Press Release on Operation Green Hunt

March 7, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Press Note based on Reports in the Local Languages involved, Fact-finding Reports of teams of Democratic and Civil Rights Organisations and the Statements issued by the CPI (Maoist)

The last quarter of 2009 has been quite significant in the annals of history of the Indian subcontinent with the much publicised war, euphemistically called as Operation Green Hunt, of the Government of India on the Adivasis-the poorest of the poor- of the region ostensibly to usher in, what is being time and again termed as Progress, Prosperity and Peace. The tragedy unfolding behind the smokescreen of this media blitz of the Government of India should be brought to the notice of one and all for its alleged intentions, and the real, concrete fallout of this campaign that is taking place under the direct guidance of the learned, erudite Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the lawyer/politician/finance minister turned Home Minister P Chidambaram.

An unprecedented military offensive

If the total number of government forces presently engaged in this operation is taken in its entirety (including the paramilitary forces and the state elite police) it comes close to a quarter of a million. This is more than double the US forces presently deployed in the occupation of Iraq-approximately 120 thousand in September 2009-and bigger than the armies of Australia, Netherlands and South Africa put together. The preparations speak volumes about the real intentions of the government as Indian Air Force helicopters turned into gun ships are being used against adivasis, airstrips constructed in Raipur and Jagdalpur, jungle-warfare schools opened to train the forces in special operations, new barracks and bases to station armed forces are established all over the war zone, public buildings including schools and panchayat houses are converted to paramilitary and police camps and torture chambers. To top it all, army commanders are overseeing the war operations while US is providing ‘advisors’, military intelligence, satellite surveillance and ‘guidance’-in one word called logistic support.

Contrary to the claims of the government, to secure the land against “the single largest internal security threat”-Naxalism-to this country, what is unfolding to the concern and anguish of every democratic and progressive mind is the calculated assault on the tribal people inhabiting the forests of Jharkhand, West Bengal stretching from Paschimi Midnapur-Bankura-Purulia in West Bengal to Srikakulam-Vishakhapatnam-Vizianagaram-East Godavari in North Andhra Pradesh and Khammam-Warangal-Adilabad in North Telangana as well as the eastern districts of Maharashtra – Gadchiroli and Chandrapur. The war zone under the blue-print of the Operation Green Hunt slated by the Government of India includes the Southern districts of Orissa – Koraput, Gajapati, Ganjam and Mulkangiri.

This has added yet another sordid chapter to the continuing assault on the tribals of the subcontinent in the form of Destruction, Destitution, Displacement and Death (four dreaded Ds of the Indian state’s policy). Thus the campaign for Prosperity, Progress and Peace by the Government of India under the UPA government is bringing in untold miseries to the adivasis in the form of Destruction of their lives and livelihoods, growing Destitution among them, massive Displacement running into hundreds of thousands due to increasing atrocities of barbaric dimensions by the paramilitary and security personnel, and last but not the least Deaths and Disappearances of tribals who have refused to leave the forest areas which are their natural habitats. Thousands of paramilitary, CoBRA, Greyhounds, C-60 and other elite armed police forces reared for this purpose by the state governments are being deployed in each and every part of Dandakaranya and other regions under this operation. These forces are entering forests, hills and village settlements unleashing immense brutality on unarmed and defenceless adivasis.

Adding intrigue to this murderous exercise, the Home Minister, who has been, and is still travelling the length and breadth of this country, announcing the various facets of this US inspired war on the poorest of the poor of this land, is the sudden and audacious denial by the minister himself about the presence of any such operation termed as the Operation Green Hunt. What provokes any discerning mind into consternation is the total blackout in the media of continuing atrocities on the tribals while P Chidambaram who had earlier graphically explained the various manifests of the Operation goes on a denial mode of such a massive military exercise-with the paramilitary belonging to the CRPF, BSF, CoBRA, Grey Hounds, C-60, SPOs and what not deployed in the forest tracts of Central and East India-unheard or untold in the history of this region.

The terror of development

While this massive operation is taking place in the rural interiors of Central and Eastern India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke with a forked tongue at the Chief Minister’s Conference on Implementation of the Forest Rights Act 2006, on 4 November 2009 in New Delhi. To quote: “There has been a systemic failure in giving the tribals a stake in the modern economic processes that inexorably intrude into their living spaces. The alienation built over decades is now taking a dangerous turn in some parts of our country. The systematic exploitation and social and economic abuse of our tribal communities can no longer be tolerated.” But the Prime Minister was quick to add while stressing the need to make tribals “the primary beneficiaries of the development process”, the need to win the “the battle for their hearts and their minds”.

What is worth mentioning here is that the geographical terrain, where the government’s military offensive is planned, is very well-endowed with natural resources like minerals, forest wealth, biodiversity and water resources, and has been the target of systematic usurpation by several large, both Indian and foreign, corporations. So far, the resistance of the local indigenous people against their displacement and dispossession has prevented the government-backed corporates from exploiting the natural resources for their own profits and without regard to ecological and social concerns. As hundreds of MoUs have been signed by the various state governments under the auspices of the Central Government and the foreign and domestic corporations the government is deliberately hiding the truth behind this unprecedented military offensive as an attempt to crush democratic and popular resistance against dispossession and impoverishment. Significantly the Prime Minister himself is on record talking about the need to make way for the vast mineral and other forest wealth in these forest lands to be exploited to facilitate the march to progress. This is corroborated by the statement of the Home Minister about the need to ‘secure the whole area’ first so as to usher in ‘development’. Operation Green Hunt thus is unequivocally a calculated move towards facilitating the entry and operation of these large corporations and paving the way for unbridled exploitation of the natural resources and people of these regions.

Operation Green Hunt-a euphemism for genocide of the tribals

Of significance is the number of killings that has happened ever since the commencement of the Operation Green Hunt, say from the third week of September under the gaze of the ‘Reality Show’ driven sensation hungry media wherein more than 4000 CRPF and 600 anti-Naxal CoBRA commandos entered Dantewada’s Chintagufa area. People resisted this intrusion by the government’s armed forces, and in the battles six soldiers, including two commanding officers were killed.

To avenge the death of the armed forces, the troops ‘managed’ a massacre of adivasis while resorting to arson of their villages, in which at least nine villagers were murdered in cold blood and four villages got totally gutted leaving nothing behind. The government claimed that all those killed were Maoists, while the eye-witness accounts, local media reports and independent fact-finding visits have confirmed that it was yet another stage-managed genocide of adivasi villagers, who were picked up and killed. Starting from the incident of 9 August 2009 in Vechhapal under Bhairamgarh police station (Bijapur district) to the one near Kistaram (Dantewada district) on 10 November 2009, all have been fake-encounters. Seventy adivasis in total have been killed in these fake encounters in this period. It should be noted that not a single one among them was a Maoist!

The government’s claim of killing 7 ‘Naxals’ in an encounter on the 10th of November 2009 near Kistaram is incorrect as the CPI (Maoist) issued a statement stating that none of their cadres died in the incident. It must be registered here that even if one of their cadres get killed, the CPI (Maoist) declares it openly apropos the normal conduct of CPI (Maoist) is observed. On 9 December, more than 500 paramilitary and policemen entered the area under Kistaram police station from Cherla Dommaguda police station area in Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh. They reached Tetemadgu village through Dokpad and Kurigundam, and encircled it. From morning to evening of that day, the police burnt down houses, women were particularly targeted through sexual violence while the rest of the villagers got brutally tortured. They took away four persons from the village. Two more villagers from Dokpad who came to visit their relatives in Tetemadgu were also abducted in this manner. After spending the night in the forests, the police force reached Palodi village in the morning of 10 December; they detained yet another adivasi while completely burning down the village. The police then took all the seven captives near Kistaram and riddled them with bullets. The government is quick to claim this to be an ‘encounter’ with the Maoists. The police took away a few more adivasi villagers with them. Till date they are untraceable.

Between 7-9 November hundreds of CRPF, CoBRA, SPOs and police forces unleashed a reign of terror in the adivasi villages under Chintagufa police station. They attacked the villagers of Burkapal on 7 November, Elma Gonda on 8 November, Minpa on 9 November, and forcibly abducted 24 persons. Their whereabouts or their fate is still unknown even after two months. Given the track record of the security personnel operating with impunity there is every reason to apprehend that the police has murdered many of them and disposed of the dead bodies.

At least seven adivasis were murdered by the paramilitary-Salwa Judum forces in different villages under Kistaram police station between 9 and 10 November 2009. Of them six were abducted from Tetemadgu and Dogpadu villages on 9 November while the other was picked up the next day from Palodi village. As the recent Tehelka field investigation with eyewitness accounts confirms, the two villagers from Dogpadu-Madkam Budra and Vando Mangdu-were dragged from their villages and shot dead. Similarly, eight adivasi villagers were killed on a single day on 9 January 2010 to be branded later as ‘Maoists’. While four were murdered in Sarpanguda under Jegurgonda police station in Dantewada, the other four were killed in Farasgaon under Benur police station in Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh.

The body count of the adivasis is mounting day by day with intensification of the Operation Green Hunt. According to the government’s own admission 107 ‘Maoists’ have been killed during the joint operations under Green Hunt till mid-January. As more and more information pour in from local reporters and facts collected by activists braving heavy repression and threat to their lives, there are reasons to believe that as much as four-fifth of them were unarmed and defenceless adivasi villagers who have been killed in cold blood in fake encounters.

Operation Green Hunt has replaced the Salwa Judum-one of the worst murderous campaigns on the adivasis-with much more brutality as is evident from what is unfolding in the poor tribal hamlets in this mineral rich forest tracts. If in Salwa Judum more than a thousand adivasis lost their lives in Dantewada and Bijapur districts alone, in the hands of the 4500 SPOs created by the government, the present onslaught reaching fascist proportions is adding to those statistics of the growing casualties of adivasis. More than 700 villages were burnt down and close to three hundred thousand people were displaced from their homes in the worst days of Salwa Judum. In all the places where the Operation Green Hunt is on, the police, paramilitary and SPOs are resorting to large scale arson, rape, torture, illegal detention, destruction of property, burning down of villages apart from regularly gunning down adivasis in so-called encounters claiming them as Maoists. The print media has reported that an additional two hundred thousand adivasis have left their homes and took refuge in the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh in the last three months fearing atrocities during Operation Green Hunt. Moreover, the Chhattisgarh government is planning to make strategic hamlets out of the displaced population forced to live in government-run camps, thereby permanently dispossessing them of their ancestral land.

In Maharashtra, Operation Green Hunt was launched in the second week of October from the Gadchiroli district, in which 10,000 troops took part. M17 helicopters of the Air Force gave surveillance and logistical support. 18 bases have been established by the paramilitary forces from where they are launching combing operations and extermination campaigns. Large scale repression of people are reported from in the eastern districts of the state, where the police and Anti-Naxal forces like the C-60 have a long history of committing atrocities and terror on the adivasi people in the name of curbing Maoism/Naxalism. In March 2009, policemen from the C-60 force gang-raped a 13 year old girl in the Pavarvel village in Dhanora tehsil. In the Kosimi village of the same tehsil, policemen from Gyarapatti police station raped and killed Mynaben, a 52 year old adivasi villager in May last year. In the latest assault on the people, the paramilitary forces are given a license to kill and torture by the government.

In Jharkhand too, the initial rhetoric of peace talks and negotiations by the newly-elected chief minister Shibu Soren has now taken a u-turn for support to the Operation Green Hunt. The government has stepped up the mobilisation of its armed forces by bringing in CRPF battalions from Asom and Tripura. The unleashing of state terror on the people of Jharkhand is not new, particularly on those sections who have resisted the state-sponsored corporate attack on jal-jangal-jameen. In fact, the police and paramilitary forces along with the vigilante gangs propped up by them like the Nagarik Suraksha Samiti, Tritiya Prastuti Committee, Sunlight Sena etc. have long been a byname for repression, torture, rape and murder. Like Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, Jharkhand too has recently raised a special ‘anti-Naxal’ force called the Jharkhand Jaguars in order to crush any voice of dissent against the government’s policy of destruction in the name of development. Anyone and everyone who dares to stand up against the attack on the lives and livelihood of the oppressed, is branded as a Maoist or a Maoist sympathiser, and persecuted. Various people’s movements against the displacement of adivasis, civil rights organisations, etc. are facing state repression for a long time in Jharkhand, the scale and brutality of which is going to go up during the fascist extermination campaign of Operation Green Hunt. We can already see the inevitable fallouts of this war on people as exemplified by the murder of Rajendra Yadav who was picked up on the night of 31st December 2009 by Jharkhand police, tortured in the name of interrogation, and killed in custody. Similarly in Orissa there are several cases of rape, arson and killing reported from Narayanpatna ever since the commencement of the operation. In fact the president of the Chhasi Adivasi Muliya Sangha was shot dead while in a demonstration before the police and the paramilitary.

Draconian Laws and blanket ban on any form of dissent

Despite the rhetoric of the battle for the hearts and minds from none other than the Prime Minister the manner in which the security and paramilitary forces have wreaked havoc in the lives of the adivasis stand testimony to the utter disregard for the laws and procedures of the land. In fact several laws like the UAPA and the Chhattisgarh Special Areas Act are being conveniently used on anyone and everyone who dares to raise the voice against the policies of the government. The recent arrest and booking of KN Pandit, veteran trade unionist and anti-displacement activist in Ranchi and Gananath Patra, former professor and veteran communist leader who is also the official advisor of Chhasi Adivasi Muliya Sangha of Narayanpatna at Bhubaneswar are fresh examples of the increasing lawlessness of the police and paramilitary in their desperate attempts to browbeat the people into submission. In fact any effort to make independent fact findings into these areas have become next to impossible with the police and the murderous goons of the local parties join hands to humiliate and assault the civil rights activists and intellectuals who took care to visit these areas. The recent case of the humiliation and assault on the all women fact finding team that went to the villages in Narayanpatna to record the testimonies of the rape victims in the police stations let alone in public by the police and the goons speaks volumes of how the Government of India would want to browbeat the hearts and minds of the people into submission. Another case was the detention of the 30 member fact finding team that was trying to visit the areas of atrocities in Dantewada and Bijapur districts.

What is evident from the increasing arrests, incarceration of activists of people’s movements fighting for the rights to lives and livelihoods is a clear cut case of the government bringing in ‘development’ through the barrel of the gun. As is evident from the protests and various submissions made to the governments at the Centre and the states it is evident that these talk about development is nothing but a total loot and plunder of the local people and their resources. The fact that all these areas that are under the cross hairs of the war machine of the government come under the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution has hardly deterred the local administration, police and the paramilitary to break laws and provisions with impunity.

Despite the heavy militarisation and the terror unleashed by the governments the protests from the people against such anti-people pro-corporate/multinational policies of sell-out have only increased. The efforts of the centre and the states to handle the situation as a pure ‘law and order question’ have further deteriorated the situation. The Indian government’s proposed military offensive will repeat that story all over again. Instead of addressing the source of the conflict, instead of addressing the genuine grievances of the marginalized people the Indian state seems to have decided to opt for the extremely myopic option of launching a military offensive. As conscious citizens of this country and sensitive to the questions of inclusive growth, justice and equality for all we strongly demand the government at the centre and the states to immediately stop this extermination of the adivasis reminiscent to the days of the US genocide of the Red Indians.

[This is a note that was released to the International Press in a Press Conference held in Foreign Correspondents, Club, New Delhi on the 5th March, 2010 at 3 PM]

Courtesy: ICAWPI

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Dial M For Maoists

February 28, 2010 by 1 Comment

Saroj Giri

With Maoist leader Kishenji’s rather bold offer for ceasefire to the Union government, a new situation seems to be unfolding in the red corridor of heartland India. Seeking to place the ball in the Centre’s court, the 72-day offer clearly seems to trump Union Home Minister P Chidambaram’s 72-hour offer. Moreover, it’s the nature of the offer — unconditional, as opposed to earlier Maoist proposals stipulating the release of their key leaders, restoration of land and forests to the tribals, scrapping of Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with big investors etc, all major irritants for the government — which begs a serious consideration. Practically the only condition set by the Maoists this time is that the State should reciprocate. This is at a time when reports of the CRPF in Lalgarh killing Lalmohan Tudu of the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) in front of his family members on February 22 are filtering in, over and above the initial propaganda about him being killed during an attack on a CRPF camp.

Chidambaram, instead of welcoming the offer to start a process of negotiation and addressing the substantive issues at hand, responded with a presumptuous and hypocritical statement calling upon the Maoists to abjure violence first. The Planning Commission’s Expert Group on Development Challenges in Extremist Affected Areas has argued that the government is engaging in peace talks with other rebel groups like the Nagas even though they have not abjured violence and in fact ‘taken advantage of the peaceful conditions to consolidate their parallel government’. So, they ask, ‘why a different approach for the Maoists?’

Chidambaram is clearly trying to make violence the key issue — that the real problem facing the country is violence by illegitimate actors like the Maoists and not the inequalities and injustices that are spiralling in the country. On the other hand, basking in the cover of being constitutional and democratically elected, even as it spearheads a system of a million injustices and the repressive Operation Green Hunt, the charge of being ‘violent’ somehow does not stick against the government. Instead, with terror attacks in Mumbai and Pune, the non-State violence as the main problem gets reinforced by the discourse of the ‘war on terror’ — that our country is under attack and hence no dissensions. NATO troops at Marjah, Afghanistan, are currently supposed to be flushing out the Taliban and then installing a civilian government — not too different from Chidambaram’s policy of flushing out Maoists to make way for a civilian administration.

This approach frames the Maoists in terms of a conflict model — that this is primarily a problem of violence, of illegitimate actors challenging the State and rule of law, and indeed the understanding that the Maoists are ‘the biggest internal security threat’. There is an underside to this seemingly straightforward picture. By simply raking up the violent nature of the Maoists again and again, the substantive issues at hand — corporate plunder, land grab, vigilante groups like Salwa Judum — are easily set aside or regarded as secondary.

Hence Kishenji’s dropping of the other conditions for ceasefire might add to this perception that violence is the real issue. In fact, several civil society groups and independent intellectuals who have always insisted on addressing the core problems facing tribals might even feel that this is a new situation where only violence and hostilities become the real problem. However, through this offer, the Maoists may actually be trying to reach out to civil society. They are probably appealing to the wider civil society — maybe to gain some credibility as a political force; or be recognised as not only interested in violence and a military solution. This must be seen as a positive development. The ‘abjure violence first’ line, however, is bent upon undoing this.

So what about the ‘skeptics’ who argue that the Maoists have come with this offer only because they are feeling the heat of Operation Green Hunt, or they are being strategic and trying to regroup — biding time, trying to trap the government? What is significant is that even though they may be feeling the heat, given the repression unleashed by the State, the Maoists are seeking a political process, involving sections of civil society, unlike the belligerent attitude of the State.

Indeed the government has made it impossible for anyone from outside to visit these ‘affected areas’ — human rights activists and independent observers have been harassed and chased away repeatedly. A cessation of hostilities is therefore what the State fears the most — for that will mean the possibility of a free exchange between the Maoists in the hinterland and urban civil society. The State clearly does not want that to happen — for that will turn the heat on it. This is the real trap it fears — getting politically cornered for its misdeeds. Hence, the need for this hysteria surrounding Maoist violence and human rights activists of supporting it.

There is nothing retrograde for the Maoists in seeking a political way out when cornered militarily — if this is what the ceasefire means. But the ‘abjure violence’ approach of the government seems to be aimed at precluding precisely such a possibility. Even the language used in the media — regroup, bidding for time, walking into a trap — all assume a situation of continuing war. In a way, the demand to ‘abjure violence’ is nothing less than the guilt of the State slipping out. Foregrounding violence in the context of a ceasefire allows the State to skirt the key issues and keep portraying the Maoists as liable to be physically eliminated, catching them off-guard.

This is the experience of the talks between the State and the Peoples War Group in Andhra Pradesh, where the ceasefire was used by the State to finish off the Maoists. Making the ‘violent’ tag stick on the Maoists meant that they could be delegitimised and made easy targets even after formal talks had started in October 2004 between the Maoists and the government, while the undercover attacks and elimination of Maoist leaders and sympathisers continued unabated. Leading civil liberties activist KG Kannabiran, who was one of the eight mediators then, told BBC that, “It was agreed that the police would not undertake combing operations against the Maoists. Why was there a need for the police to become so active, launching combing operations and killing the extremists in encounters?”

PERHAPS THIS is where return to a focus on the core issue of tribal displacement and habitat, cannot in the circumstances, be delinked from the fate of the Maoist movement. After all the Maoist movement is not only a current problem or a temporary happenstance specific to the present conjuncture. Since 1967, the Naxal movement and its present avatar, the Maoists, have stared in the face of the ruling order of the country. Indeed the Naxal slogan — Yeh azaadi jhooti hai (this independence is false) is a comment on the state of our nation. To relegate the Maoist issue to only one of violence, or for that matter that of Adivasis or land reforms or livelihood — is to deny and suppress its wider political provenance — something which might have implications on the very ‘idea of India’. This is perhaps why the government is more comfortable engaging with the Naga or Kashmiri militants in talks, than with the Maoists.

Those on the left and progressive liberals, ruing the erosion of ‘the idea of India’ and the decline of our political ideals, are so status-quoist in their upholding of the constitutional values of democracy, that they have conceded any possibility of rewriting history, or revising the basic structure of the Constitution, to the Hindu right. This seems true of the post-ideological, neoliberal age where the right-wing free marketeers are the radicals, calling for change, whereas the left are the conservatives, holding on to the myth of the founding moment and a dream of the long-dead founding fathers of the republic. The Naxal who refuses to ‘abjure violence’, in precisely being unconstitutional and undemocratic, in moving out of the shadow of our founding fathers, has come to stand for a left-wing agenda of change, taking the wind out of the Hindu right’s sails and realigning the terrain of thinking for the left as a whole. Whether the Maoists are adequate to this fertile moment is however not a settled question yet.

Saroj Giri is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Delhi University

COURTESY: Tehelka Magazine, Vol 7, Issue 09, Dated March 06, 2010

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Statement: Against the Indian Version of McCarthyism

February 27, 2010 by Leave a Comment

The Delhi Police produced its chargesheet against Mr Kobad Ghandy in the Tees Hazari Courts New Delhi on 18.02.2010. This document has baselessly alleged unlawful activities against a number of individuals and legitimate democratic organisations working in the public domain. These include Dr. Darshan Pal of the People’s Democratic Front of India (PDFI), Mr. GN Saibaba, a professor with Delhi University, Mr. Rona Wilson, Secretary of the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners, Mr. Gautam Navlakha of the People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR), PUDR itself, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), the Democratic Students’ Union (DSU), Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), the PDFI, the Indian Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL), Anti-displacement Front (ADF) and the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR; wrongly named in the chargesheet as the Association of Peoples For Democratic Rights). APDR, PUDR and PUCL in particular have been solely concerned with safeguarding democratic and civil rights in India for over 30 years, and are internationally reputed for their rigorous and scrupulous approach to these issues. Among the charges against these established and respected organisations, is the completely unfounded one that they are playing “a very important role to broaden the base of the [CPI (Maoist)] outfit”. The chargesheet has provided no evidence whatsoever to substantiate its allegations.

These individuals and organisations have been actively and openly working for democratic and civil rights and liberties across the length and breadth of country, on issues ranging from displacement, people’s movements and rural destitution to issues of ethnic conflict and custodial deaths. Today, however, they are being targeted in the chargesheet because, along with hundreds of others, they have actively and openly protested ‘Operation Green Hunt’ (OGH). They have been consistently engaging with violations of civil and democratic rights arising out of the conflict between the Indian state and the tribal communities that have been resisting it. The Indian state over the last few months has targeted the people protesting against OGH, as well as those who have taken up their cause. The chargesheet is yet another instance of the state’s attempt to criminalise any resistance or protests against its actions in the areas covered by OGH. The allegations in it only suggest the state’s intention to clamp down on legitimate protest against its undemocratic practices, and especially against its own attacks on its citizens – in fact, these allegations themselves constitute an unprovoked and unwarranted attack on these democratic and civil liberties organisations and individuals. It aims to further cramp already restricted democratic spaces: as the Supreme Court recently observed (with reference to charges against Mr. Himanshu Kumar of being a Maoist sympathiser) in the name of ‘sympathizers’ and ‘sympathizers of sympathizers’ and so on, all criticism and opposition is being stifled. It seems the intent of the chargesheet is also to intimidate and silence all those who are engaged in protesting OGH.

Evident in this is a 21st century, Indian version of McCarthyism: an attempt to silence independent voices that was evident in the trumped-up case against Mr. Binayak Sen, in the brutal illegality of the demolition of Vanvasi Chetna Ashram and the eviction of Mr. Himanshu Kumar – all in the name of the fear of ‘Maoists’. The fear psychosis is being sought to be generated so openly now, that the union government even tried to allege that Maoists were infiltrating the Telengana movement in Osmania University – which it had to recant in the Supreme Court recently. We collectively and unitedly condemn the state’s attempt to intimidate and silence legitimate protests and affirm the democratic rights of all people. In the light of the above we also reiterate our demand that the state engage in genuine dialogue with the CPI (Maoist) instead of prosecuting war against its own people.

Signed:
People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL)
Peoples Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR)
Committee for Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP)
Jan Hastakshep
Campaign for Peace & Democracy (Manipur)
Naga Peoples Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR)
Saheli
Kashipur Solidarity Group

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Seminar: “Dismantling Democracy in the University”

February 26, 2010 by 1 Comment

DATE: March 4, 2010
VENUE: Hindu College, Delhi University

Session 1 (11 am to 12: 15 pm) – Academics, Politics and the University

Chair : Sunil Dua
[Department of English, Hindu College]
Speaker 1: Pothik Ghosh ………………………………………..11 AM to 11. 20 AM
[Editor, Radical Notes (radicalnotes.com)]
Speaker 2: Abhijeet Phartiyal…………….…………………..11. 20 AM to 11. 40 AM
[Correspondence (Group)]
Chair’s comment and Discussion…………………………….11. 40 AM to 12. 15 PM

Tea Break……………………………………………………….12.15 PM to 12. 30 PM

Session 2 (12: 30 PM to 1: 45 PM) – Deconstructing the “semester system”

Chair : P. K. Vijayan
[Department of English, Hindu College]
Speaker 1: Harriet Raghunathan …….…………………………12:30 PM to 12: 50 PM
[Department of English, Jesus and Mary College]
Speaker 2: Shomojeet Bhattacharya.…………………………..12: 50 PM to 1. 10 PM
[Department of Economics, Kirorimal College]
Chair’s comment and Discussion……………………………….1. 10 PM to 1. 45 PM

Lunch Break……………………………………………………….1.45 PM to 2. 15 PM

Session 3 (2: 15 PM to 3: 30 PM) – Education in the Era of Late Capitalism

Chair : Neshat Qaiser
[Department of Sociology, Jamia Milia Islamia University]
Speaker 1: Malay Firoz ……………………………………..…..2: 15 PM to 2: 35 PM
[Department of Sociology, Delhi University]
Speaker 2: Ravi Kumar……………………………………..…..2: 35 PM to 2: 55 PM
[Department of Sociology, Jamia Milia Islamia University]
Chair’s comment and Discussion……………………….……….2: 55 PM to 3. 30 PM

Tea Break………………………………………………..……….3: 30 PM to 3: 45 PM

Session 4 (3: 45 PM to 5: 45 PM) – Rethinking Politics in the University

Chair : Paresh Chandra
[Correspondence (Group)]
Speaker 1: Delegate from Disha Students’ Organization
Speaker 2: Delegate from Students’ Federation of India
Speaker 3: Delegate from New Socialist Initiative
Speaker 4: Delegate from All India Students’ Association

Discussion

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PUDR condemns the murder of Lalmohan Tudu

February 26, 2010 by 1 Comment

Moshumi Basu and Asish Gupta,
Secretaries, People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR)

People’s Union for Democratic Rights strongly condemns the cold blooded murder of Lalmohan Tudu, leader of People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities by the Central Reserve Paramilitary Forces on February 23, 2010 at Kantapahari near Lalgarh. It has been reported that Lalmohan Tudu was killed in an ‘encounter’ along with his relatives Yuvraj and Suchitra. The IG CRPF, Nageshwar Rao condoned the killing claiming that they were Maoists killed in exchange of fire. But other accounts claim that as he was at his house to meet his younger daughter, CRPF personnel called him out along with his relatives and shot them dead in front of his wife, daughter and mother. His body was then dragged to the nearby fields.

It has been extensively reported that Lalmohan Tudu was amongst top leaders of PCAPA and at the forefront of the adivasi movement in Lalgarh. Killing of Tudu reflects a desperate attempt by the government to ‘sanitise’, suppress and eliminate all the dissenting voices. A patterned and esoteric account of ‘encounter’ narrated by the police and the security forces hardly gives any credence to such stories. We believe that killing of Tudu and his two relative are part of the policy to annihilate leading members of the PCPA as well as CPI (Maoists) and instantiates blatant violation of fundamental rights as enshrined in the Indian Constitution as well as the procedures established by law. PUDR unequivocally condemns such cowardly acts and demands that a case under section 307 of the IPC be registered against the erring officers pending an independent inquiry to ascertain the facts and circumstances leading to death of Lalmohan Tudu and his relatives. PUDR has repeatedly pointed to Government of India’s propensity to conduct wars against its own people. Therefore, PUDR wishes to point out that if the Government is unwilling to engage in civilized forms of engagement, namely dialogue, then at least it should abide by civilized norms of warfare as enshrined in Geneva Convention and Protocol.

pudrdelhi@yahoo.com

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Press Conference: Against a profiling of activists and organisations (Feb 27 2010)

February 25, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Rona Wilson, Secretary,Public Relations,
Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners

Ever since the filing of the charge sheet of Mr. Kobad Ghandy on 19.02.10 before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police a deliberate profiling of the civil rights organisations and other people’s organisations as espousing the cause of the CPI (Maoist) is being planted in a section of the media by the investigating agencies. This is ostensibly on the basis of the specific mention of these organisations in the charge sheet.

The manner in which the profiling is intended to vitiate the public space as inimical to any democratic protest/dissent against the policies of the government raises ominous portends towards a fascist polity as desired by the powers that be for the future.

To protest against all such vilification campaigns, such attempts to strangulate any voice of sanity PUCL, PUDR, CRPP, Jan Hasthakshep, CPDM, NPMHR, Saheli, Kashipur Solidarity Group, RDF, DSU and other organisations have decided to convene a PRESS CONFERENCE ON 27.02.10 (SATURDAY) 12 NOON AT THE PRESS CLUB. Justice Rajinder Sachar, Arundhati Roy will address the Press Meet along with others.

Please send your reporter/camera person to cover the event.

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Lalgarh – Lalmohan Tudu and two others murdered by CRPF

February 25, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Sanhati Statement, February 24, 2010

We express our profound shock, grief and feeling of outrage at the cold-blooded murder by the CRPF of Lalmohan Tudu, the president of the Pulishi Santrash Birodhi Janasadharaner Committee (Peoples’ Committee against Police Atrocities), at Narcha village near Kantapahari in Lalgarh, during the night of 22nd February. There is no language that can suitably condemn this heinous crime of the murder of a leader of a mass movement. Lalmohan Tudu’s murder is just the latest in the series of murders, rapes and arrests of adivasi activists and supporters of the PCPA by the state and central police forces that has been going on in the Lalgarh area for the past six months.

Lalmohan Tudu was staying away from his home ever since the combined state and central paramilitary forces invaded Lalgarh, just as most males in the villages throughout Lalgarh are, as he ran the risk of arrest by the combined forces. On 22nd February he had returned home to meet his younger daughter who was going to appear in the state boards examination scheduled to start on 23rd February. At around 11 pm, he and another couple, Yubaraj Murmu and Suchitra Murmu, who were staying with his family, were called out by the CRPF and shot dead in cold blood. His body was found a little distance behind his house. The bodies of the others have not been found yet.

The police and the CRPF have presented constantly changing versions of the event, attempting to prove that Lalmohan Tudu was a dreaded Maoist leader killed while he was perpetrating some crime! While they initially claimed that he was killed in an exchange of fire while trying to attack the fortress-like Kantapahari CRPF camp together with a group of Maoist cadres, they later changed the version and have said that he was killed when a Maoist squad, to which he belonged, was apprehended by a CRPF raiding party. These versions are downright lies. All evidence at the site where his dead body was found (shown on local television channels) and eye witness accounts tell that he was killed near his house and his body was dragged into the paddy fields nearby. This incident clearly shows that the government has taken up the policy of individually annihilating the leaders of a mass movement of adivasis.

Lalmohan Tudu was no military strategist or ideologue of the Maoists, nor did he have connections with any political party. He was a very popular and highly regarded person, who had been elected as the president of the PCPA in a mass meeting at Dalilpur Chowk when the Lalgarh movement against state atrocities started. Many people who have visited Lalgarh in the course of the last one year remember him as a quiet elderly person, with great organizational abilities and an eye for the care and comfort of the various people visiting Lalgarh to express solidarity with the adivasis.

With his murder, the government has clearly sent out a signal that it will crush all forms of dissent by annihilating mass leaders. On one hand, the home minister is offering to talk to the Maoists, on the other his paramilitary forces are liquidating leaders of mass resistance movements. This cynical, two-faced policy is sure to drown the entire country into a vicious cycle of violence.

We vehemently condemn the murder of Sri Lalmohan Tudu as a blatant act of state terror and appeal to all democratic-minded people to join us in condemning this heinous act and demanding the immediate withdrawal of the paramilitary forces from Lalgarh.

We also demand that the government should constitute a judicial probe into this killing and those who are found guilty of planning and executing the heinous act should be adequately punished. Moreover, we demand that the state law enforcement agencies should strictly adhere to legal methods of countering any transgressions of law and any official/unofficial counter-insurgency policy of “shoot to kill” should be immediately stopped.

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Kobad Ghandy on “Sugar’s Bitter Policies”

February 25, 2010 by 1 Comment

MAINSTREAM, VOL XLVIII, NO 8, FEBRUARY 13, 2010

The following article on the present rise in prices of sugar has been written by Kobad Ghandy, the CPI (Maoist) leader now lodged in Ward No. 8 of Tihar Jail No. 3. Though suffering from prostrate cancer and incarcerated in prison he retains an alert mind as is reflected in the following article sent specially for publication in this journal (Mainstream).

At Rs 50 per kg sugar prices have never been so high. With sugar prices soaring, prices of all sugar linked products—sweets, mithais, tea etc.—have also sky-rocketed. Not only will festivals for most become a drab affair, children’s wailing for the little sweet or toffee will get louder. At the rate at which sugar prices have been rising it will be out of reach of many a poor and middle-class life.

One would have thought, given the free-market mantra of the rulers, that high sugar prices would at least convert into higher prices for the producers—the fifty million sugarcane farmers. But that was not to be; the so-called free market functions only to benefit big business, traders and politicians. In this case both the producers and consumers are being crushed by the cane and sugar pricing policies of the government dictated by the millers and international sugar cartels.

It is indeed a policy that has resulted in windfall profits for a few at the cost of millions of farmers and crores of consumers. And the solution being suggested—huge duty free imports—will help no one except the importers, the foreign traders and the bureaucrats/politicians who will get their commissions on each order. The entire people of our country are made to suffer so that a few may make fortunes. This is indeed tragic.

And while the entire people suffer the politics of sugar is diverting the entire issue with the Central and UP governments throwing the blame on each other.

Farmers being Crushed

In October last year the Ministry of Consumer Affairs (Food and Public Distribution) changed the pricing regime for sugarcane and introduced a Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) mechanism, replacing the Statutory Minimum Price (SMP) system that was prevailing till then. Soon after passing the ordinance the Central Government declared an FRP to the millers to purchase sugarcane at Rs 130 per quintal, when, according to the NAFA (National Alliance of Farmers’ Association), the input cost of one quintal of sugarcane is roughly Rs 233.5 per quintal. This FRP therefore amounts to a massive loss to the farmer.

Immediately after the announcement, farmers (from UP) took to the streets stopping rail and road traffic. They marched to Parliament. They seized trains that sought to bring imported raw sugar and prevented them from reaching the mills. Some took the extreme step of self-immolation. Others burnt their crop. With the rabi season approaching many resorted to distress sales, selling their crop to local gur manufacturers at Rs 155 per quintal. Under pressure from the farmers the UP Government banned the import of raw sugar.

According to the new order, the FRP shall be fixed by the Central Government from time to time. It also specified that any other authority fixing a price for the crop above the FRP would have to bear the difference. (The latter point was retracted after the farmers’ march to Parliament.) The practice so far was for States such as UP, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Haryana to declare the State Advised Price (SAP) that mills are required to pay farmers. This was usually higher than the SMP which was announced by the Central Government on the basis of the cost of cultivation estimated by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP).

As it is, for a number of years, sugarcane growers have been squeezed by the low prices paid by the millers and the spiralling input costs. This has led even to many suicides of sugarcane farmers who had at one time earned a good amount for the crop. In fact in the four years from 2004-05 to 2008-09 the SMP for sugarcane barely rose from Rs 79 per quintal to Rs 81 per quintal while input costs increased phenomenally. In addition, the millers cheat the farmers in varied ways—weighing, recovery rate etc. So it is not surprising that sugar production dropped drastically from 27.8 million tonnes in 2007-08 to 16 million tonnes last year. In the coming year production is not likely to be more than 15 million tonnes.

The government did not create a buffer stock in 2006-07 and 2007-08 when production was at its peak. In 2006 when international prices were high (Rs 20,680 per tonne) and local prices were low (Rs 13,000 per tonne) the government banned exports. At that time due to large stocks and ban of exports the millers harassed the farmers paying them late. In 2007-08 when international prices crashed to Rs 13,000 per tonne the government exported 68 lakh tonnes of sugar even though sugar production was dropping. Later when there was shortage the government imported sugar at Rs 10-35 per kg.

It is these shortsighted policies of the government which have played havoc with the lives of the sugarcane farmers. In its report for 2008-09 the CACP warned the government that unless it raised the SMP for sugarcane the net area under the crop would continue to fall. But the government could not be bothered. They expect the millers will import raw sugar and continue to make money. The area under sugarcane cultivation dropped from 4.38 million hectares last year to 4.21 million hectares—that is, a drop of about 1.5 lakh hectares in just one year. Farmers are shifting away from sugarcane cultivation.

Consumers Robbed

Sugar prices have tripled in the last one year from Rs 17 per kg a year back to Rs 50 today. In just the last four months it has risen by over 40 per cent from Rs 32 per kg. Notwithstanding the claims of the Agriculture Minister, sugar prices are unlikely to drop. When production is estimated at a mere 15 million tonnes and consumption at 23 million tonnes without a single kg of buffer stock (compared to 10 MT at the beginning of last year), the price will be determined by the cost of imports. Given the shortfall, a minimum of eight million tonnes will have to be imported.

The raw sugar import cost to the miller will not be less than Rs 38 per kg. With such high costs, what the consumer has to pay is not likely to be below Rs 50 per kg. And with India entering the international market with huge purchases, the international prices are only likely to go up—expected to be up to Rs 70 per kg.

The question that arises is that when the millers are paying Rs 13 per kg to the farmer (FRP rate with recovery at 10 per cent) why should sugar be so expensive? Even if we calculate that for every kg of sugar produced the transportation and processing charges come to Rs 5, the cost of production would be a maximum of Rs 18 per kg. If we add another one-third as profit the selling price comes to Rs 24. Then if we count the wholesaler’s/ retailer’s profit sugar should not cross a maximum figure of Rs 30 per kg. Then why Rs 50? Even if they give the sugarcane grower the rate that is remunerative—say, Rs 23 per kg or Rs 230 per quintal for sugarcane—the maximum price to the consumer will come to Rs 40 per kg. This would be still less than the cost of imported sugar or raw sugar.

So there is no reason for sugar prices to sky-rocket as millers continue to pay a price lower than the remunerative price. Though this may vary from State to State the plight of the farmer in the two main sugarcane growing States—UP and Maharashtra—is pathetic. In Maharashtra, sugar mills are cooperatives dominated and controlled by powerful politicians like Sharad Pawar. In Maharashtra, every farmer is tied to a particular cooperative mill and is not free to sell it to any other. So they are at the mercy of the cooperative bosses who keep the prices of sugarcane low. In UP many mills are owned by big business houses like Birla, Bajaj etc.

Depending on imports is no solution to the sugar problem—whether shortage or high prices. The only solution must be to promote sugarcane production by investing in agriculture and subsidising the farmer. In this way not only would the farmer and rural economy flourish, the consumer too would get sugar at a reliable price.

Need for a Pro-active Agrarian Policy

With nine lakh tonnes of imported sugar stuck at the ports since the last month due to the UP Government’s ban on processing it, the Centre has been blaming the Mayawati Government for the high sugar prices. The Mayawati Government, on the other hand, instead of announcing a high SAP, has clamped cases on the millers under the Essential Commodities Act in order to share the booty made by them. The plight of the millions of sugarcane farmers and crores of consumers is not on the mind either of the Congress or the BSP. They are interested in only extracting their share of the windfall profits being made by the millers, cooperatives, big traders and hoarders.

The only policy that would benefit both the producer and consumer is for the government to invest heavily in agriculture and subsidise sugarcane production. Sugarcane production requires large quantities of water, so irrigation projects should be its first focus. Unfortunately the government has systematically been cutting investment in agriculture. Rural development expenditure of the government averaged 14.5 per cent of the GDP in the 1985-90 period. This dropped to eight per cent in the early 1990s and since 1998 it has dropped even further to a mere 5.6 per cent of the GDP. In real terms, there has been a reduction of about Rs 30,000 crores annually in development expenditures on average in the first five years of this century compared to the pre-reform period.

When investment in agriculture should be increasing as it is there that the bulk of our population live, the above figures indicate a massive reduction with disastrous consequences. Rather than become dependent on imports and thereby compromise the food security of the country, the government needs to invest heavily in agriculture (with focus on irrigation) to boost the production of sugarcane and other crops.

To solve the sugar/sugarcane problem the government needs to increase investment in irrigation, subsidise input cost (fertiliser, pesticide, electricity) and ensure a remunerative price is paid to the farmer. To maintain consumer prices it should put a halt on the profiteering, hoarding and illegal methods of the millers and subsidise sugar particularly for the poor. If the government can announce a massive bail-out to the three-to-four oil companies and Air India, why does it shy away from bailing-out 50 million farmers and a few crore masses? The amounts being suggested to the three-to-four oil companies and Air India run up to Rs 20,000 crores, a lesser amount would be needed for the millions of sugarcane farmers.

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On People’s Movements and State Repression in Orissa: Lenin Kumar

February 18, 2010 by Leave a Comment

An interview with Lenin Kumar, an artist, editor of Nishan and political activist based in Bhubaneswar.

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On State Repression in Orissa: Biswapriya Kanungo

February 18, 2010 by Leave a Comment

In Dec 2009-Jan 2010, a Radical Notes-Correspondence team toured Orissa and interviewed many activists and intellectuals in the state. The following interview with Orissa based lawyer and human rights activist, Biswapriya Kanungo is first in the series.

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