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VOL III ISSUE II JULY-AUGUST 2011 RS.
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VOL III ISSUE II SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2011
EDITORIAL
ANNA MOVEMENT REFLECTS STREAK OF FASCISM

Vande Mataram or Bharat Mata are not merely innocent patriotic symbolisms, they are Deeply identified with the RSS, says Anand Teltumbde. An eminent academic, writer, political analyst and civil rights activist, Teltumbde is a management practitioner based in Mumbai. He has authored many analytical books on Left and Dalit movements, including the acclaimed Khairlanji: A Strange and Bitter Crop. In this incisive interview, he critically dissects and analyses the Anna Hazare phenomena. In conversation with Sadiq Naqvi
Q. What is your assessment of the structure, leadership, tone, tenor and ideology of this particular Jan Lokpal movement led by Anna Hazare? As it appears India against Corruption, which calls itself a peoples movement and which is generously supported by many corporates, is behind this Jan Lokpal movement. As such, it appears quite amorphous and even spontaneous peoples movement. But it may not be truly so. The thousands of people that are seen collected at Azad Maidan in Mumbai and such other places in other cities and towns inIndia, and of course, many more in Ramlila Maidan in Delhi, are surely not individuals who all came there on their own. Many have been a part of certain organisations. At least in Mumbai, I have found people who are well known as associates of the Sangh Parivar being involved in the mobilisation of people. This hypothesis gets strengthened by the overall complexion of the movement and the manner in which it is being run. Its slogans, its demeanor, its attitude, its tone and tenor unmistakably reflect the imprint of the Sangh Parivar. Vande Mataram or Bharat Mata are not merely innocent patriotic symbolisms, they are deeply identified with the RSS. Ideologically, the movement reflects a streak of fascism, which, again, is associated with the RSS. There is no doubt that RSSs pedigree is fascist; their praise for Hitler and Mussolini is too well-known to be forgotten. Anna Hazare is not the RSS person, as he calls himself a Gandhian. But he also instinctively conducts himself in a dictatorial fashion albeit for the cause that he believes to be virtuous. But then, Hitler and Mussolini also believed in the virtuosity of their ideologies and the cause they espoused. People, who are not carried away by the rhetoric of this movement, are embarrassed by the undemocratic language he so casually uses. Lao, nahi to jao is his recent slogan, which means the government has to bring the Jan Lokpal, and that too by the specified date as per his draft or else collapse. ? Q. What is your assessment of the Anna Hazare phenomenon first in Maharashtra and now in Delhi? Anna Hazare came to limelight in Maharashtra by transforming his village, Ralegaon Siddhi, into an ideal village as acknowledged by the State. He had launched the Bhrashtachar Virodhi Jan Aandolan (BVJA) (Peoples Movement against Corruption), a popular movement to fight against corruption in Ralegaon Siddhi in 1991, which led to the transfer and suspension of 40 forest officials. He carried on his struggles against corruption thereafter against ministers and went to jail a couple of times in connection therewith. He was generally accused of taking on powerful people in Maharashtra so as to seek publicity.People in general did not take him seriously until recently and beyond western Maharashtra he was barely known. It is significant that most of the time BJP and
ANNA MOVEMENT
Contd. from page 18 The scam-a-day type incidence of corruption that is behind the Anna Hazares movement is a gift of neoliberalism. It is a undisputed fact that corruption has increased during the era of globalisation. A study by Global Financial Integrity, titled Drivers and Dynamics of Illicit Financial Flows (IFF) from India: 19482008 by economist Dev Kar, estimated the illicit financial flows fromIndiaduring the 61 year period at $462 billion. As much as 68 per cent of this aggregate IFF is attributed to the post-reform period of just 18 years. The post-reform size of the underground economy has increased on an average to 42.8 per cent of the GDP as against 27.4 per cent in the pre-reform period and the compound annual rate of growth of illicit flows which stood at 9.1 per cent during the pre-reform period shot up to 16.4 per cent during the post-reform years. But, there is not even a feeble mention of this structure that begets galloping corruption. On the contrary, the entire movement could be seen as helping the neoliberal agenda by spreading contempt for the democratic governance system, howsoever faulty it may have been. I would add one more thing: this movement for locating a Lokpal needs to be conceptually located within the regulator framework of the IMF/ World Bank to take care of market delinquencies. Thus, it just does not relate even remotely with the structural or systemic aspects of corruption. I do not see it addressing even the superficial aspects of corruption. Because it is intrinsically impracticable. How can an eleven-member team be imagined to be doing surveillance, investigation, conviction of the gigantic bureaucracy and equally pervasive political class? More dangerously, it would create a parallel oligarchy which is not accountable to anyone. It is almost sure that some such Lokpal will be installed soon in the country, but it will be just another institution, which will not scratch anything but perhaps add to the harassment of poor people, whom it purports to protect. Q. You had earlier told Hardnews that Anna Hazare operates like a feudal lord? Can you please elaborate? I am sorry if I used that epithet but lord may be a wrong word. I would call him a feudal chief, like what exists in African society where such a figure maintains tribal customs and traditions with a self-righteous attitude -- at times enforcing with force. The chiefs writ is not violated by tribesmen. The vision, with which Anna Hazare brought about the transformation of his village Ralegaon Siddhi, actually fits into the traditional Hindu mould, with a military command structure, with him at the helm. Obedience of the followers is the key word. The village had a significant number of people with army background, which came handy for him to operate that way. (Anna was a truck driver in the army.) Not only did it not have any democratic content, there was public contempt for the institution of party politics. There has not been any election in Ralegaon Siddhi for the last 24 years. Many strange things took place in the village, like banning of sale of bidis in the shop and playing music other than bhakti songs, punishment for drinking alcohol -- and all such things have taken place with the acquiescence of people. However, the language of acquiescence can be highly brahminical and hegemonic. Everything is inspired by traditional brahminical values. His explanation of the virtues of vegetarianism, and why Dalits are treated as untouchables, smacks of the typical Hindu philosophy. Dalits are generally accommodated in village, but the village ethos, ordained by Hinduism, expects them to meekly provide service to the village. Their condition has not much changed.Notion of Dalits being dirty still prevails and the broader values and codes assigned by the Hindu traditions are never challenged. In sum, all that is flaunted as development in Ralegaon Siddhi village is basically in the mould of Hindu idealism which did not leave much scope for people, particularly of the lower castes, to actually participate.
LALGARH IN POST ASSEMBLY ELECTION

Contd. from page 20
SAR Gilani at the meeting organised by Nari Ijjat Bacho Committee in Jhargram
Redpluck@gmail.com Himadri is associated with Delhi School of Economics
Contd. to page 18
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Contd. from page 2 Shiv Sena came in his support. In 2003, he went on an indefinite fast against NCP ministers and compelled the government to appoint a one man commission headed by retired justice PB Sawant to probe the charges. Sawant Commission report indicted many powerful ministers but also observed irregularities in the working of three trusts headed by Anna. One of the charges was spending huge money for his birthday celebration. Abhay Firodia, an industrialist, subsequently donated Rs 2,48,000. Thus, he has been doing good work as a social activist in the state but did not reach the stature even in the state; he has been suddenly catapulted by the Jan Lokpal movement. What clicks with Anna Hazare is his apparent simplicity, rootedness in the familiar Hindu tradition and the penchant for nationalist rhetoric. The manner in which he has taken up the issue of corruption sans its complexity gels well with the large population of urban upper-caste middle class, which, variously, grudge the government not being conducive enough to their progress. They generally attribute it to the present political system and political class, which is seen appeasing the underclass to get their votes. Neither do they want to see that it is the private corporate sector that feeds them money, nor do they see that the seeds of even political corruption lie within the peculiar electoral system that we have. It has failed to represent the people, who are accused of being pampered. It rather represents the moneybags that sustain the system. Anna Hazares simplistic rhetoric psychologically satisfies these classes and does not demand harsher analyses or actions on their part. Of course, it is not to be taken barely in such causal sense. The political establishment also has been tacitly supporting the phenomenon as it helped it distract public attention from the concrete cases of corruption that were getting exposed on its eve, to the bill-making parley as panacea. The government against which it appears to be arraigned, appears to have a big game plan in its apparent series of foolish actions. It needs deeper disdain among people for the political class so as to drive its neoliberal reforms more intensely. BJP, through its Sangh Parivar, is actively helping it with the hope of destabilising the government. Q. Why is the corporate media supporting this movement 24x7 even while it compulsively ignores many peoples' movements of the poorest on the ground? Actually, apart from being an important vehicle for the agenda of global capital, the business model of the media seeks TRPs. It is always on the look out for what clicks with its target audience, which is the expanding middle class which typically comprises English educated, upper-caste, upwardly mobile people, and within that the fastest growing younger segment. I call this class as a neoliberal class as they do share free market ideology of neoliberals and take pride in Indias emergence as an economic powerhouse. For too long they were ashamed because of the persisting backwardness of India with its humiliating Hindu rate of growth. They saw everything Indian, including Indias customs and traditions, culture, apologetically. But the economic boom of recent years, duly supported by the emergence of a professional class of Indian Americans, particularly in the field of IT, has restored this confidence with some vengeance. This class imagines India to be a superpower and views corruption along with a few other issues (such as reservations/ lack of meritocracy, appeasement of minorities, subsidies in favour of the poor) as the biggest hurdle in the realisation of this dream. All these evils are moreover associated with the government, its main prop, politicians, who, for the sake of winning elections, keep on doling out largesse to the undeserving underclass. One has to smell their disdain for the lower strata of the society, which, constituting numbers, vote for politicians to power. This is the class, the media is after. It chooses their issues, upholds them, and attracts them. It sets in a virtuous cycle the Hazare episode started.
All news channels have been full time projecting this agitation with all superlatives at their command. In one way, it is an excellent example of how the modern media can make or unmake movements. There have been thousands of movements, far more important than perhaps this one, which go unnoticed because the media simply ignores them. In contrast, one may cite the example of Irom Sharmila, the Manipur lady who has been on fast for more than 10 years demanding the repeal of the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). But it is barely known to people because of media ignorance of it. That the media is nakedly class-biased is an axiom today. It projects itself as supporting the anticorruption struggle, but is itself a conduit of corruption. The corporate sector, media, which is essentially a part of it, and NGOs, which are the special vehicles of neoliberalism, are the veritable sources of the current phenomenon of corruption, but skillfully escape the attention of people. Q. Do you think this anti-corruption movement has struck any chord with the margins, especially, Dalits, Bahujans and the poorest? If not, why? I guess the margins are untouched by it. Even after huge publicity, you will scarcely find poor peoples representation in those crowds. Rather, Dalits have taken this movement as anti-constitutional. On all the e-mail groups of Dalits, there is strong criticism of this movement -- that it wants to undermine parliamentary democracy and the Constitution given by Babasaheb Ambedkar. As the Hindutva influence on it and the antecedents of the key people started surfacing, they are convinced that the movement is antiDalit. Arvind Kejriwal, for instance, was said to be the leading figure of the Youth for Equality, the upper caste anti-reservation movement. Hazare, as the feudal chieftain of Ralegaon Siddhi, who is propelled by the traditional Hindu ethos, wanted Dalits of his village as mere service providers. Dalits, therefore, see it as an anti-Dalit movement. They have even organised a procession against it in Delhi on August 24 at India Gate (4pm).This is a significant development. Because, Dalits are the only class that has the capacity to effectively prevent the neoliberal march of the upper caste in India. So is the case with Adivasis, majority of which anyway are caught between the life and death battle between the Maoists and the security forces, unleashed by the government. They do not see the legalistic solutions to their problems any more. Even Muslims have kept aloof from the movement, not because of the call of the likes of Imam Bukhari, but because they see through the true character of the movement as irrelevant to their woes. Q. Do you think the Jan Lokpal is any solution to the structural inequalities, injustices and tragedies of our country? Will the system change in any manner? Is it at all socially transformative? This movement claims to be against corruption, but, surprisingly, it does not reflect remotely the understanding of what corruption is; neither does it care to know its source, to curb it. Corruption, basically, is the byproduct of power asymmetry in society and, in that sense, Indian society becomes an ideal prototype for it because of its unique institution of caste. It is therefore that India figures among the most corrupt countries. I guess it is still an understatement because the African countries that appear more corrupt are actually driven into corruption by the Indians there. This structural feature of the Indian society is at the root of corruption. Annas movement is blissfully oblivious of it, or rather deliberately overlooks it. Even if corruption is taken in a legalistic sense, as financial irregularity or bribe, that also needs to be identified with the neoliberal economic structure, that is, accelerating enrichment of the rich and impoverishment of the poor. Annas movement does not speak about it. Contd. to page 19
AN APPEAL FROM JITEN MARANDI:

CULTURAL ACTIVIST IN JAIL FOR ONE YEAR WITHOUT BAIL IN JHARKHAND
An appeal to all progressive writers, artists, intellectuals, cultural and social activists, Human Rights organizations, Mass organizations, politically conscious citizens, workers, peasants, student youth and well wishers (the gist of his appeal written in Hindi)
place and slowly the conspiracy hatched by the Giridih police is coming to light. I would like to make it clear that the police and administration know exactly who I am but they have made me a victim of their conspiracy. Especially the alliance of ex-CM Babulal Marandis JVM and the police has been the cause of my plight. On the one hand, Babulal Marandi has espoused claims to establish a corruption less and fearless state administration and on the other hand he has unleashed repression on innocent persons like me in collusion with the police. An example of this is elaborated below: Consider the following facts: After the Chilkari Massacre, an FIR No. 167/07, was registered at the Devri PS. Also a statement was recorded under Sec 164 CrPC before the Judicial magistrate in which among the various names of accused mentioned, the name Jitan was present. Who is this Jitan? Where does he hail from? There was no mention of these details. Surprisingly, in the (Prabhat) newspapers a photo of mine with other details appeared as a large news item. In this news item, I was made to be the main accused of the massacre. After noticing this I strongly criticized it and this dissent of mine was published in the papers. The editor accepted that the news item published was an error on their part. Even the higher levels of police administration realized that this Jitan was not Jitan Marandi. After this real picture came to the fore, I was greatly relieved. Suddenly, after five months, on 5th April, 2004, plainclothes police arrested me on the Ranchi-Ratu Road. They interrogated me at a secret place. They did not get any clues to link me to the Chilkhari incident. They later told me that an FIR was lodged against me with regards to an inflammatory speech and road block (against displacement of tribal people) that had taken place on 1st October 07 before the then Chief Ministers Residence; and therefore I was being sent to jail. Thereafter I was sent to Birsa Munda Central Jail, Hotwai, Ranchi. During the ten days that I was in Police Ramand, I clearly stated to all the policemen who interrogated me that I am Jitan marandi, but not the Jitan Marandi who was involved in the massacre. Even the higher police officials agreed with me. During the remand, many things happened to me but I am not mentioning them. However, nothing of what I said is mentioned in the police diary. In this diary three more witnesses statements have been added. According to these witnesses both the Jitan Marandis were participants in the massacre. In the description it was mentioned that one Jiten Marandi was from Thesafulli village in Nimiyaghat Thana and the other Jitan marandi was from Karandon village of Pirthand and he runs the Jharkhand Eben (my cultural group). One more important aspect is that no statement was taken of the family members of the people who were massacred. Also, no witness was from Chilkhari-Devri. This is all surprising since the people who had been arrested before had never named me. On the other hand, after my arrest, in November, a news item appeared offering lakhs of rupees as reward for the arrest of Shyamlal @ Jitan Marandi of Thesafulli village of Nimyaghat Thana. This announcement, after my arrest clearly indicates that I am targeted just because my name is Jitan Marandi. In this way many false cases have been foisted upon me. In some of the cases the crimes have occurred at a time when I was in jail; in other cases the other accused are already acquitted; in one case (9/04 PS Thiseri) I was in Madhubani attending a programme to commemorate International Womens Day. When I was not around in these places how could I have been made an accused in all these crimes? THE TRUTH BEHIND THE CONSPIRACY The conspiratorial attitude of the JVM and the Giridih police was exposed on 24th March 2009 when all the accused reached the court in Crime No 167/07. All the accused were waiting in the
riends, I was born in a poor peasant family in the 80s. My village is situated in the rural area called Sudoor within the jurisdiction of Pirtand Police Station of Giridih. There is negligible government welfare in our village. My childhood passed quite uneventfully. No one was educated in my family. Due to poverty, the responsibility for the whole family rested on everyones shoulders. My main responsibility, as a child, was to take the cattle to graze. Therefore, instead of taking to pen and book, I learnt to wield the cane. Even to count the cattle I used to take the help of pebbles. Life passed by waiting for each next day. Somehow I managed schooling till Class III. This is my entire wealth of knowledge, i.e. formal education. As time went on, my attention was drawn to the enormity of the World; I desired to fathom the depths of society. I could see the present decaying social system and I developed a desire to change society along with others. Initially I started an idealistic reform programme to raise the awareness of my peers: hear no evil, speak no evil do no evil; recognize and transform evil into goodness, build a beautiful and equal social system, etc. To build this awareness we used songs, folk dances and drama. The social awareness of our village people grew. Our popularity grew; peoples consciousness grew. We strived to protect and develop adivasi traditions and culture. We marched from the village towards the cities, interacted with other progressive people and groups; our ideas and emotions intermingled like flowers in a garland. Crisscrossing through diverse aims and paths, our perspective was built. As time flew and our experiences grew, our philosophy itself became the source of knowledge. In this way we acquired the love and support of thousands and thousands of people. I also received encouragement and guidance from writers, artists, litterateurs and social activists. I am most grateful to all these well wishers whom I have met till now. All have known me as a peoples artist, a progressive social activist who has awakened the consciousness of the masses. Anyone one who has seen me will certify that they have not seen me with arms and ammunitions but rather with musical instruments like the nagara, dholak, harmonium etc. They have not seen me in any other uniform except the dress of a folk cultural artiste, in dhoti, ganji, ghungru etc. My tools have been my voice and my culture. They have seen me surrounded by a troupe, including child artistes, spreading folk culture without hesitation from villages to cities. Never have I tried to use a pseudonym or alias. I am known by my name, Jiten Marandi to all. Even audio cassettes have been made in the name of Jiten Marandi wherein Khottha, Santhali, Nagpuri and Hingi songs have been recorded in my voice. These songs were never vulgar, obscene or demeaning; rather they expressed social awareness. Sold in cities and villages, the songs became popular among the masses. More than a form of entertainment, they became a source of inspiration. Though I have done nothing outside the constitutional framework, nor broken the path of non-violence, I am being incarcerated today. What is the fault of Jiten Marandi? I AM A VICTIM OF A CONSPIRACY I have been detailed since a year at the Mandal Jail, Giridih. All the charges put on me are serious, new events have been taking
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Contd. from page 25
Sessions Court. The Giridih Town Police Sation-in-Charge called me aside and told me that hw was in charge of the town Thana. However, he bore no signs of his post and was in Civil Dress. For some reason, I was the only accused taken to be produced before the judge. When I asked why this was being done, the guards told me not to ask questions. When I was leaving the place where we had been waiting, I saw the Town Thana in-charge telling some people This is Jitan marandi and you have to recognize him. After this all those people followed me into the court of the Honble Judge Kasim Ansari. Without taking my signature I was being taken back, whereupon I asked loudly why I was being brought, for which I was given a warning by the Honble Judge. I apologized. By then the other accused were brought into the court. After signing, we all went back to the place where we were made to wait. It was then that some of the other accused told me that the people to whom the Police Tana in-charge had spoken were actually witnesses in another case no 170/08. Since some of them were neighbours of my co-accused, they had recognized them! What an injustice this is the police officer identifying the accused in front of the witness, introducing the accused to them! I have sent written applications to the court and related departments with regards to this matter. The result of this conspiracy was that on 1st April 2009, witness statements regarding this crime were to be examined in court. Two witnesses, viz. Moti Saoo and Subhodh Saoo attended. Moti said that he recognizes Jitan Marandi who fired the bullets and pointed towards me. He said that this was the Jitan Marandi who participated in the Chilkari massacre. How can this be true when I have not participated in the incident, nor gone to Teesri village or Devri area? Thankfully my counsel brought the right facts to the fore by sharp arguments. I must state that from the very beginning I have been opposing these false cases and procedures in this conspiracy against me through various applications through the Jail Superintendent to CJM Giridih, Dist. Judge,, Prison IG, NHRC New Delhi etc. But I have to say with deep sorrow that none of these departments have taken proper steps. Only through judicial proceedings my work has progressed and for this I need huge monetary amounts for which my family is unable to arrange in these circumstances. I am unable to get bail. I need lots of help. I have full faith in the court that it will deeply examine the charges put on me in an impartial manner and give a judgment in the interest of justice. I appeal to all progressive intellectuals, writers, activists to come forward and help me so that I can be acquitted from these false charges and get out of jail and work for the protection of peoples culture and adivasi traditions. With Jharkhandi Johar (greetings) Jitan marandi Mandal jail, Giridih Jharkhand
VERDICT ON SALWA JUDUM

IDENTIFYING THE FALLACIES IN JURIDICO-POLITICAL SYSTEM
SANANDA DASGUPTA
People do not take arms without reasons hat is what said by the Supreme Court while passing its judgment on the case of Salwa Judum (Nandini Sundar and Others. Vs. State Of Chhattisgarh ). Since 2005, Chhattisgarh government is using Salwa Judum an armed force of civilian vigilant group to battle against the Maoist insurgencies. So far the state has appointed nearly about 6,500 SPOs (5,269 are registered) to combat the Maoist guerrilla armies. These SPOs are appointed from among the poor tribal people of the land. The government says they are being used merely as sources of intelligence and guides. Firearms are given to them only for their self defense. But the reality is much darker. Anyone who is a little aware of the situation in this region knows that these SPOs play key role in torturing the tribal people and in throwing them out of their own land. By adopting this policy the government tried to fulfill their two goals. Firstly it gave them the opportunity to use a force without any concern about the law of the land and secondly and perhaps more importantly this Salwa Judum helped them to create a rupture in the social fabric of this region. Through this they tried to create a war like situation within the community. According to the media reports the number of cases of murder, rape, looting and other atrocities became higher after deploying Salwa Judum. Along with the SPOs there are other central, state and district forces too. The paramilitary alone stands at 40 battalions (40,000 soldiers). The State government desire to have even more. In the last two years 500 people got killed, 99 women were raped, tens of thousands were pushed into the camps, several other are drove out of the border to take refuge. This is the ground reality of this region. Supreme Court has compared the situation of Dantewara with Joseph Conrads classic Heart of Darkness. The Court said people do not take arms in an organized fashion, against the might of the state, or against fellow human beings without rhyme or reason. Guided by an instinct for survival, and according to Thomas Hobbs, a fear of lawlessness that is encoded in our collective conscience, we seek an order. However, when that order comes with the price of dehumanization, of manifest injustices of all forms perpetrated against the weak, the poor and the deprived, people revolt. This is indeed a historical comment which comes from one of the pillars of democracy, the judiciary. But it has clearly offended the people related to other two pillars of democracy. Supreme Court declared Salwa Judum as unconstitutional and ordered the State of Chhattisgarh to immediately cease and desist from using [them] in any manner or form. It also barred the Union government from funding the project. All arms were to be recalled. And further more it ordered the CBI to investigate alleged acts of violence. In response to this order the Chhattisgarh government has passed an ordinance in the last week of July. According to this Chhattisgarh Auxiliary Armed Police Force Ordinance of 2011, the government will raise an armed police force in tribal areas by recruiting persons having knowledge of local area and topography and local language/dialect to assist the security forces engaged in preventing, controlling and combating Maoist/ Naxalite violence This ordinance has come into force with retrospective effect from July 5, 2011-the day Supreme Court passed its order. All the SPOs shall be absorbed into the new auxiliary force for six months. The ordinance mandates to join the auxiliary force one need to pass class V examination. There is an exception for existing SPOs. They have an option to complete a specially designed course in elementary education to join the force fulltime. On the other hand the Central government goes further. On August 13 the Government filed a review petition questioning the jurisdiction of the court. The Centre said, according to the Constitution policing is exclusively in domain of executive. The judiciary cannot interfere in these matters. They raised the question of separation of power between the different arms of the state. In Rajyasabha the leader of opposition Mr. Arun Jately made a strong criticism of the order. Jately said, while passing the judgment the court seemed to be guided more by ideology than legality and Mr. P Chidambaram completely agreed with him. In the recent past this kind of conflict between judiciary and the executive or legislative members are not a rare occasions in India. Last year we have seen the court had to interfere into the food distribution system of the country. On August 12, 2010 the Supreme asked the Centre to consider free distribution of food grains to the poor instead of allowing it to rot in Food Corporation of India godowns. The court had passed the direction while dealing with a public interest litigation filed by civil rights group PUCL on rampant corruption in Public Distribution System (PDS) besides rotting of
SAGA OF INFLATION
Contd. from page 17 point the MNC becomes the owner of the products which will be produced in future and the farmer becomes only the harvester having no control over the prize rates but has to harvest in the given money by the MNC, falling from the target will result complete seizure of his land etc. But in every cases this deal was made invariable of any weather condition, price hike of rents ,fertilizers etc. So the economic condition of the farmer is pushed in further jeopardy as there is no control or subsidy available here in case of no government intervention. But on the other hand the govt. will give subsidy to the production houses as the MNC for any of those adverse condition of weather and also for marketing, distribution and infrastructure. So any adverse condition in the field of production will cause severe damage to the farmer, whereas it will bring larger amount of surplus to the MNC. This can cause suicide of the farmer in larger economic debt than ever before and on the other hand the MNC just acting as a feudal lord lay comfortable on the mountain of profit. This GATT agreement further tends to the artificial scarcity of products created by the MNC to rise the whole-sale rate of the mango and to acquire more surplus, cutting loose every control of the government and the public sectors from the chain of production to distribution and marketisation by totally liberalising the agricultural market. So coming back to the present situation it is a totally deceptive effort to shout or to call bandh or to blame any certain government led by any certain party for the price hike in case of any mainstream parliamentary political party instead of making any sound effort to uproot this insane system of liberalisation because every single party seating in the parliament was keen to pass this agreement excepting some feeble effort from the ''left-front'' who were in a quest to tighten their mask of Marxists. They only made some efforts in the parliament but was reluctant to come out among the mass for making a real protest of the situation, outside the framework of the constitution and parliament as they knew that they are just practicing the same in the states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, and making people aware of the condition will lead to a complexity in future to rule people in those states. Who wants to unmask their own deceitful acts in front the people in a parliamentary system, as people are nothing more than vote banks to them? So no one actually did nothing and as far the present tense is concerned, they are doing nothing. None of the bourgeois economic theories can at the same time save the faces of various governments of today and explain the economic reasons of price rise, specially when the American or British governments are known to destroy millions of tons of grains annually by sinking them in the seas or using them as land filling material. It is also worthy noting that in 2010 while much of our population was starving, the government was found to be rotting several lakh bags of grains in its storehouses. But instead of opposing these anti-people policies of the government, the Indian parliamentary left has added fuel to the fire by occupying and destroying vast stretches of extremely fertile agricultural lands wherever it had formed its state governments, and exposed itself to be worse than the parties that it labels as bourgeois. No wonder that after its initial massacres in Singur, the land grabbing policies of the Left Front government were halted both in Nandigram and Lalgarh by the valiant masses. Keeping in mind the continuous betrayal of the masses by these so called Marxists, we will now see how effective Marxism can be in explaining the Indian situation. In general, capital tends to utilize every opportunity it gets to expand. Therefore whenever there is a greater demand and hence higher offered prices in any field of production, several blocs of capital enter that field and compete with each other in producing the corresponding commodity. They continue to produce this commodity until production matches and ultimately surpasses demand, at which point they start suffering losses and therefore withdraw from that field, only to return as soon as demand starts exceeding production. So we observe that there is a periodicity in every field and henceforth in the overall economy, of high and low prices. Thus the capitalist system when observed over long periods
of time, seems to be at equilibrium. However, a closer look at this cycle reveals why capitalism is far from stable over short periods of time and is therefore highly prone to self-destruction. During the periods of withdrawal of capital from a particular field, the corresponding portions the working class face extreme chaos. On one hand factories are closed down, leaving countless unemployed, on the other hand, in a desperate attempt to keep prices high and secure profit, capitalists destroy or conceal the commodities involved. The condition of the society when the commodities in question are food grains is easily imaginable. It is during similar periods of economic crises that the working class, having its back against the wall, opts for forceful overthrow of capitalism. Therefore to save itself during such periods of crises, a bloc of capital has only two options; either to declare war against another bloc of capital and conquer its markets, or to balance the situation near its base by exploiting the workers as well as buyers in strategically more convenient areas. India happens to be such a land where most acting capital is either imperialist or comprador, that is, most capital acting here has their bases in developed countries. Therefore normally and even more so in its periods of crisis, imperialist capital tries to exploit the Indian masses more and more and keep its hold over the super-exploited Indians through military means. This clearly explains why our condition is worse than that of many sub-Saharan countries, why any disturbance in the economies of developed countries causes a disaster over here, why the government of India so openly spearheaded its attack on its own people. It also tells us precisely why during a havoc price rise in food items, the government is purposefully trying to raise the prices further by hoarding, and at the same time grabbing and destroying agricultural lands; to create artificial demand for crops produced abroad! Because of its crisis, imperialist capital is trying to dump its surplus food grains in India and secure a handsome profit in the process. What an ingenious idea of ridding America and European countries of the extra produce that they would have destroyed otherwise! With the profit also comes the bonus of fully controlling and manipulating the Indian political and economic scenario, because "if you control a nation's food supply, you control the nation". Hence we have deduced the main cause of price rise in India; imperialist capital is gasping for life here by leeching the Indian masses. And it implements its plan of carrying away super profits not only by creating artificial demand of food-grains, but invading every corner of the Indian economy and looting our beloved country. So the reforms proposed by the parliamentary left or any other reform oriented group, the Indian government cannot implement, and even if it does, it will have to make up for it by worsening the condition of other portions of the economy. No policy within this system can effectively improve the overall condition of our country. The system itself is the root of all troubles and has to be done away with. Thankfully, as predicted by Marx, the Indian masses are not taking this imperialist invasion lying down. In the last few years, every attempt of imperialist capital, whether it be to loot our minerals or destroy our agricultural lands, has met fierce resistance from the masses of our country. Imperialism is finally stuck in its own grave. It will slowly suffocate there and watch humanity emancipating itself from its dreadful claws.
Bodhayan.roy@gmail.com The author is currently studying in TIFR, Bombay
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THE SAGA OF INFLATION: THE TALE OF A SILENT MURDER
BODHAYAN ROY
hrough the past few years, the prices of essential commodities have undergone a steep rise in India. These include almost every object of daily use, even food items like rice and tur dal. In fact, it is the doubling or tripling of the prices of these food items in the past few years that has hit the Indian masses the most. Let alone the vast peasant and proletarian masses, even large sections of the middle class are finding it difficult to make both ends meet due to this enormous inflation. The present inflation, though not nearly as devastating in the developed countries, has engulfed more or less the whole world. As usual there have been many attempts from the ruling classes to concoct fallacious reasons for this. The most hateful of these is the accusation of over-consumption hurled towards the third world masses by none other than George Bush, the former number one agent of imperialism. Furthermore, singing in the same tune, the prime minister of India has issued a press statement in January which claims that the inflation is partially due to the "growth" of the economy, which is resulting in higher income and increased food consumption of the "relatively poor". He has absolutely no doubt that the relatively poor bottom 83 percent of the Indian population, who spends Rs. 20 per day, dies of starvation and malnutrition each day, is ultimately responsible for this economic disaster! Even a toddler is clever enough to deduce that through these random and desperate statements the ruling classes are trying to divert the attention of the masses from the real cause of this disaster, and culminating a mentality of self-hatred among them. From the parliamentary, soft left of India, the whole critique of price-rise seems to be directed towards neo-liberal policies of the Indian government. Their arguments play right into the hands of bourgeois economists who project various secondary causes of inflation like rise in prices of oil and petroleum products, or the numerous theoretical over-simplifications of the economic situation which are far from reality. So their programme to curb or end price rise too is limited to proposing concessions, subsidies and other economic measures within this system; in a kind of system about which Lenin said, "The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament." The Indian parliamentary left has abandoned the teachings of Lenin for its love of bourgeois democracy. Anyone interested in the silent development of this scenario which has finally resulted to this present state of inflation in India of the daily goods ,especially the food materials,will find the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) agreement as one of the keys. GATT was negotiated during the UN Conference on Trade and Employment and was the outcome of the failure of negotiating governments to create the International Trade Organization (ITO). GATT was signed in 1947 and lasted until 1993, when it was replaced by the World Trade Organization in 1995. Agricultural growth, measured as the annual rate of growth in net domestic product, increased from 1.9 percent per annum before the Green Revolution period (1950-1951 to 1966-1967) to 2.3 percent during the first phase of the Green Revolution (1966-1967 to 1980-1981). The growth rate accelerated further to 3.1 percent during the second phase of the Green Revolution (1980-1981 to 2000-2001). At the same time, the share of agriculture in total GDP has fallen from about a little over half in the early 1950s to around one-fourth in the late 1990s. Similar changes have occurred in the countrys export basket as well. The share of agricultural exports in total exports of the country fell from 44 percent in early 1960s to about 14 percent in the late 1990s. However, the majority of Indias population still continues to depend heavily on the agricultural sector for employment and as a source of income. Seventy-two percent of the population, about 742
million people, still live in rural areas, and their fortunes are also influenced by developments in the agricultural sector to a considerable extent. Coupled with the high incidence of poverty, which is predominantly a rural phenomenon (74 percent of the poor live in rural areas), these facts demonstrate the continuing importance of the agricultural sector in the Indian economy.The focus of this process was initially on the manufacturing sector, but gradually these unilateral changes have been extended to the other sectors of the economy including agriculture. In agriculture, although there was no direct government intervention in production and investment decisions of farmers, government did, and still does, influence the legal and economic environment in which farmers and other economic agents operate. Most of these interventions in agriculture were conceived to deal with situations associated with famines and scarcities that existed before the Green Revolution period. In the case of the domestic market, the withdrawal of the restrictions on the movement of agricultural commodities is one of the major changes that has been brought about during the present reform process. The licensing requirements and stocking limits for the wholesale and retail trade that were a part of the Essential Commodities Act (1955) have been removed recently. The system of Selective Credit Controls, which was used to regulate institutional credit to traders in commodities since 1943, has also been abandoned. Future markets, which were banned since 1942 under various statutory orders and since 1955 under the Forward Contract (Regulation) Act, are also now allowed. As far as external trade is concerned, in the early 1990s, a few steps to liberalize agricultural trade were initiated about a year and a half after the July 1991 reforms, and these have been followed by a number of prominent reforms thereafter. Now, the exports of all major agricultural commodities, barring a few exceptions such as cotton, onion and niger seeds, have been liberalized. These reforms have brought about some significant changes in agricultural trade, which are discussed in detail in the relevant sections of this chapter.India signed the Marrakesh agreements of the UR as a permanent developing country member of GATT. Its first Trade Policy Review took place in 1993, and its second in 1998. This Agreement on Agriculture continues to be the most substantial trade liberalization agreement in agricultural products in the history of trade negotiations. The goals of the agreement were to improve market access for agricultural products, reduce domestic support of agriculture in the form of price-distorting subsidies and quotas, eliminate over spacial time export subsidies on agricultural products and to harmonize to the extent possible sanitary and phytosanitary measures between member countries ,clearly intriguing the globalization of the agricultural sector. This agreement enabled the foreign MNC's to enter into the domestic agricultural market as investors and as rate-fixers of the agricultural products. This blue print of liberalization carried a new concept to infiltrate into the domestic market called future marketting. With this new system any MNC was made able to speculate prize of the agricultural products and to fix that prize as the whole-sale rate. To make it easier to understand we can assume a scenario that a farmer is an owner of a small land harvesting mangoes, a MNC comes to him and tells him to speculate the production of mango from his land. The farmer consisting of experience about his land says that 100 mangoes will be harvested at the end of the season. The MNC dealing with this product inspects the farmers claim and buys all the mangoes,speculative in numbers though in a rate the company prefer and gives him the capital. The farmer who is always in debt and scarce of capital for the fertilizers and for meeting rents of other means of production easily takes this money. So from this Contd. to page 17
16
food grains in FCI godowns. Although agricultural minister Sharad Pawar ignored it by saying it was only a suggestion and not a direction. It was said by the minister while media reports showed dogs eating grain in UP, where poverty and malnourishment are rampant. Another showed sacks of wheat in Punjab rotting away outside warehouses. A third caught officials trying to burn grain because they hadn't been able to distribute it to families entitled to free rations. After that on August 31 the Court had to made it clear that it was a direction and not a mere suggestion. The court said "You tell the Minister that it is there in the order, it is part of the order," The Bench further said that the government must take urgent steps to prevent further rotting of food grains while maintaining that it must procure only that much quantity which it can preserve. In January 2011 the Apex court pronounced that "We cannot allow the Republic killing its own children". It was said by the court while issuing a notice to Centre and the AP government on a petition filed by social activist Swami Agnivesh seeking a judicial probe into the controversial killings of Maoist leader Cherihuri Rajkumar alias Azad and journalist Hemchandra Pandey. The killing of Azad had attracted strong criticism from the different parts of the society as he was the key initiator of peace talk between the Government and Maoists. Later the court ordered a CBI probe in the case. Not only in Azads case, Supreme Court has slammed police officials for more than a once in the cases of alleged fake encounter. In May this year in the case of alleged fake encounter of a businessman by the Maharashtra Police, the Supreme Court said We warn policemen that they will not be excused for committing murder in the name of an encounter on the pretext that they were carrying out orders of their superior officers or politicians, however high. In the Nuremberg trials, the Nazi war criminals took the plea that orders are orders but nevertheless they were hanged. Similarly on 8th August 2011 a bench of Justices Markandeya Katju and CK Prasad described fake encounters as rarest of rare offence. They said police personnel as custodians of law are expected to protect people and not eliminate them as contract killers. The court observed this while directing two senior Rajasthan IPS officers allegedly involved in the fake encounter of an alleged gangster, Dara singh. Justice Katju said Fake encounter killing by cops are nothing but cold-blooded brutal murder which should be treated as the rarest of rare offence and police personnel responsible for it should be awarded the death sentence. They should be hanged. In all these cases the judiciary goes against the executives. Some says these kind of orders by court shows the democracy is still alive in this country. But when they say so they automatically admit the fact that the other parts of the democracy have failed, so that the judiciary had to go to this extent to protect the worlds largest democracy. Of course the role of Supreme Court is worth praising. But if we look into the words of the Apex Court more closely we can find some reasons behind this kind of judgments. The raging dissatisfaction among the mass against the political leaders and administrators leads to this sort of actions taken by the Court. The judgment passed by the court in Uttar Pardeshs land acquisition case is worth mentioning here. The Supreme Courts observation on Land Acquisition Act 1894, came during a hearing on appeals filed by Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority, the UP government and builders Supertech and Amrapali challenging Allahabad High Courts decision quashing acquisition of agricultural land by state. The bench said We do not want Nandigram in every state. Did you gsive an opportunity to the farmers to raise their grievances before acquiring their land? From the mention of Nandigram it is quite evident that the mass movements have a great impact on the judiciary. Thus the Nandigram movement not only has resisted the chemical hub to be built on their land but became a milestone in the land acquisition movement all over the country. In another case a bench of justices GS Singvi and HL Dattu observed The Act (Land Acquisition Act 1894) has become a fraud. It seems to have been devised by people with sick mind who have scant regard for the welfare of the common man. The Supreme Court made this observation while dealing with a bunch of petitions filed by the farmers from UPs Hapoor district on the forcible acquisition of 82 acres of land by the state for
developing a leather industry. The bench said We are coming across several cases of land being acquired in the name of emergency and public purpose. The poor farmer is being uprooted from his place and deprived of his only source of livelihood. In the both cases the court has questioned the model of development adopted by the state. It echoed almost the same what was being said by different mass organizations for long. It questioned the model where the poor becomes poorer and loses all their rights. It raises the basic question about the state policy. In fact its land grabbing state. Land acquisition act is an engine of oppression the bench of justices GS Singvi and AK Ganguly observed while questioning the Greater Noida Authority. The bench further said Whats the public interest involved in the acquisition? See the brochures. You have shown beauty parlours, gyms, swimming pools, shopping arcades and what not. Are they for poor people, the farmers? They are for the rich and influential. The court slammed the state for giving bad name to development. State should protect common mans right but its the other way around. We can understand if state is building canal, barrage etc but you are building malls, hotels, commercial townships. Court added You are saying this is residential area. Residential area is for whom? Those people whose land was taken away are they not needy? You think judges are living in a fools paradise. The court further says state is driving out poor people. This is a sinister campaign by many state governments. It is anti people. When people protest against acquisition men are arrested and women are raped. They lose their livelihood and then have to pay lawyers to fight their cases. The various mass movements across the country have already put forward a question about the states economic policy and model of development. They strongly put that this development is not for all. Its not for the commoners of our country. The state is just playing a role of an agent. Who grabs the lands, forests and waters of this country and sale it to the foreign multinationals. In the words of Supreme Court In the name of globalisation you marginalise the poor. Why is there a proliferation of terror activities? They are pushed to the wall. Why suicides are there? They (government) are not taking care of the poor man. Here the court has also addressed the much debated question of violence in mass movements. When many of us are skeptic about the violence in these movements the court gives it answer. When the state is not taking care of its people, when it takes arms against its children, the people are left with little options. When they are pushed to the wall they have to resist with whatever means to survive, to protect the democracy. To protect the rights provided by the Indian constitution. And of course the judiciary is still keeping some rays of hope for us. But here we cannot ignore that these court orders have very little to do with the actual reality. The reality says there are still SPOs, but with a different name. Not only in Chhattisgarh but in Kashmir, Manipur we can see the same kind of forces. The Unconstitutional operations are still on. Even in our state Paschimbanga the newly elected chief minister has declared to recruit the same kind of forces. During her visit in Jungle Mahal she declared to form this National volunteer force. According to her, this force will fight against the Maoists, and she declared to appoint 10 thousand people of Jungle Mahal in this force. In fake encounter cases the court suggested death sentence but in reality theres no police officer who have been sent to prison for this. Same is the case of land acquisition. The court order cannot change the state policy. The eviction and displacement is the very basic condition for the model of development adopted by the state. We didnt find any reports about the free distribution of food grains. In our constitutional structure the executive, legislature and judiciary are three independent bodies. All three are there to protect the rights and liberties of the people. The judiciary intervenes whenever the rights guaranteed by the Constitutions are violated. So it is quite evident that the Constitutional rights are being violated in our country and it is being violated by the other two protectors of rights. The poor and downtrodden rarely can go to the judiciary for their rights. Whenever they can, the real truth comes before us.
Sananda7ster@gmail.com The author is a journalist in Kolkata
IMPERIALISM, HANDS OF LIBYA

Introduction
fghanistan, Iraq and now Libya, the war by US and its Allies doesn't seem to end. They always find new reasons to start a war. For Afghanistan it was the religious fanatics Taliban and Al Qaeda, for Iraq it was the weapons of mass destruction which were never found and now for Libya it is just the Humanitarian Intervention. Well it is far from being the truth. It has been exposed every now and then that the imperialists are making war on countries who defy to obey their dictate and to install a puppet regime. There has been not a single decade after World War 2 where the US did not go to war. Their war mongering attitude could clearly be seen when in 1970 Secretary of State and Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry Kissinger said I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to irresponsibility of its own people. He was talking about Chile when Slavador Allende became the President of Chile and the first democratically elected Marxist to become the President of a Latin American country. Three years later on 11th September 1973 the military staged a coup secretly sponsored by the CIA against Allende. Allende committed suicide as the military closed in. The country was taken over by the military dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet under whom thousands were killed, tortured and sent to exile. This was not the only time the US imperialist have intervened into other countrys affair. The list runs long. As a result of their imperialist policies estimated 8 million people have been killed in the last 50 years. The so called War on Terror in Afghanistan and Iraq has cost a hundred thousands of innocent lives. The war in Libya is somewhat different. Muammar Gaddafi who supported the West in its war against terror and had friendly ties with some Western powers has suddenly become the latest target of the imperialists. The US once also judged Gaddafi as sufficiently anti Marxist and called off the plan dubbed as Hilton Assignment which was devised by the British intelligence in order to overthrow Gaddafi and restore monarchy. To analyse the situation we need to go back in time.
SIDHARTHA SAMTANI
THE SELF-DETERMINATION MOVEMENT: A REVIEW

Contd. from page 14 nations did not emerge as a result of peoples exercising the right to self-determination. The politics of either lumping people together or splitting them apart according as they want or do not want to stay together is too artificial to be anything more than a manipulation of political elites and big bourgeoisie. Instead, modern nations have come into being through inner movements smashing the oppressive structures of conquests and empires. After Stalin, the whole trend of Soviet revisionism, negated the right to self-determination in practice, despite hypocritical claims to support Marxism. During Brezhnev's rule, the theory of "limited sovereignty" was his justification of Russian annexationism. The intervention in Afghanistan by both the Soviet Union and the U.S.; the bloody wars by the revisionist "Dergue, the one-time rulers of Ethiopia, against the Eritreans, Tigrayans and others; and other examples showed that negating the right to self-determination means bloodshed and fomenting divisions among the working people. But it is no better when it is the "left communists" who negate the right to self-determination. The "left communists" think that they are the most consistent opponents of Stalinism; they even are skeptical of political parties for fear of seeing a Stalinist party. Yet the various theories put forward--sometimes by "left communists, sometimes by left Trotskyists-- that negate the right to selfdetermination end up providing a "socialist" cover for annexationism. Some say that the right to self-determination only applied in the 19th century. Others say that there will be no right to self-determination under socialism, because national differences will be immediately abolished. But in fact, national differences will only die out gradually. In all cases, these theories end up providing a glorified "left" cover to the revisionist socialist-colonialism. Part of the debate centers on the assessment of the collapse of the old colonial empires in Africa, Asia, etc. The "left communists" think that since this did not lead to socialist countries but the growth of capitalism, therefore it was a nationalist blunder. All they can see is that the now- ''independent'' countries are capitalist, totally ignoring the feudal nature of the neo-colonial developing countries and that the capitalist ruling class is oppressing the local national minorities or harassing the neighboring countries. They apparently think that if the workers and toilers had consented to be ruled by foreign overlords who regarded them as half-human, they would have been only fit to rise in strikes for better conditions, participating in trade unions, protests against persecution of the minorities, and socialist revolution against ''the entire bourgeoisie'. Some of them apparently support self-determination but creates an opportunist stand saying these movements for self-identity are not class struggle. They don't see that by blaming all the tragedies of Africa on the national liberation movement, on "separatism", they are in fact duplicating the neo-conservative mood of the present. They are prettifying world imperialism, no matter how much they shout about "imperialism" because in a way imperialism preserves the feudal nature of a state which is ruled in a neocolonised fashion. If the colonial peoples were ever to be anything but beasts of burden for the more industrialised countries, they had to overthrow the political rule of imperialist countries which regarded them as uncivilized. The proletariat and the downtrodden provided the basic force, and they fought for their social rights and improvements in their conditions, and for the best outcome of the national struggle. The small size of the proletariat; the ideological confusion in the world revolutionary movement; the military and economic pressure of imperialism and revisionism; etc. meant that the struggle only went so far; the democratic revolutions in Europe in the 19th century had also seen zigzags, bitter defeats and long periods of stagnation. Nevertheless, for the proletariat and the marginalised people, participation in the overthrow of the colonial empires would be one of a series of dress rehearsals for future revolutionary activity, and help provide evidence to the workers of
achieved unless one addresses to the class struggles in the society. Despite the anti imperialist rhetoric, given the limitation of the bourgeoisie character the Libyan regime turned the national liberation into bureaucratic capitalist rule. In 2008 Gaddafi signed the Friendship Treaty with the Italian government in which Italy committed to pay US$ 5 billion over 25 years to Libya as a compensation to its former military occupation and in return Libya agreed to open up its natural resources to Italian corporates promising them US$ 5 billion worth of contracts to build infrastructure over the next 20 years. This shows the surrendering of Libya to the world capitalist system maintaining the country's economy based solely on oil and opening up to the market forces of Western Europe. Gaddafi amassed millions of dollars and slowly deviated from his principles. The policies followed by Gaddafi for nearly a decade made him quite unpopular amongst the masses. A single spark was required to light the prairie fire.
Arab Spring Revolts

For the past several decades the Arab world has suffered under US imperialism and its puppet regimes. The recent crisis in the world capitalist system worsened the suffering of millions in the Arab world. In December 2010 mass protests erupted in Tunisia after the self immolation of an youth named Mohamed Bouazizi in protest of police corruption. The protests soon spread over other nations in the Arab world against respective regimes. The US imperialists are taken aback as the puppet regimes failed to control the protests even by resorting to oppressive measures. The common slogan people against the regime is echoing throughout the Gulf and Mediterranean. The US imperialists are fast losing ground in the Arab world. While the movements are not powerful enough to overthrow the oppressive ruling class, the US and its puppet regimes are constantly trying to deck themselves out of the situation by trying to forge new constitution and instituting periodic elections maintaining the same structure which they can use to hoodwink the masses and continue their domination in the Mediterranean and the Gulf region.
Who is Muammar Gaddafi?

Muammar Gaddafi came to power after overthrowing King Idris in a bloodless coup in 1969. He was strongly influenced by Gamal Abdel Nasser's Pan Arab movement. Gaddafi incorporated Arab Socialism and Arab Nationalism into his political philosophy. His anti imperialist slogans came as a relief to many in the Arab world which was at that time suffering under the US imperialism and Israel military aggression. The triumph of Gaddafi gave rise to a group of nationalist forces of radical sectors of national bourgeoisie who could rise to power because of the national liberation struggles that shook Asia, Africa and Latin America and promote a series of measures of national democratic nature. Sticking to the principles of Pan Arab movement Gaddafi gave a proposal of connecting the entire African continent by telephone, television, radio broadcasting and other technological applications such as telemedicine and distant teaching. In 1992 RASCOM (Regional African Satellite Communication Organisation) was formed so that Africa can have its own satellite and reduce its communication costs. It was at a time when phone calls in Africa were the most expensive in the world because they had to shell out an annual sum of US$ 500 million to Europe for the use of its satellite for phone conversations even within the same country. Gaddafi's regime paid US$ 300 million for Africa's first communication satellite which was launched on 27 September 2007. This made Gaddafi and his regime very unpopular in the eyes of the imperialist nations as they were not getting paid anymore. Gaddafi also extended his support for the struggle against the racist regime in South Africa by helping African National Congress financially during the apartheid era. This helped Gaddafi gain support of the masses in Africa at that time. But as history has shown time and again that democracy is not
Impact on Libya
Libya was no exception to the protests that erupted across North Africa and the Gulf. At present Russia has gained his imperialist status recovering after the Cold War and China has increased its influence considerably and poses a threat to US interests in Asia and Africa. The competitions between the imperialist powers are giving rise to inter-imperialist conflicts and wars worldwide. Libya witnessed both popular uprising and a bitter interimperialist dispute. As Gaddafi long back put aside his anti imperialist slogans the people felt betrayed and rose up against him. The spark was provided by the Arab uprisings elsewhere in the North African region. People came out fearlessly on the streets to protest against his regime. We have seen time and again the intelligence services of the imperialist countries act in different forms, always looking for favourable conditions to exploit the situation. Libya was on their radar as they didn't favour Gaddafi and his regime and also for the fact that they were losing ground in other countries in that region. At once the US and it Allies were onto their feet to spread their propaganda about the necessity for military intervention in Libya although at several places in Benghazi and other insurgent strongholds people demonstrated with banners that said No to foreign intervention - Libyans must liberate themselves.
Imperialist aggression on Libya in the name of Humanitarian Intervention

Almost all sections of the media are portraying the on going civil war in Libya that suits the purpose of the agenda of US imperialists and its Allies. It can clearly be seen that US is
what can be expected from other classes. And as result of independence, the struggle against the local bourgeoisie as well as world capitalism came more to the fore. The countries in the industrializing world have, in a general sense, the same path to socialism as those of the industrialized world: through the growth of a proletariat, and its steeling in the struggle against all the crimes and pains of capitalism. There are no short-cuts. And if the "left communists" and Trotskyists and anarchists think that this requires too much patience, too much perseverance, too many sacrifices, too many different struggles, and want quick victory, then they are showing once again that they do not have the ability to lead the proletariat to victory. Typical of "left communism" and Trotskyism is a contemptuous attitude to theory. They convert Marxism into a cardboard caricature. They don't understand the need to study the situation facing the proletariat carefully, but substitute absurd general rules. Some say that Marx's inspiring call "the workers have no country" means that the workers should be indifferent to national oppression, rather than fighting against it. Some say that the national question, partial economic demands, trade unions etc. became reactionary in the 20th century. Some even are upset at the term "people", saying that to recognize the rights of the people is contradictory to basing oneself on the working class. And most agree with the reformists that the struggle against national oppression means supporting the local bourgeoisie. Indeed, what nonsense hasn't been said to deny the importance of opposing national oppression? Some claim that supporting one struggle for independence should logically mean supporting them all, as if supporting one political movement logically meant supporting them all, left, right or center. Some say that the principle that any one democratic right (including the right to self-determination) is subordinate to the interests of the overall revolutionary movement, as the part is subordinate to the whole, means that one needn't really be too concerned about these rights. They think that a revolutionary movement should support or reject these rights solely on the basis of whether it helps them to seize power, and don't see that such cynical manipulation would result in a movement being justly hated by the masses. All these simplified dogmas have nothing to do with Marxism; and they are a cover for the renunciation of any serious theoretical work. Marx, Engels and Lenin all stood for the right to self-determination--not just under capitalism, but even under socialism. The critique of Stalinism and Trotskyism and left phrase-mongering can draw inspiration from Marxist views on the national question. The Marxist theoretical standpoint, combined with the study of the new conditions of world imperialism, provides the firm basis for building up an anti-revisionist,anti-opportunist communism. It is this that will provide guidance for the rebirth of a militant proletarian movement--a movement that not only knows what the future society will be like, but that is capable of fighting against every single injustice of the present society. But its quite obvious of rising a question that after the all these trial of setting a model on self-determination question ,from a more logical and scientific school of thought than the present;what is or will be the problems, in it, which will falsify. As there are no rules for model-building,and as in political-science,its much easier to build a bad one than a good one-a bad model being one which abstracts from the essentials and therefore leads to neither insight nor understanding;example the capitalist model of democracy. We can only start with hypothesis and ideas,we can use them to separate the unimportant from the important,the false from the truth,the illogical from the logical;out of the residue we can shape what look like the parts and elements of a system;we can assemble the parts and elements,refining and polishing as we proceed. When we finally get our model ,there is one test to which we must subject it;does it help to make sense of the real situation?or does it help us to see the connections to which we were previously blind,to relate effects to causes,to replace the arbitrary and accidental by the regular and the necessary.We find our first and foremost duty to do this test before anyone does; so in the following we will try to find the loopholes of our previously built model only to strengthen it. Continued to the next issue
ananyomukherjeeslg@gmail.com The author is a political activist in West Bengal
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Contd. from page 13 nations. The bourgeoisie is most of all interested in the feasibility of a given demandhence the invariable policy of coming to terms with the bourgeoisie of other nations, to the detriment of the proletariat. For the proletariat, however, the important thing is to strengthen its class against the bourgeoisie and to educate the masses in the spirit of consistent democracy and socialism. This may not be practical as far as the opportunists are concerned, but it is the only real guarantee, the guarantee of the greater national equality and peace, despite the feudal landlords and the nationalist bourgeoisie.'' While criticizing Rosa Luxembourg, Lenin goes on step ahead taking the position of the social-democrats to a far more clear stand ''To clear up this question, which has been so confused by the liberals (and by those who are so misguided, as to echo them), we shall cite a very simple example. Let us take the question of divorce. In her article Rosa Luxembourg writes that the centralized democratic state, while conceding autonomy to its constituent parts, should retain the most important branches of legislation, including legislation on divorce, under the jurisdiction of the central parliament. The concern that the central authority of the democratic state should retain the power to allow divorce can be readily understood. The reactionaries are opposed to freedom of divorce; they say that it must be handled carefully, and loudly declare that it means the disintegration of the family. The democrats, however, believe that the reactionaries are hypocrites, and that they are actually defending the omnipotence of the police and the bureaucracy, the privileges of one of the sexes, and the worst kind of oppression of women. They believe that in actual fact freedom of divorce will not cause the disintegration of family ties, but, on the contrary, will strengthen them on a democratic basis, which is the only possible and durable basis in civilized society. ... i.e., the right of nations to secede, means nothing more than defense of the privileges of the dominant nation and police methods of administration, to the detriment of democratic methods. No doubt, the political chicanery arising from all the relationships existing in capitalist society sometimes leads members of parliament and journalists to indulge in frivolous and even nonsensical twaddle about one or another nation seceding. But only reactionaries can allow themselves to be frightened (or pretend to be frightened) by such talk. Those who stand by democratic principles, i.e., who insist that questions of state be decided by the mass of the population, know very well that there is a tremendous distancebetween what the politicians prate about and what the people decide. From their daily experience the masses know perfectly well the value of geographical and economic ties and the advantages of a big market and a big state. They will, therefore, resort to secession only when national oppression and national friction make joint life absolutely intolerable and hinder any and all economic intercourse. In that case, the interests of capitalist development and of the freedom of the class struggle will be best served by secession.'' So if we brief this whole thing up, it states that the defense of the right to self-determination is not the sum total of the proletariat's stand on the national question. The proletariat also stands for building organizations--trade unions, its political party and other mass organizations, study circles etc.--that embrace workers of all nationalities that live in the same country. It stands for building links between workers across national boundaries and building up a truly international workers' movement and a truly international class struggle. It works for a future socialist society in which national differences gradually disappear. Its ideology is proletarian internationalism. But without a struggle for the right to self-determination and against oppression, unity between the workers of different countries threatens to become a Sunday school phrase which convinces no on. People show that they have overcome national prejudices not when they are indifferent to national oppression and forcible annexations, but when they fight against all national oppression. . Today there are still nations fighting for their right to exist--
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such as the people of East Timor fighting Indonesian annexationism, or the Palestinians, or the Kashimiris or for different state in the same national boundary as in Gokhaland and in Telengana who are penned-up in a Bantustan-style separate area. The denunciation of all "separatism" would mean supporting the annexation-ism and colonialism of Indonesia, of Israel, and of the stronger bourgeoisies in the world. There are other places where whether a nation separates from another country or joins with it may or may not be advisable, but is not of overriding importance. But here too, denial of the right to self-determination means supporting--not the fraternal unity of the workers of different lands--but the annexationist desires of the strongest bourgeoisie. There are many other situations with respect to the national question. And of course the ruling bourgeoisie everywhere tries to justify its oppression of the masses through national phrases. But in all cases, it is necessary for the workers to recognize which cases involve national oppression, and to advocate that it is a basic democratic right that the people who live in a definite territory comprising a nation be allowed to decide for themselves. This is the only way the proletariat can demonstrate that it is not national borders, but freedom, and the fight against the bourgeoisie, that is uppermost in its mind. In this way, the workers pave the way for the merger of nations by insisting that this merger must be voluntary; As Lenin has explained it ''The interests of the working class and of its struggle against capitalism demand complete solidarity and the closest unity of the workers of all nations; they demand resistance to the nationalist policy of the bourgeoisie of every nationality. Hence, Social-Democrats would be deviating from proletarian policy and subordinating the workers to the policy of the bourgeoisie if they were to repudiate the right of nations to selfdetermination, i.e., the right of an oppressed nation to secede, or if they were to support all the national demands of the bourgeoisie of oppressed nations. It makes no difference to the hired worker whether he is exploited chiefly by the Great-Russian bourgeoisie rather than the non-Russian bourgeoisie, or by the Polish bourgeoisie rather than the Jewish bourgeoisie, etc. The hired worker who has come to understand his class interests is equally indifferent to the state privileges of the Great-Russian capitalists and to the promises of the Polish or Ukrainian capitalists to set up an earthly paradise when they obtain state privileges. Capitalism is developing and will continue to develop, anyway, both in integral states with a mixed population and in separate national states. In any case the hired worker will be an object of exploitation. Successful struggle against exploitation requires that the proletariat be free of nationalism, and be absolutely neutral, so to speak, in the fight for supremacy that is going on among the bourgeoisie of the various nations. If the proletariat of any one nation gives the slightest support to the privileges of its own national bourgeoisie, that will inevitably rouse distrust among the proletariat of another nation; it will weaken the international class solidarity of the workers and divide them, to the delight of the bourgeoisie. Repudiation of the right to self-determination or to secession inevitably means, in practice, support for the privileges of the dominant nation.'' Stalin also concludes in his chapter On the National Movement -The fate of the national movement, which is essentially a bourgeois movement, is naturally bound up with the fate of the bourgeoisie. The final collapse of the national movement is possible only with the collapse of the bourgeoisie. Only under the reign of Socialism can peace be fully established and emphasizes that to answer the nationalist problem complete democratization of the nation must take place. What that means is providing the following essential components: 1. Calling for and achieving regional unity in the areas where regional unity can be achieved. 2. Preserving the right to self-determination. 3. National equality (for minorities that means drafting laws that protect their own language, having their own schools, practicing their own religion, having access to free mobility across the nation, etc). 4. All this while working for internationalism and defeating tendencies for sectarianism. The whole Stalinist approach has little historical foundation as Contd. to page 15
planning another Iraq style invasion to get control over the oil rich nation. On March 19, under the garb of United Nations Security Council NATO imperialist forces comprising US, France, England, Canada, Italy and others started their bombing campaign on the pretext of protecting civilians from forces loyal to Gaddafi. The intention of the imperialist forces is to oust Gaddafi from power and install a puppet regime that will cater to the needs of America and other Western European powers. As NATO intensified its bombing campaign one could also see images shown by the corporate media of a group of rebels tearing down the green flag of the Libyan republic and replacing it with the flag of the overthrown King Idris - who had been a puppet of US and British imperialists. The corporate media very skilfully blacked out the voices of people against this military aggression and their patriotic and defiant resistance to defend their country. Even as the media backed by Western powers are trying to justify this Humanitarian Intervention one could clearly see through this as nothing but just a cover up in order to hoodwink the public. The US is keeping its mouth shut and feels that there is no need for such an intervention when it comes to nations like Bahrain and Yemen where many people have been killed in protests and the government is resorting to oppressive measure in order to curb the movements in their respective countries. The only reason for such Humanitarian Intervention is to gain foothold in North Africa which it seems to have lost in other nations like Egypt and Tunisia.
shot dead allegedly, on the orders of some rebel leaders who accused him of treason. Though there are many versions of the incident from both sides some blaming Gaddafi 's supporters who have infiltrated the rebel ranks and some believe a rebel splinter group was behind this. Whatever be the reason the popular uprising against Gaddafi has been misguided by reactionary elements and the desires of the masses have been suppressed. This will continue as long as reactionary elements continue to dominate the leadership in the rebel camp. In the meanwhile Gaddafi got the upper hand and is repulsing the attacks of the rebels successfully. The towns once under the control of the rebels are fasting falling under his control. The heavy bombardment by the NATO is only helping the rebels temporarily. The key oil town of Brega is still under Gaddafi's control even after six months of war. The rebels helped by NATO have made several attempts to occupy this key strategic oil city. The military strategy also reveals the greed behind imperialist aggression where they are selectively targeting Libya's oil rich regions. The war is not only limited to military action; US blocked $ 30 billion in Libyan Government assets in order to put economical pressure on Gaddafis regime. This money in turn will be used to fund the so called Humanitarian Efforts in Libya as proposed by the Senators of the most liberal country in the world. We can all see how the US and its Allies export democracy to other countries for their own needs. Its the time to sit up and think.
The Civil War in Libya

The popular uprising in Libya against Gaddafi's regime lacked revolutionary vision and it soon fell into the hands of reactionary elements that are forging an alliance with the imperialist forces. The situation is frustrating the general masses and has recently turned the tide in favour of Gaddafi. In the beginning the rebels made rapid advances towards the capital Tripoli. But soon cracks opened up in the rebel camp. As discussed earlier some elements amongst the rebels are supporting King Idris who was just a pawn of the US imperialists which has distanced them from the masses. In addition to this, as alleged by the Gaddafi regime, elements of Libyan Islamic Fighting Group are leading the rebels. This group was banned worldwide by United Nations as an affiliate of Al Qaeda. They were responsible for an assassination attempt on Gaddafi as well. This was confirmed by ex CIA agent Susan Lindauer on Russian television. Al Zawahiri, leader of Al Qaeda, has also extended his support for the rebels. This shows the desperation of the US imperialists in order to take control over natural resources. On one hand they claim to be fighting the Taliban and the Al Qaeda and on the other they have been supporting organisations having links with religious fundamentalist groups in order to get control over Libya. The war on Libya is far from being a Humanitarian Intervention protecting civilians. The NATO has repeatedly bombed schools, hospitals, communication facilities and recently civilian areas in Zlitan killing 88 civilians. But obviously NATO and western backed media have rejected all of these. Gaddafi and his regime have also resorted to violent measures in order to hang on to power. As the global crisis of capitalism grows it effects are also becoming more visible in the ongoing war in Libya. The Western powers are becoming more aggressive as they are willing to conquer new grounds to make profits but at the same time they are facing resistance at home and finding it difficult to justify their wars in these times of financial crisis. In the midst of these contradictions the war in Libya is worsening where the general masses are bearing the brunt. The confusion in the rebel camp is abounding. Conflicts between the factions are ever increasing. On 29th July the commander of the rebel army Abdel Fattah Younes (who was in Gaddafi's inner circle since 1969 coup) was
Conclusions
As many from Leftist camp are celebrating the progress made by Gaddafi's forces and setbacks suffered by the rebels and NATO one must be a bit more careful in supporting such bureaucratic capitalist regimes. Let us take a look into the past. Not only did Gaddafi support the West in its war on terror, in 1995 he expelled 30,000 Palestinians from Libya as a part of the collaborative process with imperialism. The popular committees which were meant for the participation of masses slowly became agents of corporatism which enabled oil companies especially from Western Europe to get a direct access to the natural resources of the country and surrendering itself to imperialism. On the other hand the rebels guided by their fanatic religious fundamentalist ideals are not being able to gain support amongst the masses and is generally betraying their aspirations which in turn is forcing them to support Gaddafi's regime as they can see a direct invasion from the west if the rebels come to power. The outcome of the Civil War is of great significance specially to the Arab world which has witnessed popular uprising against puppet government and the masses are still continuing their protests and fighting against oppressive regimes. The US and its Allies have suffered setbacks due to the popular uprising across the Arab world and it will try to get a foothold in Libya by justifying their actions. Gaddafi and his regime have been successful in keeping the imperialists at bay but it won't provide much of and alternative to the masses even if it stays in power. One might even witness Gaddafi's regime coming in terms with the West which won't be a surprise at all. As we have time and again noticed that for a liberation struggle to exist it is necessary to have a united front of classes oppressed by imperialism under revolutionary leadership to give popular democratic direction. The complicated dynamics of the civil war has leaded the masses astray. But nonetheless the popular uprisings in Libya and elsewhere in the Arab world have fertilized the grounds to awaken and forge its revolutionary vanguards. The slogan people against the regime which has become popular during the revolts in the Arab world will continue to echo and haunt the oppressors and their imperialist allies across the Gulf and North Africa.
Samtanisidhartha@gmail.com Sidhartha Samtani is a scholar in science
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DEEP INTO THE POLITICS WITHIN THE SELF-DETERMINATION MOVEMENT: A REVIEW

t looks like a clich writing or reading about the selfdetermination movements in a so-called third stream political magazine because this topic is on the hot seat for the past few years as far as discussions and political literatures are concerned. On the contrary, Arundhati Roy has said, '' you have to keep saying the same thing again and again to make people hear'' and we are setting this as a THUMB RULE when building up an alternative journalism or an alternative consensus opposite to the present one (created by the ruling class, media etc) in course of replacing the present hegemony with a new one ;we wont be an exception. So once again, as predicted, this piece will be in support of the ongoing movements for self-determination throughout India and thus will vow ,in particular , for the Gorkhaland movement by pointing out the democratic and progressive nature of all the movements unmasking the perpetuation of inequalities in a semi-feudal,semicolonial state like India which is ruled (or, as is probably rather apt to say, exploited )in a neo-colonial form. when we are writing ''neo-colonial form of rule or repression'',we want to make it very clear that we will give enough emphasis on the role of imperialism and big monopolistic capital which are not only controlling the whole economic-political paradigm of India but also looting the country and dismantling the ''cultural soul'' of different minority groups and tribal communities in course of their conquest and shaping up things as they want according to the character of the market. But this is not the only thing we will try to say this time. We will try to show the hypocrisy of the Indian state in its very formation as well as in dealing with the aspiration for self-identity and with caste problem of the minority communities. we will also try to find the character of the new dynamics of these movements, their future and the problems emerging from these, demanding a constant critical review of the present ''idea'' about these movements by means of participation. Besides ,we feel that in todays world the movement for selfdetermination and tribal uprising is a very important issue to be addressed from a renewed perception. As, Arundhati Roy has said in one of her interviews ,'' if you see all the movements in the modern world, you will notice that from Tunisia to Afghanistan, Wajiristan and from these area of so-called Muslim fundamentalism to Kashmir, from north-eastern states to the states of middle and south-eastern India, it is an ongoing tribaluprising taking place as a reaction of imperialist attack on the livelihood and resources'' . So it is right to say ''let me begin with by posing for you a conflict that lies at the heart of the modern politics in most of the world. It is the opposition between the universal idea of civic nationalism, based on individual freedom and equal rights irrespective of distinctions of religion, race, language or culture and the particular demands of cultural identity, which call for the differential treatment of particular groups on grounds of vulnerability or backwardness or historical injustice, or indeed for numerous other reasons.'' (from the Politics of the Governed by Partha Chatterjee) On the other hand ,we are quite aware of the situation in the hills of Darjeeling as it has created quite a spectacle of people's aspiration towards self-determination,fall and rise of different local organizations which have tried to be the ''only'' representative of people and then eventually putting the whole issue on the table of negotiation curbing people's demand. But in this process all these organization, GNLF (Gorkha National Liberation Front) previously and now GJMM (Gorkha Jana Mukti Morcha), has been able to enjoy the monopolistic power. First of all, Ghisingh led GNLF enjoyed this power and negotiated with the state at the time of CPM regime in West Bengal over the demand of selfdetermination, opened the space for emergence of GJMM with a more polarized mass support. By trying to appease Ghisingh, the

Contd. from page 12 that the self-determination of nations means the political separation of these nations from alien national bodies, and the formation of an independent national state.'' Using the words from a statement of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance, a platform for protection of the democratic rights of the indigenous Cordillera nation in Philippines, - In the most general terms, the right to self-determination means the right of every historically-constituted people to determine their destiny and development based on their own wishes, free from forcible interference by other peoples. It is the sovereign right of a people to freely choose and develop their own socio- economic, political, and cultural systems. In a specifically political sense, the right to selfdetermination is the right of a people to constitute itself as an independent state or as a separate political entity if it so decides, enjoying the same rights as all other nation-states, or otherwise, to freely determine its mode of association with an existing state wherein it enjoys the same rights as the other constituent peoples of that state. In this sense, the right to self-determination covers a wide range of options that a people can choose from. It is generally accepted that such a right is bestowed upon a collection of people forming a distinct nation. The obvious question is then, what defines a nation? Stalin has summarized it succinctly - A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture. Such a definition implies that within the boundaries of a country, there can exist several nations with distinct identities. In such circumstances, national oppression consists of institutionalised or deeply ingrained set of oppressive policies and practices adopted by the dominant nation against other nationalities. This results in socio-economic discriminations which hinder the development or growth of the oppressed nations. As a result, these suppressed nations begin to assert their right to decide their future, in a bid to liberate themselves from the national oppression. Ever since the birth of modern countries, the right of selfdetermination of oppressed nations have been enunciated in different corners of the world. With the raging anti-colonial struggles across the globe, such demands became more vociferous. After the end of World War II, the United Nations was forced to address this problem and it led, finall, to the proclamation of the right of self-determination as an universal right, enshrined in the two international covenants - International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The first paragraph of common article 1 states: All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. In the post-colonial period, debates have continued within the United Nations due to the innumerable conflicts between existing nationstates and the oppressed nationalities seeking to exercise the right to self-determination. Also, the famous Universal Declaration of the Rights of Peoples, signed in Algiers in 1976, upholds the right to political self-determination; the declaration state Every people has an imprescriptible and unalienable right to self-determination. It shall determine its political status freely and without any foreign interference. Every people has the right to break free from any colonial or foreign domination, whether direct or indirect, and from any racist regime. Every people has the right to have democratic government representing all the citizens without distinction as to race, sex, belief or color, and capable of ensuring effective respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms for all.'' But talking of the connection between the class struggle and the nationality movements one has to quote Lenin from his The Right Of Nations To Self-determinism; the Historically Concrete Presentation Of The Question -''First of all, it implies that a clear distinction must be drawn between the two periods of capitalism, which differ radically from each other as far as the national
ANANYO MUKHERJEE
former governments had only alienated themselves further from the agitating masses. As the unrest grew, Ghisingh was forced to resign from his position of caretaker chairman of DGHC. Also, in February 2008, bowing to the pressure of the Hill communities, the central government decided to postpone matters related to the Sixth Schedule and Ghishing had to leave Darjeeling as a result of regimented grievance of general people of the hills against Ghishing's corruption and negotiating attitude towards the demand of a separate state. Since that incident, we have been evident of a qualitative change in the GJMM influence over the people of the hills. GJMM started to turn itself to a monopolistic party and ''the only representative'' of people's aspiration towards self-determination. As a matter of fact, on the month of may,2010, AIGL supremo, Madan Tamang was killed and the democratic voices protesting the monopolistic nature of GJMM (even for sometimes, protesting the lumpen character of GJMM) looked to cut loose. But this was in vain in front of the aggressive leadership of Bimal Gurung. We could see another difference in the leadership structure of Gorkhaland's movement from the previous ones ,up to the GNLF regime that it was more like controlled by a certain man or leader, but in the present movement there a council of leaders has emerged replacing the one-man monopoly over the movement, showing a new trend of emergence of a ''civil society'' in the hills. On 15th February, 2011 though Morcha leadership primarily agreed on building the interim government, people's aspiration and movement compelled the Morcha leadership to fall back from their position and further strengthened the demand for a separate state. On the same month, prior to West Bengal assembly election, police firing killed three morcha-activists at Shipchu, Duars including two women and this unwanted incident gave a new edge to the movement just before the election. As a result of this, the polarization of mass totally focused on GJMM to make it sure that the demand for self-identity and separate state could reach to its highest peak. As predicted, GJMM won the election not only without any hiccups but with flying colours ensuring the largest margin ever in the history of West Bengal assembly election. but GJMM was not the only player making its path here, Trinamool Congress also got a place to keep its foot in the hills and TMC supremo Mamata Banarjee assured resolving the ''hill issue'' in between three months if her party could be the ruling party throwing CPM away in exchange of GJMM's support in the assembly. So after, all the plans went right, the newly elected chief minister, Mamata Banarjee announced a new development scheme and gave a new name of the local authority liable to most of all the legislative power with renewed and more powerful authority called GTA (GORKHALAND TERRITORIAL ADMINISTRATION). But the paradox is, that the demand for self-identity and separate state remains at the same position and the GTA is placed just as an exhaust valve to appease the hill, to derail the movement and people's aspirations. GJMM is just showing its original and expected character to negotiate with the state to enjoy its new power, just the way GNLF did. So, instead of the previous CPM-GNLF alliance, its time for the TMC-GJMM alliance to wear the mask, to delude the mass and for GJMM its the time to seat on the throne of monopoly, squeezing every democratic and radical voice in the hills once again after the GNLF regime. Its like perpetuating the same vicious loop again and again without getting on any new path that leads to a change, a leap forward that could justify the aspirations of the mass towards their self-determination. But this situation is not uncommon in case of self-determination movements in India. If we go through the history of Jharkhand or the movement for self-determination by the adivasis, it had been always a same tale of traitorous role of the ''mainstream'' local
movement is concerned. On the one hand, there is the period of the collapse of feudalism and absolutism, the period of the formation of the bourgeois-democratic society and state, when the national movements for the first time become mass movements and in one way or another draw all classes of the population into politics through the press, participation in representative institutions, etc. On the other hand, there is the period of fully formed capitalist states with a long-established constitutional regime and a highly developed antagonism between the proletariat and the bourgeoisiea period that may be called the eve of capitalisms downfall. The typical features of the first period are: the awakening of national movements and the drawing of the peasants, the most numerous and the most sluggish section of the population, into these movements, in connection with the struggle for political liberty in general, and for the rights of the nation in particular. Typical features of the second period are: the absence of mass bourgeoisdemocratic movements and the fact that developed capitalism, in bringing closer together nations that have already been fully drawn into commercial intercourse, and causing them to intermingle to an increasing degree, brings the antagonism between internationally united capital and the international working-class movement into the forefront. Of course, the two periods are not walled off from each other; they are connected by numerous transitional links, the various countries differing from each other in the rapidity of their national development, in the national make up and distribution of their population, and so on. There can be no question of the Marxists of any country drawing up their national programme without taking into account all these general historical and concrete state conditions.'' He continues explaining the ''practicality'' of this question saying that 'The bourgeoisie, which naturally assumes the leadership at the start of every national movement, says that support for all national aspirations is practical. However, the proletariats policy in the national question (as in all others) supports the bourgeoisie only in a certain direction, but it never coincides with the bourgeoisies policy. The working class supports the bourgeoisie only in order to secure national peace (which the bourgeoisie cannot bring about completely and which can be achieved only with complete democracy), in order to secure equal rights and to create the best conditions for the class struggle. Therefore, it is in opposition to the practicality of the bourgeoisie that the proletarians advance their principles in the national question; they always give the bourgeoisie only conditional support. What every bourgeoisie is out for in the national question is either privileges for its own nation, or exceptional advantages for it; this is called being practical. The proletariat is opposed to all privileges, to all exclusiveness. To demand that it should be practical means following the lead of the bourgeoisie, falling into opportunism. The demand for a yes or no reply to the question of secession in the case of every nation may seem a very practical one. In reality it is absurd; it is metaphysical in theory, while in practice it leads to subordinating the proletariat to the bourgeoisies policy. The bourgeoisie always places its national demands in the forefront, and does so in categorical fashion. With the proletariat, however, these demands are subordinated to the interests of the class struggle. Theoretically, you cannot say in advance whether the bourgeois-democratic revolution will end in a given nation seceding from another nation, or in its equality with the latter; in either case, the important thing for the proletariat is to ensure the development of its class. For the bourgeoisie it is important to hamper this development by pushing the aims of its own nation before those of the proletariat. That is why the proletariat confines itself, so to speak, to the negative demand for recognition of the right to selfdetermination, without giving guarantees to any nation, and without undertaking to give anything at the expense of another nation. This may not be practical, but it is in effect the best guarantee for the achievement of the most democratic of all possible solutions. The proletariat needs only such guarantees, whereas the bourgeoisie of every nation requires guarantees for its own interest, regardless of the position of (or the possible disadvantages to) other Contd. to page 14
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Contd. from page 9 sway over our existence. We are willing that it may happen, though the idea of Swaraj recalls to the mind of many of the tyrannies, oppressions ans injustices practiced upon us in the past.'' The dilemma is clearly posed here. The colonial government, for all its homilies about the need of uplift the oppressed of the tyranny on traditional Hinduism, could only look after the untouchables as its subjects, it could never give them citizenship. Only under an independent national constitution was citizenship conceivable for the untouchables. Yet, if the independence meant the rule of the same compradors from the British regime, how could the untouchables except equal citizenship and the end of the social tyranny from which they had suffered for centuries? Ambedkar was concerned about the future but still held his position high: the untouchables must support national independence that would lead to the political dominance of the same upper castes, same compradors, same hegemonic people but they must press on with the struggle for equality within the framework of the new constitution. Standing on today's India, we can say that his concern about the future was totally right. Back in 1932 , the method of achieving equal citizenship for the untouchables became the issue in a dramatic standoff between Ambedkar and Gandhi. Gandhi reacted fiercely to Ambedkar's suggestion that upper caste congress leader could never properly represent the untouchables, calling it ''the unkindest cut of all'' and then indulging in a rather un-mahatma like boost, he declared: ''I claim myself in my own person to represent the vast mass of the untouchables'' and showing his religious-chauvinism once again, commented, ''I do not mind untouchables, if they desire, being converted to Islam or Christianity. I should tolerate that, but I can not tolerate what is in store for Hinduism if there are two divisions set forth in the villages.'' He tried to uproot every logics given by Ambedkar ;'' those who speak of the political rights of Untouchables do not know their India, do not know how Indian society is constructed''. But Ambedkar refused to join Gandhi in building injected homogeneity in constitutional negotiations over equal citizenship. The untouchables, he insisted, were a minority within the nation and needed special representation in the political body. On the other hand, Gandhi and the congress, while asserting that the nation was one and indivisible, has always conceded that the Muslims were a minority within the nation and they just represented the minority problem internal to Hinduism. Imperceptibly, the homogeneity of India slides into the homogeneity of the Hindus. So the ''Homogeneity breaks down on one plane, only to be reasserted on another. Heterogeneity, unstoppable at one point, is forcibly suppressed at another'' (from Politics of the Governed, Partha Chatterjee). We are emphasizing this particular section of the article as we are trying to go into deep of the problem of the minority problem and the raise of the demands of self-determination; trying to recapture the time in a new frame from when the problem took a decisive role in Indian polity, thus one can connect him/herself in a perfect chain of analysis which will lead him/her to the modern spectra. So we need not spend more time trying to assess the merits of Ambedkar's argument but we insist on emphasizing that in his analysis, Ambedkar was aware that the slogan of universality is often a mask to cover the perpetuation of the real inequalities. The politics of democratic nationhood offers a means of achieving a more substantive equality but only by ensuring full representation for the underprivileged groups within the body politic. A ''strategic politics'' of groups, classes, communities, ethnics-bound servilities of all sorts - is thus inevitable in the present system of state machinery and production system. On the other hand, unlike the utopian claims of universalistic nationalism, one can never yield a general formula for all people, coming from different contradictory classes of all times; its solution are always to be strategic, contextual, historically specific and bound and inevitably,
provisional. This double-facade of the Indian ruling class thus not only shows the crisis of governance but specifically showed the eternal crisis of the idea of universal nation chalked out by the bourgeois; moreover the crisis of the capitalism to act according to the demand of the minorities which can be linguistic, caste-based or religious. Benedict Anderson has captured this abstract and vague universal idea of civic nationalism in his Imagined Communites saying that a nation lives in a homogeneous empty time (rather apt to say the time of capital). In this time, capital allows no resistance to its free movement, when it encounters an impediment, it thinks it has encountered another time-something out of pre-capital, something that belongs to per-modern. Such resistance to capital or its idea of modernity are therefore tagged as coming out of humanity's past, something people should left behind but somehow haven't. But by imagining capital or its idea of modernity as an attribute of time itself, it succeeds not only in branding the resistance to it as archaic and backward, but also secure the capital, modernity and the pro-capital consensus of the mass to advertise the culture of consumerism, regardless of what other people may believe or hope or fighting for. This process implies that for each category of classification, any individual has to count only either zero or one, are you modern or not, which in turn means that all partial and mixed affiliations to a category of people are also ruled out in this time of capital, leaving no chance of any partial relief; permanent solution is a far dream to be dreamt of. One can only be black or not black, Muslim or not Muslim, tribal or not tribal, never analyzing contextually which is the main soul of dialectical materialism or the thought to the only possible solution i.e. socialism. So Anderson suggests that these bound serialities of the idea of civic nationalism created by the idealist school of thought to mask the inequalities are constricting and perhaps inherently conflicting with the democratic aspiration of minorities and thus they produce the tools of ethnic politics. So don't get any idea that any restructuring of the present governance or some reforms would solve these problems; it only needs to destroy the present one by building the new. Nationalities And Their Right To Self determination: Through Marxist Eyes The movement in Darjeeling has once again brought into discussion, the issues related to the right to self-determination. Let us now try to understand what this right implies and who are in a position to exercise this right. As Lenin has said in The Rights Of Nations To Self-determinism, ''Throughout the world, the period of the final victory of capitalism over feudalism has been linked up with national movements. For the complete victory of commodity production, the bourgeoisie must capture the home market, and there must be politically united territories whose population speak a single language, with all obstacles to the development of that language and to its consolidation in literature eliminated. Therein is the economic foundation of national movements. Language is the most important means of human intercourse. Unity and unimpeded development of language are the most important conditions for genuinely free and extensive commerce on a scale commensurate with modern capitalism, for a free and broad grouping of the population in all its various classes and, lastly, for the establishment of a close connection between the market and each and every proprietor, big or little, and between seller and buyer. Therefore, the tendency of every national movement is towards the formation of national states, under which these requirements of modern capitalism are best satisfied. The most profound economic factors drive towards this goal, and, therefore, for the whole of Western Europe, nay, for the entire civilised world, the national state is typical and normal for the capitalist period. Consequently, if we want to grasp the meaning of self-determination of nations, not by juggling with legal definitions, or inventing abstract definitions, but by examining the historico-economic conditions of the national movements, we must inevitably reach the conclusion Contd. to page 13
organizations which came forth to represent people's demand and then totally fell back only to create a newer monopoly over the democratic space. We vow to inspect this spectra with a vigilant outlook only to reach to a possible solution which can rightly uphold people's demand in this matter. The Story Of The Double-facade:an Indian Legacy: Observing the government's policies and its hypocrisy in masking the inequalities from a critical angle, let us introduce you a ''spectacle'' of ours which we are going to propose and persuade you to look through; i.e. ''Governance, that the new buzzword in policy studies, is, I will suggest, the body of technology and set of techniques used by or on behalf of, those who govern. Democracy today, I will insist, is not government of, by and for the people. rather, it should be seen as the politics of the governed''[from the Politics of Governed by Partha Chatterjee] While India recognizes the right to self-determination of nations under foreign occupation, it, however, does not acknowledge the right to self-determination of nations, within its national boundaries, which may lead to secession. From the very days of ''independence'', therefore, it has been entangled in conflict with various such nationalities, in the North as well as North East. However, within national boundaries, it accepts the formation of new provinces. The Indian constitution categorically states that the Indian Parliament may, by law, form a new State by separation of territory from any State or by uniting two or more States or parts of States or by uniting any territory to a part of any State; increase the area of any State; diminish the area of any State; alter the boundaries of any State; alter the name of any State. Therefore, the aspiration of the people of Darjeeling to form a separate state within the Indian union does not violate the constitution. The success of the movement of self-determination is completely dependent on how forceful the demands are for the separate state and how willing or democratic are the so-called political establishments. Though the problem lies deep rooted in the making of the Indian state. As it is said earlier in this article the structuring of the country was done with a stroke of pen by the imperialist British government and the comprador ruling class of India. As a result, we got an ''independence'' but only for the higher classes and they created a ''world of spectacle'' for the rest of the classes; The transfer of power happened but unaltered every repressive system. Though this spectacle sets very loosely on the eyes of the workingclass, the peasants who have to fight to death for every day's bread and have to live under the heavy burden of structural violence which is carefully planned by the comprador ruling class and imperialism and smoothly executed by the middle-class either in conscious or in sub-conscious and even in compulsion. These tends to overwrite the people's voice, their demands but on the other hand the states were formed more or less depending on the per-existing state boundaries. This formation of states was totally done keeping the local landlords or the feudal successors in confidence because all these ''tails of Indian feudalism'' were then transformed into political leaders of the political parties, especially Indian National Congress, who were writing the ''future'' of India. So its quite evident that all these parties of landlords and comprador bourgeoisie made the states as they wanted in a way that they could repress people, could get a long time issue to fight with which will keep the working-class and the marginalised people to fight among each other and thus our ''almighty'' rulers can rule the country in ''piece and peace''. It can be identified as a failed governance or the eternal undemocratic nature of the capitalism that the ruling class always come in to play with their two-faces, speaking double-speak in case of dealing with people's demand of self-determination. This is quite evident if we go through the history of Gokhaland or of any other self-determination movement in India. But don't have a vague idea that this demand takes its place only after the so-called independence, as in case of Darjeeling, the aspiration has been getting its polarization over last 100 years. The hypocrisy of the Indian state came wide open from the time of freedom struggle, when B. R. Ambedkar
introduced the demand for equal rights for the minorities and the ''untouchables''. As early as 1920, Ambedkar had posed the problem of representation faced by untouchables in India: ''the right of representation and the right to hold office under the state are the two most important rights that make up citizenship. But the untouchability of the untouchables puts these rights far beyond their reach....they[the untouchables] can be represented by the untouchables alone''. The general representation of all citizens would not serve the requirements of the untouchables, because of dominating prejudices and entrenched practices among the dominant castes, there was no reason to expect that latter would generously use the law to emancipate the untouchables. ''A legislature composed of high caste men will not pass a law removing untouchability, sanctioning inter-marriages, removing the ban on the use of the public streets, public temples, public schools..this is not because they cannot, but chiefly because they will not.'' These findings of Ambedkar clearly reflects a passive denial of the governance by the dominant castes and a quest for an alternative and more democratic governance. One, having a little knowledge about the Gorkhaland movement might be able to connect the aspiration of these two, with the denial of government hospitals, police stations and any other from of governance run by the West Bengal government (or rather to say the governance of the dominant Bengali community). Since the period of GNLF to GJMM's regime, in the denial of West Bengal government by writing GL or GORKHALAND on the car number plates, on the boards of the government offices and by destructing government property, a clear message is sent by the people of hills that they are defiant to overthrow the domination of the dominant and resolute to establish own governance. The aspiration of the Lalgarh movement is more or less same. Starting from self-determination, its path leads to complete denial of the present repressive system. People's Committee against Police Atrocity (PCAPA) put fourth some interesting demands like kneeling down of the police officers in public who were involved in the act of atrocities and repression. It raised the old question once again that ''whether people serving government or government serving people'' and started running their own government which is now under the brutal attack of 8000 CRPF- State armed police joint force. In colonial and post-colonial India, there has been several constitutional laws to secure the representation of the untouchables, and many of those has been tried out in India. One is the protection by officers of the interests of the lower castes against the politically dominant upper castes or the nomination by the government of distinguished men from the untouchable groups to serve as their representatives. Another way is to reserve a certain amount of seats in the legislature only for the candidates from the lower castes. Yet another is to have separate electorates of lower castes who could elect their own representatives. All these methods were actually meant keeping the root of the problem unaltered and unharmed because if these problem was to be solved, Indian govt. had to call for democratisation of the state system by means of a new democratic revolution to change the production relationships and today it seems like a bad joke in front of draconian laws like UAPA and all the scams; list not needed. Ambedkar ruled out all these methods, especially method of special representation. In 1930, when Congress declared independence or Swaraj as its political goal, Ambedkar declared at a conference of the depressed classes: ''the bureaucratic form of government in India should be replaced by a government of the people, by the people and for the people...we feel that nobody can remove our grievances as well as we can, and we cannot remove them unless we get political power in our own hands. No share of this political power can evidently come to us long as the British regime remains as it is. It is only in a Swaraj constitution that we stand any chance of getting the political power in our own hands, without which we cannot bring salvation to our people....we know that political power is passing from the British into the hands of those who wield such tremendous economic, social and religious Contd. to page 12
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IS THE MAMATA BANERJEE-LED WEST BENGAL GOVERNMENT REALLY SINCERE ABOUT THE RELEASE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS?
AMIT BHATTACHARYYA
n the eve of the elections to the WB Legislative Assembly, Mamata Banerjee in his election campaign, declared that she would release all political prisoners if her party was voted to power(Well free all political prisoners: Mamata, TOI, 212-2011). Literally it means that all the cases against political prisoners would be withdrawn and both under-trial and convicted prisoners would be set free unconditionally. Political prisoners languishing in jail for several years, the members of their families, members of the civil rights bodies felt encouraged at the feeling that a large number of patriotic, ideologically motivated political workers who had been incarcerated for years for their conviction in abysmal conditions would at last see the light of the day. The prisoners who had been subjected to so much hardship and indignity at the hands of the state forces of the erstwhile hated and isolated Buddhadev-led Left-front governmentthose who have been languishing in jail as also those released on bailwould be finally set free. It is unfortunate to find that that hope was belied in no time. The hope gradually turned into concern just after the TMC election manifesto came out. In the preface to the appeal signed by Mamata Banerjee captioned Our Appeal: Good Governance, what was written is as follows: Cases of political prisoners would be reviewed and it would be seen if they had committed any offence deserving punishment, or if they were deliberately framed under cooked-up charges out of animosity. Steps would be taken on the basis on the observations of the committee. Such views are a departure from the pledge to release all political prisoners unconditionally that Banerjee made in the public meeting at Mayo Road, Kolkata on 20th February 2011. It is pertinent to point out that when the Left-front government was formed in 1977 after the defeat of the hated Indira-Siddhartha regime, it took the political decision to release all political prisoners unconditionally. The question of case-to-case review was not raised at that time. The West Bengal government set a 14-member review committee on 4th June 2011 with Justice Maloy Sengupta as the Chairperson. There were seven points in the terms of reference; out of those, the last three points are relevant for our purpose. These are: 1) to examine the conduct of prisoners in the correctional homes; 2) to ascertain the probability of instigating others to commit offences; 3) to examine the probability of instigating others to commit the offences(See; Government of West Bengal Home Department Political Resolution in The Kolkata Gazette Extraordinary, 4th June 2011). Needless to say ascertain such things is tantamount to taking an undertaking from the prisoners that they would refrain from doing such political acts in future. It is notable that the then central Home Minister, Mr. Charan Singh, in collusion with the capitulationist Naxalite leader, Mr. Satyanarayan Singh, sought to extract an undertaking from the convicted Naxalite prisoners that would abjure violence and sent copies of such undertaking to the convicted prisoners lodged in the different jails spread over all parts of the country. In West Bengal, some such political prisoners did get release after signing the undertaking. However, there were many others who refused with distain as they knew it well that it would be beneath their dignity as political activists and revolutionaries and such steps would be tantamount to their death as political persons. However, such steps to extract such an undertaking were thwarted by the peoples movement for the unconditional release of political prisoners and prisoners were released unconditionally, although it took some more months for their release. We are tempted to ask Mamata
Banerjee whether she would be willing to secure her own release by agreeing such humiliating conditions. Needless to state, this is not the language of democracy; it is the language of fascism. After the formation of the review committee, a tug-of-war started over the issue of who are to be considered political prisoners. The bureaucrats and top police officials who form members of the committee insisted that only those who have got the status of political prisoners may be considered as such. Other members of the review committee disagreed and held that the number of such prisoners is much more than that. Ultimately, the review committee asked the prisoners to make appeals to the court for gaining the status of political prisoners. Such decisions appeared to be objectionable to many among us. In our 2nd issue(July 2011) of Bandi Barta(Prisoners Bulletin), we stated: Who are our political prisoners? Firstly, they are those who have been charged under sedition i.e, who have been booked under the charge of waging war against the Indian state. Within this section there are the members of the CPI(Maoist), their well-wishers, Kamtapuri activists, a large section of the adivasi people living in the Jungle Mahal region, persons associated with the Gorkhaland struggle, UAPA prisoners(almost all of them are charged with having Maoist connections), people associated with the struggle against land acquisition such as those attached to the Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh struggles, people associated with different democratic movements( e.g, SUCI, Forward, TMC or activists of other parliamentary parties as also participants in workers movements. It implies that prisoners who have been motivated by some ideology to do good to people, and not by any desire to promote self-interest will be regarded as political prisoners. The method adopted by themwhether armed or unarmed is immaterial here. All these prisoners should be considered as political prisoners and this is recognized also by the West Bengal Correctional Services Act. Some members of the review committee visited the jails, met the prisoners and advised them to submit applications for bail. Then another problem cropped up. The public prosecutors in all the courts opposed such applications and so none of the prisoners could secure release on bail. The PPs said that they had not received any directive from the appropriate authority not to oppose such prayers for bail. Meantime, the review committee recommended release(all under-trials) of 78 political prisoners in the first phase. We came to know from media reports that in that list were included the names of some Maoist prisoners apart from Gorkhaland, Kamtapuri and other prisoners. According to media, Patitpabn Haldar, Himadri Sen Roy, Chandi Sarkar, Pradip Chattopadhyay, Sudip Chongdarall Maoist prisonerswere to be set free. After a few days we were surprised to know that the chief minister had deleted some names(all Maoist) from the list recommended by the review committee without consultations with the committee and declared his intention to release only 52 prisoners. Only two Maoist prisoners were thereChandi Sarkar and Pradip Chottopadhyayboth lodged in Krishnanagar jail, district Nadia. Mamata Banerjee also declared that those 52 prisoners would be released on 15th Augustan auspicious day indeed! No sooner had a day or two gone by; we were informed by the media that as the central government had raised objections to the name of the two Maoist prisoners, the state government will also not consider their cases for the present. We were surprised again. From the legal and moral points of view it is entirely under the discretion of the state
government on who to be released and who to be not and the central massive processions comprising 10 to 30 thousand people showed has absolutely no right to poke its nose here. But the central home the strength of the struggling people and their will to battle on department controlled by Chidambaram did poke its nose and despite state-sponsored brutality of all types. Mamata readily complied. Why we do not know. Does not such a In the TMC manifesto, it was declared that they would step on the part of Mamata Banerjee put to question her sincere suppress state repression. What we are witnessing is state desire to release political prisoners? This constitutes one part of it. repression and nothing else. In place of suppression of state There is another part also. The WB chief minister in her own repression the police and para military forces have been carrying style waved a piece of paper containing the list of prisoners before on their raids in village homes, destroying property, intimidating the media to declare that they would be set free on 15th August. people and arresting and subjecting some to brutality. In areas The general public, the members of the families of prisoners, the under Jhargram, Sankrail, Beleberia, Belpahari and other police media probably also thought that all cases against them must now stations, where people resorted to relay hunger strikes, did not be withdrawn, as the public declaration could convey no meaning these terrorist forces oppress the hunger strikers and forced them other than that. Far from it. They will be released not by to withdraw their fast? Were not a number of human rights withdrawal of cases, but on bail. We were surprised again. Is the activists, physicians, scholars and others who went to the affected chief minister the authority on whom granting of bail depend? Or is areas to make field investigation or treat patients, detained and it the judge? The chief ministers office might instruct the PP not to arrested and subjected to indignity in the hands of the oppose bail applications. But according to the law of the land, it is Chidambarm-Mamata combined forces? A new tactics adopted by solely the judge i.e. judicial authority who exercises the sole the security forces now-a-days is that they are encircling a number authority to take decisions in this matter, and not the chief of villages and that continues for days together. For two days(10th minister. Does not the chief minister Mamata realize the difference and 11th September 2011), villages such as Kumari, Birhor, between authority of the judiciary and that of the executive? There Bankshol, Madhupur and Chandbila were encircles in this way and is no doubt that erstwhile WB government led by Buddhadev nobody was allowed to come out. A police officer gleefully declared Bhattacharya interfered in that they are now calling all the authority of the the villagers to come out of judiciary. In many a time, their home and assemble in we received complaints the open field where they that the justice was taking were to show their identity decisions on the basis of proofs to the police forces. advice from the PP; there Then the forces would enter were cases when their empty houses to carry application for bail were on search operations. rejected by the judge on the Needles to state, during plea of the prisoner being a such operations everything Maoist. That phase is past in the houses was at the now. But what is the new mercy of the marauding government doing? brutes. Mamata can talk about Mamata Banerjee has release only when her also formed a committee of Human chain on 15th August demanding release of political prisoners, Jhargram government takes the interlocutors to mediate political decision to with the armed opposition withdraw all cases. To say groups in the Jungle Mahal anything other than this is tantamount to poking executives nose region. He also promised them jobs--the job of the police for 10,000 into the affairs of the judiciary, which is unconstitutional. How can adivasis. She declared: If you want to wield weapons, do it for the we describe this? Is it an unfathomable ignorance on the part of nation. What a declaration! Is this job not a violent one? Does it not Mamata Banerjee or an attempt to deceive the people for keeping mean that adivasis would be pitted against their own brethren and intact her pro-people image? What did we see? Not a single start a fratricidal war? All the democratic people raised their voice prisoner was reported to have come out of jail on bail on or before against this Bengali version of Salwa Judum initiated by Raman 15th August. Chhattre Subba and his associates in the Gorkhaland Singh, the notorious chief minister of Chhattisgarh. This policy has movement were acquitted after years of trial and naturally their been banned by the Supreme Court. release had nothing to do with governmental steps. Some KLO The new government, formed on 20th May 2011, has completed activists have been released on bail. However, Tom Adhikari, four months of its regime. But not a single demand of the people of another KLO prisoner now lodged in Jalpaiguri jail, has started Jungle Mahalrelease of political prisoners, withdrawal of joint hunger strike demanding unconditional release. Not a single forces, suppression of state repression, establishment of Maoist prisoner could see the light of the day. democracy, creation of an atmosphere where every citizen would be Meanwhile, the struggling people of Jungle Mahal formed their able to air their views freely, move freely without being subjected to own committeethe Jungle Mahal Bandi Mukti Committee in threats from the state forcesnothing has been fulfilled. Is this Nedamara village, Nedamara Area No.5 in Jhargram and the new what Mamatas Ma Mati Manush government wants to do? If committee is taking programmes. Its formation is a response to the Mamata wants to adopt the same policy of the previous utter inaction of the leadership of the Bandi Mukti Committee to governmentthat of trampling down democratic rights of the whom it is better to remain close to the ruling TMC party than to people, then what is the difference, one wonders, between the launch continuous agitational programme for prisoners release. Mamata-led government and that hated Buddhadev-led The BMC has been facing criticism from several quarters for its government? Should Mamata Banerjee succumb to the dictates of inaction and is being branded by many as the BMC of the TMC. Mr. Chidambaram, the central home minister (read Central Within the four walls of prison, the prisoners have been Minister in charge of war against the people of our beloved struggling; they are organizing hunger strikes and issuing motherland) and compromise with her pre-election pledges, or statements. Outside various forums such as those of students, should she take a positive step and listen to the voice of the people? women, civil rights bodies and others have been carrying on both The decision is hers. Or has she taken the decision already? relay and indefinite hunger strikes; protest meetings at street corners, demonstrations, processions have taken place. Prof. Amit Bhattacharyya is in History Department of Jadavpur University and the General Secretary of CRPP Conventions were organized. In Medinipur and Jhargram towns,
amit_bh200405@yahoo.com
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VOL III ISSUE II JULY-AUGUST 2011 RS.

VOL III ISSUE II SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2011

VOL III ISSUE II SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2011

ANNA MOVEMENT REFLECTS STREAK OF FASCISM

LALGARH IN POST ASSEMBLY ELECTION

Redpluck@gmail.com Himadri is associated with Delhi School of Economics

VOL III ISSUE II SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2011

VOL III ISSUE II SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2011

AN APPEAL FROM JITEN MARANDI:

Contd. from page 25

VOL III ISSUE II SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2011

VOL III ISSUE II SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2011

VERDICT ON SALWA JUDUM

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THE SAGA OF INFLATION: THE TALE OF A SILENT MURDER

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IMPERIALISM, HANDS OF LIBYA

THE SELF-DETERMINATION MOVEMENT: A REVIEW

Arab Spring Revolts

Who is Muammar Gaddafi?

Imperialist aggression on Libya in the name of Humanitarian Intervention

VOL III ISSUE II SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2011

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THE SELF-DETERMINATION MOVEMENT: A REVIEW

The Civil War in Libya

VOL III ISSUE II SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2011

VOL III ISSUE II SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2011

DEEP INTO THE POLITICS WITHIN THE SELF-DETERMINATION MOVEMENT: A REVIEW

THE SELF-DETERMINATION MOVEMENT: A REVIEW

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