When The Dust Settles

I don’t believe the maoists are exploiters: E N Rammohan

Pictures That Turn A Generation; Armies That Lie

By Trevor Selvam

28 June, 2010
Countercurrents.org

A picture could very well be a tide turner. The one image that makes a nation sit up, shake itself off its torpor and ask itself, how much more of this repetitive official nonsense can we accept and justify in our quest to become a developed nation and overlook the rampant denial of due process and decency. A picture can be a conscience raiser, the final straw, the one blow that cuts up the fine line between what a civil society will accept and outright barbarism. Not too many people remember the name of Nguyễn Ngọc Loan. But a lot of people remember this picture.

The man who took this picture, Eddie Adams, won a Pulitzer prize. It helped turn the tide of one war-The Vietnam War.

Nguyen Ngoc Loan c Loan was the former Vietnamese Army Brigadier and later Chief of the National Police of South Vietnam. Here he is seen executing Nguyn Văn Lém, handcuffed Viet Cong Captain. This was one of many pictures that turned the tide in many ways and showed American people, how bestial were the forces that they were propping up. America lost that war decisively. Lock stock and barrel. Thousands and thousands of anti-war activists and radical groups took to the streets. Nixon was caught red-handed with the Watergate break-in. The entire fibre of American society was on the block. They used all the might they had, all the firepower, WMD and chemical defoliants (remember Agent orange and its creators Dow Chemicals, who are the proud owners of Union Carbide today? ) available at that time to unleash a ruthless, at times covert war, against the Vietnamese people. Wave upon wave of Viet Cong swarmed the Americans and eventually, the world’s most powerful military in the world, scurried away with their stooges in tow and so did this Vietnamese Brigadier at the time of the fall of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). He took refuge in America. He opened a pizza restaurant in Washington DC and managed to hide his identity for a long time. Eventually, he was exposed and history caught up with him. Signs started appearing in the bathroom of his pizza parlour. “We know who you are, fucker.” The man died a lonesome death very soon after.

Terrorizing the Democratic Space

Source :Jharkhandmirror.org By Gladson Dungdung

In the midst of hide and seek between the Sun and the Cloud, the environment of Jaipal Singh Stadium in Ranchi, the capital city of Jharkhand was very tense on June 25, 2010. The reason was, the “Operation Green Hunt Virodhi Nagrik Manch” (Citizens Forum against Operation Green Hunt) had called for a rally and mass meeting against the cold blood murder, rape and torture of innocent villagers by the security forces in the ongoing so-called anti-Naxal operation codified as “Operation Green Hunt”. The forum has been intervening on the issues of the police atrocity since inception of the OGH. As a result, the police have declared it as a Maoist organization, which is of course, the outcome of Chidambaram’s theory of democracy, which describes as ‘this side or that side’. Therefore, whoever questions the Operation Green Hunt is considered as a Maoist, a Maoist supporter or at least a sympathizer of the Maoists.

Letters from P. Chidambaram and CPI(Maoist) to Swami Agnivesh regarding the possibility of dialogue

25 June 2010

[Ever since Operation Green Hunt was launched, there have been efforts by different sections of the civil society to enable a dialogue between the Indian government and the CPI(Maoist). Though several unsuccessful attempts for dialogue have been made, what is striking is that different government officials and ministers have continuously
dismissed any positive response from the CPI(Maoist), as empty posturing or attempts to gain time for regrouping. In the midst of all this, Operation Green Hunt has of course continued, bringing misery to the lives of the people in the east-central forested regions of the country.

However, recently, a fresh initiative for peace and justice has come forth with attempts by Swami Agnivesh to bring both sides to the negotiation table. In this regard, the Home Minister P. Chidambaram had written a letter to Swami Agnivesh laying down the conditions from the government’s side for the talks. Although the letter was supposedly
confidential, it was leaked to the press, apparently from the home ministry, to seemingly portray a picture of sincerity on the part of the government.

It turns out that, more than a week back, the CPI (Maoist) had responded to this initiative by writing their own letter to Swami Agnivesh, which described the suitable conditions from their side for joining the talks. However, quite mysteriously, there was no discussion in the media regarding the Maoist response and there were rumours that the government was attempting to suppress it. With apprehensions that this initiative would also loose steam, the CPI (Maoist) letter has also now reached different sections of the media.

From the very inception of Operation Green Hunt, we have been continuously involved in various initiatives to end the armed offensive by the state. We have also tried to provide a platform for discussions regarding the possible negotiations between the State and CPI(Maoist).

In continuation of this process, we are publishing here the two letters (i) written by the Home Minister to Swami Agnivesh (ii) written by the CPI(Maoist) representative to Swami Agnivesh, so that there is clarity  regarding the issues involved in beginning the dialogue between the two sides. – Ed , Source: Sanhati]

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Letter from Azad, spokesperson of CPI(Maoist), to Swami Agnivesh

Click here to read the letter in pdf format

May 31, 2010

Regarding the proposal for talks made by Mr. P. Chidambaram in his letter to Swami Agnivesh

Dear Swami Agniveshji,

We heard that you and other democratic intellectuals had gone on a peace march in Dantewada in the first week of May 2010 braving the disruption organized by the goons of the BJP and Congress. You might have realized how the state government and the Centre are determined to sabotage any attempt to bring peace to the region and to prevent anyone from making efforts in that direction. We appreciate the efforts of well-meaning intellectuals and social activists like you to bring peace to the region. We also appreciate the efforts made by you to convince the Union Government to come forward for a cease-fire and dialogue with our Party which had prompted the Union Home Minister to state the Government’s position on the issue.

Stop the Undeclared Emergency and Witch-hunt of Social activists & Human Rights Defenders

Statement by Civil Society groups and concerned citizens

Source – SACW

Under the garb of anti-Maoist operations and close on the heels of the Home Ministry directive, the Central and State Governments are now unleashing a witch-hunt on rights’ activists and civil society groups in India. Added to this, the fishing expedition of Gujarat police has now reached Delhi. After having arrested 13 trade unionists, forest rights activists and ordinary workers of Gujarat against the omnibus FIR number 1-37/2010 Police station Kamrej, Surat range, dated 26th of February, u/s 120 (B), 121(A), 124(A), 153 A& B of the IPC, and sec 38, 39 and 40 of the UAPA, 2004, Shakeel is the new catch, the 14th person arrested in this FIR on 17th April, 2010.

Abdul Shakeel Basha, for the last six years had been working with homeless and street children with organisations like Aman Biradari (2004 to 2008) and since 2009 with Haq (World Faith) & Shahari Adhikar Abhiyan. His work with Aman Biradari also took him to Gujarat several times as the work related to justice to the victims of the 2002 Gujarat genocide was carried out through the ‘Nyaya Grah’ project of Aman Biradari.

Other than him, the Gujarat government has recently incarcerated 13 trade unionists, forest rights activists, and ordinary workers – all demanding that the Constitutional rights of the people be restored – and all under a single omnibus FIR (number 1-37/2010) filed in the Kamrej Police station, Surat range, dated 26th of February, under serious charges of sedition, waging war against State, conspiracy, being members of and supporting a banned organisation. The West Bengal government has similarly prosecuted members of a Fact Finding Team; trade union leaders and human rights activists have been quietly arrested in Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and many other States. The charges are such that all those arrested can be imprisoned for up to 3 years without bail. On the 35th anniversary of the notorious proclamation by the Indira Gandhi government, it is appropriate to ask, “Is a new, but unannounced, Emergency creeping silently across the nation?”

Is the judiciary also complicit in this assault on democracy? The trend is such that courts are not questioning these framed up cases and trials that go on endlessly. Not only are charge sheets bulky with a large number of witnesses, but when the prosecution’s case appears to be weak, the police file even more charge sheets. In this it is evident that the Gujarat police is following the precedents set by their Andhra brethren in uniform. Thus the only remand paper available in the case of Avinash Kulkarni, a pioneer in implementing the Forests Rights Act in the Dangs area of Gujarat, and who was arrested through a long chain of suspects in Orissa, is one in which he stands accused of “instigating tribals to start violent agitation through CPI (ML) Janshakti Party”. It should be noted that not only is CPI (ML) Janshakti an overground party which has been fighting elections for the last seventeen years, but that every Indian has the Constitutional right to follow the politics of his or her choice. But even when applications have been filed with the National Human Rights Commission in such cases, the police have pre-empted the Commission by filing charge sheets in court.

What is even more revealing (and distressing) is the behaviour of the media. The story of Basha’s arrest was published by most of the newspapers on June 19 based on information provided by the police. The PTI story and several others seemed to just gobble up the police version, without any independent enquiries about the person, his involvements or activities. These not just reflect badly on the independence of the media, but also talk a lot about the lack of basic journalistic integrity & ethics.

Earlier, during the month of April, 2010 Delhi police arrested four persons on charges of being associated with CPI Maoists – Sunil Mandiwal, Ajay Singh, Gopal Mishra, and his wife Anu Mishra. Sunil Mandiwal was an Assistant Lecturer in the Hindi Department of Delhi University, while Gopal Mishra was working for a trade union in Shahdara but was alleged to be a “commander” of the CPI Maoist. All the newspapers, which published the news of the arrests of these persons, provided detailed accounts of the charges against them and the police versions of the “criminal” activities they were allegedly involved in as members of the CPI Maoist. But none cared to follow the basic tenets of journalism in carrying the version of the accused or the arrested persons. When Mandiwal was subsequently released as the police could not find any evidence against him, the newspapers did not bother to talk to him and report what he had to say about his arrest and the “investigation” that the police carried out.

On April 11, media analyst Partho Ray read in The Sunday Times of India, a special article by its investigative reporter which carried details of how the Maoists raised huge amounts of money, nearly Rs 1,500 crore, through extortion, selling drugs, ransom, and robbery. On the same day he read the same article in a Bengali newspaper Ekdin that also claimed that it was written by its staff correspondent. The article also appeared on April 11 in Asian Age under the name of a well known correspondent. And it further appeared in “Central Chronicle”, an internet news portal from Madhya Pradesh, but this time it was attributed to agencies. Such a rare instance of cooperation between newspapers raised the interesting question of who did the “investigation”. The cat was let out of the bag by the Mumbai Mirror when it published the same news report on the same day but attributed it to Intelligence Agencies.

We all know that Operation “Green Hunt” is on. According to the Home Ministry a 70,000 strong force is being raised to smash the Maoists. The United “Progressive” Alliance government has sanctioned Rs 14,000 crore for buying arms for this new counter insurgency force. The votaries of Neo-conservatism who are in power have clearly declared that they believe in “economic growth” at the cost of all those people who oppose the massive plans of industrialisation in the central Indian forests, or the acquisition of immense tracts in the plains for Special Economic Zones, or the conversion of middling Indian towns into “world class” cities, or the channelling of snow-fed rivers of the north into tunnels to meet the hunger for “power”.

It is within this context where capitalist development considers the working people to be redundant, and the defenders of human rights as impediments to progress, that we need to view the arrest and prosecution of activists like Shakeel Basha. It is also within this context that we stand by such individuals to reclaim the democratic space, to restore the Republic to the People, and to challenge the neo-Goebbelsian trend in which the media has become the embedded hand-maiden of those who ruthlessly use power against the people. We declare that we shall not let this neo-Emergency pass.

And finally, we need to ask ourselves especially when we are on the eve of emergency day, 26th June, thirty five years later, whether we are going to surrender our Constitutional rights of dissenting and holding and expressing views, to the police state that India is becoming.

Endorsed by : Haq, ANHAD, Aman Biradari, Peace, Insaf, Delhi Solidarity Group, National Alliance of People’s Movements – NAPM Delhi, National Forum of Forest People & Forest Workers, (NFFPFW) Hazard Centre, South Asia Forum for Human Rights (SAFHR), Human Rights Law Network (HRLN), New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI), Shahri Adhikar Manch, The Other Media, Saheli, IGSSS, Update Collective, Campaign for Judicial Accountability & Reforms, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and other concerned groups and individuals

Produce Varanasi Subramanyam a Central Committee member of the CPI (Maoist) Party before a court of law immediately!

COMMITTEE FOR THE RELEASE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS

185/3, Fourth Floor, Zakir Nagar, New Delhi—25

PRESS RELEASE

As per the information that is available from the civil rights activists and concerned citizens the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners demands the immediate production of Mr. Varanasi Subramanyam, a Central Committee member of the CPI (Maoist) party, before a court of law. Since the evening of 16.06.2010 it is reported that he has remained without any trace of his whereabouts. Further there is information as per the statement of revolutionary poet Vara Vara Rao that he missed an appointment at Badayun Western UP on the 17 June 2010 evening. And every effort to get in touch with Mr. Varanasi Subramnayam on the 18, 19 and 20 of June 2010 has failed.

Given the track record of the Central Intelligence and AP Special Intelligence agencies we at the CRPP are concerned for the life of Mr. Varanasi Subramanyam as there is a real threat that he may be eliminated. We strongly demand that he be produced before a court of law and allowed access to a lawyer of his choice. Only this can guarantee his right to be immune to mental and physical torture.

We also attach the statement issued by Vara Vara Rao on 20.06.10.

In Solidarity,

Gurusharan Singh

President

Amit Bhattacharyya

Secretary General

SAR Geelani

Working President

Rona Wilson

Secretary Public Relations

Statement from Varavara Rao

The Central and State governments are responsible for his life!

With great concern let me bring to the notice of the media the news that I received from the CPI (Maoist) party about the disappearance of Varanasi Subramanyam one of their Central Committee members since the evening of 16.06.2010 after 7 pm. Since then Varanasi Subramanyam has remained incommunicado with the rest of the party. He was supposed to be there in Badayun in Western UP on the 17.06.2010 in the evening.

There also he missed the appointment. The CPI (Maoist) party is concerned that there is threat to his life as he might have been arrested by the police. While sharing the concern of the CPI (Maoist) party I strongly demand that State with Home Minister Chidambaram should act responsibly like a country that respects its laws and produce him before a court of law as he has gone missing since the evening of 16 June 2010.

I was informed that he was not traceable on 17, 18 and 19 June despite many efforts by his comrades.

The arrest of Varanasi Subramanyam has been a joint operation of the Central Intelligence Bureau and the AP SIB. Varanasi Subramanyam aged 55 years who is popular among the oppressed masses as , Srikant, Aman, Saroj, Vikas hails from Malkapuram in Prakasham District.

As a student he read law in the University of Andhra. During his student days, inspired by the revolutionary peasant struggles of Shrikakulam and Telangana he joined the Radical Students’ Union (RSU). Later he rose to become the president of RSU.

After reading his law he also practiced as an advocate in the Visakhapatnam bar under Rachakonda Viswanatha Shastri, the popular Telugu writer known as Raavi Shastri.

But

he was not someone who would be content with a life as a lawyer. His unflinching commitment for the cause of the poor made him reach out to the coal miners of Singareni. Little wonder he soon became a popular leader of the working class. The trade union that he organized under the banner Singareni Karmika Samakhya attracted hundreds of thousands of coal miners that it soon earned the wrath of the state. Soon a ban was imposed on this organization along with the then CPI (ML) (People’s War). He then shifted to North India.

The inordinate delay in producing Varanasi Subramanyam before the court is a blatant violation of his right to a lawyer of his choice, immunity against torture and worse a real threat to his life as the Andhra Pradesh police has been with impunity killing all the leaders of the CPI (Maoist) party hailing from the state.

I further call upon the central and state governments especially the Prime Minister and the Home Minister to act like statesmen when they are talking about a possible dialogue with the CPI (Maoist) party. It would end like yet another exercise of duplicity and hypocrisy if P. Chidambaram goes ahead with his brutal repression campaign against the CPI (Maoist) party and at the same time claim that he is serious about talks. He should use his office to ensure that Varanasi Subramanyam is produced before a court of law immediately.

Varavara Rao
Hyderabad

Maoists declare war on MNCs

Naxalites have decided to train their guns against Multinational Companies (MNCs) operating in India.

In a statement sent to select media houses today, the CPI-Maoists have declared that they would "rise up as a collective fist to drive out MNCs" from the country. The statement also reiterates that their mission is to wipe away the "treacherous rotten regimes" at the Centre and the states.

The Naxalites have said because mining activities by corporates have not benefitted the tribals it is justified to launch an armed struggle. However, government reports claim local leaders of the insurgent groups regularly extort hefty sums from miners to allow them to do business.

The tirade against the MNCs has come in the backdrop of the Bhopal gas tragedy verdict. Launching a scathing attack against the government and corporate India, Naxalite spokesperson Azad said, "We appeal to all democratic forces to unite, oppose and militantly resist the continuous sell-out of the country’s interests to imperialistsharks. Time is running out. Unless we act collectively against the disastrous policies of the traitorous UPA government and various state governments we cannot prevent the whole of India from becoming a Bhopal."

The radical insurgents have also demanded that the assets of Dow Chemicals be confiscated and the "criminal" be forced to clean up toxic material from the Bhopal site. The banned outfit also took up another popular demand that the Dow be made to pay compensation to the 500,000 victims.

The outfit, blamed for the recent Jnaneshwari Express accident that took more than 180 lives, has expressed its "deepest anguish" at the plight faced by lakhs of people in Bhopal.

It claimed that the common man can never get justice from the "so-called courts of law or from the ruling-class parties whether it is the Congress, the BJP or the so-called Left."

Blaming the Congress as well as the BJP for the crimes committed by "MNC sharks like the Union Carbide", Azad targeted the government for rolling out the "red carpet, signing up MoUs, granting extraordinary concessions like free land, water, power, tax holidays and ban legitimate trade union activities." Sify

Maoist Development Projects in West Bengal

Chhotomoni Mahato (65), who earns her keep by plucking saal leaves in Patri village of West Midnapore, contributed Rs 10 to a Maoist-backed organisation to dig a pond in the area.

Those employed in various jobs in the locality are asked to stump up 20-25 per cent of their income for similar so-called development projects.

This is the Lalgarh area, 160 km west of Kolkata, deep inside West Midnapore district. Maybe extortion, but the Maoists have taken over the civic services, the law and order machinery, and even the judicial services in the area.

It is a “secret state” that seems to have survived the onslaught of 5,000 personnel of the Centre-state combined forces for the past one year.

In June last year, Hindustan Times went to discover this state within a state, carefully shielded from the public eye, emerging in different parts of West Midnapore.

The picture hasn’t changed.

In Kalsibhanga village, members of the Maoist-backed People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) have created an irrigation canal that is 1,200 feet long, 5 feet wide, and also 5 feet deep.

The canal is connected with a pond that is 10 bigha (10 bighas = 144,000 square feet) in area. “This monsoon, we expect the surrounding farmland to get the needed irrigation through this canal. It will definitely increase rice production,” Manoj Mahato, PCAPA central committee member, told HT.

Inspector General (Western Range) of Police Zulfikar Hasan said: “We are aware that the PCAPA is running health centres. We have closed some of them.”

While there are allegations of extortion from local contractors, traders and service holders, the rebels say the contribution of funds and labour from people is voluntary.

The rebels have built and repaired roads of 50 km in some villages of the Jhargram sub-division.

The PCAPA claims to have dug about 200 wells, besides renovating around 1,000 existing ones, in their areas of domination, which spreads over 27 police stations in the three districts of West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia.

“The CPI(M)-led government in West Bengal never carried out development in this area,” said Lalmohan Mahato.

He had been a CPI(M) member before quitting the party in early 2009, in protest against corruption.

In Rameshwarpur village under the Bhimpur panchayat, the rebels run a health centre that offers service for 12 hours in the day. There are two doctors here though there are nine untrained persons who offer medical consultancy.

“This centre treats about 100 patients every day,” said Mahato.

The centre was in a government building that housed an anganwadi unit (mother- and child-care centre) before the rebels took it over more than a year ago.

There are 35 such health centres in the entire district. Rameshwarpur functions as headquarters for health services and medicines are dispatched from here.

In April 2010 the combined forces raided this centre and seized medicines, which was a temporary setback for the Maoist dispensation. “The forces took away medicines worth Rs 40,000 and smashed the almirahs,” said Haripada Mahato, in charge of the Rameswarpur health centre.

However, West Bengal CPI(M) State Secretariat member Robin Deb said the government had no objection to health centres, which are good for people. But if arms and ammunition is stored in them, the security forces must intervene.

The rebels are building a six-bed hospital next to the Rameswarpur health centre. “The basement has been built. It will be functional in two months,” Haripada Mahato said.

“Are they really building a hospital there?” asked an incredulous Aneesh Sarkar, deputy superintendent of police (operations), West Midnapore.

He is in the dark about it.

Operation Green Hunt’s Urban Avatar

By Arundhati Roy

14 June, 2010
The Dawn

While the Indian Government considers deploying the army and air force to quell the rebellion in the countryside, strange things are happening in the cities.

On the 2nd of June the Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR) held a public meeting in Mumbai. The main speakers were Gautam Navlakha, editorial consultant of the Economic and Political Weekly and myself. The press was there in strength. The meeting lasted for more than three hours. It was widely covered by the print media and TV. On June 3rd, several newspapers, TV channels and online news portals like Rediff.com, covered the event quite accurately. The Times of India (Mumbai edition), had an article headlined "We need an idea that is neither Left nor Right", and the Hindu’s article was headlined "Can we leave the bauxite in the mountain?" The recording of the meeting is up on YouTube.

The day after the meeting, the Press Trust of India (PTI) put out a brazenly concocted account of what I had said.

The PTI report was first posted by the Indian Express online on June 3rd 2010 at 13.35 pm. The headline said: "Arundhati backs Maoists, dares authorities to arrest her." Here are some excerpts:

"Author Arundhati Roy has justified the armed resistance by Maoists and dared the authorities to arrest her for supporting their cause."

"The Naxal movement could be nothing but an armed struggle. I am not supporting violence. But I am also completely against contemptuous atrocities-based political analysis." (?)

"It ought to be an armed movement. Gandhian way of opposition needs an audience, which is absent here. People have debated long before choosing this form of struggle," Roy, who had saluted the "people of Dantewada" after 76 CRPF and police personnel were mowed down by Maoists in the deadliest attack targeting security forces. "’I am on this side of line. I do not care…pick me up put me in jail,’ she asserted."

Let me begin with the end of the report. The suggestion that I saluted "the people of Dantewada" after the Maoists killed 76 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) is a piece of criminal defamation. I have made it quite clear in an interview on CNN-IBN that I viewed the death of the CRPF men as tragic, and that I thought they were pawns in a war of the rich against the poor. What I said at the meeting in Mumbai was that I was contemptuous of the hollow condemnation industry the media has created and that as the war went on and the violence spiraled, it was becoming impossible to extract any kind of morality from the atrocities committed by both sides, so an atrocity-based analysis was a meaningless exercise. I said that I was not there to defend the killing of ordinary people by anybody, neither the Maoists nor the government, and that it was important to ask what the CRPF was doing with 27 AK-47s, 38 INSAS, 7 SLRs, 6 light machine guns, one stengun and a two-inch mortar in tribal villages. If they were there to wage war, then being railroaded into condemning the killing of the CRPF men by the Maoists meant being railroaded into coming down on the side of the Government in a war that many of us disagreed with.

The rest of the PTI report was a malicious, moronic mish-mash of what transpired at the meeting. My views on the Maoists are clear. I have written at length about them. At the meeting I said that the people’s resistance against the corporate land grab consisted of a bandwidth of movements with different ideologies, of which the Maoists were the most militant end. I said the government was labeling every resistance movement, every activist, ‘Maoist’ in order to justify dealing with them in repressive, military fashion. I said the government had expanded the meaning of the word ‘Maoist’ to include everybody who disagreed with it, anybody who dared to talk about justice. I drew attention to the people of Kalinganagar and Jagatsinghpur who were waging peaceful protests but were living under siege, surrounded by hundreds of armed police, were being lathi-charged and fired at. I said that local people thought long and hard before deciding what strategy of resistance to adopt. I spoke of how people who lived deep inside forest villages could not resort to Gandhian forms of protest because peaceful satyagraha was a form of political theatre that in order to be effective, needed a sympathetic audience, which they did not have. I asked how people who were already starving could go on hunger strikes. I certainly never said anything like "it ought to be an armed movement." (I’m not sure what on earth that means.)

I went on to say that all the various resistance movements today, regardless of their differences, understood that they were fighting a common enemy, so they were all on one side of the line, and that I stood with them. But from this side of the line, instead of only asking the government questions, we should ask ourselves some questions. Here are my exact words:

"I think it is much more interesting to interrogate the resistance to which we belong, I am on this side of the line. I am very clear about that. I don’t care, pick me up, put me in jail. I am on this side of the line. But on this side of the line, we must turn around and ask our comrades questions."

I then said that while Gandhian methods of resistance were not proving to be effective, Gandhian movements like the Narmada Bachao Andolan had a radical and revolutionary vision of "development" and while the Maoists methods of resistance were effective, I wondered whether they had thought through the kind of "development" they wanted. Apart from the fact that they were against the Government selling out to private corporations, was their mining policy very different from state policy? Would they leave the bauxite in the mountain – which is what the people who make up their cadre want, or would they mine it when they came to power?

I read out Pablo Neruda’s "Standard Oil Company" that tells us what an old battle this one is.

The PTI reporter who had made it a point to take permission from the organizers to record cannot claim his or her version to be a matter of ‘interpretation’. It is blatant falsification. Surprisingly the one-day-old report was published by several newspapers in several languages and broadcast by TV channels on June 4th, many of whose own reporters had covered the event accurately the previous day and obviously knew the report to be false. The Economic Times said: "Publicity seeking Arundhati Roy wants to be Aung San Su Kyi". I’m curious – why would newspapers and TV channels want to publish the same news twice, once truthfully and then falsely?

That same evening (June 4th), at about seven O’clock, two men on a motorcycle drove up to my home in Delhi and began hurling stones at the window. One stone nearly hit a small child playing on the street. Angry people gathered and the men fled. Within minutes, a Tata Indica arrived with a man who claimed to be a reporter from Zee TV, asking if this was "Arundhati Roy’s house" and whether there had been trouble. Clearly this was a set up, a staged display of ‘popular anger’ to be fed to our barracuda-like TV channels. Fortunately for me, that evening their script went wrong. But there was more to come. On June 5th the Dainik Bhaskar in Raipur carried a news item "Himmat ho to AC kamra chhod kar jungle aaye Arundhati" (If she has the guts Arundhati should leave her airconditioned room and come to the jungle) in which Vishwaranjan, the Director General of Police of Chhattisgarh challenged me to face the police by joining the Maoists in the forest. Imagine that- the police DGP and me, Man to Man. Not to be outdone, a Bharatiya Janata Party leader from Chhattisgarh, Ms Poonam Chaturvedi announced to the press that I should be shot down at a public crossroad, and that other traitors like me should be given the death sentence. (Perhaps someone should tell her that this sort of direct incitement to violence is an offense under the Indian Penal Code.) Mahendra Karma, Chief of the murderous ‘peoples’ militia the Salwa Judum which is guilty of innumerable acts of rape and murder, asked for legal action to be taken against me. On Tuesday June 8th the Hindi daily Nayi Duniya reported that complaints have been filed against me in two separate police stations in Chhattisgarh, Bhata Pada and Teli Bandha, by private individuals objecting to my "open support for the Maoists.

Is this what Military Intelligence calls psyops (psychological operations)? Or is it the urban avatar of Operation Green Hunt? In which a government news agency helps the home-ministry to build up a file on those it wants to put away, inventing evidence when it can’t find any? Or is PTI trying to deliver the more well-known among us to the lynch mob so that the government does not have to risk its international reputation by arresting or eliminating us? Or is it just a way of forcing a crude polarization, a ridiculous dumbing down of the debate-if you’re not with "us" you are a Maoist? Not just a Maoist, but a stupid, arrogant, loudmouthed Maoist. Whatever it is, it’s dangerous, and shameless, but it isn’t new. Ask any Kashmiri, or any young Muslim being held as a "terrorist" without any evidence except baseless media reports. Ask Mohammed Afzal, sentenced to death to "satisfy the collective conscience of society."

Now that Operation Green Hunt has begun to knock on the doors of people like myself, imagine what’s happening to activists and political workers who are not well known. To the hundreds that are being jailed, tortured and eliminated. June 26th is the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Emergency. Perhaps the Indian people should declare (because the government certainly won’t) that this country is in a state of Emergency. (On second thoughts, did it ever go away?) This time censorship is not the only problem. The manufacture of news is an even more serious one.

International Call : Support People’s War In India

In India an impetuous people’s war against the Indian bourgeoisie and the imperialism is developing and spreading more and more in nearly one third of the districts of the country. It is not simply a guerilla waged by few thousands of fighters, coming from the castes and tribal areas of the country. It is a real people’s war,led by the Party of the proletariat of India,the Communist Party of India (Maoist), in which are involved – or is supported by – millions of poor peasants, women, "untouchables," fighting to free themselves and it has already took big areas throughout a dozen of states of the Indian Federation.

The people’s war began where the root of the riot, the poverty, the tribal and capitalistic exploitation, the caste oppression, the plundering of the natural resources were deeper and therefore the contradictions brought by the Indian capitalism ruled by the imperialism were sharper. Today this people’s war is winning masses of young people, students, democratic and revolutionary intellectuals also in the cities and gains attention and support over the world.

Against the people’s war, the Indian State,supported by the imperialists, launched a giant repressive offensive called "Green Hunt," a real manhunt that hits the poor masses in India as animals to exterminate. The Indian State launched an internal military offensive against the people, waged by hi-tech-armed troops,police units and paramilitary militias, in order to spread terror and genocide in the villages, with raids, crop destroying, massive rapes and killings, selective murders, mass detentions and disappearing – like the recent genocide offensive occurred in Sri Lanka against the Tamil people and liberation movement.

All this with the illusion to drown in blood the struggle of the people for their liberation, with the silent/consent of the imperialist governments of US, Europe, Russia, and their mass-media. The crimes of the Indian State found the internal opposition of a wide front of intellectuals – including the prominent bepresentative of the world anti-globalization movement, the writer Arundhati Roy. And in all countries of the world political activists denounced those crimes and mobilized to stop "Green Hunt."

A world campaign of information and solidarity has been launched by ICAWPI (International Campaign Against War on the People in India).But we need more than the condemnation of the crimes of the counter-revolution in India. The masses led by the Communist Party of India (Maoist) are writing a historical chapter of the class clash in the world between, on one side,the imperialism and the reactionary bourgeoisies and, on the other side, the proletariat and the people of the world. The development of the people’s war in India is a new proof that the revolution is the main tendency in the world today.

It shows again that Maoism, the Marxism-Leninism of our era, is the command and guide of the world revolution against the imperialism in crisis.

The vanguard proletarians must understand that the advance of the people’s war in India seriously questions the strength balance, not only in the South-Asian region but also on a world scale. That is why we, Maoist and revolutionary parties and organizations, launch a big campaign of support and call to form an International Committee of Support to organize conferences, meetings, demonstrations in various countries, particularly in the heart of the imperialist beast.

With people’s war in India towards the victory!

Maoist Communist Party – France
Maoist Communist Party – Italy
Maoist Communist Party – Turkey/North Kurdistan
Revolutionary Communist Party – Canada
Communist Party of India (ML) Naxalbari

CONDEMN THE CONSPIRACY OF THE RULING CLASSES AND THE MEDIA HYSTERIA TO IMPLICATE MAOISTS IN THE JNANESWARI EXPRESS TRAGEDY

COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)

CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Press Release:                                            June 1st, 2010

CONDEMN THE CONSPIRACY OF THE RULING CLASSES AND THE MEDIA HYSTERIA TO IMPLICATE MAOISTS IN THE JNANESWARI EXPRESS TRAGEDY!!

The removal of panroles on the railway track near Jhargram in West Bengal leading to the accident of Kurla-bound Jnaneswari Express and consequent deaths of 150 innocent civilians and injuries to over 200 passengers is highly condemnable. The CC, CPI(Maoist), expresses its deep sorrow at the tragic incident and shares the suffering and pain of the families of the deceased. Strangely, the tragic incident which took place on the intervening night of May 28/29 is being used by West Bengal government, the police and some ruling class parties like the Hindu fascist BJP and the social fascist CPI(M) to tarnish the image of our Party—CPI(Maoist)— and gain legitimacy to the counter-revolutiona ry war unleashed by the Indian State against the poorest sections of the Indian society led by the Maoists.

Baseless accusations against the Maoist revolutionaries are part of the dirty disinformation campaign let loose by the reactionary rulers through their police-intelligence agencies and their pet media. For two days after the incident the police did not even confirm whether a blast had occurred at the site let alone finding any clue about the involvement of the Maoists or the PCAPA. However, they came up with the theory of Maoist involvement with the argument that the area is a hotbed of the Maoists, and Maoists had been targeting trains for some time. The entire media has been playing to the tune of the conspirators by running banner headlines that “Maoist terrorists” had taken the lives of innocent people, Maoists are blood-thirsty hounds and such trash which only insane people can say. Would anyone in his senses ever imagine that the CPI(Maoist), which had been fighting for land, livelihood and liberation of the people for over four decades, which had sacrificed thousands of its leaders and cadres for the cause of the oppressed, which has no other interests than the interests of the people, can harm the lives of those very people?

It is the reactionary rulers who would stop at nothing to acquire power and retain it. They would set fire to their own houses to discredit others and gain the sympathy of the people. It is universally known how Hindu fascists like Narendra Modi had engaged VHP, RSS and Bajrang Dal hoodlums to unleash attacks on Muslims; how a Sri Ram Sene is hired to create riots in Karnataka; how a Raman Singh kills adivasis and accuses the Maoists of having committed the crimes. A fascist Hitler had set fire to the Reichstag, to put the blame on the Communists and begin a witch-hunt. Likewise, these reactionary rulers themselves had organized the sabotage of railways with the aim of discrediting the Maoists. With an eye on the elections and unnerved by their fast-eroding social base, the social fascists think they can gain sympathy through such dirty tricks. The reactionary ruling class parties have degenerated to such a low level that they will go to any extent to be in power.

Strange is the manner in which most of the media had reported on the tragic incident. While they ran headlines attributing the cause of the sabotage to the Maoists, they report in their columns that the enquiry is on and that Maoist involvement is suspected. How can the media deliver its judgement even before any evidence is found or enquiry conducted? What morality do these reporters, some of them quite renowned at that, possess when they pass judgements based on their own ideological biases? Worse, some media sources have not even published or aired the statement issued by our Party representative in West Bengal denying our involvement. The media is becoming increasingly anarchic, irresponsible and unaccountable. While propagating falsehoods without investigation, the media does not even have the courtesy to admit its gross mistakes and irresponsible accusations when the truth comes out in the open. It had done the same kind of false propaganda against the Muslim community after the blasts in Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad, Ajmer Dargah blast, Goa blast and so on and remained unapologetic about its false and biased reporting even after it was clearly proved that these blasts were the handiwork of Hindu fascist gangs.

The CC, CPI(Maoist), condemns this kangaroo trial by the media and its irresponsible accusations against our Party’s involvement in the train tragedy. We consider this as a deep conspiracy by the rulers to defame the Maoist revolutionaries and gain legitimacy to their suppression campaign. We warn the reactionaries who have been vomiting venom against Maoists to stop their vicious campaign and hurling false allegations. We call upon the democratic and progressive forces, civil rights groups and people at large to see through the intrigues and diabolic designs of the reactionary rulers in spreading such lies and falsehoods against the Maoist revolutionaries. We demand an impartial enquiry into the incident to bring out the truth. Our Party will never hide the truth from the people. When we commit a mistake we frankly admit it, apolgise to the people from the depths of our hearts, and assure them that we would not repeat such a mistake. This has been the hall-mark of our Party in all its history. In this particular incident of the Jnaneswari express the Party leadership so far is not aware of any involvement of its cadre but if it is found that anyone close to our Party had indeed carried out the sabotage of the railways, then we will take stringent action against them and openly admit the lapse on our part. We will investigate into the incident and come out with the facts in the shortest time. We assure the people of our country that there will not be any attacks on trains in future and we will instruct our Party cadre to abstain from such acts as they can cause loss of ordinary lives.

Azad,

Spokesperson,

Central Committee,

CPI(Maoist)

Source: Peoples March