[L-I] [ INDIA ] ML Update , Vol. 7 No. 3 , 15-21 Jan 2004

ML Update
A CPI(ML) Weekly News Magazine
Vol.  7 No. 3     15-21 Jan 2004



Why Is the BJP in Such a Big Hurry?

It is now official. An over-buoyed BJP has begun a mad scramble for early
elections. Parliament has been taken for a complete ride to shower sops
worth billions of rupees on the rich through a poll-eve mini-budget. While
the treasury is being looted to pamper the rich, a feel-good 'fatwa' has
been issued for the entire country. Vajpayee has again put on his
'man-of-peace' hat and after the Shankaracharya of Kanchi, the Dalai Lama of
Tibet has been invited to broker and bless a possible deal on Ayodhya.

Why is the BJP in such a big hurry? Why is this desperation for premature
elections? What lies behind this sudden about turn by a government which
wanted to go down in history as the first non-Congress regime to have
completed a full five-year term and which wanted to project itself as the
wholesale dealer of 'political stability'?

Obviously, the BJP believes that the party stands to lose quite heavily if
elections are held later at the scheduled hour. It is aware that the
fundamental falsity of the much-trumpeted feel-good fantasy is liable to get
exposed any moment. This is as true of the economy as of the polity. Just as
one swallow does not make a summer, the Rajasthan-Madhya
Pradesh-Chhattisgarh bonanza does not promise a countrywide electoral boon.
Hence the mad scramble to make hay while the sun shines. Sure enough, the
desperation to hold early elections is a sign of diffidence and not
strength.

The feel-good fiction was stretched to an absurd poetic length by Vajpayee
at the gala NRI gathering when he claimed that now was the best of times 'to
be an Indian and also to be in India .' What is the basis of this absurd
claim? Foreign exchange reserves hitting the $ 100 billion mark and sensex
hovering above 6,000 points! What succour does it provide to the
crisis-ridden peasants and retrenched workers, starving rural poor and the
growing army of the unemployed?

That the feel-good music is actually meant for only elitist ears was again
made clear by the tax-cuts announced in the mini-budget. Cell-phones and
computers, air-travel and foreign liquor have been made cheaper. Laws have
been relaxed for Indian individuals remitting abroad and firms investing in
foreign markets. And the bill for this bonanza for the rich is to be footed
once again by additional doses of disinvestment. While the rich has been
pampered with tax-cuts and reduced rates, students burdened with fee hike
and farmers reeling under agrarian crisis have only been promised cheaper
credit.

The talks of peace with Pakistan and amicable resolution of Kashmir and
Ayodhya are also a part of this utterly false and hypocritical feel-good
fiction. A government which all along remained busy queering the pitch for
bilateral diplomacy now projects itself as the champion of peace and
cooperation in the region. The architect of POTA and police state now
invites Kashmiri organizations for talks. The protagonists of 'hot pursuit'
are now advocating mutual trust and accommodation between India and Pakistan
. The peddlers of hate are now singing paeans for communal harmony. If the
BJP used intimidation as a tool to win elections in Gujarat , it now wants
to dupe the people with its fiction of peace and prosperity.

The job of the Left is to rip apart the BJP's mask of false and fictitious
propaganda and confront the regime on the real issues of the day. The
electorate must be encouraged to mete out an exemplary punishment to a
regime that stands guilty in the people's court for perpetrating some of the
worst crimes in Indian history against the country and the people.
Left leaders who are busy cobbling bourgeois coalitions and projecting
Manmohan Singh as the most deserving candidate for the Prime Minister's post
for his 'exemplary record as finance minister' (as the leader of the CPI(M)
parliamentary party told the TV channel Aaj Tak on 10 January) must be asked
to mind their own business. Canvassing for Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh
and calling upon the working class to go on a day's strike on February 24 is
height of political bankruptcy. Real forces of the Left must reject this
bankrupt course with the contempt it deserves. Sharpest mass exposure of the
enemy's politics and militant mobilization of the people on their own
democratic agenda can be the only course of action and advance.


BJP's Election Sops:

Selling-out of PSUs in Sugar-coated Capsules
Feel-good-factors for MNCs, Corporate Houses and Legalised 'Hawala' Clients:
o Agrarian reforms left to corporate houses
o Employment - a by-gone commitment
o Commercialisation of education legalised
BJP is desperate for an early election. It is equally desperate for an
out-of-Parliament-out-of-budget session implementation of New Economic
Policies (NEP), policies of US-led globalisation, in true letter and spirit.
After the shocking break of its marriage-of-convenience with BSP in
political arena, BJP has started talking aloud of "B S P"
(Bijli-Sadak-Pani), privatisation of electricity, water and communication -
some very important aspects of NEP - in the garb of providing better
services.
Now, BJP has come up with wholesale sellout package of vital and
profit-earning PSUs like ONGC, GAIL, IPCL, VSNL, IBP, etc. In the same
breath it has also declared cheap loans for Rs. 50,000 crore for
infrastructure in the sectors which have already been divested or proposed
to be dis-invested soon like ports, airports, power and telecom projects.
Agriculture will continue to be a neglected sector while corporate houses
and big industrial houses are assured of added concessions of cheap loans to
the tune of Rs. 50,000 crores in agriculture sector. While the BJP
government is selling-out our food-stock at below PDS prices for animal
fodder abroad and not showing any interest in formulating a viable project
to guarantee food and work to our at-the-brink-of-starving millions in rural
and urban India. Leave alone democratic agrarian reforms, even the issues
like crop insurance, minimum procurement price, and subsidies to the
peasantry did not find any room even in the election sops.
Employment is now a by-gone commitment for the government. Privatisation and
commercialisation of education is now the new mantra of the state. Students
can go for higher education at a high market price. The govt. denies its
responsibility for education but it has assured loans to the students.
As for 6% interest to our elders ('Dada-dadi bond'), if the BJP govt. can
not make effective use of the hard earned money of our elders in nation
building and fails to assure them a comfortable return, it is certainly
making a mockery of our senior citizens. Similarly, the nation can not allow
sending out its money abroad by individuals without any restrictions as
permitted by the govt. for the sums upto $ 25000. Such attempts of
regularisation of black-money and money plundered through scams and scandals
is against our national interest.


"Chetawani Rally" in Palamu

The January 12, despite a shivering cold wave, witnessed a springing surge
of rural Palamu in the streets of Daltanganj when this town was virtually
under red seize with tens of thousands of men and women agricultural
labourers and poor peasants thronged the streets and declared their war
against "Bhay-Bhookh-Bhrashtachar and Police-raj" being perpetuated by the
BJP-Samata combine ruling in Ranchi and their ministers hailing from this
region who connive with land-jungle mafia, corrupt contractors, criminals
and police.
The rallyists were demanding immediate arrest of the minister Madhu Singh
who was behind the killing of R. N. Singh, brother of CPI(ML) leader Dr. B.
N. Singh, and withdrawal of false cases imposed against Party leaders
including Dr. B. N. Singh, Kalicharan Mahato, and many others and their
unconditional release, suspension of the Chenari thana in-charge who
indulged in criminal assault on women in the name of 'raids' and has let
loose a reign of terror among the poor people. The rallyists also demanded a
public declaration of the land and property held by Inder Singh Namdhari,
who happens to be the speaker of the Jharkhand assembly, along with Minister
Madhu Singh and RJD leader Deenanath Singh.

The Rally was attended and addressed by the CPI(ML) General Secretary
Dipankar Bhattacharya, Jharkhand State Secretary Subhendu Sen, Party MLA and
CC member Mahendra Singh and others. The speakers asked the govt. in
Jharkhand to act immediately and warned the local police and administration
and called upon the people to carry on their just struggle for land, work
and proper wages and against prominent mafia-feudal forces and to prepare
themselves for more militant and massive resistances. CPI(ML) General
Secretary also met Dr. B. N. Singh and other leaders who have been lodged in
the jail for many months under false and concocted charges.


Main Perpetrator of Bathe Massacre punished

One of the dreaded leaders of Ranvir Sena and main perpetrator of Bathe
massacre, which occured in 1997 in Bathe village of Arwal where 58 poor
dalits were butchered by the Ranvir Sena that shook the conscience of many
in the country, Sudarshan Sharma was punished to death by the people on
January 11. Sudarshan Sharma was instrumental in organising and expanding
Ranvir Sena in Arwal-Jenahabad area. He was behind bars for four years after
the Bathe massacre but came out on bail and continued his anti-people
activities in the region.
The enormous clout and muscle power enjoyed by this man can be understood by
the fact that he presided over a mass rally organised by Ranvir Sena under
the banner of 'Rashtrawadi Kisan Mahasangh' in Ara on Nov 17 last year.


Shahabuddin Gang Strikes again in Gopalganj: Kills Six Innocents

Dreaded goon and MP from Siwan Shahabuddin has once again perpetrated a
massacre in adjoining Gopalganj district killing six innocent people
including one child and two women. His gang opened fire indiscriminately in
Koerigama village near Bhore police station. Shivshankar Yadav (42),
Ramashish Yadav (33), Sriram Yadav, Siraji Devi (45), Mahrajia Devi (95) and
Savita (8) succumbed to Shahabuddin gang's bullets on January 13 while Munna
Yadav and Bhrigurasan Yadav are struggling for their lives in seriously
injured condition. Two cattle were also reported to have got bullet
injuries, killing one, in this massacre.
This incident has proved once again that history-sheeter Shahabuddin
continues to operate from inside the Siwan jail with the active connivance
and support from the civic and police authorities at the instance of RJD
government in Bihar .
CPI(ML) strongly condemned this heineous crime and held protest marches
immediately after the incident in Siwan and Gopalganj on Jan 13 and called
for a bandh next day in both the districts which received an overwhelming
response  expressing people's resentment against RJD govt.'s failure to
contain massacres and oppression of common people by feudal forces and nexus
of politician-criminal-police-bureaucracy.
Earlier an investigation team led by CPI(ML) ex-MLA and popular leader in
the area comrade Amarnath Yadav from Siwan and Gopalganj District Secretary
of the Party comrade Sunil Yadav reached the spot on Jan 13 to gather
details of the massacre.
The Party has demanded stern punishment to the killers, compensation to the
bereaved families of the victims and immediate suspension of DM and SP of
Gopalganj.


AIALA District Conference in Pilibhit

The AKhil Bharatiya Khet Mazdoor Sabha (KHEMAS - AIALA) held it's first
district conference in Pilibhit district on Dec 29. As this terai region of
Uttar Pradesh remains an important centre of agrarian labourers and rural
poor's movement, a good number of them turned up to the rally which was
organised as the inaugural session of the Conference.
The conference discussed over the important issues like prevailing practice
of usury in rural areas, grabbing of public land and the land allotted to
rural poor by big influential farmers, nexus of corrupt revenue officials
and land mafia, deaths of poor due to starvation and cold, issuance of BPL
cards to all rural poor and agrarian labourers and availability of food
items in PDS shops, old-age and widow pensions, etc.

The conference also passed resolutions for the implementation of land
reforms and redistribution of land, provision of alternate agricultural
lands and complete rehabilitation of those whose lands and crops are
destroyed due to erosion of embankments, drought and flood reliefs, to waive
loans in affected areas, and above all, implementation of minimum wages and
equal wages to men and women.

The conference also decided to launch protracted struggle against prevailing
corruption in panchayati raj institutions and demanded of the administration
to put an immediate stop on corrupt practices by the trio of village
pradhans, gram panchayat officials and DPRO. It also made it a point to put
stiff resistance against acts of exclusion of names of rural poor from the
electoral rolls and police-feudal repression of dalits, women and agrarian
labour in villages.

The conference also passed resolutions for a central legislation for the
agri. labourers and to end omnipotent corruption which is severely affecting
the lives of the poor besides many other demands.


Party Protests harassment of it's leaders in Nicobar Isalands

The harassment of party activists in Andmans has strongly been protested to
the Prime Minister, the Home Minister as well as the LG of Andmans through a
fax message sent by the CPI(ML) MP Dr. Jayanta Rangpi to take appropriate
measures against the authorities concerned for the same.  The Party leader
in Andmans Comrade NKP Nair was denied of entry into Nicobar islands and
harassed by the authorities for no valid reason in order to obstruct him in
his political work violating his constitutional and legal rights.


CPI(ML) Opposes Indo-US Partnership in Strategic Spheres

CPI(ML) expresses its all-out opposition to any move intending to further
Indo-US partnership in strategic spheres of defence, military, high-tech
trade, civilian, nuclear and space activities.
Party believes that growing US intervention in our national life will
further weaken and destroy our national resources, strength and economy and
endanger crucial strategic independence and national sovereignty. The
overwhelming national opinion in India clearly does not favour the kind of
strategic subservience as advocated by the Vajpayee govt. Moreover, any
alliance with the US will mar the process of strengthening ties with the
nations of South and South-East Asia which, in turn, will weaken our
economic and political sovereignty vis-a-vis US. The Party stresses for an
South Asian unity against US imperialism.
Vajpayee's growing strategic proximity to the US is fast reducing India to
the status of a pitiable client-state of the US in Asian region. This is
also intensifying our isolation from the developing world and jeopardising
the prospects of peace, progress and stability in South Asia . This is also
a major irritant for any meaningful talks between India and Pakistan . the
talks between these two neighbours can bear fruits only when they get rid of
American shadow and resist US intervention in internal affairs of their
respective nations.
CPI(ML) also calls for resumption of a free and open dialogue between India
and Pakistan on all outstanding issues including Kashmir . India 's refusal
to deal directly with Pakistan on the Kashmir question has only allowed US
to deepen its intervention in the region.


We Will Not Let the Killers of Comrade Manju Go Scot-free

The killers of comrade Manju still continue to roam fearlessly in the
Arwal-Jehanabad region. The Bihar govt. has not yet taken any serious action
against them despite a nationwide demand by many democratic and Left
organisations and prominent personalities. Although people's pressure is
building up against such forces of feudal repression, Ranvir Sena in
particular, but the governmental inaction and political hob-nobbing has
increased the morale of Ranvir Sena goons who killed Manju to the extent
that they even tried to destroy the memorial built in the memory of this
fighter of the people soon after her assasination.
Party condemns such acts and reiterates it's resolve to wipe out all the
elements of feudal domination and repression from the society and to take
revenge against those who killed Comrade Manju.
While the movement against killers of Manju intensifies in Bihar , the
National Commission for Women (NCFW) has made its observations on her
killing after accomplishing an investigation into the matter taking
cognisance of a petition filed by the London based 'South Asia Solidarity
Group'. The Commission observed that comrade Manju was a very popular leader
among the landless labourers, not an extremist, and her inter-caste marriage
was a pointer to the dedication of her and her husband to the cause of
landless labourers.
Her activities among "landless labourers and women had panicked the Bhomihar
landlords who saw her as a great threat against age-old grip on the poor and
hapless agricultural labourers who completely depends on these lords for
their survival". Such vested interests, therefore, made a move to eliminate
her permanently. The Commission stressed that "the approach of the District
Administration has not been upto the mark" and "a prompt action has not been
taken by the local police in arresting the FIR named accused persons except
one. Such lukewarm attitude of the District Admn. has emboldened the killers
and those who harbour them." The Commission also observed that whenever
local people make complaint against any any exploiters before the local
police station no action is taken and on the other hand the complainants are
threatened and quite often raids are conducted by the police in their houses
on flimsy grounds.
The report of the Commission says that the assertion by the 'emerging
grass-roots powers' has created a sense of panic among the vested interests
specially the land owning classes in the rural areas and this is the reason
for the local Bhumihars to eliminate Late Smt. Manju Devi'. The Commission
noted 'that the authorities are not serious in firmly dealing with Ranvir
Sena for multiple reasons. The commission may be constrained to explore
other strategies for appropriately dealing with the resultant situation."


Condolence:

'Barda' is No More
Veteran communist leader and member of our Party Comrade Prabodh
Bhattacharya died on 8 January evening at Kolkata. He was 95. Comrade
Bhattacharya was a member of our Party since it's formation and remained
dedicated to the cause of revolution throughout his life.
Being the eldest in the Party he inaugurated the Fourth All India Party
Congress. He was also a delegate in the Fifth Party Congress. He was the
publisher of the famous book "Flaming Fields of Bihar' published during the
days when the Party was underground. His nephew Comrade Biplab Bhattacharya
was also active in Naxalbari movement and embraced martyrdom braving police
bullets in 1971. He was popularly known as 'Barda'.
In 1967 he was in the CPI(M)'s Kolkata District Committee and was also
elected for the Beleghata Council. He faced imprisonment in 1962 during
India-China war under the draconian Defence of India Rule (DIR). Later, he
found himself deeply involved in Naxalbari Movement and CPI(ML) and had to
face imprisonment again in 1969.
During the days of the reorganisation of the Party in early 70s he played an
active role. Barda's deep attachment and dedication to the cause of
revolution and the people earned him popularity and lot of affection not
only in the Party circles but also among the common masses. He was and will
remain a source of  inspiration for the comrades. During his later years
almost all comrades in his area used to visit and take care of him.
CPI(ML) salutes his memory and feels deeply shocked at his demise and pays
sincere tributes to him.
Red Salute to Comrade Prabodh Bhattacharya !



  new releases:
1. Documents of AIALA
Rs. 20/-
2. Against Imperialism: For a Glorious Socialist Future
Rs. 40/-
3. Harvest of Death: Farmers Suicides and Rural Starvation in the Shadow of
Globalisation         Rs 20/-

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