Statement on Maoist attack on police camp in West Bengal

Statement on Maoist attack on police camp in West Bengal

We the undersigned would like to express our deep concern at the
ongoing conflict in the Jangalmahal area of West Bengal where forces
of the CPI (Maoist) and the Indian government have been confronting
each other for the past year.

The regular incidents of violence have resulted in the tragic loss of
too many lives already- both of combatants and innocent civilians-
and needs to come to an immediate end. The systematic annihilation of
opponents and the gross violations of human rights by both sides in
the conflict are a serious setback to the task of building a more just
and humane Indian society.

In this context the attack by the CPI (Maoist) cadre on the Silda
police camp in West Bengal on 15 February killing 24 policemen
represents a severe escalation of an already ugly situation in the
Jangalmahal area. Coming at a time when there are active attempts
being made by many sections of civil society to get the Indian
government to call off its proposed ‘Operation Green Hunt’ against the
Maoists this provocative act by the latter can only result in a
hardening of attitudes all around.

While there are many genuine grievances of the local population
against the West Bengal state government and the security forces
operating in the tribal areas of West Midnapore – including arbitrary
arrests and killings- none of them can be used to justify the latest
Maoist action. In fact the purely military methods adopted by the CPI
(Maoist) are inimical to the task of finding both short and long-term
political solutions to the long-standing problems of the local people.

Use of violence for political goals, however lofty, cannot mean
violation of fundamental principles of humanity and there are also
basic norms and conventions that need to be adhered to. Every such
killing and violation adds to the spiral of grief, trauma and revenge
that is already consuming our polity; and from which the common people
desperately need relief.

Monday’s attack on the Silda police camp also represents a
contradiction of the CPI (Maoist)’s own stated position, through media
interviews of its top most leaders, of the need for talks with the
government of India and the prevention of an ‘all out war’. The
massacre of police personnel also shows a lack of seriousness on the
part of the CPI (Maoist) about its own publicly stated demand that for
‘any kind of democratic work, the ban on the Party and Mass
Organizations have to be lifted’.

The Indian State too should immediately stop all its violations of
human rights in the Jangalmahal area, sincerely settle the problems of
the local people and not use the latest Maoist attack as an excuse to
go ahead with further intensification of the conflict.
We the undersigned sincerely hope for a quick and peaceful resolution
to the conflict, which is putting at grave risk the lives of a very
large number of innocent people trapped between the Maoists and the
Indian State.

Prof. A. Marx, Chennai
Bhaskar Vishwanathan, Chennai
Praful Bidwai, New Delhi
Dileep Simeon, New Delhi
Apoorvanand, New Delhi
Aditya Nigam, New Delhi
Nivedita Menon, New Delhi
Amit Sengupta, New Delhi
Satya Sivaraman, New Delhi

India: Appeal for talks with broader section of people’s struggles in the forest and mineral belt

Aditya Nigam, Dilip Simeon, Jairus Banaji, Nivedita Menon, Rohini Hensman, Satya Sivaraman, Sumit Sarkar, Tanika Sarkar

In the light of the recent demands raised by sections of the intelligentsia urging the government to heed the CPI (Maoist) “offer of talks”, we insist that “civil society” should rather put pressure on the government to initiate talks with representatives of all struggling popular and adivasi organizations. The CPI (Maoist) cannot be treated as the sole spokesperson of all the people in the forest and mineral belt, convenient though this may be for the state and for that party. Does the government believe that violent insurgents are the only deserving interlocutors?

There is a common pattern to the emergence of Maoist violence in many areas. First a non-violent mass organisation like the Peoples Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) in West Bengal or Chasi Muliya Adivasi Sangh (CMAS) in Orissa arises in response to marginalisation, displacement or violence against tribals by the police and paramilitaries. Then the Maoists step in, attempting to take over the movement and giving it a violent turn. The state responds with even more violence, which is directed not only against the Maoists but also against unaffiliated adivasis. At this point, some adivasis join the Maoists in self-defence, their leaders like Chhatradhar Mahato, Lalmohan Tudu, Singanna are either arrested or gunned down in fake encounters and large numbers of unaffiliated adivasis are branded Maoists or Maoist sympathisers and arrested, killed or terrorised by the state. Clearly, Maoist violence in these cases obtains legitimacy because of the unbridled use of force by security forces and violations of the fundamental rights of the local people. On the other hand, the unilateral and doctrinal use of the language of warfare by one armed group obscures the political agency of the ordinary people who have had no say in this declaration. It also tramples on the human rights of the often desperately poor people who are obliged to seek a livelihood in organisations of the state. Furthermore, it is not clear that the CPI (Maoist) actually shares the rejection of this kind of “development” by the people of the area, or whether it only wants to wrest control of this process from the Indian state.

The counter-insurgency operations mounted by the central government in these areas has led to unprecedented bloodshed, massacres of civilian populations and rampant violations of constitutional rights in the area. The central government insists on treating the affected areas as a “war zone”, and has shown little inclination towards tackling the huge backlog of tribal oppression that has created fertile ground for such violence. It is also true that whenever the government has conceded space, the conditions for this have been created by mass movements, not by the military actions of the CPI (Maoist). For example, the decision by the Ministry of Environment and Forests to put on hold the agreements with Vedanta and Posco in Orissa due to their non-compliance with legal requirements for obtaining the consent of local adivasis, comes in the wake of sustained joint struggles by a range of political groupings.

We therefore urge all democratic sections to put pressure on the government to ensure that:

(1) Regardless of whether talks with the Maoists materialise, talks should immediately be initiated with those adivasis who are losing their land; and with representatives of the various mass-based organisations/mass movements, if necessary by securing their release from prison.

(2) round-the-clock security from attacks by both Maoists and state-sponsored groups and security personnel be provided to these representatives and their families, as well as to witnesses in cases like the Gompad massacre and their families;

(3) the grievances voiced by these representatives be treated with the utmost seriousness and addressed as soon as possible.

Maoist violence flourishes in the fetid atmosphere provided by the destruction of the rule of law and rampant human rights abuses by the state. If the rule of law is ensured in the forest belt and all democratic rights of the adivasis to freedom of association and freedom of expression, including the right of dissent to current “development” policies, are respected, and this dissent taken into account by the government, the Maoists will lose credibility and their deliberate use of violent methods, often designed to invite collateral damage, will lose any basis for flourishing in these areas.

See Also:
http://development-dialogues.blogspot.com/2010/03/government-should-respond-to-maoist.html

Azad Media ki Ajeeb Dastaan

http://www.kafila.org/2006/11/05/azad-media-ki-ajeeb-dastaan/

by Nivedita Menon

Strange tales of the independent media

Tale #1

Recently, after endless rants against the NBA our favourite paper, The Indian Express, finally gave some space to Medha Patkar to set the record straight (November 4 2006). Her blunt and effective challenge to Indian Express common-sense concluded with some record-straightening by the Express Kolkata office.

The supposed response from the newspaper to Medha’s pointed questions, consists SOLELY of information from government sources: “according to the Addl District Magistrate”; “We have verified this from Singur’s block development officer”; and “land compensation rates reported by us are all official figures.” The best part is where they triumphantly say - the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 is the law of the land, much though Ms Patkar may view it as a one-sided process.

Hello – have you missed the point? She and thousands of others all over the country, insist it is an anti-democratic and draconian law and it must be radically changed. So you simply reiterate that it is the law of the land? THIS is a debate? Here are some other Laws of the Land: the Armed Forces Special Powers Act that keeps the North-East under the military jack boot; Section 377 that says if you have sex that the judge thinks is against the order of nature, you’re a criminal; rape laws that say it is not rape but a much lesser crime if someone shoves a finger up an infant’s vagina…

Who ARE these people who get hired to write this stuff? They’d fail a decent BA degree.

And if all they do is give us government handouts, why do we need them anyway?

Oh, by the way, the Kolkata Bureau (my, how grand. Not just some credulous person of immense stupidity hanging around the ADM’s office then. A whole BUREAU says so. That always trumps a mere “activist”) – did see in Singur, “a large number of people queuing to receive their compensation cheques”. Yup. They did. So that proves…?

The whole point, my dimwitted friends, that Medha makes in that article (if you can read) is a) Cash compensation for land is an illegally imposed option because Narmada oustees were promised land for land; b) When the choice is between just losing everything or getting some cash in return for productive land, any sensible person would choose it as the lesser evil; c) Farming communities cannot maximize cash like the well-trained urban middle class can, it just flows away in day-to-day expenses; d) Cheques have been issued for only 40% of the acquired land (so of course the Kolkata Bureau would have seen some farmers queuing up for cash).

Above all, above all – ABOVE ALL, dammit (sorry, couldn’t help that one) – she poses a simple question: Why should communities whose resources are taken over not ask – WHO PAYS AND WHO BENEFITS?

Tale # 2

Meanwhile, a little detective work revealed the following titbit:

On January 8 2002, The Indian Express published a news story titled ‘Experts Rule Out Submergence, MP Town Relieved.’

Based entirely on an interview with one person, the Managing Director of National Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC), the story claimed that ‘the experts of NHPC’ could ensure that the people of Harsud in Madhya Pradesh and one hundred other villages would not ‘meet the fate of the two hundred other villages’ which would be totally submerged once the Indira Sagar Reservoir (the largest dam on the Narmada river) came up. The Managing Director told the newspaper that a detailed survey had been conducted, on the basis of which it was clear that by building a guide bund around the town, it could be saved. In addition Harsud would have 24-hour drinking water as well as metalled roads linking it to nearby towns and to the railway station, thus giving ‘a boost to Harsud’s business and economic activities.’

Two and a half years later, in June 2004, as the waters of the Indira Sagar dam started rising inexorably, armed police and bulldozers arrived in Harsud to forcibly evict the residents from their homes. The seven-hundred year old town was reduced to rubble. The oustees were made to move to New Harsud, a stony inhospitable site with a few tin sheds for shelter, and with no water supply, not even for drinking, let alone for construction, no toilets, no avenues for employment, and absolutely no way of reconstructing their lives.

Three months later, a rally of thousands of desperate oustees reached the office of the Narmada Hydroelectric Development Corporation (NHDC), a profit-making corporate body, in a joint venture with the NHPC and the state government.

Guess who the Chairman of the NHDC was? (Of course, he had fled his office when the rally arrived). The very same Managing Director of NHPC who had predicted a glorious future for Harsud in The Indian Express.

And what about The Indian Express? Apologies, corrections, setting the record straight?

Er, no.

Tale # 3

Dipankar Bose wrote a scary report for The Statesman on 3rd November. Worrying news. The Maoists of Jharkand have launched a campaign across Bihar, Jharkand and Chhatisgarh. Intelligence tip-offs have revealed, said senior police officers to our intrepid reporter as he sipped tea in their office, that they concentrate on weekly markets in rural areas. When large numbers of unwary and innocent villagers turn out for their weekly shopping, the Maoists, inhuman and anti-national elements that they are, perform plays and sing songs in the local dialects! Worse still, taking advantage of the villagers’ newly acquired literacy, revealed the Cop to the Journalist (doubtless more in sorrow than in anger), they distribute biographies of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and other communist leaders, as well as speeches by Kanu Sanyal and Charu Mazumdar.

But sleep easy. Our cops are on the job. They have “seized” much literature of this sort, and we can safely expect that soon, no book will be left unseized.

You might like to keep track of how they deal with Sunita of Daanish Publishers, who was held in police detention in Chandrapur for three days last month because she was selling works by Clara Zetkin and other communist writers, as well as books on Bhagat Singh. Demanded the interrogating officer at one point - why do you sell Bhagat Singh’s books? The British have left India, so why still…?

Sunita still has serious charges slapped on her. And she intends to keep traveling with books. To Jharkand, even. Stay tuned!

SOURCE: http://www.kafila.org/2006/11/05/azad-media-ki-ajeeb-dastaan


see also: http://development-dialogues.blogspot.com/2007/03/t-he-singur-smokescreen-process-of-land.html