Regional Co-operation in South Asia: Meaningful Only in the Context of Anti-imperialist Solidarity

The 14th SAARC Summit has just flagged off in New Delhi. The EU and US, apart from China, Japan, and Korea are to be observers this year onwards, and Iran’s application for observer status has been approved for the next year. The official rhetoric of the Indian Government on SAARC, echoed in the media, revolves around the promise of regional economic co-operation and combating terrorism.

Meanwhile, the impasse following the capture of 15 British sailors in Iran’s waters continues. President Bush, predictably, has condemned Iran for its “inexcusable behaviour” in taking British soldiers “hostage”, while Blair has presented maps claiming the sailors were actually patrolling Iraqi waters for smugglers. The US Navy has reportedly intensified its presence in the region. With the US spoiling for a pretext to go to war against Iran, the British infiltration of Iranian waters smacks suspiciously of deliberate provocation. Recall that it was a British intelligence “dossier” on Iraq that provided the pretext for the war against Iraq.

The UN Security Council has also imposed further sanctions on Iran, this time targeting even Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and another subordinate military unit, unrelated to the nuclear programme. The Revolutionary Guard has for long been accused by the US of aiding Hamas and Hezbollah. These fresh sanctions seem aimed to legitimise US accusations and further provide ground for aggression against Iran. This is openly acknowledged by US officials; R. Nicholas Burns, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs has declared, “We are trying to force a change in the actions and behaviour of the Iranian government. And so the sanctions are immediately focused on the nuclear weapons research programme, but we also are trying to limit the ability of Iran to be a disruptive and violent factor in Middle East politics.”

India’s recent implementation of US-dictated UN resolution 1737 banning the export of any material and technology to Tehran that could help in the development of its n-weapons programme is just the latest in the UPA Government’s shameful quiescence with the US imperialist build-up against Iran. India’s vote against Iran in the IAEA, openly discussed by US Senators to be a result of US threats/incentive regarding the Indo-US Nuke Deal, has effectively exposed the extent to which Indian foreign policy is guided by the compulsions of a dependent relationship with USA. The Hyde Act even more openly demonstrates the kind of controls which the US seeks to impose on India – and which the UPA Government and the Indian establishment is all too eager to embrace.

During the movement for democracy in Nepal, too, UPA Government was careful, in tandem with US policy, to maintain ties with the discredited and dictatorial monarchy. Now, it has approved of the army-backed regime in Bangladesh and its claim of battling corruption, organised crime and terror. While it is true that the corrupt and repressive track record of previous regimes has allowed the coup and imposition of Emergency to claim some legitimacy among Bangladesh’s beleaguered people, it is quite clear that one cannot expect democracy from the new regime. Rather, its war on corruption, crime and terror are likely to adopt the US blueprint for the same – one that the Indian ruling establishment with its POCAs and POTAs and organised witch-hunts has already embraced.

After the Middle East and Latin America, US imperialism is on the lookout for a foothold in South Asia. If South Asian nations fail to recognise this, and instead compete with each other to woo US imperialism, the consequences are bound to be disastrous. The need of the hour is for greater regional and international solidarity against imperialism. SAARC summits and regional co-operation can have meaning only in the context of such anti-imperialist solidarity. 

   CPI(ML) Struggle of Dalits Against Feudal Discrimination: Rallying Point for Democratic Forces in Chunar Assembly Polls   

Struggling for the rights of Dalits in Chunar (Eastern UP) against the ban on using a common village pond, CPI(ML) leader Comrade Ram Krit Biyar [also the CPI(ML) candidate from Chunar in ongoing Assembly polls] is on his 17th day of indefinite fast. He has been arrested, and is in handcuffs in prison. CPI(ML) has approached the NHRC on the issue, and has also apprised the UP Governor of the apprehension that the District Administration is trying to do away with Comrade Ram Krit’s life.

And despite repeated orders (on paper) by the local District Administration, the illegally erected fence keeping the pond out of reach for Dalits has not been demolished, neither have any charges been filed against those who have inflicted violence on Dalits. Rather, local landlords are blatantly holding mass meetings proclaiming that they will vote for the party that will allow the pond to remain. The deafening silence of the entire spectrum of ruling political parties on the issue, contrasts with the determined struggle of local Dalit and tribal agrarian poor under the banner of the CPI(ML). CPI(ML)’s election campaign in Chunar is centred on this struggle for the rights and dignity of Dalits.     

The Sonebhadra-Mirzapur area of eastern UP is one where the All India Agrarian Labourers’ Association (AIALA) has been very active in mobilising agrarian labourers to struggle for proper implementation of the NREGA and minimum wages. This has signalled a new assertion and awakening of the rural poor, most of whom are Dalits and tribals. In December 2006, in Bhadkuda village in Chunar tehsil, a Dalit labourer Manju Devi demanded payment of pending wages from a neo-rich landlord, and all the agrarian labourers of the village were mobilised in her support. The neo-kulak forces then ganged up to beat up Manju Devi and, to ‘teach a lesson’ to the entire labouring Dalit community, also banned them from access to the common pond in the village. CPI(ML) launched a struggle to demand removal of the fencing around the pond and punishment for those who attacked Manju Devi. Despite orders by the District Administration to the contrary, instead of taking action to remove the fence and deliver justice for Manju Devi, the police threatened to force a gun into the mouth an old blind Dalit women Paccho Devi, in the same village.

The District Administration’s reluctance to restore the rights of the Dalit labourers to the common pond must be attributed to powerful political interests – BJP MLA and former Minister Omprakash Singh as well as Samajwadi Party’s local leaders, feudal and neo-kulak forces all joined hands against the assertion of Dalit labourers.

Eighty years ago, on 20 March 1927, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar led thousands of Dalits to defy feudal diktats of ‘untouchability’ and drink water at the common pond at Mahar. Today, the Constitution scripted by Dr. Ambedkar declares the rights of Dalits in independent India to be fundamental and inalienable. The ongoing struggle in eastern UP reminds us how Dalits even today have to march to reclaim their right to common resources like ponds, and to resist violence not only by feudal forces but also by the newly emergent rural landed rich.

Saluting a Decade of Comrade Chandrashekhar’s Martyrdom: Students and Youth Deepen Solidarity with Peasant Movement against SEZs

March 31 marked a decade of Comrade Chandrashekhar’s martyrdom in Siwan, at the hands of RJD MP Shahabuddin’s goons. The massive student movement that followed his murder, as well as his lifetime of leading student struggles and people’s movements, and his decision to leave JNU (where he had twice been elected Students’ Union President) to work as a wholetime CPI(ML) organizer of the rural poor in Siwan, broke many of the myths about the death of student activism. Ten years later, when the media and powers that be are once again claiming that students and young people are immersed in consumerism and careers in corporates, students are once more out on the streets – facing lathis and arrests as they join the peasants of Singur and Nandigram.  

It is fitting that students have saluted Chandu’s memory, not with formal rituals but by reliving his example through their active and spirited solidarity with peasant struggles against corporate land grab and SEZs. March 31 was the day that AISA naturally chose, therefore, to hold a Convention in Kolkata to take stock of the spontaneous student response to the Nandigram massacre. At the Convention, students recalled how CPI(M) leaders had raised the spectre of ‘Naxalism’ by asking, “What are students from Jadavpur and Presidency doing in Singur and Nandigram?” Students from various colleges and Universities in Kolkata, as well as from mofussil colleges in Bagula, Nadia and Malda noted how the Nandigram issue had inspired students to break the barriers of campus walls and link their own struggles with those of the rural poor. Nandigram had become the central issue in students’ union elections in Bengal, as a result of which SFI had faced stinging defeat in several institutions, including Presidency College and Jadavpur University. Welcoming students mandate against the massacre of peasant resistance in Nandigram, the Convention (in which activists from various organizations participated) demanded the resignation of Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and scrapping of the SEZ Act 2005.                 

In Jawaharlal Nehru University too, the entire Shahadat Saptah from March 23 to March 31 had chosen to salute Comrade Chandrashekhar’s legacy with a campaign against the Nandigram massacre and the SEZ policy. The Vice President and General Secretary of the JNU Students’ Union held a Procession against SEZs on Chandrashekhar’s martyrdom day March 31. Defying the SFI’s appeal ‘not to turn JNUSU into a panchayat of West Bengal’, students turned up in large numbers in the Procession, with the slogan of ‘Nandigram’s struggle is our struggle’.

At Siwan, Patna, Bhojpur and other centres of Bihar, AISA and RYA observed March 31 with student-youth gatherings that resolved to intensify Comrade Chandrashekhar’s quest for democracy and people’s rights.

    CPI(ML) Releases Manifesto for UP Assembly Polls

CPI(ML) released its Manifesto for the 2007 UP Assembly Polls on 28 march at Lucknow. Holding the anti-people policies of the Government responsible for starvation deaths and suicides of the rural poor, the Manifesto’s central demand is that of food grain at the rate Rs. 2 per kilo and kerosene at the rate of Rs. 2 per litre. The Party has already announced a list of 35 candidates in the Assembly polls.

The Manifesto demands a CBI enquiry into the food grain scam, red card for all BPL families, job cards for all under NREGA and extension of NREGA to all districts in the State. It also demands debt relief for farmers and scrapping of the SEZ Act, as well as reversal of the WTO-dictated agrarian policies responsible for agrarian distress and farmers’ suicides. Other prominent demands are revival of the hand-weaving industry, loans at affordable rates for weavers and guarantee of a market for their produce and setting up of a Land Commission, resolution of land disputes in fast track courts and a promise of intensified movements to defend the land rights of dalits and tribals. The Party has declared its resolve to continue the struggle for social justice for tribals, extremely backward and backward Muslim communities, and has also raised the demands of scheduled tribe status for communities like Kol, Vanvasi and Rajbhar; separate quota for backward Muslims within the 27% OBC quota, and SC status for dalit Muslims, Bengali-speaking Namoshudras and Paund Kshatriyas.

Declaring its resistance to the repression and fake encounters of rural poor in the name of combating Maoists, the Party has also demanded an end to draconian laws including Section 144.

The Manifesto declares the BJP to be a communal fascist party with the sole agenda of communal violence, and has pointed out that for their own compulsions, both SP and BSP are joining forces overtly or covertly with BJP. The refusal of both SP and BSP Governments to draw up a fresh chargesheet against Advani in the Babri Masjid demolition case proves the point. The Congress-led UPA Government’s policies are declared to be pro-US and anti-peasant and responsible for the spiraling prices of essential commodities. The Manifesto states that the BSP has conceded ideological defeat by dropping the Bahujan philosophy. Mayawati’s ‘Capture Power’ campaign has not secured civil rights for Dalits in feudal society; rather the BSP surrender to feudal forces has emboldened feudal forces to intensify their oppression of the Dalits. The Manifesto also states that the massacre and repression in Singur and Nandigram by the CPI(M)’s LF Government have dealt a blow to the democratic stature of the Left, as well as the anti-imperialist movement, in particular the movement against SEZs.

The Manifesto appeals to voters to defeat the communal fascist and anti-people forces, vote in favour of democratic movements and ensure the victory of CPI(ML) candidates, so that CPI(ML) can take the people’s struggles into the UP Assembly.

REPORTS

Block Conference Held at Jhunjhunu

The CPI(ML) in Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan, held its first Block Conference on 18 March in Ajadi Kala village. Resolving to intensify the peasant struggle against imperialist policies that were causing displacement, starvation and suicides among the rural poor, the Conference was inaugurated by CPI(ML) CC Member Srilata Swaminathan; Jhunjhunu District Secretary and AIALA National Executive Member Comrade Phoolchand Dhewa  presented the Block report; and Rajasthan State Secretary Mahendra Chaudhury delivered the concluding speech following a debate among the delegates on the report. The Conference elected a 13-member Block Committee, with Comrade Hari Singh Meghwal as Block Secretary.  

CPI(ML) Spearheads Campaign Against Nitish Government’s Draconian Police Act

CPI(ML) is at the forefront of state-wide protests in Bihar against the newly introduced ‘Police Act’ in Bihar which is confers legality on police repression by giving draconian powers to the police. The Police Act is designed to suppress political dissent, and is a sign of the Nitish Government’s intension to intensify the ongoing spate of repressive assaults on people’s movements and activists. RJD-ruled Bihar had already witnessed such state terror; Nitish’s short tenure has already presided over brutal lathicharge on para teachers’ protests and victimization of student activists from Begusarai to Patna. CM Nitish Kumar has responded by branding the protestors as ‘anti-national’, on the grounds that the protestors burnt copies of the Police Act, which carried a copy of the ‘national symbol’, the Ashok Chakra. The people of Bihar have treated this charge with deserved contempt. The continuing spree of kidnappings and murders as well as political patronage to criminals proves the hollowness of Nitish’s claim to curb crime. Rather than taking action against politically influential criminals, the Police Act has been promulgated to crack down on people’s movements and democratic activists. The CPI(ML) has announced its intention to launch a sustained agitation all over Bihar demanding withdrawal of the Police Act.  

Tribute to ‘Overseer Saheb’: Arwal’s Comrade
Umesh Chandra Singh

On 9 February 2007, Comrade Umesh Chandra Singh (popularly known as ‘Overseer Saheb’) was shot dead by criminals at 7 in the evening on his way home from the Arwal Party Office. Born in Arwal on 8 December 1948, ‘Overseer Saheb’ was, for many, the epitome of the CPI(ML). As a member of the Block Committee and as a peasant leader, he was known and loved for his humility and his tireless work through the most taxing times. The whole of Arwal was in mourning and observed a spontaneous Bandh following his murder. He was known to intervene in every social situation and political debate with a progressive viewpoint. In death as in life, he remained an inspiration for the struggle against orthodoxy and rituals. Beyond his Party responsibilities, he had been a member of the organizing committee of the Sant Sudarshan Das Secular Academy run by the Nav Pragati Vihar.

Comrade ‘Overseer’ was lovingly termed the ‘guardian’ of the Party in Arwal. His patience and calm in the face of many a political storm will be an inspiration for us all in struggles to come.

Red Salute to Comrade Umesh Chandra Singh!

Scrap the SEZ Act ! Repeal the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 !

Intensify the struggle for land reforms, guaranteed employment and higher wages !