Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- PHOOLAN DEVI: THE BANDIT QUEEN-- OPPRESSORS IN INDIA MURDER A SYMBOL OF RESISTANCE By Sara Flounders Phoolan Devi, a militant leader known as the "bandit queen" and famous as a symbol of the struggle of lower-caste and oppressed Indians, was assassinated in New Delhi on July 25. She was 44 years old. India was oppressed as a British colony for hundreds of years. Winning independence in 1948, capitalist India had a modest amount of independence maneuvering between the socialist USSR and U.S. imperialism. The new U.S.-ruled world order of unrestrained capitalism has increased the already wide gap between rich and poor within India, where the caste system provides a deeply ingrained form of prejudice akin to racism. This caste system, which Devi fought, is used to justify extreme discrimination and oppression in every area of social and economic life. Leaders of the Samajwadi (Socialist) Party, the party Devi represented in the Indian Parliament, claim that her assassination is a political conspiracy of the elite. It comes at a crucial time when the right-wing nationalist BJP Party faces a close election against the Samajwadi Party in the biggest state in India, Uttar Pradesh. Devi's rallies had been drawing many thousands of angry, oppressed people. Phoolan Devi rose from an illiterate peasant girl to an internationally known bandit to a famous political prisoner freed by a rising mass movement to a representative in the national parliament. Her assassination sparked rebellions and mass demonstrations. As The Times of India wrote on July 28, "Phoolan Devi was a phenomenon like no other in Indian politics." Devi is known in the West through a 1994 movie about her life called "Bandit Queen." Its graphic portrayal of caste and sexual violence against women created an uproar in India. In India Devi was a legend before the age of 20 as the leader of a gang of dacoits--robbers who preyed on the rich upper castes and shared the spoils with the impoverished lower castes. She made international headlines in 1981 when she was charged with the biggest murder of upper-caste male landowners in modern Indian history. A THREAT TO THE SOCIAL ORDER As described in the biography "India's Bandit Queen" by Mala Sen and in the movie "Bandit Queen," Devi's early life experience was similar to that of millions of Indian women. As a girl in a large, impoverished family of the oppressed "mallah" caste, she was considered only a burden. She was married off at age 11 to an abusive and brutal man of 33. She escaped at age 12 and traveled alone, hundreds of miles, back to her village. But an unattached young woman who had abandoned her marriage was considered a threat to the whole social order. In an isolated village, she was the prey of other powerful men. Her determination to speak out against the theft of her father's tiny plot of land and her effort to take the matter to court earned further attacks. She wound up in a band of dacoits or bandits, becoming the gang's leader by the age of 16. Many hundreds of bandit gangs lived in the treacherous crags and narrow eroded ravines of rural Uttar Pradesh. Gang life was part of the upheaval in the decaying feudal social order. Even the gangs were divided by caste. Some gangs acted as protectors of the landlord classes and in league with the police worked for payoffs, like paramilitary gangs in Latin America. Others gangs of poor and landless rebels offered a kind of protection for the peasants who were abused by the corrupt and higher caste police. Not that the gangs were revolutionary guerrillas. Their struggle was not aimed at overturning the social order or even at organizing the masses to demand their rights. But they represented class hatred and outrage at the injustice of a rotting, caste-ridden, class society. A SYMBOL OF RESISTANCE Phoolan Devi became famous. Newspapers across India wrote tirelessly of her exploits. A Phoolan Devi doll with a bandoleer of bullets strapped across her chest and a red bandana was one of the hottest- selling toys in India. In 1980 she was captured. Her lover was killed. She was turned over to the upper-caste men of the village of Behmai. There she was held and gang raped for weeks. She was almost dead when friends smuggled her out of the village. After her escape she reorganized a gang and allegedly returned a year later for revenge. Twenty-two men of the elite Thakur caste were gunned down. The act sent shock waves through the elite of India. Many Indian politicians and business owners belong to this caste. The state launched the biggest dragnet ever conducted. Thousands of police were assigned to the case. For three years Phoolan Devi eluded capture. Press coverage was intense. There was enormous political pressure for her capture. The killings were considered an outrageous act for a woman and especially a woman of such a low caste. SURRENDER ON HER OWN TERMS, THEN BETRAYAL Finally Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered that if Phoolan Devi couldn't be captured, surrender on her own terms could be arranged. In February of 1983, with most of her gang dead and her health failing, she surrendered. The agreed terms were that her family be given a plot of land, that she not be hanged, and that she and the rest of the gang serve eight years in prison, then all charges be dropped. Her surrender became the occasion of a mass outpouring of tens of thousands of cheering peasant supporters. Emaciated, standing only 4 feet 9 inches tall, she stepped before the crowd carrying her rifle and wearing a bandoleer of bullets over her shoulder and a red bandana on her forehead. Her picture was on front pages worldwide. Once she was in prison, the government reneged on all deals. For 11 years she languished until an upsurge in the mass movement in Uttar Pradesh in 1994 forced her release. Devi was a symbol of resistance. Her election to the national Parliament was an assertion of the rising mass movement. Although still illiterate, she became an astute political leader. But the old propertied classes hated everything she stood for. In an effort to wear her down, for the next seven years they continued to heap over 70 criminal indictments against her, including murder charges. Phoolan Devi faced constant death threats. She traveled with security. In the month before her death the ruling right- wing BJP had ordered the security cut back. She then applied for a license to carry a gun but was refused, supposedly due to her criminal record. Phoolan Devi said it was her early anger and outrage at the endless acts of submission demanded of poor, low-caste women that fueled her rebellion. Millions of rural poor rallied to Phoolan Devi because she had taken the law and the gun into her own hands and gained revenge for acts of horrendous brutality. Her struggle revealed the real conditions of life for tens of millions of poor women. The capitalist market in India and the pressure of corporate globalization has intensified poverty, feudal caste oppression and class antagonism. The assassination of Phoolan Devi will only heighten this growing anger. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) From: "WW " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [WW] Germany: Same-sex couples win rights Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001 20:46:04 -0400 Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Aug. 9, 2001 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- GERMANY: SAME-SEX COUPLES WIN RIGHTS By Heather Cottin A German law providing a range of partnership rights to same- sex couples was scheduled to take effect Aug. 1 after a July 18 court ruling upheld it. The measure permits same-sex couples to register their relationships. The German Constitutional Court rejected a move by the states of Bavaria and Saxony to block the law, clearing the way for it to take effect. Reactionary Christian Democrats in Bavaria had called the law "the greatest attack on the institution of marriage in decades." But last Nov. 10, when the lower house of Parliament passed the law, Manfred Bruns of the German Lesbian and Gay Association called it "a historical day for lesbians and gays in Germany." Same-sex couples now will be able to make their relationships official in all state registry offices. Under the partnership law, couples can share a common surname, and have spousal-type rights in areas including inheritance, health insurance, child custody and alimony. Germany still maintains some tax discrimination against same- sex couples. Also, same-sex partners are still legally barred from adopting children. Several European countries have granted various rights to same-sex relationships. In only one country, the Netherlands, same-sex couples can be legally married. In the United States, only Vermont has implemented a law providing substantive partnership rights to same-sex couples. However, since President Bill Clinton signed the 1996 "Defense of Marriage" Act banning federal recognition of same-sex relationships, couples registered under Vermont's law face further battles when they try to actually claim their rights. Still, the advances toward winning equality for same-sex relationships, internationally and in the United States, are extremely significant--especially considering that the modern movement for lesbian, gay, bi and trans liberation only began in 1969. None of these legal developments would have been possible without the movement that has pressed for change. The extension of partnership rights in Germany, which will cover foreigners as well as German nationals, is the latest but not the last in a series of hard-won victories. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------------------------------------- This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: [email protected] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
