new democracy, march 2016

Organ of the Central Committee, CPI(ML)

March, 2016March, 2016March, 2016March, 2016March, 2016March, 2016March, 2016March, 2016March, 2016March, 2016

NEW DEMOCRACY

1 2

A Pillar of the Revolutionary Movement and A Builderof Resistance Struggle

RRRRRed Salute to Com.ed Salute to Com.ed Salute to Com.ed Salute to Com.ed Salute to Com. RRRRRaaaaayyyyyalaalaalaalaalaSubhash Chandra Bose (Ravi) !Subhash Chandra Bose (Ravi) !Subhash Chandra Bose (Ravi) !Subhash Chandra Bose (Ravi) !Subhash Chandra Bose (Ravi) !

One of the main pillars of the revolutionary communist movement inerstwhile Andhra Pradesh (now Telengana and Andhra Pradesh) and oneof the main builders of Godavari Valley Resistance Struggle, Member of

the Central Committee of CPI(ML)-NewDemocracy and Secretary of i tsTelengana State Committee, Com.Rayala Subhash Chandra Bose (Ravi)breathed his last at about 7 PM onMarch 9, 2016. With his death,CPI(ML)-New Democracy and therevolutionary movement of India haslost one of its foremost leaders andthe struggling people of the countryhave lost one of their foremostfighters.

Com. Ravi died in harness. Hesuffered brain hemorrhage while hewas summing up the discussion in ameeting of Telengana StateCommittee. He was immediatelyrushed to a hospital where doctorsadvised he be taken to Hyderabad.However, he was declared dead onarrival in Hyderabad hospital.

Com. Ravi symbolized the finestqualities of a revolutionary communist.His simple and disciplined life, hisideological conviction in Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, his

undaunted commitment to New Democratic Revolution, his organizationalmethods of taking everybody along while adhering to strict discipline, hiswillingness to take up arduous and risky tasks, his willingness to endureevery hardship and offer every sacrifice in the interest of the revolutionarymovement made him stand out as one of the finest leaders of the

revolutionary movement of the country.

Com. Ravi was born in 1948 in villagePindiporlu in Khammam district. His familyactively participated in the Great TelenganaArmed Struggle. His uncle, Rayala VenkataNarayana, was a leader in that heroic struggle.

Com. Ravi was studying for his B.Sc. inGovt. Degree Col lege (SR&BGNR) inKhammam where he was drawn to revolutionarypolitics. Inspired by the Great Naxalbari peasantarmed struggle, he drew towards politics ofNaxalbari and joined the revolutionary movementin 1968. Com. Ravi started working in StudentsFederation (SF) which was in Khammam underthe leadership of revolutionary communists. Heleft his studies and set out to develop armedstruggle in the countryside. He organized armedsquads. He embarked on a journey whichcontinued upto his death. He went undergroundand remained so till the end of his life, 47 yearsin total. He has been among the few whoendured such a long underground life in thecourse of the revolutionary movement.

Com. Ravi remained active in the CPI(ML)then led by Com. Charu Mazumdar when therewas a split among revolutionaries in AndhraPradesh. He however realized the incorrectness

of the left adventurist line which had grown in the leadership of CPI(ML). In1972 he joined APRCP led by Com. C.P. Reddy. He played a prominentrole in developing resistance struggle in Godavari Valley. From 1973 heled armed squads in Palvancha area which included forest areas ofPalvancha and forest areas of West Godavari contiguous with it. Com.

Com. Ravi at AzadStatue at Allahabad



NEW DEMOCRACY

3 4

Ravi worked tirelessly to secure a base for the revolutionary movementamong the tribals and non-tribal poor. While leading armed squads in theseareas, Com. Ravi dauntlessly faced all the hardships, enemy attacks andstate repression. He led by example inspiring fellow comrades. When theParty faced serious problems in East Godavari in late 1980s, Com. Ravispent several months in East Godavari forest areas rallying squads andparty cadres.

Com. Ravi had led the Palvancha AC and later Khammam DC. Hebecame a member of the Andhra Pradesh Provincial Committee in 1976.He was elected Secretary of APPC in 1989. Com. Ravi was elected memberof the Central Committee in 1992 All India Party Congress and was re-elected to the Central Committee in every Party Congress after that. Hewas also a member of the Polit-buro between 1992 and 2004. After bifurcationof old APPC into Telengana PC and APPC in 2014, Com. Ravi continuedas Secretary of Telengana PC till his death. His uninterrupted leadershipof the state movement and organization from 1989 to 2016 spanned over27 years.

Com. Ravi not only led the Party and the movement in the state, heimmensely cared for thecadres at different levels. Hehelped them by offer ingconstructive suggestionsregarding development oftheir work and solvingproblems. He applied himselfto solving pol i t ical andorganizational problems facedby the comrades. He himselfstudied regularly andencouraged other comradesto study both classicalMarxist literature as well ashistory of India andrevolutionary movement. Heinspired a generat ion ofrevolutionary communists inthe state, part icularly in

Khammam. His life partner Com. Rama and younger brother Com. RCSare also state leaders of the Party and the movement.

Com. Ravi greatly prized the unity of the Party and of communistrevolutionaries. He worked tirelessly for preserving the unity of CPI(ML)-New Democracy. He always strove to implement and ensure implementationof the decisions of Party. He always stood in theory and practice forsubordination of the individual to the collective, of the personal to the party.He not only preached the communist ideals and lifestyle but lived them.Through selfless devotion to the people, revolution and party, he becamean inspiration to a number of comrades.

Com. Ravi opposed revisionism and left adventurism. He had vastpersonal experience and deep study of the revolutionary movement to drawupon for convincingly putting the revolutionary perspective and policiesbefore the comrades.

Com. Ravi’s sudden death has plunged leaders and cadres of CPI(ML)-New Democracy in Telengana, Andhra Pradesh and throughout the countryinto deep grief and a sense of loss. His death has been heavy like a mountainfor the leaders and cadres of the Party. Central Committee of CPI(ML)-New Democracy appeals to comrades to turn their grief into strength, towork with renewed vigour to intensify revolutionary movement and people’sstruggles and take new democratic revolution to victory. His death is anirreparable loss and yet we have to strive to advance the revolutionarymovement for which Com. Ravi lived and died. This would be the realhomage to this untiring fighter for Indian revolution, this champion of thestruggles of workers, peasants and toiling sections of the people of thecountry.

Com. Ravi’s revolutionary legacy will live forever among the rank andfile of CPI(ML)-New Democracy and revolutionary movement of the country.

Central Committee dips its red banner in the revolutionary memory ofthe departed comrade. Central Committee calls upon all Party committeesto hold meetings in memory of Com. Ravi between March 15 to March 26,

2016.

(Homage paid by the Central Committee of CPI(ML)-New Democracy

on March 10, 2016)



NEW DEMOCRACY

5 6

Thousands Pay Homage to theDeparted Leader

After the doctors declared him dead, the body of Com. Ravi was broughtto Marx Bhawan, the state office of CPI(ML)-New Democracy. Members ofthe State Committee had come to Hyderabad accompanying the ambulance.Hearing the news of Com. Ravi's death, cadres from all over the city startedgathering at the office. Comrades from different districts also started forHyderabad and reached Marx Bhawan. Hundreds of comrades assembledat Hyderabad to pay their last respects to the departed leader. On themorning of 10th March, several hundred activists of the Party fromHyderabad and other districts of Telengana and also from Andhra Pradeshwere present when a condolence meeting was held in front of the Partyoffice. Leaders of the Central Committee, Telengana and Andhra PCs,leaders of other communist revolutionary organizations and leaders of otherparties paid their respects and lauded the contributions of Com. Ravi tothe revolutionary movement of the country.

After this meeting, his mortal remains were taken to Khammam. BesidesParty leaders and cadres including his life partner Com. Rama and youngerbrother Com. Rayala Chandrashekhar, Com. Ravi's daughter, Spandana,son in law, Shrinivas and two grand children also accompanied the body toKhammam. The ambulance carrying the body passed through the districtof Nalgonda. In Nalgonda district, at several places, including Suryapetand Nakrekal, the ambulance stopped to allow leaders and cadres of theParty assembled at these centres on the way to pay their last respects toCom. Ravi. From Nalgonda as the ambulance entered Khammam district,at every market place on the road, hundreds of cadres and party supportershad assembled to offer floral tributes. From the outskirts of Khammamcity, more than hundred comrades on mobikes accompanied the body ofthe comrade to the District office of the party. Com. Ravi's body reachedKhammam party office in the afternoon.

At the Khammam district office of the Party, floral tributes were givenby thousands of the comrades assembled there. Besides party comrades,family members of Com. Ravi including his mother were present. Leadersof other revolutionary organizations and leaders of other political partiesalso paid their homage to Com. Ravi. Not only was the hall packed beyond

capacity, hundreds of people were standing outside the hall and on theroad in front of the office. Slogans were raised for Marxism-Leninism-MaoZedong Thought, New Democratic Revolution, CPI(ML)-New Democracyalong with 'Long Live Com. Ravi'. Party cadres who had assembled fromdifferent villages of Khammam district besides party cadres and leadersfrom the different districts of Telengana and Andhra Pradesh, vowed tointensify their struggle for New Democratic Revolution.

In the evening the body was taken to his native village, Pindiporlu, forthe cremation. Reaching Pindiporlu, the body was kept in the Mandal officeof the Party situated in the village. There a brief meeting was held whichwas addressed by leaders of the Party and other organizations. Speakersspoke about his contributions to the revolutionary movement and people'sstruggles. From there began the last journey. Winding its way through villagelanes the body was briefly taken to their family house in the village enroute to the cremation ground near the village.

Among those who paid their respects to the departed leader, several ofthem from other organizations had seen him after several decades due to47 years of underground life endured by him in the course of his participationin the revolutionary movement.

Wrapped in red cloth and covered by the party flag, the body was takento the funeral pyre. Amidst slogans raised by Party comrades in the memoryof the departed leader, the body was consigned to the flames. With resolvein their hearts, party leaders and cadres bid their last farewell to one of themost prominent leaders of the revolutionary movement. Thus ended thelast journey of the son of this village which is renowned for its role in GreatTelengana Armed Struggle. The villagers paid their homage to their ilk whohad contributed so much to the cause of liberation of the people. Theywere both proud that Com. Ravi belonged to their village and sad at theloss of this great son of their village.



NEW DEMOCRACY

7 8

29TH FEBRUARY 2016: VISHAKHAPATNAM (AP)

BIG RALLBIG RALLBIG RALLBIG RALLBIG RALLY & PUBLIC MEETINGY & PUBLIC MEETINGY & PUBLIC MEETINGY & PUBLIC MEETINGY & PUBLIC MEETINGAAAAAGAINST COGAINST COGAINST COGAINST COGAINST COASTASTASTASTASTAL CORRIDORAL CORRIDORAL CORRIDORAL CORRIDORAL CORRIDOR

To Resist and Defeat Destructive Development

To Fight for People – Centric Development

On the call of the Central Committee of the CPI (ML) New Democracya big rally was organized at Vishakhapatnam on 29 February, 2016 to resistthe destructive development model being imposed by the Govts. and todemand a people centric development paradigm. The Vishakhapatnam rallywas part of CPI (ML) New Democracy’s efforts to mobilize people againstthis development model being imposed by India’s ruling classes. Nearly 7thousand people particiapted in the programme.

The rally started at 3.30 pm from Vishakhapatnam railway station andwas led by a large troupe of cultural activists of Arunodaya and womencadres who attracted public attention through their revolutionary song anddance performances. Behind them, leading the rally walked the leaders ofCPI (ML) New Democracy Central Committee and the state leadership ofAndhra Pradesh, Telangana and Odisha behind a huge banner declaringthe main slogan of the rally. Festooned with the placards, banners and redflags of the party and different mass organizations of women, youth,students, peasants, workers and fisher folk, the rally looked as if a sea ofred had descended on the streets of Vishakhapatnam.

Thousands of cadres of different mass organizations of the party rentthe air with their thunderous slogans. Some of the slogans that were raisedwere – Stop Destruction in the Name of Development! We want PeopleCentric Development! Take Back the Coastal Corridor, SEZs and PCPIR!Take Back the Government Order for Bauxite Mining in Vishakha AgencyArea! Stop the Construction of Polavaram Project! Protect Forest Land,Sea Coast, and Agricultural Lands! Stop Polluting Industries! EncourageCashew, Sugarcane, Jute and Other Crops! Provide Subsidy to Cashew,Sugarcane, Jute and other industries! Give Minimum Support Price forCrops! Cancel Recovery of Agricultural Loans! Stop Land Grab in the Name

of Development! Re-startClosed Jute Mills in North-Andhra! Down WithGovernment Repressionon Revolutionary MassMovements!

The ral ly passedthrough several streetsand areas of the ci tyincluding New Colony,Dondaparthy, DiamondPark, Dwaraka Nagar andAmbedkar statue. Takingabout two hours, at around5.30 pm the rally reachedthe grounds opposite tothe Government Women’sCollege where i t

culminated into a mass meeting.

Before various speakers took the mike, the Arunodaya cultural activistsraised the tempo of the mass meeting by rendering revolutionary songsand dance performances. Com. K. Ravikumar, CPI (M-L) New DemocracyVishakhapatnam town committee member invited speakers onto the Dias.The Public meeting was presided over by Com. Y. Sambasiva Rao (YSR),CPI (M-L) New Democracy Andhra Pradesh State Party Spokesperson.Addressing the rally he said that the government has been depriving theScheduled Tribes, Dalits, and fishermen of their livelihood by displacingthem from their habitations to provide the coastal corridor for setting up ofSEZs, P.C.P.I.R. and other projects. He questioned the rationale of thegovernment in bringing projects which are destroying the people's lives.Government is mortgaging resources like Bauxite deposits in Araku,Anantagiri and Chintapalli Ghats to Multinational Companies for pursuingpro-imperialist development. In the process of mortgaging these resourcesto the imperialists and their agents, the ruling elite is violating the 5th

Schedule of the Constitution. He emphasized that the Government isuprooting people’s lives and throwing them on to the streets by pursuingThermal power plants in Kakarapally, Sompeta, Polaaki, Pudimadika,



NEW DEMOCRACY

9 10

Paravaada, Naduvuru, Krishnapatnam, Raamayampeta, Kaamavarapu Petaand in other areas. Com. YSR said that the government is trying to takeconcurrence of the people for extending the Vishakhapatnam Gangavaramport and HPCL and Steel plants by resorting to coercive police intimidation.Even though the people are already suffering from the pollution caused bythe existing industries in Vishakhapatnam, in promoting the current phaseof industrialization the CRZ Rules, Pollution Control Board and warningsissued by the Department of Environment are all being given a go by.

The rally was also addressed by noted academic and retired Professorof Delhi University Prof. Manoranjan Mohanty who was the Chief Guest ofthis meeting. Prof Mohanty said that the Central Government is encouragingprojects like the Coastal corridor in the service of domestic and InternationalCorporate houses and that such development shall prove to be harmful forthe country’s economic development. He said that this is being done atthe cost of the real needs of the people. Pointing to the latest Budget ofthe Modi government at the Centre, he said that this Union Budget is againstpoor people and has neglected the development of the education sector.He said that there is little direction in the Budget towards solving theproblems of the poor people and tackling the problem of unemployment.Due to their collective failure the ruling elite of the country are resorting torepression on the people who are questioning this kind of destructivedevelopment. Criticizing the Government, Prof Mohanty said that thegovernment is torturing the people in agency areas like through OperationGreen Hunt to cover up its failure at solving their basic requirements suchas of health, food and livelihoods. The Government is foisting cases ofsedition and calling people anti-national for raising their voice against casteoppression such as in the case of suicide by Hyderabad Central University’sDalit scholar Rohith Vemula. Modi Government is trying to make India afree market for the exploitation of its working masses in the name of ‘Makein India.’ Due to this destructive pattern of development, people are losingtheir sustainability and the poor people living in villages, towns and citiesare being displaced from their habitations. Professor Manoranjan Mohantycalled upon the people to oppose destructive development and participatein mass movements in support of alternative, people centric development.He concluded his speech with “Inquilab Zindabad.”

The meeting was also addressed by CPI (M-L) New Democracy CentralCommittee member Comrade Darshan Singh Khatkar. Linking the present

model of development to the 'development' works undertaken by the Britishin India, Com Khatkar likened the construction of roads, airports and otherprojects by India’s ruling elite as a means to deepen the exploitation of thecountry by International and domestic corporate in the same manner aswas done by the British imperialists. He pointed out that the government isnot providing jobs to local people in local industries and that the problemsthat are going to be created by the coastal corridor are going to far outweighthe claimed benefits. Com Khatkar stressed that this model of capitalistdevelopment shall only facilitate the drain of India’s resources. This modelof 'development' is only pushing our people further into poverty by displacingthe Dalits, Adivasis and the fishermen from their habitations. In thisconnection Com Khatkar pointed to the Government’s preparations foramending the Land Acquisition Act and The Trade Union Act. He said thatthe people throughout the country are getting mobilized in mass movementssuch as the ones that had taken place in Kalinganagar, Niyamgiri, Singur,Nandigram, Jaitapur, Kakrapalli, Sompeta and Kudankulam and aresacrificing their lives. Com Khatkar stated that CPI (M-L) New Democracyhas always stood with the people and has involved them in massmovements to solve their livelihood issues of food, shelter, clothing,education, medicines etc.

Among other speakers the meeting was also addressed by Com.Bhalachandra Shadangi (Odisha state spokesperson of the party), Com.K. Rangayya (Telangana state Leader) , Com. P. Prasad (AP state Leader),Com. Tandara Prakash (V.V.S Area leader), Com. M. Durga Prasad (AllIndia Kisan Mazdoor Sabha AP state General Secretary), Com. M. Lakshmi(Progressive Organization of Women AP state General Secretary), Com.M. Venkateswarlu (Indian Federation of Trade Unions state Vice President),Com. Dharmula Suresh (AIKMS state vice President), Com. Y. Kondaiah(ND Vishaka Town Secretary) and others.

The performances put up by the comrades of Arunodaya culturalactivists came in for huge praise by one and all. In this connection theefforts of Arunodaya AP State President Com. Ramarao, Arunodaya APstate General Secretary Com. Porandla Srinivas and Arunodaya TelanganaState Secretary Com. Krishna need special mention. Performances byVishakhapatnam Child cultural activists were also much appreciated.



NEW DEMOCRACY

11 12

CPI(ML)-New Democracy's Call to the People

RRRRResist and Defesist and Defesist and Defesist and Defesist and Defeaeaeaeaeat Destrt Destrt Destrt Destrt Destruction in theuction in theuction in theuction in theuction in thename ofname ofname ofname ofname of DeDeDeDeDevvvvvelopment!elopment!elopment!elopment!elopment!

Fight fFight fFight fFight fFight for Por Por Por Por People centric Deeople centric Deeople centric Deeople centric Deeople centric Devvvvvelopment!elopment!elopment!elopment!elopment!Fellow people of the country,

The policies being pursued by the Central and State Govts. are destroyinglives and livelihoods of the people of the country. They are unleashingdeath, devastation and destruction on the vast masses. Their policies aredestroying crop lands, green forests, sea coast and river banks and arepoisoning land and water. They are destroying agriculture, fishing and otherlivelihoods of the people. Their policies are an unmitigated disaster for thepeople of the country, including broad sections of the peasantry includingtribals, workers, fisherfolk, slum dwellers and other toiling sections. Theirneoliberal model of ‘development’ is only meant to benefit foreign anddomestic corporate and their lackeys while it is a model of devastationand destruction for the common people inhabiting the length and breadthof the country. Their policies are endangering food security, environmentand conditions of lives for the vast multitude.

Modi led RSS-BJP Central Govt. and State Govts. including Naidu ledTDP Govt. of AP, Naveen Patnaik led BJD Govt. of Odisha and KCR ledTRS Govt. in Telengana, are all following a development model based ondisplacing large sections of peasantry and landless people including tribalsfrom villages, from the countryside, fisherfolk from the sea coast and bastidwellers from urban areas. These govts. are working for handing over vastmineral resources of the country to the foreign and domestic corporate,are working to help landgrabbers and construction Mafia. They wish todeepen the exploitation of the country and its people, its natural resourcesand cheap labour power.

Their imperialist dependent model of development has brought untoldmiseries and suffering to the people. People are losing their old worldwithout gaining a new, they are being deprived of their means of life withoutbeing offered anything better, they are being robbed and plundered.Conditions of life of the vast majority are miserable and are further declining.

Ruling classes, for their so-called development, have displaced nearly

60 million people of the country. Over 40% of them are tribals i.e. nearly 2crore and 40 lakhs, 20% of them dalits i.e. 1 crore and 20 lakhs and 20%of them fisherfolk i.e. nearly 1 crore and 20 lakhs. Such a vast number ofoppressed sections have been deprived of their means of livelihood, forcedto migrate for mere survival and working as most exploited casual or contractlabour, their women and girls as housemaids, or simply as homelessvagrants in mega cities. In urban areas, poor basti dwellers are being drivenaway from their shelter for beautification and green cities. In forest areas,tribals are being driven away from their podu lands in the name of increasinggreen cover and their lands usurped for open cast mining.

Corporate vultures are eying the vast mineral resources of the country-bauxite, zinc, manganese, iron, beach sand mining etc. For this, the Govt.is signing MoUs with foreign companies and conspiring to displace evenmore people, predominantly tribals.

Modi Govt.’s “Make in India” is an invitation to MNCs to take advantageof our natural resources and cheap labour. Central Govt., in the last year’sbudget, announced five industrial corridors in the country- Mumbai-DelhiIndustrial Corridor, Mumbai-Bengalaru Economic Corridor, Chennai-Bengalaru Industrial Corridor, Vizag-Chennai Industrial Corridor andAmritsar-Kolkata Industrial Corridor. These are in addition to the CoastalCorridor on the Eastern Coast. As a part of these a number of ports are tobe developed, power plants are to be set up both coal based and atomic,chemical plants and gas storage depots are being built, mining andurbanization are to be taken up. These will devastate not only the vastcountryside and tribal inhabitations, but also the vast sea coast (India has7517 km. sea coast). These will prove to be environmental disasters, pollutethe atmosphere and poison the soil and water. There have already beenaccidents involving gas leaks from the storage depots. With westernmarkets in depression and domestic market not being developed, theseenterprises would only mean increasing mineral extractions and real estateexpansion. These would bring no advantage to the Indian people. In factthe ruling classes are selling not only the present but even the future ofthe country and its people.

To facilitate these projects on the eastern coast, Polavarum project isbeing built to supply water to MNCs and Indian corporate. This projectwould displace more than three lakh people, half of them tribals, fromTelengana, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Chhatisgarh. To facilitate this



NEW DEMOCRACY

13 14

project, Central Govt. has transferred areas of submergence fromTelengana. They are building this in earthquake prone area endangeringlives of large number of people.

Central Govt. is also planning to transfer water from Mahanadi in Odishato Godavari, which will devastate the whole region. Vansdhara and Nagabalirivers originating from Niyamgiri hills are also affected threatening thelivelihood of large number of people in South Odisha and North Andhra.

Building projects as part of coastal corridor would lead to environmentalcatastrophe. Indian Govt. is embarking on dangerous atomic power plantswhich are being shut down elsewhere in the world. Effects of coal ashesand effusions cause a lot of environmental degradation. These projectswould also lead to devastation of the sea coast which increases the risksof greater destruction from natural calamities.

Dear people, all these projects are not for development which wouldbenefit the people of the country. These are part of the offensive of thefinance capital of imperialist countries to increase the exploitation of thepeople of countries like India; part of their imperialist globalization whereentire resources of the globe are to enrich MNCs from the imperialistcountries and their compradors in countries like India. These projects wouldincrease food insecurity, destitution of the vast masses. They would seizefrom the people and from generations hereafter, the land they till, the purityof air and water they consume, the riches the sea offers for sustenanceand give not better lives but impoverishment and displacement.

Central Govt. is bent on pursuing this disastrous course. In order toacquire the land for these projects it tried to change the 2013 LandAcquisition Act. This Act embodied changes from the colonial LandAcquisition Act of 1894 to provide for consent of the displaced people andsocial impact assessment though it too did not rule out forcibledisplacement. These changes were forced by the struggles of the peopleagainst displacement, braving brutal repression and offering supremesacrifices. In these struggles women stood shoulder to shoulder with men.People of Kalinganagar, Niyamgiri, Jagatsinghpur, Kashipur, Singur,Nandigram, Gangavaram, Kakrapally, Sompeta, Raigarh, Dadri, Karchanaand scores of other places gave their lives to force these changes. ModiGovt. sought to undo this. But the peasant masses foiled these nefariousdesigns of Modi Govt. and it had to allow lapse of its Ordinance.

Central Govt. and State Govts. have launched brutal repression on thepeople resisting takeover of their land and livelihood. They have launchedOperation Green Hunt in tribal areas to suppress the struggle of tribals andhave fired upon the peasants resisting displacement, have arbitrarilyarrested and foisted false cases against the activists. They have restrictedpeople’s right to protest putting increasing obstacles in the path of theirprotests.

Ruling classes particularly Modi led RSS-BJP Govt. are sowingcommunal poison to disrupt the unity of the people and lead them astray.Ruling class parties are fanning different forms of parochialism to pit onesection of people against the other to divert attention from their anti-peoplerule. They divert youth by wide accessibility of liquor, drugs and regressiveculture.

Dear people, you have repeatedly and heroically risen against the anti-national and anti-people policies of the Govts. You have not shied awayfrom any hardship or sacrifice to secure the present and future of the peopleand the country. You alone can prevent the ruling classes and Govt. frommortgaging the country and the people and their future. You alone canbeat back this offensive of the Govts. and advance towards a developmentmodel for the people that would be free from exploitation by the imperialistcountries and oppression by domestic reactionary classes.

Let us fight for provision of homes, food, health, education, cleansurroundings, clothing and recreation for all citizens. Land should be givento the tiller, agricultural supplements and instruments should be providedat cheap rates and adequate support prices given for their produce.Agribased industries like jute, textile, coconut, sugarcane and cashewnutshould be revived and supported along with fisheries. Cold storages shouldbe built for agriproducts. Fight for in situ development for slum dwellers.

To highlight the grave dangers of the policies of the Central and StateGovts. and to develop people’s struggle against them, CPI(ML)-NewDemocracy is holding a Rally in Vishakhapatnam on February 29, 2016(Monday) from Railway Station which will culminate in a public meeting atold Central Jail opposite Govt. Women’s College.

CPI(ML)-New Democracy appeals to the people to join the rally andpublic meeting in large number. We also appeal to the people to supportthis programme in all possible ways.



NEW DEMOCRACY

15 16

Land Reforms in West Bengalduring Left Front Regime �

Propaganda and Reality � Part 2Tapas Roy

(“Land Reforms in West Bengal during Left Front Regime – Propagandaand Reality” deals with the social phenomena produced by the LF Govt. throughits land reform. Although it was stated that the article would be concluded intwo parts, another part is necessary to feature the transformations in landpatterns under Left Front during the period of globalization. - Writer)

(1)

The then Land Reform minister and now the leader of the oppositionand a CPM Politburo member, Dr. Surya Kanta Mishra, alongwith his co-author Vikas Rawal, in the article, Agrarian Relations in contemporary WestBengal stated, “The land reform implemented by the Left Front Governmentin West Bengal had two major components; tenancy reform andredistribution of land.” (Agrarian Studies. Essays of Agrarian Relations inless-developed countr ies, Edited by V.K. Ramchandran andMadhuraSwaminathan Page – 332).

He further added, “Implementation of tenancy reforms was madepossible by an amendment in the West Bengal Land Reform Act broughtabout in 1977. This amendment provided the legal basis for the movementpopularly known as ‘Operation Barga’. The amended legislation outlinedclear procedures for identification of bargadars and laid down very strictconditions for preventing eviction of bargadars. At the same time it clearlystated that the burden of proving that a person identified as bargadar is nota bargadar and that land is in his (the landowner’s) personal cultivation willlie with the landowner. With this legislative backing, public meetings wereorganized with the help of panchayats and mass peasant organizations tomobilize sharecroppers to register their names in the land records. (ibid ;

page – 332).

This statement is misleading and deceiving. Operation Barga was nota legislative phenomena; it was an administrative affair. After emergenceto power, the Left Front government paid attention to recording the namesof bargadars in records of right. The revision and preparation of record ofrights in accordance with West Bengal Land Reform Act was started in theyear 1972, i.e. during Congress regime. But the strength of theadministration was inadequate for recording the names in different areasto cope up with the recording of the names of the bargadars especially inthe areas known as ‘priority area’. To minimize the problem a special drivefor recording the names of the bargadars was adopted by the Left Frontgovernment. The special drive is known as ‘Operation Barga’. The Boardof Revenue in its circular memo no. 12304 (27) GE dt. 05/07/1978announced that a special drive has been given by the Board of Revenueby forming the squads for the purpose of recording the names of thebargadars.

The squad mainly consisted of officers and employees of land reformdepartment. The department used to issue a general notice in a village(often pasted in some public place) asking the bargadars and owners to bepresent on a particular date. Amidst the assembly, the bargadars couldraise their voices and request their names to be recorded and the revenueofficers did comply. It was a shortcut process no doubt but it attracted therural peasantry very much because they could assemble under theadministrative umbrella and could raise their voices in support of theirclaims. No doubt, the recording of the names of bargadars got tremendousmomentum during that period, i.e. the early periods of the Left Frontgovernment.

But legal implications were something else. The circular contemplatedthe amendment of the rules for the purpose of expeditious disposal of therecording of the names of the bargadars. But before such amendment, theOperation Barga started in full swing. The legal validity of such circularwas challenged before the High Court at Calcutta and the High Court heldthat: “The Board of Revenue’s circular laying down the various proceduresfor recording the names of the Bargardars under operation Barga had gotno legal validity, and therefore, not binding.” (Biswanath Ghosh Vs Stateof West Bengal, 1979) Thus it is clear that the term ‘Operation Barga’ was



NEW DEMOCRACY

17 18

an administrative phenomena, it was not legislative action. In fact, therewas no major amendment in 1977 in W.B.L.R. Act as claimed by SuryakantaMishra.The “Operation Barga” programme was launched without proper legalframework as prescribed in our constitution and Land Acts. The programmereceived setback from the judiciary.

In the meantime, Panchyat elections were held in West Bengal and theCPI(M) led Left Front got overwhelming majority and extended theirorganizational base in rural Bengal. But by doing so, the Party virtuallyinvited the rural landlords and rich peasants in its fold. A number of rurallandlords, jotedars and rich peasants changed their allegiance to keeprelations with the ruling parties and government. They changed theirallegiance but did not change their class character. And through thePanchyats, they continued to control the village power. Setting aside theprogamme of class struggles, the Left Front, particularly the CPI(M),created an atmosphere of class collaboration. The contradictions ofbargaders, sharecroppers and the land owners were not sharpened, on thecontrary, in most of the cases, land owners took shelter in CPI(M) campand created their class influence and class interest. It definitely createdhindrance to recording the names of the bargadars. The legal hindrance onone side and hindrance due to class collaboration and class appeasementon the other slowed down the recording process gradually. It can well beseen that the rate of recording the names of bargadars was gradually andconsiderably decreasing after the first five year term of the Left Frontgovernment. Whatever the number of recorded bargadars be, it cannot bedenied that the programme created a social stir, particularly in rural areas.The bargadars and the downtrodden peasantry utilized opportunities toassemble in a gathering and to raise their voices in their favour. In most ofthe cases the land owners remained absent. It cannot be also denied thata large section of govt. officials in Land Reforms department, particularlythe young ones, took tremendous responsibilities to organize the eveningmeetings of Operation Barga. However all the good efforts were jeopardizedowing to the apathy to build up class struggle. Even, there was not enoughattempt to combat the legal hindrance. The Board of Revenue’s circularfeaturing and describing Operation Barga virtually lost its legal validity byCourt’s order. The Left Front government did not bring any major amendmentin Act in favour of bargadars as claimed by Dr. Suryakanta Misra. Theyonly changed WB Land Reforms Rules, 1965, debarring an advocate or alegal practitioner from appearing on behalf of Bargadar or owner and brought

some changes in rule 21.

Vide Rule 21(2), notwithstanding the provisions of sub-rule (1), theRevenue officer may, on his own motion, incorporate in the village recordof rights any change on account of alteration in the mode of cultivation, forexample, by a bargadar mentioned in clause (e) of section 50 after makingsuch inquiry including on the spot inquiry and inspection, as he may deemfit, and after giving the parties interested an opportunity of being heard.

Vide this rule the Revenue officer was allowed to act on his own motioneven where an application on representation has been made to him by anyperson claiming to be entitled.

And by the clause (3) inserted in Rule 21, the Revenue officer wasempowered to publish a notice of his intention to make an inquiry, and asthe case may be, to incorporate any change as mentioned in sub-rule (2),by affixing a notice in some conspicuous part of the village/mauza in whichthe land affected is situated and by affixing notice to a conspicuous placein the office of the Gram Panchyat within whose jurisdiction the land affectedis situated.

The amendment shows that the Left Front government banked mainlyon administration. The process was left to bureaucratic initiatives. Theorganized activities of the mass organizations, peasant organizations wereless. Only they relied on panchyats which were gradually occupied and /or influenced by the upper sections of the rural masses.

The validity of notice contemplated in Rule 21(3) was challenged beforethe Calcutta High Court on the ground that the interested parties (i.e., theland owners) have been denied opportunity of being heard by not servingupon them any notice. The Calcutta High Court struck down sub-rule (3) asarbitrary and violative of Article 14 of the constitution (Samijan Bewa VsRevenue office, 1986).

Thus Operation Barga programme was thwarted by two factors. (1) thehindrance of the courts. The Left Front government did not do properhomework before implementing the programme, keeping a large number oflegal loopholes and was quite inefficient, if not reluctant to frame properlegal measures and (2) the apathy of CPI(M) to build up class struggle andits willingness to restore class collaboration to maintain status quo in theinterest of its agenda to remain in power.



NEW DEMOCRACY

19 20

The much propagated ‘Operation Barga’ was in fact a short lived processand during the entire Left Front regime, the recording the names ofbargadars was an administrative feature.

The Left Front government did not comply with the long cherisheddemand of the peasantry – to give bargadars ownership of the land thoughthey got ample scope to implement it after coming to power. There was anexpectation that the govt. should carry out the work. But the Left Frontgovt. was reluctant to implement the same.

(2)

The other aspect of the land reforms measure, viz, vesting of the ceilingsurplus land and its distribution earned the same fate i.e. class collaborationand appeasement with the upper section of the rural masses.

In this aspect also the same old story of class appeasement and effortto maintain status quo was repeated. The panchayats were allotted a majorrole regarding distribution. Prior to the distribution pre-distribution surveywas to be held and the panchayat was supposed to place a list of eligiblepersons to get ‘patta’. But in most of the cases particularly during the laterperiod of the Left Front regime, the panchayats could not prepare the listmainly due to the intra party rivalry.

The major amendments in West Bengal Land Reform Act were introducedin 1971. The amendments included ceiling laws, definition of family etc.Thus, it was an outcome of Congress regime. The family ceiling wasintroduced vide proposal of Fourth Five Year Plan.

The CPI(M) led Left Front promised to bring up fundamental changes inLand Reforms Act, particularly relating to the recording, protection andfinancing to the bargadars and the laws relating to surplus land. We havealready seen that they failed miserably regarding bargadars. No majoramendment could be done relating to bargadars.

The Left Front government in West Bengal brought an amendment in1980. Previously the surplus land was related to agricultural land only. Asa result, tanks, fisheries, orchards etc. were kept outside the purview ofthe ceiling which enabled big land owners to retain a vast quantum of land.The Govt. brought an amendment to this. Para 4 of the statement of objectsand reasons of the West Bengal Land Reform (Second Amendment) bill

1980 is given below.

“There was general public demand that the West Bengal Land ReformsAct, 1955 should be streamlined and comprehensively amended so as toadvance the cause of land reforms by breaking concentration of land asthe material resource of the community and means of production and bydistributing the ceiling surplus land among the landless and land poor ruralpeople of the state to subserve the common good. It was noticed that theceiling provisions in the West Bengal Reform Act, 1955 being applicable toagricultural land only, unduly discriminated in favour of owners of the landsof other classes and description. The bill is intended to do away with suchdiscrimination. All classes of land are now intended to be calculated withinthe same ceiling limit so that ceiling surplus land of all classes can beutilized for the good of the community and can be distributed among thedeserving people. Amendment of the constitution of India by omitting Article31 and clause (f) of Article 19 has been taken note of."

The Bill was sent to a Select Committee. There members (Atish ChandraSinha of Congress and Balai Das Mahapatra and Kiranmay Nand of SocialistParty) put notes of dissent on the ground that if the bill be implemented,law and order situation would be at stake.

The Bill vis-à-vis the West Bengal Land Reform (Amendment) Act 1981was passed in the WB legislative Assembly in 1981. But President’s assentwas given on 6th March 1986, i.e., long five years after it was sent forassent. By that time, CPI (M) led Left Front had already adopted the policyof class collaboration completely.

(3)

It can be noticed that all the positive efforts in the arena of land reformswere performed during the first five years, i.e., the first term of the LeftFront govt., be it Operation Barga or the LR (Amendment) Act 1981. TheCPI (M) led Left Front gradually adopted the policy of class appeasementand status quo to remain in power relying mainly on the administration andthe local governments such as panchayats, headed and controlled andinfluenced by the upper sections of rural masses and halted the organizationprocesses of the mass organization such as Kisan Sabha.

The obvious result was stalemate. While introducing the LR (amendment)



NEW DEMOCRACY

21 22

Bill 1981, the then Land Reform Minister Benoy Chaudhary told in theAssembly that in West Bengal at least 30-35 lakh acre agricultural land isliable to be vested and through the bill more land would be expected to bevested and more land would be distributed to the landless and poorpeasantry. So it could be expected that about 40-45 lakh acres of landwould be vested. But the figure shows a different story. Only 13 – 15 lakhacre of land was vested, and the land distributed was 10.5 lakh acre upto2011-12. Out of these, a major quantum was during pre Left Front period.

Although the CPI(M) and Left Front led by it had made a promise beforeelection of 1977 that they would bring fundamental changes in land reformAct, their performance reflects quite an opposite picture. Long ago, theLand Revenue commission (‘Floud Commission’ formed during Britishperiod to consider land pattern and land question) stated : "The most generalview was that 5 acres should be the minimum area required to keep averagefamily in reasonable comfort, but if the land is capable of growing nothingbut aman paddy the area required would be about 8 acres.” The peasantorganizations and the Communist Party were also in favour of reduction ofceiling limit. According to Left Front claims, the condition of irrigation,supply and procurement policy and other means for production havesufficiently been developed. Obviously a question may arise. Why thenthe CPI (M) Left Front did not perform this task? The answer is simple.They did not want to unsettle the village status quo, did not want to createstir in rural arena so that the class struggle may not be sharpened.

Throughout its regime, the CPI (M) led Left Front in West Bengalpatronized class appeasement and class collaboration instead of buildingup class struggle. Whenever there was possibility of class conflict, whetherby Operation Barga or by vesting the clandestine land, the Left Frontparticularly the CPI (M) halted the process with their revisionist outlook.The institutional financing for the recorded bargadars and patta holdersalso had a limited effect and that too was done during the early periods oftheir regime.

Gradually, the CPI(M) led Left Front became kith and kin to the corporatesector. They threw away the programme of land reform and tried to createan atmosphere of corporate happiness in rural arena. (The process will bediscussed later on).

Fighter for DemocraticIssues � Rohith Vemula

On the 17th of January 2016, Rohith Vemula, PhD scholar in Humanitiesat Hyderabad Central University, committed suicide in one of the hostelrooms. In his suicide note, he wondered at a society where a person’svalue is reducible to his ‘immediate identity and nearest possibility’, whileholding no one responsible for his death. Taken with his letter addressed tothe Vice Chancellor of Hyderabad University and written a few weeks earlier,it is clear he felt forced to take his life because he was a Dalit. He hadfaced caste discrimination all his life and the caste discrimination he facedin the University too became unbearable for him.

Back Ground

Rohith Vemula was an M.Sc. and aspired to be a science writer. Hewas born to a Dalit mother who had been adopted by a backward castewoman and married by her into a backward caste family. After two children,the husband discovered the women’s Dalit origin and threw her and herchildren out of the house. Rohith grew up on his mother’s earning is as atailor; saw her dishonoured and ill treated in her adopted mother’s home –probably because she was an abandoned woman with children, as her Dalitorigin was already known in that family.

Rohith was selected to Hyderabad Central University through the generallist; he did not avail the quota seat. In the University he joined the AmbedkarStudents Association (ASA). In July 2015, the ASA held a prayer meetingon the hanging of Yaqub Memon and also a rally against capital punishment.When the screening of a film on the Muzzafarnagar riots (Muzaffarnagarabhi baki hai) was prevented in Delhi University, the ASA protested andorganized a screening of the film. The ABVP unit of the university objectedto this and its President, Susheel Kumar, tweeted against the screening,calling the ASA ‘anti-national’ and other derogatory terms. Few ASAactivists went to Susheel Kumar’s room and made him post an apology forthis. This incident took place on 3rd August 2015.



NEW DEMOCRACY

23 24

Central Ministers force, VC Complies

The same evening, Susheel Kumar was admitted to a private hospitalfor acute appendicitis and he lodged a complaint that he was beaten up byfive ASA members including Rohith Vemula. A Proctorial committeeinvestigated the complaint and on 12th August 2015 gave its report statingthat Kumar had not been beaten up and also upbraiding both sections ofstudents. Susheel Kumar approached BJP MP from Hyderabad, Duttatreya,who is the Central Labour Minister and a seasoned RSS leader. The LabourMinister – who rarely attends to issues concerning workers raised by lettersof trade unions, whose Ministry is charged with enacting pre-corporatechanges to existing labour laws, who is deaf to the demands of the workingclass movements - immediately responded by writing to the HumanResources Development Ministry on 17th August demanding action against‘anti-nationals’. The HRD Minister, Smriti Irani, not only wrote to the ViceChancellor demanding action, but followed this up with four reminders intwo weeks.

The Vice Chancellor complied and a ‘continuing’ Proctorial enquiry wasbegun under this pressure which gave its report on 31st August 2015suspending the five ASA members for the semester, with no action againstthe ABVP leader. This was protested and the chain of events led to thefive students being prohibited from 11th Dec. 2015 from all public spaceswithin the University including the hostels, library and the canteens. Inprotest, the five students began living in the open outside the gate of theUniversity from 21st December. A meeting was sought with the VC whorefused to meet them probably because he could not explain hissubservience. Rohith Vemula wrote a letter to the Vice Chancellor on 18th

December pointing out the role of the VC in going all out against Dalitstudents when the ABVP student was being of questioned about hisdemeaning comments against Dalits. In the same letter he suggested thathe should distribute some poison to all dalits in the University and alsotells him to suggest ‘euthenasia’ to them.

On 17th January 2016, the ASA held a meeting at the dharna site todecide to intensify the protest by starting a relay hunger strike from thenext day. Rohith did not go the dharna throughout the day and in the eveningwas found hanging in his friend’s hostel room.

Caste Discriminations in Institutions of Higher Learning

The entire incident raises many disturbing questions. The foremost isthe hatred faced by those Dalit students who manage to secure entranceinto institutions of higher learning. The upper castes are less than a fourthof the population but many of them hold that their centuries old strangleholdover higher learning is actually their birth right. In that perspective, theysee reservation as a gross injustice against their ‘merit’ and their strangleholdover jobs and higher education is seen only as completely ‘natural’ and notrelated to hold over resources and institutions of power. As a result, ininstitutions of higher learning including scientific institutions and especiallyin professional institutes of medicine and engineering, blatant anti Dalitdiscrimination prevails. Teachers openly ask students their caste, castesegregation operates in allotment of hostel rooms, research guides of Dalitstudents do not co-operate with them, there are Govt. institutions whereDalit students are made to sit on the floor while interacting with their guides,are failed simply because they are Dalits. This is especially the case inprofessional institutions. Govts. come and go, including those with a ‘Dalit’agenda, but this discrimination continues unabated unless challenged bya progressive student movement. Without the latter the rule of modern dayDhronacharyas over institutions of higher learning continues unchecked.

Sycophant, Casteist Heads of Institutions

The issue repeatedly arises that Govts. attack Education andinstitutions of higher learning through their Vice Chancellors and Directorsand not in spite of them. The reason is that their basis of selection isbowing before the powers that be, their caste and religion. This has beentrue of all Govts. After the advent of the Modi Govt., manoeuvreings toestablish hegemony of the Hindutva vision over higher education and tosaffronize education have snowballed. Upper caste chauvinism is aninvariable associate of Hindutva. The RSS Supremo wants a relook atreservations; the comments of an Union Minister and the Haryana CMwhen two Dalit toddlers were burnt alive is known; on the day Modi tried topacify students incensed over the suicide of Rohith Vemula by terminghim a son of India, one of the MPs of his party stated that anyonesympathizing with Rohith is a fool. No matter how hard Hindutva leaderstry to prove their pro Dalit credentials to show a ‘Hindu’ unity againstMuslims, their understanding gets exposed at the slightest test.



NEW DEMOCRACY

25 26

Human Resources Development Minister Smriti Irani has earned thetitle of Manusmriti Irani from the students agitating on the issue of RohithVemula and this is the best proof of how effectively she has served theHindutva forces. She has been extremely useful in the efforts of the RSSto impose an upper caste, Hindu communal vision on educationalinstitutions. Even before this she had demanded action against theAmbedkar Periyar Circle in IIT Chennai for debating the anti people economicpolicies of India. In the same manner she is equally useful in forwardingthe pro-corporate agenda of the RSS BJP Govt. of Modi forcommercialization of Education. This step of hers also goes against theinterests of poor and Dalit students, student movements and democraticstudent organizations.

Of course in all these steps, the Govt. is blindly abetted by the Directorsand Vice Chancellors, a large number of whom share the same world viewwhile the rest could do anything to retain their powers, irrespective of whatis the effect on higher education. It is worthwhile to recall that over ahundred Heads of Institutions were reported to have gone to the RSS officein Delhi in 2014 to meet the RSS Supremo. In the case of HyderabadCentral University, the entire enquiry report was overturned though theUniversity had already completed its own internal mechanism. Howeverthe VC did not even stand up for the rules of the University.

Another mechanism is used to harass the Dalit students in institutionsof higher learning and this has also been brought to light by Vemula’ssuicide. The suicide note mentions that the University had not yet paidhim one lakh seventy five thousand dues of his Fellowship money and hewanted the same to be handed to his mother after repaying Rs 40,000 loanwhich he had taken from a friend. In this way Dalit students are harassedby making it impossible to meet educational expenses even when theyhave been selected for grants or fellowships. At this very time a studentagitation is on against the decision of the HRD Ministry to stop non NETscholarships. Students are also demanding that the rider of ‘merit’ whichis going to be used for future allocations should be scrapped as the selectionof a student for higher education is itself the qualification for the same.The proposal is only aimed against students from minorities and the Dalitstudents.

Those Dalit students who are first generation learners face tremendoussocial and economic hurdles in order to enter institutions of higher learning.

They have to seek entrance to Govt. run institutions; that they manage topursue their studies despite the contempt and ostracism they face here isonly proof of their abilities.

In order to defend herself in the Rohith Vemula case, the HRD Ministeroffered two arguments which were immediately seized by BJP and otherHindutva organizations and widely propagated. The first not only negatedRohith’s life long struggle but also that of his mother- it was asserted thatVemula was not a Dalit at all because his father was from a backwardcaste. The second argument indirectly indicates a fact- the Ministrymaintained that this was not a Dalit issue because these students are notlike Dalits ‘of Maharashtra’, rather they are ‘anti nationals’, they are ‘LeftistDalits’.

Albiet in a totally negative manner, the second argument brings out atruth. Rohith and the ASA were raising democratic issues- they wereopposing capital punishment to Yakub Memon, they were protesting againstthe anti minority violence of Hindutva forces in Muzzafarnagar. In the samevein, the students of the Ambedkar Periyar circle in IIT Madras werediscussing the anti people economic policies. They were not only talkingabout caste discrimination, they were talking about the policies of theircountry, about how minorities are dealt with by the Hindutva forces andthe communal state apparatus. This really inflames the upper castechauvinists that the Dalits should dare to be concerned about anythingother than themselves. If the exploited sections of India understand thatIndia is their responsibility and if they unitedly fight for each other and oncommon democratic concerns, what can save the ruling classes of India?

However, Rohith’s suicide definitely is a Dalit issue and that is broughtout by his own perceptions about the discrimination he and other membersof his organization were facing, This is amply clear both from his letter tothe Vice Chancellor as well as loneliness on the issue of identity whichreaches out through the suicide note.

Rohith Vemula’s Suicide is Murder

A case has been filed against the Vice Chancellor and the Labour Ministerbut ‘Manu'Smriti Irani has gone scot free. The VC was forced to proceedon leave; the person who officiated was also forced by the students tomove out as he had presided over the Committee which punished the ASAmembers. As a result of the student agitation, a third VC had to be named



NEW DEMOCRACY

27 28

within one month. In order to pacify the students and also to distract fromits anti Dalit character, the Central Govt. has been forced to announce aCommittee to investigate discrimination against Dalits in central universitiesand central institutions of higher learning and also study other problemsfaced by them. BJP supporters are spewing venom on Facebook, otherInternet sites and on Twitter. Rohith was a ‘political’ person, did his ‘parentssend him to study’ or to ‘do politics’? They advocate that the only politicsstudents should do is ABVP politics! He was a ‘coward’ that is why hecommitted suicide. This is the understanding of the ruling classes, thatstudents should be kept divorced from thinking about the country, thepolicies of Govts., so that they can rule unquestioned and unexposed. Onthis issue the typical example is of the education system in America wherethe student movement against the Vietnam war brought the Govt. to itsknees. The education and examination patterns were changed thereafterto deprive students of the time to think.

The forces engaged in fighting caste discrimination and seeking an endto casteism must rethink the accumulated experiences of the past 69 years.Merely enforcing education is insufficient to free Indian society from thecenturies long shadow of Dronacharya and from caste discrimination andcaste contempt. Participation of some Dalits in the power structure, somespecial facilities for them, reservations in jobs and in education, somesharing of resources are also not enough even though they are necessarysteps towards democratization. The present structure of Indian societyacts as a base for the existence of the caste system. To end castediscrimination and oppression, a revolutionary reorganization of society isnecessary.

How deeply entrenched is casteism is also clear from subsequent eventsat HCU. Not only has the former VC not been arrested in the case filedagainst him, he has returned from leave and has rejoined as VC! Whenstudents of HCU protested, their mess was closed, electircity and watersupply cut, students brutally lathicharged and arrested while guilty ministersand VC are scot free!

This struggle must be extended to encompass all students anddemocratic sections. Fight for Rohith Act must be widened and carriedforward to penalize caste discrimination and oppression and to penalizenon-implementation of reservation in academic institutions.

CC Statement On Union Budget 2016-'17

Continuing Bonanza for the Super-richand Burden on the Poor

Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley does notaddress any concern relating to economic growth nor takes any step toameliorate the deteriorating conditions of the people. It does not addressthe questions of peasant distress, industrial stagnation or the risingeconomic burden on the common people.

The Budget exercise of Indian Govt. has lost much of its importancedue to year round increase in taxes and levies as also jugglery of figures.Incomes are inflated to balance the figures and expenditures are announcedto hear plaudits from apologist commentators. However the money is notspent and thus people are fooled without any exertion on the part of theGovt. Govt. makes big announcements to hide continuing slowdown ofeconomic growth- the announcements which are never implemented.Schemes are renamed (after Sangh icons), regrouped under different headsto show increased allocation and tricks of the kind are galore in Jaitley’sBudget. Appropriate noises are made of care for the peasants and commonpersons but all the benefits accrue to less than 0.1 percent of the superrich. Homilies are paid loudly to the poor but the fine print discloses thereal bonanza for the super rich.

The direction discernible from the Budget is that NDA Govt. is continuingits thrust on privatization of all spheres of economic life and entry of foreigncompanies is facilitated into ever newer sectors. 100 percent FDI ispermitted in food processing increasing stranglehold of foreign capital overthe agrarian sector.

A lot of noise is made about caring for agriculture and the peasantry.But no steps are announced for the benefit of peasants. As always moremoney is marked for credit for the already heavily indebted peasantry. Nosteps have been announced for bringing down high prices of agriculturalinputs nor any steps announced or money marked for procurement ofagricultural produce at remunerative prices. While higher outlay isannounced for irrigation, but given the abysmal condition of the irrigation



NEW DEMOCRACY

29 30

system, the money will be squandered between officials and rulingpoliticians. Allocation for MGNREGS at Rs. 38,000 crores is abysmallylow to provide any meaningful relief for the rural unemployed poor. TheScheme is marked by extremely low wages and extremely high corruption.Govt. has announced further electrification with highly irregular power supplyof unstable voltage. The core issues of the peasantry have largely beenunaddressed in the Budget.

While Govt. has neglected rural development, it has announced anincrease in outlay for panchayats and local bodies. With rampant corruptionseeping through these bodies in which local officials and ‘elected’representatives partake, it is a measure to increase the penetration ofruling classes in the rural areas and bringing up new agents thriving oncorruption in schemes.

Having earned an anti-Dalit image due to its policies and more so recentlythrough the institutional murder of Dalit youth Rohith Vemula by two UnionMinisters, Modi Govt. has made much of its attempts to promote dalitwelfare. It has marked abysmal amount of 500 crores for Dalit entrepreneurswhile ignoring the most basic issue of Dalit welfare i.e. land reforms.

The Finance Minister has made much of his Govt.’s emphasis on socialsectors but these are the most neglected. There has not been anyannouncement about improvement in Govt. health care delivery system.State of Primary Health Centres cries for improvement but Arun Jaitleyhas ignored them completely. He has announced insurance coverage ofRs. 1 lakh (additional 30 thousand for senior citizens) but it will be renderedthrough private service providers. One can imagine how grossly inadequatethe amount is given the present cost of treatment in private hospitals andhigh prices of essential medicines. Even the provision of additional dialysisunits is to be made through private sector (PPP mode).

Education is another sector which has been given short shrift. Highereducation has been left to fend for itself through what has been describedas “internal accruals” marking only one thousand crores for higher educationfinancing. The emphasis has been reduced to skill management. Here toofor the skill development of targeted one crore youth only Rs. 1700 croreshave been allocated. Given the present cost of education, one could imaginehow much skill these 1 crore youth would be able to acquire.

During 2014 elections BJP had promised jobs for the youth. But in thisModi Govt. has failed miserably leading to large scale unrest among thethe youth of the country. Modi Govt. is clueless about this. Jaitley offeredfirst three years of EPF contributions for the workers in companies whileGovt. knows well that nearly 93 percent of the workers are not covered byPF and Govt. announcement is unlikely to bring any into its bracket.

The Budget is out and out anti-worker. No announcement has beenmade about increasing the income for tax purposes while price rise hasconsiderably eroded the value of money. Seventh Pay Commission hasdealt a cruel blow to Govt. employees handing over lowest ever increasein their pay, in some cases with take home pay actually coming down.While organized workers have been dealt this blow, there is no allocationfor the improvement of the lot of unorganized workers. Further, PFwithdrawals are to be taxed. (Withdrawn later -Editor)

The lopsided priorities of the Central Govt. are clear from its taxproposals. While direct taxes are expected to come down, indirect taxes(paid by the common people) have registered sharp increase by nearly 20thousand crores. While lower income groups have been given no relief,there have been sops for the rich with corporate tax exemptions going upby nearly 5 thousand crores. Total revenue forgone i.e. subsidies to theextreme rich and corporate have climbed to 5 lakh 86 thousand crores.Obviously this largesse was not even mentioned by the Finance Ministerin his speech. Implementation of rules against tax avoidance has beendeferred by another year.

The Govt. has given over virtually all schemes from health to roadconstruction to food processing to private sector. Govt. is withdrawingfrom providing or running facilities even for the extremely poor. In factModi Govt., which has already abolished Planning Commission, hasannounced doing away with differentiation between Plan and Non-planexpenditure in future budgets.

Though the Govt. has boasted of its “fiscal prudence” by adhering to3.5 percent target of fiscal deficit, the Finance Minister in the same breathhas talked of doing away with such target itself, announcing a committeeto look into it. The Govt. has allocated Rs. 25 thousand crores forrecapitalization of Banks which, given the scale of NPAs, would hardlyameliorate the situation. Govt. has announced a new Board to be headed



NEW DEMOCRACY

31 32

by ex-CAG Vinod Rai for these measures which include reducing Govt.stake to below 50 percent. On the other hand the Finance Minister hasannounced leveraging of PSU assets for new projects. It is a clearannouncement of Govt. intention to erode the resources of PSUs.

The Finance Minister, in the latter half of his speech, labored hard togo into details into the incentives being offered to tax defaulters. It appearedthat this Govt. is a govt. of tax defaulters. It also showed unhealthy conditionof Govt. finances.

The Union Budget for 2016-2017 presented by the Finance Ministertoday is totally opposed to the interests of peasants, workers, youth andall sections of working people, even middle classes. It ignores the burningproblems of joblessness, peasant suicides, industrial stagnation and highprices of essential commodities.

CPI(ML)-New Democracy appeals to the people of the country to seethrough these anti-people budget proposals of the NDA Govt. and launch astruggle against these.

February 29, 2016

CC Statement on Railway BudgetRailway Budget presented by Union Minister for Railways, Mr. Suresh

Prabhu, shows utter and callous disregard of the common people by theNDA Govt. It also paints a sorry state of finances and condition of railwaysunder the present dispensation. Every person who travels by rail knowswell the sorry condition of railways. But the NDA Govt. has not bothered toaddress the concerns of the common people for a comfortable, timely andsafe travel.

This callous disregard is shown by the fact that while a lot needs to bedone, the railway ministry has shows a surplus of Rs. 8720 crores fromthe past year. Further out of a total of 40,000 crores of budgetary supportlast year, over 20% was returned unutilized by the railways. Whether itwas just a commonly played gimmick of allotting more and spending lessor lack of willingness of NDA Govt. to spend on the travel for commonpeople, it just shows their lack of concern for the people. While budgetary

support has been kept at the last year’s level despite price rise, no methodof generation of finances for the projects announced has been outlinedexcept alluding to “innovative financing system”. It only shows that theGovt. has no intention of carrying out the meagre announcements it hasmade. This lack of focus on improving passenger services for commonpeople is much more evident as cost of fuel has declined enabling theGovt. to spend more on improvements.

Modi led NDA Govt. has gone further on the road of privatization. Whileseveral services including catering services have already been privatized,in this Budget several initiatives announced are marked for PPP mode i.e.profits for private and losses for the public. Redevelopment of railwaystations, construction of warehouses, sidings etc. all has been left for theprivate sector. Announcement was made of inviting bids for even the twoloco plants announced. This only shows that Modi Govt. has left thedevelopment to the private sector and its profit seeking.

Though no increase is announced in the passenger fares and freightcharges after the steepest hike last year, Govt. has kept suchannouncement for a later day. Anyway allusion to future hike in freightcharges was made by the Railway Minister in the name of rationalizing thefreight structure. Successive Govts. have reduced budget exercises onlyto accounting while announcing increase in prices round the year. Railwaysshare in the freight transport has progressively declined due to lacklusterperformance of railways and increased costs.

Govt. announcement of shifting more traffic to higher axel load withoutcorresponding increase in expenditure on maintenance of tracksdemonstrates short sighted nature of those running Indian railways.

Only renaming the already existing facilities in the name of leaders ofSangh parivar cannot bring any improvement. Renaming of unreservedcoaches as Deen Dayal coaches can not improve the abysmal conditionsin which the people travel and suffer in unreserved coaches. Similarlyrenaming coolies as sahayaks without any announcement regarding theirwelfare cannot improve the lot of these labouring people.

The lopsided emphasis on certain select routes while ignoring the vastareas of the country only shows misplaced priorities of NDA Govt. RailwayBudget is marked by utter disregard of the concerns of the common people.

February 26, 2016



NEW DEMOCRACY

33 34

JNU: Modi led RSS-BJPJNU: Modi led RSS-BJPJNU: Modi led RSS-BJPJNU: Modi led RSS-BJPJNU: Modi led RSS-BJPGoGoGoGoGovt.vt.vt.vt.vt.��sssss AttacAttacAttacAttacAttackkkkk

AparnaAparnaAparnaAparnaAparna

The Modi led RSS BJP Central Govt., cornered and defensive overRohith Vemula’s institutional murder and the exposure of its anti Dalitcharacter, planned in advance to intervene in a routine event held inFebruary at Jawahar Lal Nehru University (JNU) situated in Delhi, to pushits own agenda. It also got a golden opportunity to turn people’s attentionfrom the devastating agrarian situation, continual price rise, joblessnessand absent ache din. Pouncing on the event, a wave of jingoism, righteouschauvinism and aggressive fake nationalism has been let loose in thecountry, based on video doctoring and Goebellsian ranting. The issuesinvolved just couldn’t have been better for the RSS; a mix of Kashmir andcommunist baiting to which they themselves added the necessaryseasoning of 'Pakistan'.

The Jawahar Lal Nehru University is a Central university known for aliberal culture of tolerance of different viewpoints. By providing for specialprovisions to accommodate students from backward districts of the country,it has built a reputation for a representative mixture of students. TheUniversity has been an eyesore for the RSS, which associates it withcommunist views and which has long voiced intentions of getting it closeddown.

9th February 2016 in Background of Student Unrest

Democratic student organizations and activists of many varieties ininstitutions of higher learning especially in Delhi have been active in therecent past. They spoke up for the Ambedkar Periyar Circle in IIT Chennai,in support of the agitation of the students of FTII and were active in theOccupy UGC struggle against stopping of non NET UGC scholarships bythe HRD Ministry of Smriti Irani. Students poured out in protest against thelynching of Aflaq in Dadri and have organized beef eating festivals inuniversities to challenge the artificial dogma of what is ‘Indian’. There is a

ferment on in the realm of ideas and students are pushing interpretationsof democracy to encompass all sections of people. Students of variousbackgrounds are engaging with the policies of rulers in their totality, withissues of identity and breaking the moulds.

It is in this background that the recent events in JNU and the CentralGovt.’s interference in it should be viewed. A group of students withrevolutionary orientation who were earlier with the DSU (DemocraticStudents Union) applied to the University administration for permission tohold a poetry reading session on the occasion of the anniversary of thehanging of Afzal Guru. The topic- ‘India- without a Post Office’- was asentence taken from a poem written in 1990 by a Kashmiri poet. Thestudents also put up posters throughout JNU campus about the programmefor which the authorities gave their assent. The occasion has been markedevery year here by some programme by student groups. The RSS vettednew Vice Chancellor and administration withdrew permission just an hourearlier prompted by the RSS's ABVP unit in JNU which opposed theprogramme and whose member also holds the post of joint secretary ofthe Students Union.

In protest against the sudden and unprecedented cancellation, theorganizers went ahead with a cultural event on the evening of 9th Februaryat a dhaba at one of the hostels, as these are places of informal discussionsand resident students usually gather here after classes. With the loomingthreat of ABVP disturbance and the collection of slogan shouting ABVPactivists at the site of the programme, office bearers of JNUSU and leadersand activists of several student organizations on the campus alsoassembled and joined the students participating in the programme, whichincluded several of the Kashmiri students who study in JNU and somestudents from outside. JNU security guards accompanied the ABVPactivists. Post the cultural event, a rally was taken out and the ABVPmembers too took out a slogan shouting parallel procession in their muchsmaller numbers but accompanied by the security guards of JNU. TheABVP had also given a police complaint so police in plain clothes wasalso present. At a point the ABVP members attempted to obstruct themain rally leading to a short scuffle.

Within hours, on the 10th of February, a brief video was released by thechannel India TV (of Rajat Sharma) and by Zee news purportedly showingthe protesting students raising slogans of ‘Pakistan Zindabad’. The RSS



NEW DEMOCRACY

35 36

and its various organizations let loose hell fire about ‘anti-nationals’, sayingJNU was their den; this rant was pioneered also by TV programme anchorsdriven by ‘nationalism’. An FIR was promptly filed by Delhi police probablydated 11th February on the basis of the ‘several’ complaints including ofBJP MP from East Delhi, Mahesh Giri. No complaint had been lodged bythe police present at the scene of the programme. A case of ‘sedition’ waslodged under Sec.124A (Sedition), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (actsdone by several persons with a common intent). The JNU administrationsuspended 8 students for one term pending enquiry but allowed them tostay in the hostels as ‘guests’; a three member enquiry team wasannounced including one faculty member who formed the campus unit of‘Youth for Equality’ in the anti reservation agitation, another an ex-administrator who once suspended the entire SU and who overall did notinspire confidence in the students. This committee was promptly rejectedby the Students Union. The Registrar of JNU handed over a list of 30students to the police; in all this surfeit of lists it was understood that theFIR was against 19 named students. In an atmosphere of near hysteria byRSS parented organizations, on social media, by some television channels,and which stirred some empathy in a section of middle classes of Delhi,on the 12th of February, the VC through a letter allowed the police to enterthe hostels and campus. Prior to the entry, the first since Emergency, theDeans of all the Schools inside the University held a meeting where, withthe exception of one, the opinion firmly was that the University should dealwith its own issues and police should not be allowed in. As the policemoved to the hostels, JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar (AISF member)came forward and was arrested. A witch-hunt was launched for severalother students not only in the campus but in the country, especially forUmar Khalid a student activist of the rebel DSU group and an outstandingstudent.

With the arrest of the JNUSU President, the JNU Teachers Associationcame forward. In a milieu where RSS and its apologists were franticallybaying for closing down JNU, the JNUTA gloriously led the students in anevening March to reclaim the campus. On the 13th February, a massivemeeting was held within JNU addressed by parliamentary political leadersincluding Rahul Gandhi, Sitaram Yechury, D Raja, etc. The next day ahuman chain was formed within the campus by the teachers and students,while at Jantar Mantar over 400 people participated in a ‘People in supportof JNU students’ protest. The gathering was addressed by student leaders

and leaders of CPI (ML) New Democracy and of Liberation. 40 internationaluniversities including Harvard, Yale and Cambridge, many students andfaculty of India’s universities and the FEDCUTA extended support to thestudents. In this situation, evidence came to light that the initial video wasdoctored and the ABVP activists had themselves raised the pro Pakslogans.

A parallel set of events was the holding of a meeting on Afzal Guru on10th February at the Press Club by the Committee for Release of PoliticalPrisoners. Based on a complaint by Press Club, the chief organizer SARGeelani was arrested for sedition for raising slogans which he has explicitlystated few outsiders had raised and gone away. This arrest was not beforeDelhi Univ. Prof Ali Javed (who is close to CPI and who had booked theHall in his own name for the organizers as he was a member of the PressClub), retired Profs. Vijay Singh and Nirmalangshu, whose positions arewell known and who had spoken at the meeting, had been harassed andquestioned for doing so and also been pressurized to turn approvers forthe police.

RSS Goondaism against Students, Journalists, Lawyers andTeachers

With the producing of JNUSU President Kanhaiya at the District Courtin Patiala House, a third front opened up with a group of lawyers from RSSled by a BJP MLA of Delhi attacking students and teachers of JNU whohad come for the hearing, physically assaulting Kanhaiya himself, beatingup his lawyers and also some journalists, while the police simply lookedon. BJP member Kiran Bedi, formerly an IPS officer called this the‘prudence’ of the Delhi Police. Probably taking this cue from her, Haryanapolice also did not act during the recent agitation for reservation by Jatyouth. 800 journalists held a protest march from the Women’s Press Clubtill the Supreme Court, in protest. However, the same handful of lawyers,surrounded by many lawyer spectators, repeated the same scene two dayslater, again beating up Kanhaiya while he was in police custody and alsobeating up a journalist of First Post. Again the police were spectatorsthough the same morning they had been directed by the Supreme Court toprotect the student leader. The Supreme Court expressed much soundand fury, but did not even summon the Police Commissioner let alonepass any stricture for dereliction of duty. Within 24 hours it changed its



NEW DEMOCRACY

37 38

own mind about hearing the bail petition itself in the ‘extraordinarycircumstances’ and directed the High Court to hear the same expeditiously.However the JNUSU President was sent to jail. A bailable offence waslodged by the police against the three lawyer members of BJP who havebeen photographed beating up everyone and who have acknowledged theirrole in a sting operation where they have threatened to use petrol bombsagainst the student leaders. On the case of sedition filed on the basis of adoctored video, the Police Commissioner turned the principle of criminallaw on its head and said the accused will have to prove they are innocent.So there is police raj under Hindutva rule.

In the atmosphere of witch hunting, minority targeting, the hysteria about‘Nationalism’, five other students against whom enquiry had beenannounced and against whom police issued look out notices, came out inthe student general body and clarified that they had been afraid of beinglynched. Students of JNU are generally demanding that sedition chargesbe lifted against all the students, the enquiry committee be reconstitutedto be a representative one and the University defend all its students andpolice be taken out of the campus. Of them Umar Khalid, a student, hasborne the brunt of the bayers for the blood of ‘terrorists’ for first having aMuslim name and second for being one of the organizers of a programmewhich supported the right of self determination of the people of J & K andcriticized the hanging of Afzal Guru.

Solidarity

No account of the incidents is complete without recounting a march on18th February of over 7000 people of Delhi in support of JNU, questioningthe RSS’s versions of ‘nationalism’, decrying the charges of sedition andcalling for defense of universities and of Higher Education. All students’organizations excluding ABVP and including NSUI, participated as didteachers, civil rights activists, cultural activists and trade union leaders.PDSU, IFTU and CPI(ML)New Democracy took part. On 23rd Feb. over2000 people marched against the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula,for a Rohith Act and against the Modi Govt.-RSS attack on institutions oflearning. Also memorable is the initiative of the faculty of JNU to holdopen classes every evening by different Professors on the interpreting of‘Nationalism’.

All over India, students and youth organizations have demonstrated in

support of JNU, importantly in Jadavpur University in Kolkata and in KashmirUniversity in Srinagar. On the 27th of Feb. a bandh had been announced inKashmir Valley in support of the JNU students.

Criticizing Afzal Guru’s Hanging

Many issues have been thrown up by the ongoing events which mustbe made subject of open discussion and assertion. The first is the issue ofAfzal Guru’s conviction and hanging, which has been quite clear for thepast three years until now, when the RSS has made it an issue of‘Nationalism’ and ‘anti-India’.

Afzal Guru was a surrendered militant. Of his role in the ParliamentAttack, the Supreme Court itself had commented that there was insufficientevidence against him, but the ‘collective conscience of the society’ wasbeing addressed by sentencing him to death. This verdict was widelycriticized legally as the Supreme Court is to lay down the law and notdecide what it chooses to hear as the ‘society’s conscience'. India's societyhas several voices any way. The circumstances in which death penaltycan be awarded have been clearly laid down by the Supreme Court itself inearlier cases and do not include this criterion and were to be in the rarestof the rare cases where the evidence was not in doubt. Many sectionsquestioned the veracity of the facts of the Parliament attack itself. OnlyHindutva forces, including soft Hindutva forces, received this sentencewith satisfaction, and unfortunately they do have a large middle class base.

Court verdicts including Supreme Court verdicts have often beencritically examined. Women’s organizations in the 1980s fought againstthe Mathura Custodial Rape Verdict and forced changes in the law itself.The Supreme Court’s verdict on FDI in Telecom (where it saved the Govt.’spro-imperialist policy from people’s movements), on Bhopal Gas Tragedy(two years jail to some Indian managers) and on abetting the Central Govt.in allowing Anderson to escape from India, on Enron’s Agreement withIndian Govt. and even on death sentence to Yakub Memon have beenwidely criticized. Decades back, so was the death sentence to Bhumaiahand Kishta Goud. Hindutva forces even idolize Nathuram Godse who wasconvited by the Court. Finally, is the Supreme Court synonymous withIndia?

The related issue is the precipitous hanging of Afzal Guru by the



NEW DEMOCRACY

39 40

Congress led UPA-II Govt. to beat back criticism of Hindutva forces andestablish its ‘Hindu’ credentials which both parties misrepresented as‘national’ credentials. Even the routine procedure prescribed by India’slaws for disposal of all appeals, information to family etc were not followedby the hasty UPA Home Minister Shinde and his Govt. Kashmir Valleyburst out in protests and held him a ‘martyr’ to the cause of Kashmir.There was widespread condemnation and protests by democraticorganizations throughout India. In Delhi, activists of CPI (ML) NewDemocracy along with several democratic bodies took part in protests atJantar Mantar the same morning, as did Kashmiri students whom the policeallowed ABVP activists to try to attack and who were defended bydemocratic individuals and our Party activists by forming a human chainaround them. Protests against Afzal’s hanging are held annually; the PDP,with whom BJP was in Govt. in Jammu & Kashmir and with whom it stillaspires to form Govt. there, holds Afzal’s hanging to be wrong.

The Issue of J&K

The December 2015 issue of New Democracy dealt with this issue indetail. While student organizations of parliamentary left support restorationof democratic rights in Kashmir, revolutionary student organizations alsosupport the democratic right to self determination of the people of J&K.This is enshrined to an extent in the Security Council Resolution of 1947signed by Govts. of India and Pakistan – to an extent, because it does notrecognize their right to exist independent of both.

Nationalism or Psuedo-nationalism

In the RSS discourse on ‘Nationalism’ the entire issue of imperialism istotally absent and that is very important for it. An organization which hasno linkage with the anti colonial struggle of the Indian people; rather whichdeliberately chose to stay away from it, an organization whose Govt. rodeto power on the promise of allowing imperialists unbridled right to increaseloot of India’s natural resources, her workforce, to take over her land, musthard sell such an interpretation to the people. The common people,struggling under increasing economic burdens, agrarian crisis and resultingpauperization and misery, attacks on Education, on Labour Laws, risingunemployment, need to be diverted from identifying the real enemies ofthe Indian people. They need to be diverted from patriotic struggle againstimperialism which is one of the basic contradictions of Indian society today.

RSS is trying to project Indian Army as the symbol of ‘nationalism’.The Indian Army draws continuity with the colonial army of the British. Itstraditions are of that era and are intact. In fact the RSS had nothing to dowith the aspirations of the anti-colonial struggle. Rather it looked to Britishcolonialism as allowing flourishing of 'Hindu' i.e. upper caste, patriarchaldomination and one which ended Muslim rule in India.

Thus RSS is desperate to sell to the people of India an interpretation of‘nationalism’ that has nothing to do with the democratic aspirations of thepeople of this country but is essentially an upper caste, Hindu, patriarchal,anti Muslim interpretation that carefully shields imperialism and itscompradors. That is why ABVP wants a tank ensconced in JNU to makethe students ‘nationalist’. Countries have emerged from shifting boundariesdrawn and redrawn over centuries of empires and kingdoms. Scotland canhold a referendum on whether it will remain under the British Parliament ornot- hotly contested but held. In 1947 the people of Junagarh could decidethat they want to merge with India. But the ruling classes are so touchyover J and K, Nagaland and Mizoram as though geographical borders aresacrosanct and as though India is not a country inhabited by severalnationalities.

The less talked about the ‘mother’ in India- including the women ofKashmir and Manipur raped under AFSPA by an Army which does whatoccupation forces do, the women of Manipur who stripped themselvesnaked to expose rapes by Army, the Dalit women and girls raped andmolested with impunity by the agrarian powerful, the 14year old driven tosuicide due to molestation by a DG Police of Haryana who, in turn was letoff by the courts, the malnourished mothers, the women forced intoprostitution- the better for those who enshrine feudal patriarchal culture as‘national’. The ‘Bharat Mata’ depicted by Hindutva fulfils all patriarchalrequirements in the depiction. They try to pretend that the slogan of “BharatMata’ is the touchstone of nationalism whereas the slogan should be antiimperialist-‘Madre hind key chehre pe udasi hai vahi- kaun azad hua?’

The First War of Indian Independence in 1857 brought the people ofIndia together in a patriotic war against the ‘firangees’. This is not the‘nationalism’ that the RSS extols. In a similar vein the ‘nationalism’ of theRSS finds expression in vitriolic against communists, more specificallythe revolutionaries. When Manmohan Singh’s UPA II Govt. sought tohandover natural resources to MNCs, it identified the ultra left as the main



NEW DEMOCRACY

41 42

enemies of this design to sell India. It is the revolutionary left which raisesthe patriotic slogan of India belonging to its people and not being a fiefdomof imperialism. Who then are those who love India and her people?Hindutva’s nationalism is an admixture of jingoism and chauvinism whereveneration of the Govt. in power is a necessary qualification.

The last and major issue is the charge of ‘sedition’ against discoursingstudents of an University, whose only act was holding a programme on theissue of the right of self determination of the people of Kashmir. The surfeitof videos especially of the doctored variety, the transposition of slogans,actually show the great deal of planning that has gone into creating thisincident to somehow distract from the Rohith Vemula issue and the issueof discrimination against Dalits in institutions of higher learning and also totarget communist thinking especially the revolutionary left. Regarding theissue of sedition, a colonial relic which no parliamentary party will actuallyremove from the lawbooks though they will criticize it when not in power,the definition itself rules out the entire JNU episode from this category. Ithas been repeatedly specified by courts in India that sedition involves acall to some form of action, to instigation of it, not a slogan or a statementof position. The law on sedition was enacted by the British Empire after1857, in 1870, as a weapon against a subject people.

However, taking all issues - from the attack on higher education by theRSS Modi Govt., to the attempts to corporatize it, to the subservienceensured to it by appointments of Vice Chancellors agreeing with thecasteist, communal world view of the govt., it is clear that what is on inJNU is part and parcel of the overall attack. The state is subservient toHindutva and the organs of the state are highly communal. The Delhi policeis being used as a tool openly, and courts including the Supreme Court,are mouthing concern at ‘goondaism’ but doing nothing to uphold justiceeven though their orders have been flouted and goondaism has occurredwithin the courtroom.

Some positive examples of individuals have also emerged. First arethe three ABVP leaders of JNU resigned from the organization against theCentral Govt.’s role in Rohith Vemula’s suicide, against the assault on theJNUSU President in the District Court and the tirade against JNU. Secondis a Judge of the Patiala Dist. Court who has given a written complaint ofthe incidents there on 15th and again on 17th Feb. to the Dist. Judge, whereinhe has substantiated that the attack was preplanned and one sided. Third

is ZEE news producer Vishwadeepak who had the courage to resign overthe role played by his channel.

Some Comments

The entire JNU incident indicates, firstly, the ferment that is on ininstitutions of higher learning. Students are democratizing concepts. Theyalso represent the ferment in the rural poor and agrarian communities ofIndia, in whom a maximum of them have roots. In addition new tools oflearning and interaction like internet are widening frontiers. Struggle hasbroken out since in Ferguson College, Pune. Students of that college alongwith students of other colleges in Pune have formed a separate forum totake up democratic issues. Students of FTII are joining in. In HCU, studentsstruggling against reinstatement of the guilty VC have been lathichargedand sympathy movements are breaking out in other universities.

The incident also represents the attack of RSS and its Hindutva cohortson institutions of higher learning. This is in two ways. One is the need toopen this field for exploitation by corporate which is the chief intent ofbringing it under GATS. This aspiration is common to all the parliamentaryparties, was also attempted by the previous UPA Govt. led by Congressbut the RSS has brought a new aggressiveness to the task consonant withits promises to imperialism. However, the second aspect is also important.The RSS has come to power for the first time and has its own agenda forsaffronization which it is going all out to push. Since the Modi Govt. cameto power, institutions of pure sciences are under attack. A takeover wasattempted of the National Science Congress. RSS top brass is regularlyvisiting IITs and Science centres forcing the top administration to interactwith them. It also has its Hindutva agenda of an openly upper caste Hindu,patriarchal state ensconcing feudal values and everyone else subservientcitizens.

Thirdly, of course, the RSS Modi Govt. is out to serve the imperialistdrive to intensify loot of the people and of India. For this all diversive,divisive issues are welcome to it to both distract attention and increaserepression. While its other projects have opponents in many sections ofparliamentary parties, in this its consistent opponent is the revolutionaryleft. Thus on target is communism, because it is the ideology confrontingthe Hindutva worldview and also the anti imperialist revolutionarycommunists can be targeted. The most succint expression of this comes



NEW DEMOCRACY

43 44

from Arun Jaitley's comment that both the Hyderabad and JNU incidentsinvolve issues raised by the 'ultra-left' organizations and the Congress and'mainstream' communist parties have foolishly got themselves embroiledin the incident. It has been the consistent position of this Govt. - it termedRohith Vemula as an 'ultra-left' and his fight as not a 'dalit' issue.

Students in institutions of higher learning are on the move and areexpanding the ‘acceptable’ boundaries of what is ‘democracy’ and of whoare the ‘people’ of India. They are mainstreaming sequestered issues likethe right to slef-determination of the people of J&K, of Nagas, by openingup the facts of history which are kept out of the textbooks. They are floutingcasteist and patriarchal norms while fighting caste oppression. They arequestioning communalism including the soft Hindu communalism ofCongress and the sanctity accorded to 'anti-terrorism' and the terming ofMuslims and revolutionary left as 'terrorists'.

Agitation for Reservationby Jats in Haryana

(Central Committee of CPI(ML)-New Democracyhad issued a statement on Jat agitation in Haryana.

This statement is being published here.)

Militant agitation by Jats of Haryana for reservation in OBC categoryenjoys widespread support in that community. While violent attacks onother communities might have been engineered by vested interests linkedto ruling class parties, the wide disillusionment and anger in the communityis quite evident. We strongly condemn the senseless violence indulged inby lumpen elements against common people and reported assaults onwomen passengers.Many such reports have surfaced in the media andlarge scale destruction of shops has also been there. We also stronglycondemn the killing of 18 agitators and injuring of hundreds in police firing.Police in India knows only one way of tackling people i.e. to fire live bulletsto kill and maim them.

This agitation by Jats and earlier agitation by Patidars in Gujarat, byMarathas in Maharashtra and by Kapus in Andhra Pradesh demonstratedeep agrarian crisis in the country and increasing hardships of peasantry.Decreasing share of agriculture in the gross domestic product with continuingdependence of large section of people on agriculture has led to deteriorationof the conditions of the peasantry and rural masses in general. Rising costof agricultural inputs and lack of corresponding rise in the prices ofagricultural produce thereby further worsening terms of trade againstagriculture, continued neglect of irrigation and protection from vagaries ofnature, lack of agri-based industries and industries in the rural areas, lackof emphasis on development in the rural areas and their continuingbackwardness, and increasing privatization of education and health takingthem beyond the means of overwhelming population in rural areas haveled to worsening conditions of rural masses including landowning peasantry.This has given rise to large-scale anger and resentment among thepeasantry who find themselves increasingly marginalized.

Read and Subscribe

CPI(ML) OrCPI(ML) OrCPI(ML) OrCPI(ML) OrCPI(ML) OrgggggansansansansansNew Democracy English

Pratirodh Ka Swar Hindi

Voice of New Democracy Telugu (Telengana)

New Democracy Bulletin Telugu (Andhra Pradesh)

Biplabi Ganaline Bengali

Inquilabi Sada Rah Punjabi

Lok Yudh Marathi

Sangrami Ekta Odia



NEW DEMOCRACY

45 46

Ruling classes and their political representatives have no desire toaddress the root causes of this situation. They rather want to further pushthe policies which have led to this sorry state of affairs of rural masses.They are robbing the peasants of their land and means of livelihood arefurther depressing and squeezing agriculture thereby putting further burdenson peasant masses. They are increasing the cost of inputs to benefit foreignand domestic corporate, they are further depressing the prices of agriculturalproduce by slashing and planning to eventually eliminate Govt. procurementof agricultural produce and Minimum Support Price (MSP) mechanism. Allthis they are doing to benefit foreign companies and their Indian compradors.

While the ruling classes are intensifying the implementation of thepolicies responsible for the present catastrophic situation, they are tryingto divert the peasant masses by leading them astray. RSS-BJP is tryingto divert their anger into communal channels as was evident inMuzaffarnagar and many other places. Ruling class parties are also tryingto sow discord among communities to divert this anger from challengingthe present system. These parties are also promoting drugs and alcoholismto lull the sensitivities of the youth of these communities. These are criminalconspiracies directed against the rural masses including peasantry.

Out of this abysmal and deteriorating conditions are emerging themovements for reservation for increasing the share of these communitiesin Govt. jobs and educational institutions. This demand is arising at a timewhen creation of jobs in Govt. departments and public sector is very lowand there is no provision for reservation in private sector. This demand,born out of the real distress of these communities, helps to divert theiranger which ruling class parties try to channelize into discord amongdifferent communities. It allows these parties to portray as if reservation isa panacea for the rising unemployment among youth of these communities.Ruling class parties have been promising reservation to these communitiesto mobilize their support in the elections. Just before general elections in2014, Congress led UPA II Govt. had announced reservation for Jats. Duringassembly elections in Haryana in November 2014, Narendra Modi in publicmeetings had promised to usher in reservation for Jats. However, afterelections, Modi led RSS-BJP had forgotten this promise which has led tothe present outburst. Now the same RSS-BJP are trying to mobilize othercastes against Jats in Haryana. It is worth mentioning that Congress-NCPGovt. had announced reservation for Marathas in Maharashtra and

Chandrababu Naidu had promised reservation for Kapus in Andhra Pradesh.

Ruling class parties, instead of evolving a scientific and democraticapproach to the question of reservation, have used this as a tool for dividingthe people and for mobilizing different castes for electoral purpose. IndianConstitution provides for reservation on two counts. Firstly for those whohave suffered social discrimination for generations. And secondly for thoseclasses of people who are under-represented in the services of the state.In the first category fall the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. In thistoo ruling class parties have sought to exclude many social groups whoqualify for the inclusion. On the other hand, ruling class parties, forfurtherance of their electoral objectives, promise to include social groupswhich do not qualify for inclusion. These parties have made this a tool forpolitical exploitation though it was a measure for providing opportunities tothe people of such social groups.

In the second category for reservation i.e. representation in the servicesof the state, come other backward classes (OBCs). They have not sufferedthe same discrimination as SCs/STs but have been out of the Govt. servicesand education. These include agriculturist caste groups. With days of “UttamKheti..” gone, these social groups feel marginalized in the country. However,rather than evolving certain objective and scientific criteria for providingreservation, ruling class parties have been making announcements to servetheir political ends. Supreme Court has pointed out in some of such casesthat announcement was made without any study or evaluation. The attitudeof the ruling class parties shows their utter lack of sincerity on the issue.Their utter insincerity is also amply evident when one sees theimplementation of reservation already provided. The ruling establishmentincluding the ruling parties connive in not fulfilling the reservation quotaswhich are disregarded with impunity and no responsibility for this blatantviolation of the law of land is fixed. These parties pay lip service toreservation while flouting them in practice.

While reservation on the basis of castes corresponds to the reality inthe country, certain objective and scientific criteria must be evolved toensure that this measure remains a tool of affirmative action i.e. to ensurerepresentation of social groups and does not become a tool of vestedinterests or for electoral manipulation. Any social group not adequatelyrepresented in services or education should be provided affirmative action



NEW DEMOCRACY

47 48

i.e. reservation and the same should cease to be the case when theobjective is fulfilled to a defined level. The progress on this score shouldbe monitored periodically so that such deprivation does not lead to slippageof the community to the level below such defined level. This process shouldbe a continuing one and it should not be allowed to be tempered by thebiases and machinations of ruling establishment and ruling parties. Furtherall jobs including those in the private sector should be brought under thisambit. In India as in other countries, private sector enjoys considerablepatronage and support from the state and hence must not be exempted forthe provisions of law on this score. Only such process would take awaythe sense of deprivation and discrimination from the vast masses of differentsocial groups and place the whole question on a sound scientific anddemocratic basis.

This is not to dilute the task of preventing and addressing castediscrimination and harassment of those who are able to enter the educationalinstitutions and services through reservation. There must be prompt andeffective action against such practices in the institutions of higher learningwhere such cases abound. These are often brushed under the carpet tosave the image of the institutions while this dirt should be brought out intoopen to be cleaned. There should be automatic and early redressal of allgrievances on this score.

Agitation by Jats, particularly youth, in Haryana has once again broughtto the fore the need to address the underlying causes of deepening agrarianeconomic crisis, of curbing rising costs of inputs and providing remunerativeprices for the produce. It has also highlighted the need to generateemployment and pursue policies aimed at reducing unemployment speciallyamong the youth of the country. Besides it has also highlighted the needto evolve and implement scientific criteria for providing reservation underOBC so that these youths are not exploited and manipulated by the rulingclass parties for perpetuating anti-people policies and rule.

Industrial Death on Day of One Year of AAP Govt.

Capital Delhi- Where a worker�slife is not worth even an FIR

The death of yet another worker in an accident within the premise ofthe industry in which he was employed and the subsequent role of thePolice and the Delhi Govt., are a lesson. They show quite clearly what theworth of a worker’s life is in the capital of India- in fact every death in anindustrial accident exposes this class truth again and again.

Mayapuri industrial area in West Delhi is a private sector industrialarea bounded on one side by a jhuggi colony inhabited primarily by industrialworkers and their families. Over the past year and a half, the local IFTUactivists have uncovered more than ten industrial accidents wherein theworkman has either lost a finger or sustained permanent disability to thelimb. In addition there were at least five cases of deaths in accidents inindustrial premises. In each and every case of such death, it was notbefore workers gheraoed the industry and refused to disperse until an FIRwas lodged that the same was done. Otherwise earlier the police quietlyabetted the owners in removing both the dead body and proofs, may be fora consideration. Even in cases of injury, the owners still try to rush offwith injured workers, usually promising them full money for treatment in aprivate setup, getting the injury attended to initially and then turning theworkman away. Almost 90% of the workforce has no documents to proveemployment and the same figure has not even temporary ESI coverage.This area houses a large number of engineering industries where it is evenmore necessary that industrial safety norms be imposed and the machinerybe subject to adequate safety checks.

In those cases of death within company premises where the FIR doesget lodged, money power and political contacts of the owners and theirassociation comes into play. Thus in a case of 20 year old workman thepolice handed over the postmortem report of a 35 year old man of thesame name who had died of septicemia to the IFTU leaders of the area asa ‘goodwill’ gesture. Police said that they were 'happy' that the Unionbothered about workers’ lives and though the Union was not entitled tosee the report, they were giving it just to assure that no industrial deathhad occurred. The families of the dead workers are either local jhuggi



NEW DEMOCRACY

49 50

dwellers or live in the villages of Bihar and UP; the police urgently contactsthem, makes one come to Delhi where the owner hands them ‘compensation’in the police station; the body is taken by the police from the hospital tothe cremation ground and cremated in their presence. No Labour Ministerof Delhi or Centre has ever visited or contacted the relatives of any suchworkers. In the occasional case where the Union gets in touch with therelatives and the latter fights it out, the case for compensation takes monthsto settle, the family has to produce a guarantor of a matching amount andonly then the compensation is handed over. Regarding the case underbailable 304B IPC (Death by ‘accident’ though the deaths are due todeliberate violation of industrial safety norms, acts penalizable by factoryinspectors) the Union has no locus standi in the case, the Delhi Govt.represents the workman and the matter ends in fines because who willfight for the owners to be jailed? The punishment any way is a maximum oftwo years jail.

In this backdrop is the latest such death on 14th February 2016. At 4PM, the dead body with injuries of the guard employed at B 66, MayapuriPhase I for the past 26 years was seen within the industry premises. Someconstruction work was also on in the premises. Workers surrounded thepolice demanding that the owner be arrested and a case lodged. The owners’association stood behind the SHO who refused to even receive a complaintby Union leaders of the workman’s dead body being found on the premises.According to this SHO even a complaint cannot be received leave alonean FIR being lodged, till postmortem is complete. He also stated that he‘could not find out’ the name of the company owner. IFTU leaders contactedthe DCP, who was so busy till midnight that he could only communicatethrough SMS so the facts were messaged to him. Thereafter he stoppedresponding. Phone calls to Delhi Labour Minister, Shri Gopal Rai, and hisPA elicited no response; at 1:30 AM the PA rang back that they were busyin celebrations of one year of AAP Govt. and he was showing his concernby ringing at that late hour. What would the Govt. do?- Why, immediatelyorder compensation! In an earlier case the Chief Factory Inspector hadexpressed anger at being disturbed late at night; so the Deputy LabourCommissioner who had offered to be ‘woken up’ was contacted at 6 PM;he would send a team of factory inspectors the very next day, he promised.

So what about that day? The workers led by IFTU leaders surroundedthe factory from 4 PM onwards demanding that at least the complaint bereceived. By 6 PM over one thousand workers had collected and the crowd

had spilled onto the road. This resulted in a massive jam extending toMayapuri chowk but it did not bother the police. Most of the press wasinformed by IFTU; one press that did come published the police handout.Still the SHO refused to even receive the complaint and told IFTU DelhiPresident that unless ‘law and order’ was restored no step would be takento reassure the workers. Clearly workers have no right to be agitated overrepeated industrial accidents, over cold-blooded lacunae in implementingindustrial safety norms and they are only allowed to let themselves bekilled in an orderly fashion. Thus the situation continued till 9:30 PM in anindustrial area bereft of street lights. At 9:30 PM the police, who had bythen called in reinforcements in riot gear, ‘acted’. They acted at the behestof the owners. They teargassed and lathicharged the workers till at 10:30PM a police ambulance removed the body. The next morning, at around 5AM, police surrounded the jhuggi colony and picked up 18, mostly youngworkers, some returning from duty and some going for morning ablutions.Cases were lodged under eight sections and included a case of dacoity.The police story is that workers broke dozens of buses and looted acompany’s van etc. but they could not produce their promised ‘evidence’in court. The Duty Magistrate who should have heard the case evaded theworkers’ lawyers who he knew were waiting outside his residence, went tothe police station to sign the file without the workers being produced beforehim and then went for an outing, reaching home at 10 PM and vehementlydenying the lawyers’ charge that he was a ‘police’ magistrate.

So that is one more death in this industrial area. The factory inspectorsarrived the next day, the police escorted one relative to the hospital andcremated the body. Now the police has imposed an unstated ban on tradeunion gatherings in the area. On 22nd March, 200 workers in a rally led byIFTU in the memory of Shaheed Bhagat Singh were forcibly disperseddespite written information given earlier and IFTU leaders were detained.

IFTU has made scores of representations demanding a team of factoryinspectors to systematically survey every single factory in the area andenforce safety norms; that a factory inspector be deputed to the areapermanently; that mandatory FIR be lodged in every death within industry;that ESI squads enforce ESI in every factory in the area; that the Union bemade a party in all such cases in the courts; that the fight should be for jailrather than fines on guilty owners. But not one step has been taken. Owner-police-govt. nexus reigns supreme. The industrial death of a workman isnot newsworthy.



NEW DEMOCRACY

51 52

RSS Brand ofNationalism

Aditya Prakash

JNU events conform to a premeditated plan by RSS-BJP. The planinvolves donning nationalist garb and targeting the left whom they rightlyconsider their ideological enemy. The different limbs of Hindutva bodymoved in cohort. Some media houses were roped in in advance, hooliganswere kept ready and police were used to orchestrate a campaign of lies,slander and abuses, to browbeat the opposition in the name of nationalismand to drown all sounds of sanity, justice and objectivity.

Ever since coming to power, RSS-BJP Govt. has systematicallyadvanced their agenda of dominating all institutions of higher learning inorder to control the brain of the country to speed up their regressive agenda.They appointed their nominees as heads of many institutions, while manymore succumbed to pressure and lucre. In this they are helped by thedeep state, higher echelons of different unelected wings of the state. Theall round failure of Modi led RSS-BJP Govt. has lent more urgency to whatis the core thrust of Hindutva agenda. RSS-BJP is moving systematicallyand aggressively to capture the ‘brain’ of the country, to effectivelydecapitate the society.

Hindtuva is but upper caste Hindu chauvinism. It glorifies all thatcivilization has struggled against. It is an incarnation of different types ofsubjugations which have existed at different times. In a way it is also anew concoction which hermeneutically interprets the past to serve thepresent exploiting classes and tries to secure their sway in the future. It isan eclectic collection of all that is regressive, exploitative and suffocatingin traditions. It debunks any enquiry and examination of its propaganda,serves make believe potions of past grandeur to obfuscate the gloomypresent. It does not rely on propaganda alone but buttresses with abundantuse of muscle power abetted and protected by the chauvinism deeplyentrenched in the state machinery. It seeks to address the causes of growinginstability by imposing silence of the graveyard. It is a fascist answer of

the ruling classes to advance the implementation of their anti-people agendaand to brutally suppress the growing struggles of the people.

To push its regressive agenda and to overcome the opposition, RSS-BJP have whipped up their ‘nationalist’ frenzy to attack the left, particularlyrevolutionary left. With the help of friendly media, particularly electronicmedia, and its control over the security agencies to help its goondas, RSS-BJP are unleashing a reign of terror, all in the name of nationalism. Theirnationalism is opposed to the people of the country, in fact it is targetedagainst them.

What else to expect from RSS which had kept itself deliberately alooffrom the struggle against British colonialism. What else to expect fromHindutva protagonists who felt that colonial rule would help usher their‘Hindu Rashtra’, who pined for their ancient glory in the comfortable lap ofcolonial masters, who derided the great patriotic martyrs and slanderedthe freedom movement, who were happy to become a willing tool in thesubjugation of the country through communal division of its people.

Having opposed and derided the freedom movement, RSS-BJP areprojecting Army as the ultimate brand ambassador of nationalism, evenadvocating placing tanks in educational institutions to foster nationalism.It represents militarist component of their fascist drive. More than that,historically it seeks solace and certification of its nationalism in an institutionwhich was used by the British to keep Indian people in bondage. IndianArmy still celebrates its victories in battles against armed forces of Indianpeople whom it defeated in the service of colonial conquest. Thesenationalists and even those preceding them never thought of exorcizingthe ghost of this colonial past.

During the freedom movement, there were forces who opposed the verystruggle for freedom. RSS was one of them. Among those who participatedsome were for overthrow of the colonial rule and some stood for negotiatedsettlement with colonial power. Those who were for the overthrow of colonialrule, who offered supreme sacrifices in the course of this struggle, werecriticized and denigrated by their opponents as mindless or misguided. Itis for people to judge who were the real patriots. Even after transfer ofpower in 1947, there was struggle for real independence from imperialistexploitation and plunder by foreign companies. The struggle since 1947has been against the imperialist exploitation as well as rule of reactionary



NEW DEMOCRACY

53 54

ruling classes subservient to imperialism and under whose rule imperialistexploitation of the country has continued. Such fihgting forces offeredsupreme sacrifices and braved tremendous hardships and continue to doso. It is again for the people to judge who are nationalists- those whostruggled against imperialist exploitation or those who collaborated in it.RSS’s nationalism is fake just like the fake videos they produced aboutJNU incident.

Indian people fought against colonial rule, for freedom so that all peopleof the country can partake of this freedom, so that all could be free. Theydid not struggle just to replace the managers of the Govt. or what greatmartyr Bhagat Singh described as replacement of British with Kale Angrez.

Coming back to the JNU incident. On February 9, there was a programmeopposing death sentence to Afzal Guru who was executed under UPA II.They raised the question of the legality of the conviction and sentence.This has been done by many forces in the country and almost by all forcesin Kashmir. Supreme Court's reference to 'conscience of society' tosentence Afzal Guru was judicially unprecedented and without basis. Itwas widely commented upon. Is opposing a Court pronouncement anti-national? And this comes from RSS and its affiliates who have mocked atSupreme Court on the question of Babri Masjid, who venerate those whowere sentenced for assassination of Mahatma Gandhi! Can the Govt. inpower have the authority to judge who is nationalist and who is anti-national.Decades back Mrs. Gandhi used to see foreign conspiracy in all oppositionto her rule. Even while imposing Emergency in 1975, she referred to suchconspiracies implying all those opposed to her were anti-nationals includingRSS and its affiliates. The Govt. of the day or even the state cannot beequated with nation. It is a fascist concept credited to Benito Mussolinithat state creates the nation. Deification of state was also cornerstone ofNazi propaganda about the alleged superiority of German race. No wonderthese old admirers of fascism in pre-Seond World War Europe have beenparroting and even putting this into practice.

Another aspect of the issue is its linkage with struggle of people ofKashmir. Against Afzal Guru's hanging Kashmir Valley observed completebandh. A large number of armed forces are posted in Kashmir and incidentsof atrocities are routine and widely reported. The democratic sections inIndia have been standing against the suppression of democratic rights ofthe people of Kashmir and some even with their right of self-determination.

When the RSS-BJP Govt. targeted JNU for an event opposing hanging ofAfzal Guru and support to the struggle of the Valley, the whole Valleysupported the struggle of JNU students. It was a rare and welcomedevelopment that people of J&K stood up for their friends among Indianpeople, stood up for the people who stood in solidarity with them, whostood against their oppression and suppression.

JNU students have been charged with sedition, a law which wasimposed by British colonial power to quell the unrest against their colonialrule. After the military suppression of 1857 War of Independence whichhad nearly overthrown the British power in India, British colonial rulerswere apprehensive of even slightest rumblings of dissent and this is reflectedin the anti-sedition provision incorporated by them in IPC. Law againstsedition had existed in the penal provisions made by the British for theterritories ruled by them. This provision had nothing to do with nationalismunless one argues that British were the nationalists! Any way an anti-national act is not punishable in India. If it were so, how is it the compradorsof imperialists, the rulers, continuously betraying the country have neverbeen charged! Anti-sedition law deals with acts against the Govt. Moreover,as worded, it is not and was not intended to be confined to violent actsagainst the state. Later Supreme Court has tried to limit the scope of thisprovision. But the successive Govts. have not scrapped this provisionthough M.K. Gandhi, Nehru and other leaders of Congress had decried thislaw and advocated its annulment. But once in power, Congress rulers notonly kept this law on the statute book abut also used it against their politicalopponents.

This anti-sedition law in fact arose in the period of absolute monarchywhen opposition to the ruler was equivalent to opposition to nation. Thoughantiquated and undemocratic, this law continued in bougeois countries dueto its need felt by the ruling bourgeoisie. However, this law was notimplemented in Britian since 1977 and has been annulled several yearsback. But in India it not only stays on the statute book but is increasinglyused. In fact there are many provisions in Indian law which are anti-peopleand anti-democratic embodying the need of the colonial rulers to subduethe Indian people under their colonial subjugation, giving unlimited powersto the police and state agencies. Indian Penal Code was enforced by theBritish colonial rulers in 1861 after defeat of Indian war of Independence(1857-'59). That little has changed in this Penal Code shows that little haschanged in the rights of the people. Rulers who came to rule after transfer



NEW DEMOCRACY

5655

of power in 1947 have continued both the same administrative andrepressive machinery as well as the legal framework. This shows that likethe colonial rulers, post-1947 rulers have needed these repressive lawsand repressive machinery to maintain their rule. RSS-BJP which talk somuch of their nationalism and their anti-Congressism have never felt theneed to change these repressive laws, rather they stand for and are usingthese repressive laws with increasing impunity. Ruling class parties thathave been in power including those supported by parliamentary Left havenever felt the need to do away these laws, rather they too preserved andused these laws against the people. From the very language and practiceof implementation of this law, it is clear that it has nothing to do withnationalism.

Nation may or may not correspond to state. It was during bourgeoisrevolutions in European countries, nation states came into being. Thereare some nations which are divided among different states like Germanywas divided after Second World War. There are many more states wheremore nations cohabit in the given state. One of the reason is that nationsevolved and matured later but the state became quite powerful in the periodpreceding it. In the countries like India and China, state was quite powerfulin the medieval period and in some cases even earlier. Nationalities whichattained their development and maturity found this powerful state confrontingthem. In that sense the vast state structure continued to keep the differentnationalities together even forcibly. It was such a situation, where Lenincalled Tsarist empire in Russia as a prison of nationalities. Colonial rulerswhich ruled over many such countries also created huge state structurefor the purpose of extracting wealth from these countries and keeping theirpeople under subjugation. In the feudal period in India big and powerfulstates have ruled over much of what is India over considerable period oftime though for long periods of time, there were mutually quarelling statesin the region which was brought under their colonial rule by the British.

While British colonial rule was opposed by many Indian rulers and therewere instances of popular rebellion in several regions, 1857 uprisingrepresented first countrywide war of independence in which Indian peoplerose against the colonial rule. It can be termed as the beginning of Indiannationalism in proper sense. It has evolved during freedom struggle againstcolonial rule despite constraints placed upon this development by the classforces dominating this struggle. However, it is in this struggle that Indianpeople fought for their freedom to shape their own destiny and their self-

rule. It embodied the principles of anti-colonilaism and democraticaspirations of the people. Vast populace of the country being longsuppressed under caste discrimination and oppression, under regionaloppression (including suppression of different nationalities) and oppressionof tribes, this struggle also contained aspects of social justice and self-rule of different nationalities. The dominant classes tried to curtail all theseaspects- anti-colonialism, democracy and social justice- through negotiatedsettlement with the colonial masters and getting hold of the vast statemachinery to keep the people down. Transfer of power in 1947 did notfulfill these aspirations fully or even substantially.

Communist Party in India raised these issues forcefully during thefreedom struggle including the rights of different nationalities. Forcommunists freedom meant freedom for all national groups, freedom fromeconomic, social and political exploitation and oppression. In fact thisaspect of right of nationalities has always been the distinguishing featureof revolutionary communists. Revisionists have subscribed to the rulingclass understanding of nationalism and opposed the right of nations toself-determination confining themselves to opposing violation of democraticrights excluding this most important democratic right of a nation.Revolutionary communists have always stood by this right taking it as anessential part of the new democratic revolution in India.

RSS which had not kept itself consciously away from the freedomstruggle, have sought to negate and denigrate this entire course ofdevelopment. They parade their cultural nationalism which is embodimentof upper caste chauvinism opposed to oppressed castes, minorities, tribalsand women. Their vision of what constitutes Indian nation is opposed toIndian people. Even the eating habits they wish to impose on the peopleare opposed to a vast majority of the people. The various practices andbeliegs they uphold are also at variance with vast masses of the people.In the garb of their cultural natinalism, they wish to impose a tiny minorityover the vast multitude of the people. What RSS and its Hindu rashtrastands for is a negation of anti-imperialism, democracy and social justice.

The real strength of RSS lies in its service of the ruling classes whoare feeling increasingly threatened by the rising struggles of the people,who feel that RSS's capacity to divide the people can be useful in pushingthrough loot and plunder of the natural resources of this country, and mostimportantly who feel that RSS can militarize the suppression of the people'sstruggles against exploitation and oppression and for New Democratic India.

new democracy, march 2016

Documents