CPI(ML) HOME Vol.10, No. 24 12-18 JUNE 2007

The Weekly News Bulletin of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)(Liberation)

U-90, Shakarpur, Delhi 110092. Tel: (91)11-22521067. Fax(91)11-22518248

 
In this Issue

Atrocities Against UP Dalits in the Wake of Mayawati’s Victory: Disturbing Trends

While Mayawati is being hailed for her party’s unique metamorphosis from Bahujan to ‘Sarvajan’, Mayawati’s victory has no doubt sharpened the aspirations of dalits in UP for democracy and empowerment. However, the few weeks that have followed Mayawati’s ascension to power have witnessed a disturbing trend: a spate of assaults and atrocities against dalits.

Take the example of Mohanlalganj, barely an hour’s journey away from the seat of power in Lucknow. Here, a poor and aged dalit peasant was shot dead, and his son as well as daughter-in-law seriously injured .Their only fault was that they resisted the forcible grabbing of their land in the name of road by a rich Brahmin who also happened to be a government officer. Despite being pre-warned about the possibility of such an assault, police and administration turned a blind eye.

In Raebareilly, again in the vicinity of the state capital, an old dalit agrarian labour was brutally beaten to death. He had refused to work for a Rajput landlord, since the landlord had not paid his long-due wages and instead got him arrested on a false pretext of theft during the Mulayam regime. Possibly emboldened by the formation of Mayawati Government he asserted his minimum democratic right to accept or refuse an employer, and paid for it with his life. Significantly, the killers - upper caste feudal men, are also ’associated’ with the BSP. So when the local Rajput BSP leader came to the spot apparently to assert the rights of dalits, he was actually maneuvering to save the main culprits, his caste-class kinsmen!

The Bundelkhand region, hit by famine and drought, is a site of tremendous agrarian distress. In Mahoba, a village in Bundelkhand, a dalit village Pradhan was recently tied up and brutally beaten by a moneylender landlord of Brahmin origin. This humiliation and violence was inflicted on him as punishment when he failed to repay the usurious interest on the loan lent by the landlord. Recall that such moneylenders are responsible in a large part for turning Bundelkhand into another Vidarbha, with soaring suicide rates of poor peasants.

In western UP too, a dalit boy was killed – ironically when hen joined others of his community who were celebrating the victory of Mayawati . Here too the ‘Sarvajan’ killers are yet to face any punishment.

The emerging pattern of these incidents indicates that despite the ‘historic’ victory of Mayawati ji`s Sarvajan politics and the miraculous ‘social engineering’, the assaults on dalits continue unabated. In fact perhaps the assault has intensified because there is assertion on the part of dalits in the wake of their heightened expectations, while the oppressors, too, do see a new hope in the Sarvajan Sarkar and assert their feudal ‘right’ to oppress!

Liberating the state from the clutches of mafia-criminals was the USP of Mayawati in the recently held elections. Needless to say, this goal requires an uncompromising battle against criminalization of politics, not just some selective gimmicks based on political convenience. The use of criminals to grab power is the basic source of break-down of law and order in the society. And obviously the vulnerable sections of the society, the poor and the dalits, are its worst victims.

Dalit emancipation and establishing a casteless society are the proclaimed strategic goals of Mayawati . The continuing atrocities on dalits even in the wake of victory is a warning that these goals are impossible without thoroughgoing democratization of the state and society. Doing away with all forms of feudal oppression, strict implementation of SC/ST Act without dilution, resolving land disputes through proper land reforms by constituting a Land Commission, ensuring proper and timely wages and holding the state machinery responsible for any lapse regarding atrocities on the poor are some of the minimum steps required.

Will the Mayawati govt., in its new avatar as government of the Sarvajan, dare to address these urgent issues of democratic reform that are the only possible bases of dalit dignity?

Party district conference held in Udaipur

The first district conference of CPI(ML) was held in Udaipur. Two hundred elected delegates from 6 tehsils participated in it. Addressing the delegates in the inaugural session , Comrade Srilata Swaminathan, CC Member, called upon the party members to launch a vigorous and decisive battle for a new India and a new Rajasthan. Prof. R. N. Vyas, a left intellectual, expressed concern that ruling Parties like BJP and Congress are depriving people of their basic sources of livelihood, by snatching away the land and forest resources of the dalits, tribals and the poor. He said that the land grab and massacre at Nandigram have put a question mark on the communist credentials of CPI(M).He said that CPI(ML) is emerging as the only party fighting for the interests of the poor and oppressed. Delivering the concluding speech in the conference, Comrade Mahendra Chaudhary, State Secretary of CPI(ML), called upon cadres to develop CPI(ML) as the centre of mass movements in Rajasthan. An 8-point political resolution was adopted in the conference. Comrade Chandradev Ola was elected secretary of the 13 member district committee.

General Secretary of the Labour Party, Pakistan, Jailed

The General Secretary Labour Party Pakistan Farooq Tariq who was arrested on 5 June from his residence without warrants, Thursday (June 7) sent to Bahawalpur Jail after the issuance of 3-month detention orders by the Home Secretary Punjab. Farooq Tariq’s detention is a part of recent state crack down on political activists and workers in the backdrop of lawyers and mediamen movement against Mushrraf regime. Throughout Pakistan hundreds of political workers have been arrested and cases have been lodged on thousands others. According to the police reply submitted before the court, Farooq Tariq has been arrested under section 16 of Maintenance of Public Order.

Meanwhile, the jail authorities in Bahawalpur have refused to allow visitors to see Farooq Tariq- a sheer violation of constitutional and fundamental rights. The Labour Party Pakistan plans to challenge Farooq Tariq’s detention in the Lahore High Court.

Message to Labour Party, Pakistan

Dear Comrades,

CPI(ML) strongly condemns the arrest and detention of Comrade Farooq Tariq as well as the denial of basic liberties to him. You are part of a historic upsurge against the military regime of Musharraf, and have played a role from the first day in this remarkable movement. We are with you in your struggle to ensure the release of Comrade Farooq Tariq and other democratic and progressive activists and demanding restoration of the fullest democracy. We are sure that such arrests and crackdown cannot muzzle the voices of democracy in Pakistan – and will only serve to render the movement even more strong!

In solidarity,
Dipankar Bhattacharya,
General Secretary, CPI(ML)

Seminar on Sachar Committee Findings in Gwalior

The Indian Association of Lawyers organised a seminar on 27 May on the implications of Sachar Committee findings regarding the condition of minorities in India. The well-attended Seminar was presided over by the well-known Urdu poet Qasim Rasa, and one of the key speakers was Sachar Committee Member Prof. Rakesh Vasant, a professor of IIM Ahmedabad. Addressing the seminar, Prof. Vasant said that the Sachar Committee findings had effectively demolished many myths about the Muslim community in India – especially the bogey of Muslim population growth raised by the communal forces. He also mentioned that apart from the acute poverty and marginalization of Muslims in terms of rights like education, health and basic civic amenities, Muslims in India are also victims of a tremendous insecurity dues to communal violence, deeply entrenched prejudice even inside government institutions and state machinery, especially police. This phenomenon has increased in the wake of 9/11 and the international Islamophobic atmosphere, and has intensified the ghettoisation of Indian Muslims.

Speaking at the Seminar, Revolutionary Youth Association President Mohd. Salim said that the Sachar Committee findings are in a sense nothing new – but they have served to remind people of the reality behind India’s secular façade. He said that the communal forces like the Sangh Parivar and BJP were responsible for whipping up hatred against the Muslim community and indulging in fascist pogroms. He also spoke of the role of the Congress and other professedly secular formations in bolstering legitimacy for various communal anti-Muslim myths – such as the myth of anti-nationalism. He said that the Sachar Committee findings showed that in terms of basic empowerment of Muslims – freedom from unemployment, prejudice, police harassment and victimisation, protection for artisans and other occupations which constitute livelihood for Muslims – states ruled by Congress and other secular formations have fared just as badly as states ruled by communal outfits.

The Seminar was introduced by Dr. Madhumaschand Khare, former Head of the Geology Department at Gwalior, and was also addressed by Madhukar Rao, State President of the IAL and Devendra Singh Chauhan, also from the IAL. Guru Dutt Sharma from the IAL conducted the proceedings.

REPORTS

Kisan Sabha Dharna at Bihar against Land Grab

On June 6, the Bihar Pradesh Kisan Sabha held a dharna before the Bihar Chief Minister at ITO Circle, Patna. The main issue of the dharna was peasants’ protest against the grabbing of fertile agricultural land all over the state in the name of development. Around 2000 peasants took part in the dharna. Some of the major areas of struggle against land grab have been rural districts surrounding Madhubani and Patna. The Dharna demanded an immediate stop to grabbing of fertile land, freeing of bhoodan land from illegal occupants and redistribution among the poor, action against those guilty of atrocities against dalits and steps to prevent the same, and enquiry and stern action against those responsible for the Below Poverty Line scam. The dharna was addressed by Comrade Rajaram Singh, President, BPKS, Arun Singh, deputy leader of the CPI(ML) Legislator’s team in the Bihar Assembly, Dhirendra Jha, General Secretary of the All India Agricultural Labour Association, CPI(ML) CC member K D Yadav and others.

State-wide Agitation of RYA in Bihar

On June 6, the Revolutionary Youth Association (RYA) took out marches all over Bihar agitation demanding an immediate stop to the contract system in government posts and permanent recruitments in the over 5 lakh vacant government posts in the state. They demanded regularisation of the Shiksha Mitra, Lok Shikshaks and such casual employees in education. They also demanded scrapping of the draconian Bihar Police Act and protested against the criminalisation of politics.

Mahadharna at Parliament Street by Government Employees

Demanding 40% Interim Relief from 6 th Pay Commission

On 11 June thousands of state government employees, teachers, and contract employees, from various states across the country from various states across the country held a massive Mahadharna at Parliament Street, responding to a call by the ‘National Campaign Committee of Struggling State Government Employees’ to put forth their demands before the 6 th Pay Commission. A 5-member delegation led by the National Convenor Rambali Prasad met the Commission and submitted a memorandum.

Addressing the dharna, speakers sharply hit out at the UPA Government, saying that this was the first time a central government had not announced any interim relief while constituting the Pay Commission, and had left it to the 6 th Pay Commission to do so. Eight months have passed since then, but the matter has remained unresolved.

Speakers raised demands of need-based minimum wages, a stop to the reckless downsizing and privatisation/contractualisation in government departments, regularisation of all daily, irregular and casual employees, roll back of the new pension scheme, and other demands. They demanded that the Central Government and the Pay Commission take back the anti-employee, anti-worker policies without delay.

They also raised the issue that the service conditions/terms of Government employees still bear the hallmarks of the British colonial period. They are yet to guarantee the right to strike, political rights and full citizen’s rights. Speakers attacked the UPA Government for failing to take steps to overrule the Supreme Court verdict banning Government employees’ right to strike.

Addressing the dharna, AICCTU General Secretary Swapan Mukherjee extended full support to the employees’ struggle, and called upon them to intensify the movement against the anti-employee, anti-worker policies of the UPA Central Government and various state governments. The dharna was also addressed by national and state-level Employees’ leaders: prominent among them were the Convenor of the National Campaign Committee Rambali Prasad, Siddheshwar Singh from Jharkhand, Navendu Mathpal from Uttarakhand, Sukhdarshan Nat from Punjab, Anil Varma from Uttar Pradesh, Devasish Kumar from West Bengal, Anant Bhattacharya from Tripura, Ramnarayan Rai from Bihar, M. Subramanyam from Pondicherry, AICCTU’s Delhi State Secretary Santosh Ray, and former General Secretary of the All India Postal Employees Association R P Singh.

Edited, published and printed by S. Bhattacharya for CPI(ML) Liberation from U-90, Shakarpur, Delhi-92; printed at Bol Publication, R-18/2, Ramesh Park, Laxmi Nagar, Delhi-92; Phone:22521067; fax: 22518248, e-mail: mlupdate@cpiml.org, website: www.cpiml.org

 Please offer your comments at : mlupdate@cpiml.org