http://kafila.org/2010/03/25/rumours-of-maoism-aditya-nigam-seminar/#more-3989
"..Independent reports have testified to the fact that the entire process of land acquisition was being conducted at gun point. Gram sabha meetings, ostensibly meant to discuss and give or withhold consent to land acquisition, were a farce: instead of meetings, individuals were being called in to a room and made to sign their consent – or so the villagers felt.22 Held under heavy armed guard, these meetings were a farce in another sense. Legally, no outsiders are allowed to attend gram sabha meetings but the interested parties, namely Essar Steel officials – in the case of the report cited above – were inside, overseeing the process. As a reporter put it, the same procedure was being followed in other places: Gram sabha ‘meetings’ were held under the shadow of Section 144, while all outspoken critics of the acquisition would be under arrest. Such stories have been filtering in from researchers in the field for some years now and it was clear that in this new phase of neo-liberal industrialization, a new kind of violence was being unleashed on people who were to be dispossessed in order to make room for mining and industry. In many such cases (for example, Kashipur, Kalinganagar, Singur, Nandigram, Goa, Pen tehsil in Maharashtra), mass struggles have been ongoing for some time. Even apart from these well-known, emblematic names, there have been innumerable mass struggles throughout the country which have resisted the frenetic drive towards industrialization and mining through displacement, often successfully. However, it is equally true that often, in the face of the darkest state violence, the prospect of a counter-violence holds great attraction for many people. Maoism seemed to provide precisely such a possibility.." But to see the entire issue merely in terms of ‘development’ or its lack is entirely misleading. For, in the last instance, what is at stake here is neither ‘development’ nor ‘industrialization’; it is justice and democracy. What is at stake here is precisely the fact that in the name of development and industrialization, the common resources of the country are being handed over to private corporations by displacing those who have inhabited that land for centuries. It is also worth remembering that even in the mass rebellions of the early colonial period that Guha studied, violence emerged as a last resort – when everything from petitioning to meetings failed. "..It is important to understand that, at one level, it is not Maoism that is really at issue here, as both the state and the Maoist-aligned intellectuals would have us believe. It is really Indian democracy that is at issue. I have argued elsewhere that a deep split structures the Indian polity – a split between ’sovereignty’ and the rule of the extraordinary and the impulse of democracy.23 The rule of the extraordinary, as evidenced in the rule through laws like AFSPA or UAPA/POTA/TADA on the one hand, and the indiscriminate manner in which violence becomes the primary mode of dealing with social struggles and dissent on the other, now structures our politics. Thus, even while Indian democracy can become the vehicle for the political rise of the dalits and lower castes, the seduction of violence at its peripheries always remains powerful for that is precisely where democracy gives way to a complete lawlessness of the Law.." -- You cannot build anything on the foundations of caste. You cannot build up a nation, you cannot build up a morality. Anything that you will build on the foundations of caste will crack and will never be a whole. -AMBEDKAR http://venukm.blogspot.com http://www.shelfari.com/kmvenuannur http://kmvenuannur.livejournal.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send an 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.
