---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Niloufer Bhagwat <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, Jul 2, 2012 at 8:59 AM
Subject: Re: [humanrights-movement:6088] On the recent Chhattisgarh
'encounter'
To: [email protected], ial central <[email protected]>,
Admiral Bhagwat <[email protected]>, gajendra singh <
[email protected]>
**
There must be an immediate independent investigation by a fact finding
team of citizens on the killings in Chhattisgarh , as the Court have said
every encounter death must be registered and investigated .We do not
maintain armed contingents and pay taxes to maintain them for the killing
of our citizens . More than one political party in the region has raised
several questions on these killings .
The Indigenous people of India , the Adivasis , are entitled to just
access to their land , produce and resources and are entititled to
protect and preserve their civilization and culture as much as any other
state or region in the country ;to plot their organized killing to take
over their land and resources with the assistance of outsiders, to deprive
these regions of their own perspective of development , is neither
democratic nor constitutional, as the Constitution of India expressly
forbids land alienation and seizure of resources of the Adivasis.
It is necessary that those struggling for the political and economic rights
of the Indigenous people and Dalits forge strong coalitions with other
exploited classes and categories to expose their siege, if they are not to
be isolated . This is what Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Ambedkar would have
mandated, intolerance of injustice and of the loot of the State exchequer
to deprive working people of access to the national budget , development ,
a scientific culture and preservation of civilization and the ecology .
They would have also called for the disbanding and abandoning of
political formations waging a war against all weaker sections of society
.
Democratic minded journalists must break through this silence as has
happened in this case , and voices of political formations and movements
from the region be heard in the national capital and all other
regions.
Niloufer Bhagwat
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Brp Bhaskar <[email protected]>
*To:* [email protected] ; [email protected]
*Sent:* Sunday, July 01, 2012 11:45 AM
*Subject:* [humanrights-movement:6086] On the recent Chhattisgarh
'encounter'
The Maoists are also Indians
http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2012/06/30/the-maoists-are-also-indians/
By
M. K. Bhadrakumar
Independent India has been consistent in its approach to the million
mutinies that threatened the country’s unity and integrity through the past
six decades and more. That pattern is something like this: popular
alienation is simply left unaddressed even if the root cause remains no
great mystery and is possible to be tackled; sometimes the ruling party
willfully exploits the alienation to suit the needs of electoral politics
(Khalistan); the wounds inevitably fester over time; and, when the wound
becomes septic the Indian state cauterizes it without any anesthesia so
that the patient freaks out with pain and the horrific memory of state
brutality would, hopefully, linger for ever and teach a lesson.
But the wound as such is never healed. J&K and the northeastern states are
still under army occupation. Isn’t there some other way to handle political
alienation in the 21st century? India prides itself to be a country with a
difference in the world community as a nation of moral stature. In the
international forums, it is losing shyness and has begun taking up open
positions on human rights and human security — for example, on Sri Lanka
and Syria in the UNHRC in Geneva in the recent months. It frequently speaks
out at the UN Security Council debates — be it on Sudan or Afghanistan.
These are of course only appropriate for an ambitious, aspiring regional
power.
And, yet, India’s own track record continues to remain dismal. The Indian
state’s “biggest encounter” with the Maoists in the jungles of Chhattisgarh
on Friday <http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/968536/> once again
highlights the tragedy of the situation. Some evidence is surfacing that
the Indian security forces went on a rampage in the remote jungle villages
massacring civilians in the heat of the night of Thursday/Friday.
The 19 Maoists killed included a 15-year old girl, while not more than two
amongst the 19 killed could be identified as left extremists. If so, who
were the remaining 17 dead souls?
To be sure, Home Minister P Chidambaram is utterly preoccupied with Hafiz
Saeed. Hopefully, if and when he is done with that, we may know what
happened. The security people admit that “a few innocent villagers could
have died in crossfire.” Pray, how few is “few”?
The most shocking thing is that the Indian political class across the board
has had nothing to say. They are preoccupied with the election of India’a
next president — or with the “reforms”. When 19 citizens get killed by
their country’s security forces, in any civilised country in the second
decade of the 21st century, some political commotion could be expected.
But, not in India? The silence of the politicians points at the terrible
weakening of the moral fibre of the Indian nation.
The most reprehensible aspect is the deafening silence of the established
parties of the Indian Left who are, arguably, on the same ideological
spectrum as the Maoists. Alright, the Maoists are rebels who got
disillusioned with the Left establishment and bourgeois democracy, but they
never ceased to be believers in the ideology. China can disowned them, but
how could the Indian Left?
In fact, the Maoists’ presence in parts of India where the established Left
doesn’t even exist shows that they have a legitimacy and credibility of
their own which the established Left lacks in very large tracts of the most
impoverished regions of our country that are inherently open to the
egalitarian ideals of communism. An enlightened Left leadership would have
sought to dialogue with these misguided elements — and a good starting
point would be to commiserate with the 19 dead “comrades” in Chhattisgarh.
Give them at least a decent burial.
*M.K. Bhadrakumar is a retired career diplomat*
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"humanrights 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/humanrights-movement?hl=en.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"humanrights 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/humanrights-movement?hl=en.
--
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.
