny atBarrackpur and the hanging of MangalPandey sparked the prairie fire. It wasfollowed by the mutiny at Behrampur in


Murshidabad. However, the failure of therebels to establish contact with the massesmade it a short-lived affair. Revolts by smallbands of soldiers were reported also fromChittagong, some chiefs were hanged inBurdwan for inciting rebellion, restivenessof some sections of the people werereported from Maldah, Dhaka, Faraizis ofFaridpur, Krishnagar, Jessore etc.(WWHunter, Statistical Account of the State ofHill Tipperah; S.B.Choudhury, CivilRebellion in the Indian Mutinies;J.W.Kaye, History of the Sepoy War, vol.I;Promod Sengupta,, Nil Bidroha O BangaliSamaj).

The ubiquitious presence of the British,especially their economic aggression in theform of commercial extraction andaccelerated trading activities had forcedthe petty kingdoms along with the British-administered districts to integrate with thegrowing market network operated by theEast India Company, foreign private tradersand the Marwari go-between dalals.( Wemay note here in passing that manyMarwari and intermediaries from otherbusiness communities served the British

by passing on information about themovement of the rebels, by supplyingprovisions to them and handing overbungalows for stationing foreign troops,and were knighted in lieu of such services).This had made the local economiesvulnerable to fluctuations in the newtrading patterns and placed them outsidethe pale of the traditional forms of controlexercised by their rulers. The growingeconomic decay within the kingdoms ofthe rajas was creating an ocean ofdiscontent among their subjects,compelling the rulers into greaterdependence on the foreign conquerors.This was manifested in the system of theSubsidiary Alliance and it finally led to theannexation of native territories by theDoctrine of Lapse. Moreover, the companyfought twenty battles between 1757 and1857 to transform the vast region fromKashmir to Cochin into its protectorate andthereby to transplant ‘Europeandespotism’ on Indian society. The foreignrulers also sought to culturallydenationalize India by adopting themethod of mass conversion, either by

force or by deceit, of the Indian massesinto Christianity, which was expected tosupply that bond of union between theruler and the ruled. Every Indian had alsoto suffer from the racist attitude of theBritish ruling classes.

Besides soldiers, many thakurs or pettyor middle feudal nobles played importantroles in that anti-colonial war. They wereactive not only in Bundelkhand(where theywere mostly Rajputs), but in other areasalso. From 1857 to early 1858, one can noticethe existence of different elements in theiractions such as political rebellion, socialbanditry as also general plunder. From May1958, they rose to expel the recentlyreinstated local government officials fromas many parganas as possible. Smalltowns—insufficiently protected—wereattacked and captured by them. From theseoffensive acts at negating authority grewconstructive attempts at building alternatestructures of power. Some of themproclaimed their individual authority inscattered areas, nearly all of them recruitedmen, raised revenue and carved out theirown pockets of power. Their reprisals were

Mutineers attack British troops at Lucknow


directed against those regions thatreverted to British rule, mahajans—theperennial allies of the foreign rulers andthe rich zamindars who opposed rebellionand generally stood for the status quo.Collaborators were relentlessly punishedand anyone who acted as spies givingaway information about the movement ofthe rebels, were instantly put to death.

However, the real staying power of themovement could be provided only by thevast oppressed masses, particularly thepeasants and artisans. In fact, theresistance of these nameless masses wasoften a force to reckon with and reports,even though fractured, about themperiodically filtered through into officialdiscourse. One major reason for thegrowing rural distress was that thedepression in the cotton trade from 1824-25 was accompanied by a similar crisis inagriculture. Land was increasingly beingthrown out of cultivation and arrears ofrevenue began to mount, as Jhasi recordsshowed. The famine of 1833-34 was saidto have been ‘such as have rarely beenafflicted so intensely among other portionsof the globe’(Tapti Roy, The Politics of aPopular Uprising Bundelkhand in 1857,1994,p.211.)

Mark Thornbill, a contemporaryreported that within a few weeks after theRevolt began, British rule simply vanishedfrom north India. In Bundelkhand, thedistrict of Banda was the first to witness awidespread rural jacquerie. In all cases ofrural uprising, violence was directedagainst those institutions of power withwhich they interacted directly andimmediately, namely tahsils and thanas.Thanas and tahsils were attacked andplundered, records destroyed andgovernment officials driven out. Allvestiges of colonial rule were in the processeliminated. The tahsildar, solicitious in theeyes of the British collector, was identifiedby the people solely in terms of thepolitical authority that it represented. Fromdriving out government officials, popularactions turned against all the othersassociated with the colonial power,outsiders and catalysts of disruption anddisorder, the auction-purchasers, thedecree-holders and the merchants. Whileplunder was the principal form by whichpeople asserted their power, armingthemselves was the principal means by

which they did so. A contemporary wrote:“Tulwars and matchlocks were scarce inBundelkhand, but armed with spears andscythes, and iron-bound lathies, andextemporary axes, formed of choppingknives fastened on sticks, they imaginedto be warriors, chose their own kings, anddefied all comers. Never was revolutionmore rapid—never morecomplete”(Mayne, Narrative of Events,Banda, para 8,p.325.)

The rebels set up their own ‘Court ofAdministration’ for an independent Indiafree from foreign control. It was set up withrepresentatives from soldiers and civilianswith two representatives each from theinfantry, cavalry and infantry and four fromthe civilians. Each of these representativeswas elected by majority vote from theirown constituencies. This smaller bodyelected a president and a vice-presidentby a majority vote. This supreme bodyacted in a judicial capacity and alsoestablished different courts for dischargeof judicial duties. Taking of bribes andother malpractices were firmly suppressed.This Court of Administration proclaimedBahadur Shah as the emperor of India on11 May 1857, but took away his power inJuly in the same year. It again declared himthe emperor but the new emperor wasdeprived of any power. All the power wasconcentrated in the hands of the supremebody. The body took upon itself the taskof administration of the land, maintenanceof peace and order in the capturedterritories, collection of loans from themahajans and the conduct of war. Theemperor exercised no control over theseaffairs Bundle no.57, Folio no.539-41 in(Urdu,dt.nil, cited in Suprakash Roy,Bharater Krishak Bidroha O GanatantrikSangram, 1990).

In many areas, villagers armedthemselves as befitting soldiers in defenceof a political alternative, their ownalternative for which they chose their ownking in their respective areas. Thesekingdoms might not have been very large,and in some areas small. But their sizeshould not deprive them of the noble goalfor which they had been fighting. Theirvery emergence and existencedemonstrated the power which the peoplegained through their insurgency in 1857.They zealously guarded their own ruleagainst intruders and thereby defied all

comers. Fleeing officials confirmed thecollapse of British power and a growingconviction that British rule onceoverthrown would never return. The sightof these officials kicked out of their zonesof authority presented a spectacle of theauthority of a state in retreat. It was also amoral victory for those who wanted to seetheir motherland free from the presence ofthe foreign conquerors.

There is no doubt that feudal elementswere present in this national rising, andthey were not free from the limitations andvices of their own class. It was the commoncause that made them join hands at leastfor the time being. It is pertinent to pointout that each and every person taking partin a movement suffers from limitations—both as a member of a particular class asalso as an individual. And it is in course ofparticipation in the struggle that he or shecould expect to transcend the limitationsof their own class. This is true both of theRevolt we are talking of as also of thepresent-day struggles. Of course, there isa basic difference between the rebellionsof those times when there was norevolutionary Communist Party and nowwhen we do have one. In fact, each persontaking part in revolutionary struggleswould have to fight not only against theenemy but also against self—the self-seeking individualistic thinking, and thestruggle against the latter is definitely moredifficult than that against the former. Theparticipants in that Great Revolt was notfree from such limitations either.

The Revolt of 1857 has been variouslyinterpreted by historians and writers.While imperialist historians like John Kaye(History of the Indian Mutiny of 1857-58,6 vols, 1897-98) and G.B.Malleson (TheIndian Mutiny of 1857,1912) tried to depictit solely as an armed sepoy mutiny anddeliberately concealed the involvement init of broad sections of the Indian masses.R.C.Majumdar( The Sepoy Mutiny and theRevolt of 1857, 1957) does not consider itto be a national uprising; he abused therebels and even warned the readers againstthe spread of the ideas of sedition.V.D.Savarkar(The Volcano or the First Warof Indian Independence, n.d.)—one of theleading figures of Hindu fundamentalism—portrayed the war as the nearestapproximation to an Indian War ofIndependence. S.B.Chaudhuri in his two


works on the subject has linked thisrebellion to those that preceded it. Hedescribed the leaders of the Revolt as the“unconscious tools of nascentnationalism”. The popular character of therebellion was highlighted by PromodeSengupta, Suprakash Roy, R.Mukherjee,Tapti Roy and many others. To scholarslike R.P.Dutt, however, it was not the warof independence, but the last attempt ofthe decaying feudal forces to regain theirrights and privileges which they saw in theprocess of destruction (India Today, 1948).There is a tendency in recent years todepict that great rising as a purely Islamicreligious ‘jehadi’ movement directedagainst ‘kafirs’(infidels) and‘nasrani’(Christians) and devoid of anynational aspirations(W. Dalrymple, TheLast Mughal,2006).

Karl Marx, in his own inimitable style,wrote a series of articles in the New YorkDaily Tribune where he pointed out thatthe motive force behind the insurrectionwas the people and that the instrument ofretribution was forged by the offendersthemselves. He was the first to describethe rebellion as a national rising. Referringto its characteristic features, he wrote: ‘Itis the first time that sepoy regiments havemurdered their European officers; that theMussalmans and Hindus, renouncing theirmutual antipathies, have combined againstthe common masters’; that ‘disturbancesbeginning with the Hindus, have actuallyended in placing on the throne of Delhi aMohammedan Emperor’; that the mutinyhas not been confined to a few localities,but had spread to places far between.

In the Programme of the CPI(M-L)adopted at the Party Congress held in May1970, it was stated: “The First war ofIndependence in 1857, a war fought by thepeasantry and rebel soldiers, turned into aconflagration engulfing the whole of thevast country, inflicting many humiliatingdefeats on the imperialists and shaking thevery foundations of alien imperialist rule.This great uprising of the Indian peoplefailed owing to the betrayal by the Indianfeudal princes”. Since then Indiawitnessed innumerable armed peasantrevolts. However, these revolts failed asthere was no scientific theory and norevolutionary leadership capable of leadingthem to victory.

The Revolt of 1857 was primarily ananti-imperialist war directed againstoppressive foreign rule. Numerous socialgroups and classes affected, in one wayor the other, took part in it. It alsocontained within it elements of anti-feudal struggles directed against thefeudal rajas, feudal magnates, notablesand others. It coincided with the greatestpeasant rebellion in the history of modernChina, namely the Taiping Rebellion.Although much short-lived than theChinese rising that preceded it, it left apermanent imprint on the future historyof India and acted as an inspiration tothose who dared to fight for a better placeto live in.

After the transfer of power in 1947,direct colonial rule came to an end andIndia was transformed from a colonialand semi-feudal country into a semi-feudal and semi-colonial one. Duringthose years of sham independence thebig comprador-bureaucrat bourgeoisieand big landlord ruling classes havebeen serving their imperialist mastersquite faithfully. These stooges ofimperialism, while preserving the oldBritish imperialist exploitation, have alsobrought US imperialist and Soviet social-imperialist exploiters to fleece ourcountry. With the weakening of the powerof British imperialism the world over, theIndian ruling classes had hiredthemselves out to US imperialism andSoviet Social imperialism, and after thedecline of the latter, to the former alone.The semi-feudal land relations havetransformed our country into a land ofperpetual famine, as a result of whichmillions of people die of starvation everyyear. Through the so-called ‘greenrevolution’, the policy of liberalization,the imperialist powers led by the USA inassociation with their domesticcollaborators are fleecing the people andthe beloved land of ours has beentransformed into an El Dorado to beravaged at will by them. Our naturalresources, mines, forest lands, water,agriculture, industry, education, cultureare being systematically plundered likethe British East India Company of theold days. The “illegitimate marriage”between the Indian compradorbourgeoisie with the imperialist

bourgeoisie have been daily ruining thecountry as never before. In the name of‘development’(in reality, mal-development), people are being displacedfrom their land in Maharashtra, WB andmany other areas. Everywhere people areseething with discontent, everywherethere are protests and movements of onetype or another and the state machineryis coming down heavily with all theirmight to suppress them. The latestexample is Singur where the hatedBuddhadev-led government is trying toforcibly grab many acres of land from thepeasants and hand those lands over tothe Tatas—one of the toprepresentatives of the big compradorbourgeoisie. This is what these faithfullackeys of imperialism call ‘globalization’which ruins millions of starving peopleevery day and leads to the accumulationof property in the hands of a few.

The Indian people would have tofight against such globalization. It is anational war of resistance againstimperialist control and exploitation bycomprador-bureaucratic capital andfeudalism—a new War of Independencemore gigantic than what one witnessedone hundred and fifty years back. Therevolutionary party of India, theCPI(Maoist) is in the forefront of thisstruggle and is heroically leading thepeople with all its might and, with thejoining of more and more people, itsstrength is growing with every passingday. Let all the people who love theirmotherland and seek to transform thiscountry into a better place to live in, aplace free from exploitation, wherehunger and poverty would be things ofthe past—peasants, artisans, othertoiling masses as also policemen andsoldiers—join in this glorious struggle.It is a struggle worth fighting for. It is astruggle which would surely lead to thecreation of a new society where humanvalues would triumph over the lust forprofits. Let another great thunder crashover our land to rid us of the muck of allages. Long live the Great Revolt of 1857!!

P M


ATIN America is today a volcanoabout to explode. The worsening of

the general crisis of the system is directlyreflected in the economical, political andsocial situation of the continent.

In the last 20 years the number of poorpeople in Latin America has increased from120 to 230 million - more than 100 million areindigenous - out of a total population of 517million inhabitants distributed in 36 countries.The exploitation of the proletariat and thepeople’s masses has reached intolerablelevels supported by the maintenance of thesemi-feudal landownership in all the Latincountries.

On the other hand, this is the materialbase on which the recent people’s rebellionshave developed in Latin America, a predictionof some other larger and more overwhelmingclass confrontations that will certainlyexplode very soon.

A broad anti-imperialist feeling has beendeveloping and yankee imperialism and thepuppet governments are the centre of itsattack.. Subjected to a growing spiral ofhunger, misery and repression the massesare motivated to rebel by the firm Iraqiresistance and resistance in some other partsof the world against the imperialist invasion.This proves once more that the peoples,when they organise themselves andstruggle, can defeat their class enemies.

Because of such an explosive situation,mostly in South America, yankee imperialismhas been forced to change its plans. Andeven guaranteeing their permanence in Iraqthey are obliged to change the axis of theirattacks in the Middle East towards LatinAmerica, since - as a consequence of thegeneral crisis - the economical crisis ondifferent Latin countries have created aserious social crisis and successive politicalcrises without any perspective of solutionfor the problems that threaten its domination.

The imperialist offensive headed byBush has taken the contradiction betweenthe nations and oppressed people to anincredible level. Because of that and thegeneral systemic crisis of capitalism the anti-imperialist contradictions are becoming moreacute although apparently they try to displayan unquestionable domination of the USA.On disputing new markets and raw materials,

South America has become an importanttarget for the new investments for financialcapital where China and Europeanimperialism attempt to establish profitablecommercial relations. With this picture andin face of the huge and insoluble crisis, thesafety of the hegemonic imperialism isintrinsically related to the need of a completedominion of Latin America.

In fact USA has imposed the FTAA - FreeTrade Agreement of America; it threatensCuba and begins to prepare a plan for apossible aggression to Venezuela. Besidesinstalling military bases in several LatinAmerica countries as Ecuador, Peru,Paraguay and Colombia, it plans to installitself at the Triple Frontier of Plata whichincludes Brasil, Argentina and Paraguay.

As Venezuela - their second biggest oilsupplier - is off their control, the conditionsof their crisis have aggravated more as thelargest world oil consumer. Chavez’s criticismto the USA have been utilised as a pretext fora future intervention since a possibleconfrontation with Venezuela is part of agroup of yankees’ strategies after Iraq’s.

The internal Venezuelan reaction haspolitically had big defeats though keepingimportant economical controls as well ascontrols in the means of communication.Chavez however counts on the people’ssupport and he is enlarging the army withthe organisation of militias. He ventures inthe articulation against the US withinternational support and in alliance withEurope, China and Russia as well.

Nevertheless the central problem of thecontinent —in the light of this objectivesituation of deep crisis and perspective ofexplosion of new and more radical people’srebellions for the peoples liberation — is thestrong influence of opportunism and the lackof a proletarian leadership to indicate therevolutionary way for building the New Power.

The large masses in Latin America havealready lived different experiences includingthe armed struggle. But their leaders havecapitulated and nowadays nearly all of themare involved in electoralist disputes for themanagement of the old States in theircountries. Opportunism continuesshamelessly speaking of socialism whilebeing a devoted servant to imperialism.

Because of that Daniel Ortega, from the FrenteSandinista of Nicaragua, has been accusedrecently - by an ex- Nicaraguan guerrilla - tohaving transformed himself from anti-imperialist into a capitalist craftsman.

And with the crisis overflowing all overLatin America, the election of manypresidents considered as ‘left-wing” has beenthe general tactics used by the ruling classesand imperialism to deactivate the socialexplosion in the region where at any momenta flame can ignite a prairie fire. Lula, Kirchner,Bachelet, Evo Morales, Tabare Vasquez,Nicanor Duarte, Alejandro Toledo are, all ofthem, pro-imperialists; Chavez has an anti-yankee stance.

The Brazilian case is a veryrepresentative example of this general picture.Despite the official publicity campaigns thatinform us that Brasil is an economicallyemergent country, this is not true. Accordingto World Bank data Brasil is among the fivecountries with the worst wealth distributionin the planet; there are 40 million landlesspoor peasants or with little land and 60 millionof miserable people; among them 40 millionlive “below the poverty line”.

In 2002, because of the worsening of thebureaucratic capitalism crisis in Brasil the fightbetween the local ruling classes hasaggravated too, permitting the PT (WorkersParty) electorialist front to elect Lula. AndLula, as soon as he was elected, startedconsolidating his alliance with the bigbourgeoisie implementing the monetary, taxand cambial programme dictated by IMF,whose objective is the payment of the foreignand national debt of around 800 billiondollars.

Lula has used for that a primary surplusaround 5% of the Brazilian GNP that amountsto 700 billion dollars. Likewise he used only4% of the GNP in education; he maintainsthe interest rates that are the highest in theworld; 17% he paid on our IMF debts withthe IMF and Paris Club; he did the reformsrequired by the IMF that the previousgovernments were not able to do — as forinstance the pension reforms which was ahard blow to the retired people’s rights. Nowhe is implementing the university reform inaccordance with the World Bank with thegoal to privatise public education.

Latin America – a volcano about to explode(ILPS - Brazil / Latin America Coordination)

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Palestine, Afghanistan, Nepal, India,Turkey, Peru, Colombia and the Philippines.There are those between the reactionarystate and the oppressed minorities fightingfor self-determination.

There are also those betweenreactionary forces who struggle for powerby following different imperialist mastersand taking advantage of communal, ethnic,religious and racial differences. Thesearmed conflicts have arisen in the wake ofeconomic and social ruin due to depressedprices of raw-material exports andunbearable debt burdens, especially inAfrica.

The Marxist-Leninist and Maoistparties that are waging the new democraticrevolution through protracted people’s warplay a signal role in bringing about theworld proletarian revolution. They holdhigh the torch of armed revolution. Theyillumine the road of revolution for thepeoples in the underdeveloped countries,in the retrogressive countries of formersocialist countries and in the imperialistcountries. They encourage the formationof Maoist parties where these do not yetexist.

Current Major Contradictionsin the World

In the epochal struggle of theproletariat and the bourgeoisie, thefundamental contradictions to reckon withare those between labor and capital,among the imperialist countries andbetween the imperialists and the oppressedpeoples and nations. From time to time,the arrangement of these contradictionschanges according to concrete conditions.

At this time, these fundamentalcontradictions may be seen as four majorcontradictions and may be arrangedaccording to current world reality. Theseare contradictions between the imperialistpowers and the oppressed peoples andnations, between the imperialist powersand countries upholding nationalindependence, among the imperialistpowers and between the proletariat and themonopoly bourgeoisie in imperialistcountries.

The contradiction between theimperialist powers and the oppressedpeoples and nations ranks first becausewithin it armed revolutionary movementshave arisen, even if still few, and the central

question of revolution is being answeredthrough the serious endeavor to seize statepower. Every day that these armedrevolutions for national liberation anddemocracy exist and develop, theydemonstrate that the US and otherimperialist powers do not have enoughpower to suppress them and pacify theentire world. They encourage the peopleto wage armed revolution. There is highpotential for more armed revolutions toarise in Asia, Africa and Latin Americabecause the peoples and nations in theseparts of the world are the most oppressedand exploited.

The contradiction between theimperialist powers and countries invokingupholding national independence has infact resulted in wars that are even moredramatic for a certain time than therevolutionary wars of oppressed peoplesand nations. Any government, whethermotivated by bourgeois nationalism orsocialism, invokes national independenceagainst imperialism to assert its legitimacyand compliance with the sovereign will ofthe people. We have seen the blitzkriegslaunched by the US and its allies againstIraq and Afghanistan. The governmentsof Saddam and the Taleban have fallen. Butthe people continue to wage a war ofliberation against the occupation and haspushed the US into a quagmire.

Individually, China, North Korea, Cuba,Iran and Syria invoke nationalindependence and take a stand against thedictates of US imperialism on certainoutstanding issues, like Taiwan, nuclearresearch and development, economicsanctions and Israeli Zionism, to cite afew,. Politically, economically, financiallyand militarily, there are limits to USimposing itself on any or all of theaforementioned countries. It is already inserious trouble even only in Iraq. Togetherwith its NATO allies, it is increasingly facedwith armed resistance in Afghanistan.

The contradiction among theimperialist powers has long beencushioned since the end of World War IIby their anti-communist alliance againstthe socialist countries, the nationalliberation movements and the proletariatand people. But it can easily take the No.1 position when it results in war amongthe imperialist themselves, as in World WarI and World War II. Such a war is always of

high significance because it is the mostdevastating to the people, it is self-destructive to world capitalism in generaland gives the people the opportunity toturn the war into a revolutionary civil warfor national liberation and socialism. Nodirect inter-imperialist war has arisen sincethe end of World War II because theimperialist powers have developed variousframeworks for settling their differences atthe expense of the proletariat and people.

The contradiction between theproletariat and the monopoly bourgeoisiecan be looked at first within the imperialistcountries. It can develop rapidly only afterthe other contradictions develop first. Therevolutionary potential of the proletariatcan arise from the internal economic andpolitical crisis of imperialist countries. Butbefore the monopoly bourgeoisie resortsto the use of fascism, it uses its superprofitsfrom the rest of the world to counter anddelay the rise of a revolutionary movementof the proletariat with the use of reformsand concessions.

We can reckon with the contradictionof the proletariat and the monopolybourgeoisie on a global scale. Theproletariat has a global presence. Outsideof the imperialist countries, there arevarying degrees of modern industrialdevelopment. On the basis of this, thetrade union movement and revolutionaryparty of the proletariat can arise. As themost advanced political and productiveforce, the proletariat can amplify itsstrength by uniting with and leading thepeasant masses in the people’s democraticrevolution in countries like the Philippinesand Nepal.

The people’s democratic revolutionsthrough people’s war on the basis of theworker-peasant alliance and under theleadership of the revolutionary party of theproletariat are very crucial today in keepingalive the hope of the broad masses of thepeople to defeat imperialism and itslackeys, free themselves from oppressionand exploitation and enjoy a life offreedom, democracy, justice, plenty andprogress in socialism.

Contribution to the InternationalSolidarity Conference on the Struggle ofthe People of Nepal for Democracy andHuman Rights

Kathmandu, NepalSeptember 22, 2006

P M

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Demand Unconditional Release of Maoist Leader Com Narendra (aliasChintan)

O N Oct.18th 2006 the Bihar police arrested com Narendra (alias

Chintan, Osho, P.P.Singh) from the GhobariaPS area of West Champaran District, alongwith two of his comrades, Deepak Umrao andVirendra Prasad. After bringing them toBhaga and subjecting them to physical andmental torture they were sent to jail. Noreasons were given for the arrest and nowarrant produced.

Com Narendra has been working fornearly two decades amongst the tribes(particularly Tharu tribes) of North Bihar.Com Narendra was born in a middle classfamily in a village from East Champaran(Motihari) district. He got his basic educationin his village then he did engineering. Soonafter getting his engineering degree he got ajob in the railways. But after six months hegave up his job and continued his studies inDelhi. Here he got an engineering degree fromthe IIT and then did his PhD from the JNUon the conditions of tribals.

In the early 1980s along with his engineerfriends he put up a factory in Oakhla, Delhi.It is then that he began organising the workersin the region. He set up a library called “EktaPustakalya” which became a centre forworkers to read and discuss their problemsand thereby build their organisation. It wasduring this time he came in touch with theJanshakti party and set up the registeredunion “Delhi General Mazdoor Front”which is in existence till today. The office ofthis union was in his factory premises itselfand he began giving all his time to build theunion. The union began to spread to the

entire area and undertook many struggles. Iteven built a branch in the CPM printing presswhere he organised the workers to demandminimum wages. In the course of the strugglehe exposed the anti-workers role of the CITUand also brought out a booklet againstrevisionism. This booklet was distributed notonly in the area but amongst the workingclass all over the country.

The struggle in the printing pressintensified and the CPM went to the extentto unleash goondas on the strugglingworkers. In this attack many workers wereinjured and one was even killed. In spite ofthese attacks the union continued thestruggle and the CPM rather than giveminimum wages closed down the press.Similarly in Sept 1983, on another occasion,when a factory owner beat and killed a worker,under the leadership of comrade Narendra,the entire Okhla area observed a three-daybandh. During the bandh there were seriousclashes with the police and CRPF. For quite afew years the union became so powerful thatthe factory owners of the area had to retreatin the face of the activities of the union. ComNarendra became a much loved workers’leader and the D.G.M.F. union also spread toother areas of Delhi.

In the course of all these struggles ComNarendra had to face the attacks of the police.Throughout this period he continued withthe Janshakti group. At that time afterdiscussion with his worker comrades hedecided to work amongst the most oppressedtribals of the West Champaran district inNorth Bihar. He spread his work in the jungles

of the area spreading from Valmikinagar toSitamadi. Though some senior party leadersopposed this work he convinced them andbegan work in this region. First he opened aschool in the area and began educating themost backward Tharu tribes and establishedlinks with the peasants. Within a few yearshe began organising the villagers and begansome revolutionary struggles. Known as amini-Chambal, he had to face the wrath ofthe dacoits who tried to chase him away fromthe area. But deeply integrating with thepeople he could increase his influence andthereby opened a number of schools in thearea. He organised the triblals against theexploitation of the forest department and theinhuman loot by the dacoits. He traveled fromvillage to village awakening the tribals againstthe causes for their oppression.

In the course of his activities he came intouch with MCC comrades and in around1996 joined the MCC. Now he organised thetribals into armed detachments. Due to hissacrifices and efforts this entire area becamea centre for anti-feudal anti-imperialiststruggles. After the merger of the two partiesand the formation of the CPI(Maoist) hebecame a member of its central committee.Earlier too, many a time he has been to jail,but has always valiantly continued his fightagainst the enemy, whether inside or outsidethe jail.

Com Narendra has been a consistentfighter for the oppressed who has sacrificedeverything for the cause of the people. Wedemand his unconditional and immediaterelease.

uncommonly intelligent military general.Another exemplary fighter was Co. Manna,who was then platoon commander of the thenregular guerrilla forces of the Party; and KMwas the assistant commander. Later on,through gathering many multifariousexperiences in various battles, he became oneof the commanders of the guerrilla forces.

Through the basic military training he gotin 1965, many practical experiences in thebloody war of 1971, and a thorough study ofall books published in Bangla on communistguerrilla warfare, he became the militarytheoretician of the Party. He became the mostimportant teacher — both political andmilitary — which enabled the untrained

irregular guerrilla forces to persist in battleand hit at the counter-attack. He was one ofthe three master theoreticians that followedthe military line of Charu Majumdar inBangladesh. The other two were Coms. BadolDutt and MC. The reactionaries martyred allthese comrades. Com Badol Dutt hadsummed up the military experiences of theParty but these are lost. KM and MC whileconducting the 2LS had also dealt withmilitary issues which was part of the debate.

Although the so-called independentstate of Bangladesh was formed on Dec.161971 a life-and-death struggle continuedbetween the regular guerrilla forces of theParty and the Police-BDR combine.

At the period of setback KM fought

against all liquidationist and flightiest viewsand with determination called for keeping thepolitics of the party alive amongst themasses. It was only this way that the Partycould strengthen itself and then launch acounter-attack. Fighting against theopportunist politics of self-protection heresolutely applied his line and therebyrevived the movement.

Just 40 days after his martyrdom, onAugust 24 2006, the guerrilla forcesannihiliated four policemen, seized their armsand gained great popularity throughout thecountry. The Communist Party of EastBengal (ML)(Red Flag) continues to growin strength notwithstanding the seriouslosses.

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In Commemoration of Martyr Comrade Kamrul Islam

T HE murderous elite force, RAB, created and by its close allies FBI

& RAW, arrested Kamrul Master(KM) fromhis lodging-house in Dhaka at 12-30 am onJuly 13 2006. after three hours of interrogationat the house they took him to the RABheadquarters. At 4 am on July 14th they tookhim to his home district of Pabna and shothim dead in cold blood. After that theyabandoned his body by the road and gave astatement of a ‘cross-fire’ to the media thenext day.

Com KM’s history is interwoven with thehistory of the Maoist movement inBangladesh, being one of the major pillars ofthe movement since its inception. It was inthe early 1970s that the movement achieveda great momentum of which he was a part.But then in the brutal repression hundredsof comrades and intellectuals were martyred.The armed peasant war faced a huge setbackin 1974. Prior to that the Raksha Bahiniarrested him and sent him to jail, sentencinghim to 12 years imprisonment. After 4½ yearsrigorous imprisonment he was released dueto the legal efforts of comrades. His lifebecame a Marxist university for him. Here hestudied world history, Indian history,geography, politics, economics andphilosophy along with nearly all Banglaliterature and much world literature that istranslated into Bangla.

Party secretary, Com. Moniruzzman Tara,was martyred prior to the setback, and all theliving central leaders were sent to jail. Thoughsome district leaders continued theirrevolutionary activities separately, there wasno contact and coordination amongst them.In 1976 coms. Madhu and MC after comingout of jail, established co-ordination amongstcomrades and organisations scatteredaround the country; and in September 1976built a COC (Central Organising Committee).In 1977, KM after coming out of jail, went tothe struggling areas of Pabna and once againintroduced armed struggle. In 1979 the Partyco-opted him into the COC. Since then com.KM has been a central committee member tillhis death. The April Plenum (actuallyCongress) on 1985 elected him as a CCM inthe 3rd CC of the Party. In Sept 86 a 13-yearlong two line struggle (2LS) was introducedin the party. At a certain stage of that 2LSwhen the opinion of KM was a majority, Com.

MC resigned form the post of CCS and ComKM was elected as CCS and performed thatduty for 6 months from Oct 89 to Apr 90.

In the year of 2000 though the partymainly adopted his opinion, yet he did notagree to be CCS. He vigorously proposedcom. Raka who was with him in the 2LS, butmuch younger to him. After com. Raka waselected secretary he took enormous effort totrain him for the tasks. Though many askedhim to take the post of CCM he refused andstayed steadfast to his task of building theparty. In 1999 when Com. MC was removedas CCS and started a new 2LS raising a hostof questions and split the party with hisfactional activities. Com KM and Raka ledthe 2LS and firmly solved the problems themovement was facing, steadfastly leading thearmed struggle forward. It was about this timethat the Party joined CCOMPOSA and gainednew experiences from the other parties ofSouth Asia. KM also led the party toparticipate in the CCOMPOSA.

From this time onwards it was KM whoplayed the prime role in the realm of ideologyseeking to unite all the Maoist partiesinvolved to in armed struggle. His effortsculminated in his party and the PBSB (CC)signing a unity statement just before hismartyrdom to conduct unity talks. Moreoverhe played a major role as the chief teacher tobuild the proletarian outlook of comradeswithin the party. Through his intensivestudies and participation in the practice ofrevolutionary struggle he played a major rolein establishing the class line of the party. Inthis way he had trained a generation of takeover the tasks which have now fallen on theirshoulders after his martyrdom. Through thenumerous political and ideological struggleshe led he trained the entire party on thecommunist outlook. His latest contributionwas towards building the unity amongst thenumerous revolutionary and patriotic-democratic forces in the country.

We now trace his four decade longhistory of building the communist movementin Bangladesh. Com. Kamrul Islam was bornin the village of Nurpur, near Pabna town, onNov.10 1949. His father, Ahmed Hussain, wasa school teacher. His uncle, Ahmed Hussein,was the then MLA. He was the leader of theextremely weak nationalist stream within theAwami party. In 1971 he was for fighting for

freedom standing on their own within thecountry and not depending on India. Morethan that, he planned to hand over some armsof the Pabna Armoury to the communiststhrough comrades KM and Shohid to fightthe Pakistani army. Due to this the pro-IndiaAwami conspirators killed him and spreadthe rumour of a heart attack. Com.KMcommenced his education at theNarayaanpur Primary School where his fatherwas a teacher. He got his secondaryeducation from the Radhanagar MojumdarMemorial Academy High school. During thistime, at the time of the Indo-Pak war of 1965,along with others he got basic militarytraining, given by the Pakistani Army, whichhelped in the future people’s war. Afterpassing his metric exam from the RMAcademy in 1966, he entered the PabnaEdward College, where com Charu Majumdarhad also studied. Passing the intermediateexam from here in 1968 he then entered thePabna Polytechnic Institute. If the was hadnot occurred he may have become anengineer; but the war of 1971 and theactivities of the CPEB(ML) changed his life.

Com.Shohid, his cousin, had alreadyjoined the Party, and it was he who used tokeep all the party’s secret documents.Origially KM read the communist manifestoand soon many of the works of Marxs.Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. At a certainstage he began to attend party meetings asan observer along with com. Shohid. So hebecame acquainted with leaders like Allaudin,Motin, Tipu Biswas, Mofakhkhar Choudury(MC) and others, and gradually he becameactive in political work. No sooner had hejoined the party, he became a leader, becauseof his previous basic Marxist study and basicmilitary training. He became a hero of manymilitary actions. At the beginning of the warof 1971, the CPEB(ML) introduced guerrillawarfare against the Pakistani invaders,standing on its own strength. Later, whenthe freedom fighters, trained and equippedwith arms from India, had begun attackingthe guerrilla forces of the Party, the Partyadopted the principle of struggling on twofronts. In this prolonged fight Tipu Biswasperformed the role of Commander-in-Chief.Though he later changed colours many atime turning from a communist to a patriotic-democrat, com Tipu Biswas was an


{Based on a statement issued by the Communist Party of East Bengal (ML)(Red Flag) issued on Sept 20 ’06}

RNI No : KER ENG/2000/2051 Postal Regn. No. KL/EKM/614/2007-09

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