[Aditya Nigam is a known political researcher/commentator from the radical end of the spectrum distinguished for his out-of-the-box views. He is with the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS). Gautam Sen was once the right hand comrade of Mahadeb Mukherjee, a high profile Maoist leader following pro-CM/pro-Lin "line". Now he heads a radical group in Kolkata / West Bengal called Mazdoor Mukti (Workers Liberation) and brings out a tabloid periodically under the same name.
The interview of "Comrade Manoj" is a document helpful in tracing the genesis of Maoist influence in Lalgarh, linked to state atrocities in particular, and its relationship with broader resistance campaign. The video clip, in terms of a beautiful song, depicts the plight and aspirations of the *adivasis* (indigenous people) in the most backward hinterlands of India facing the bulldozer of "development", which menacingly threatens to take away a lot - including the self-hood - and offer a little. An in-depth comparison with Nandigram, on the one hand, and Dantewada, on the other, would, however, be very much in order.] I/IV. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Sunday-TOI/Maoists-breed-in-swamps-of-hunger/articleshow/4681983.cms Maoists breed in swamps of hunger and anger21 Jun 2009, 0145 hrs IST, Aditya Nigam Media commentary on Lalgarh seems to miss out one crucial fact: Till less than a month ago, it was not a Maoist fortress but a place where a fascinating experiment with a new kind of politics was being done. Maoists were there but they had to go along with the mood inside Lalgarh, which was certainly not one of forming 'dalams' or roving guerrilla squads. In fact, as People's Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA) leader Chhatradhar Mahato told The Times of India this week, "if the state government had done even 10% of what we have done, the situation would have been very different." **For more than five months, the PCPA, with popular participation, built reservoirs, dug tube-wells and built roads in the area. The Lalgarh Sanhati Mancha, based in Kolkata, collected money and helped set up a health centre. A committee with five men and five women would take decisions. Compare this with any other place where Maoists are active and the difference is immediately apparent. The Maoists, known for their impatience with any kind of developmental work, put up with this. In fact, Koteswara Rao, a senior leader in charge of Maoist operations, even told some journalists that "the CPI(M) government is not implementing any Central government projects". The reference was clearly to the non-implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). It also showed the extent to which Lalgarh's issues are different from the ones the Maoists usually like to take up. All this will be in the past, a few days from now. Already, marauding Maoist gangs have taken over and emerged in their preferred mode. The model of Chhattisgarh or Andhra Maoist-dominated areas will be replicated and soon, there will only be armed Maoist gangs and the armed forces of the state. All the possibilities offered by democratic politics and developmental activities, including through the NREGA, will become impossible. One can even wager that the Maoists will decree the NREGA "unlawful". For, along with the NREGA and development, comes the state. True to their style, the Maoist cadres who roamed freely thus far will come out only under cover of darkness, leaving Lalgarh's hapless inhabitants to face the brutality of the security forces. This has already begun. Ordinary people will be arrested and tortured, while the guerrillas move to safer havens. The CPI(M) is fond of narcissistically flaunting its world record of 32 years in power in West Bengal as "proof" of its performance. But in the past two decades, a new kind of virtually totalitarian power has been put in place. The local panchayat, MLA, district administration, police and the ubiquitous 'party' act in tandem. There is no avenue forum for redress, no way to appeal against corruption, non-implementation of schemes and the absence of simple developmental activity such as water and electricity. There have been starvation deaths in neighbouring areas and in the tea gardens in the north but there is no way of even making the CPI(M) acknowledge this. No other state has such a closed situation, where power speaks only to itself. Classically, in such situations, piecemeal correction is impossible. Discontent slowly builds into anger, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. That moment began with Nandigram, which showed the arrogance of the party bosses in dealing with peasants who had long supported them. Successive elections since then have shown that the dam has broken. Mass anger was waiting to burst forth and the Maoists were waiting in the wings, ready to take over. They have taken over. In Lalgarh, we are in for the long haul. But the lesson here is not just for the CPI(M). It is for the Congress as well and for the UPA and everyone else. The poorest of the poor cannot be left to fend for themselves while the elites party. The NREGA, RTI and Forest Act are a good beginning but they need to be followed through and their implementation monitored. Aditya Nigam is a Fellow at Delhi's Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. His new book, 'After Utopia: Modernity and Socialism in the Postcolony', is soon to be published II. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/No-revolution-for-old-radicals/articleshow/4681964.cms No revolution for old radicals21 Jun 2009, 0135 hrs IST, Avijit Ghosh Gautam Sen lived dangerously in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was part of a group who took a police sub-inspector hostage in order to get fellow college students released from the lock-up. He occasionally drank tea at a stall in front of a police station even when he was one of the most wanted men in the area. And like many naxalites of the '70s, he travelled the West Bengal hinterland by night, trying to build a guerrilla force to annihilate class enemies. "I was lucky to have failed," he now says. ** Sen, who has given up guerrilla warfare but remains involved with people's movements, finds it hard to comprehend the Maoists' strategy in Lalgarh. "After their armed action, the Maoists called it a 'liberated zone'. It was a huge tactical mistake. By saying so, they allowed the state to claim the moral high ground and proclaim, 'we are going against militants'. On the contrary, Nandigram became a legitimate people's movement cutting across party loyalties because it spoke of land and livelihood. As a consequence, the state tries to earn credibility to suppress the legitimate resistance of the poor and the oppressed," he says, with the wisdom of a 62-year-old who has seen it all. His story is fascinating. He belongs to a middle-class Calcutta home and was radicalized as a student leader in Durgapur's Regional Engineering College. By the time he was in his fourth year of college, the Naxalbari movement had begun. Elsewhere in the world, the Vietnam war and Chinese Cultural Revolution were happening. Student activism was at its peak. Sen's life-changing moment occurred on June 1, 1969. A minor traffic accident led students to battle police near campus. The angry young people ransacked a police station. When a sub-inspector arrived on campus, he was taken hostage. The next day, 150 policemen stormed the campus. Every one was beaten up. One student was killed in the firing. "Till then we had a few naxalites. But the firing converted at least 30 of us who became full-timers. At least 600-700 students became naxal sympathizers," says Sen. He went underground and became an organizer in Burdwan district. By day, he stayed in the homes of landless labourers; by night, he travelled around trying to raise a guerrilla army. Often his only meal would be a bit of puffed rice. He was allegedly on the police 'hit list'. "On one occasion, I was asked to leave a shelter at 4 am because it was no longer safe for me," he says. By 1973, Sen was disillusioned. "I could see there was no revolutionary condition as envisaged by our leaders." He went back to college to get his electrical engineering degree, but never took a job. Instead, he formed a Marxist study circle and wrote extensively about the class character of the Indian bourgeoisie and state. He believes the future is bleak for the radical left movement in West Bengal. "Today one part of the extreme Left has been Trinamoolized, another has got NGOized. Some have become Maoists and the rest have formed splinter groups," he says. But he says there is space aplenty for those who reject parliamentary politics as well as Maoist-style guerrilla struggle. "Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh indicate the potential of people's initiatives from below. Unfortunately, there is no leadership or control from below." But the former rebel is enthused that in places like Argentina and Mexico, people are coming out with innovative ways of protest. "In Argentina, workers are taking over factories abandoned by the owners and managing them. In a small town in Mexico, people set up an alternative form of governance over a town for several months. Even in Lalgarh, initially the gram committee of the protestors had equal number of men and women," says Sen. "I am an optimist by nature. The human race will always find new ways to struggle." * * III. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/We-will-spread-this-fire/articleshow/4681986.cms We will spread this fire 21 Jun 2009, 0148 hrs IST, Sukumar Mahato My name is Manoj. It's not the name my parents gave me, but all my comrades call me 'Manoj'. My father's name is Dhiren Murmu. I am his second son and I am 25. I was born at Bamundanga village in Salboni. I've lived most of my life in this hopeless village. Our village falls under the Kansijora gram panchayat. The Left Front has been in power here for 30 years. Salboni has always been a CPM stronghold. But, in 30 years, neither the state government, nor the panchayat and Zilla Parishad took any interest at all in developing this area. We might have been living in the Stone Age. When it rains here, the dirt tracks turn muddy and we are forced to drag ourselves and our cattle through the muck. We are not able to ride our bicycles or use carts. We don't have clean drinking water. People are forced to drink filthy, yellow water. After sunset, we live in the dark as there is no electricity here. No jobs either. During the paddy season, we work in the fields and then sit idle for the rest of the year. Because we are tribals, no one has bothered to do anything for us. In 2002, we got tired of being treated like rodents. So, the villagers got together and demanded development in our area. This infuriated the local CPM bosses. The police and Marxists slapped false cases on us, accusing us of working for the People's War Group (PWG). They branded us Maoists. So we began to think we might as well join the Maoists. Things turned nasty quickly. The former police superintendent of West Midnapore, K C Meena, lodged an FIR against the entire village. Nearly 90% of the men and teenage boys were charged with being Naxalite. We knew what was coming. We had to do something to save ourselves. I was just 18 at the time. I was in class XII at the local school. But, I too joined in protests against the police. Within days, the police filed a case against me, my father and brother. They accused all of us of working for the PWG. We had nothing to do with the PWG. Our family has always supported the Congress party. In 1998, when Mamata Banerjee formed the Trinamool Congress (TMC), we switched loyalty to her. One day, police jeeps rolled into our village, picked up people from their houses, bundled everyone into their vehicles and dumped all of us into the Midnapore jail. That was where I first met Maoist leader Sushil Roy. I found the Maoist ideology very appealing. Roy asked me to join the Maoists so that I could help the poor. I liked his ideas. Then I met two PWG leaders in prison. And I realized that neither Congress nor the TMC can stop the CPM's terror. I also realized that under CPM rule, we had lost the right to speak up. It was time to take a stand and speak up. I joined the Maoists. They gave me a new name, a new identity and a new life. Now, I work for the Lalgarh movement. I joined this great surge of people last year. On November 5, the police arrived here looking for people who had blasted landmines at chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's convoy at Salboni. In Lalgarh, the police rounded up innocent tribal women and began to molest and torture them. One woman lost an eye. Others were badly injured. After this incident, we decided to join the Lalgarh movement. It was our party's decision. The Maoists always stand with the deprived. We joined them at Nandigram and Singur. Now, we have joined them in Lalgarh. It's been easy for us to win the people's support. Most of them have been victims of torture by police. The people listened to us and joined the Peoples' Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA). Opposition party workers have also supported us. Everybody is rebelling against the CPM cadre and police. We know the government forces want to crush us. But, we plan to expand our area of influence. As soon as we are able to turn Lalgarh and Junglemahal (a forested area spanning three districts - Bankura, Purulia and West Midnapore) into a Maoist-dominated area, we will apply our ideology here. We will undertake development work for the poor. We will raise money through public donations. And nobody will pay tax to the government anymore. After victory at Lalgarh, we will expand our fight to the tribal communities of Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa and Chattisgarh. Our war has just begun. IV. Here is a beautiful video clip on *adivasi* struggles against "development" to protect the rights over "water, forest and land". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M5aeMpzOLU --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
