CPI(ML) HOME Vol.10 No. 28 10 - 16 JULY 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

Student Movements facing Crackdown

The public lynching of Prof. Sabharwal on an Ujjain campus is the symbol of ‘student politics’ at its worst – and it is this image that University authorities evoke as justification for punitive strikes and purges of student leaders. But recent punitive purges of student activists on campuses like Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi and Kashi Vidyapeeth in Varanasi indicate that rather than criminal elements, it is socially committed student movements that are at the receiving end of a crackdown.

At Kashi Vidyapeeth, a woman student filed a complaint of sexual harassment by a teacher. The Head of the campus Women’s Cell, instead of investigating the complaint, threatened the student to withdraw her complaint or else face dire consequences. Women students launched a protest demanding the setting up of a fresh Complaints Cell based on the Supreme Court directives regarding sexual harassment at the workplace. They were met with a lathicharge, and the Vice Chancellor himself slapped one of the leading organisers and snatched her mobile. Subsequently, the Vice Chancellor was forced to issue a public apology. Several months later, however, several of the protestors were debarred from giving entrance exams to post-graduate courses, unless they gave an undertaking that they would never contest elections nor participate in any movements. Those who refused included three leading AISA activists, two of whom are women.

In JNU, three JNU Students’ Union office bearers face steep fines, while 8 other students have been rusticated and placed “out-of-bounds” of the campus. While the pretext if the students’ involvement in a gherao of a University official (an incident the students have regretted), it appears that the real reason is the fact that these students have been conducting a sustained campaign exposing JNU’s violations of minimum wage and contract labour laws on the campus.

A speech by the JNU Vice Chancellor to bankers in Chandigarh in October 2006 long before the agitation that led to these punishments reveals a clue to the actual agenda. Here he had declared that politics ought to be kept away from university campuses. In an explicit reference to the students’ union polls that were round the corner, he refuted JNU’s ‘leftist’ image, and claimed that the presence of small fringe of ‘students with a leftist bias’ on the campus was inhibiting JNU’s pursuit of ‘excellence’ and ‘growth’. This sentiment is in tune with a previous statement by Montek Singh Ahluwalia that unions were an impediment to growth in universities, and also with World Bank recommendations that student politics on third world campuses needed to be ‘restricted’.

In both Kashi Vidyapeeth as well as JNU, it is notable that the students ‘outlawed’ for being disruptive and unruly are, in fact, struggling to ensure that their campus complies with the law: in Vidyapeeth’s case, the 1997 Supreme Court Directive (Vishaka Judgement) on Sexual Harassment at the Workplace; in JNU’s case, the Contract Labour Act and minimum wage laws.

For Governments and their representatives on University campuses bent on commercializing education and inculcating ‘corporatized’ values in youth, the spirit of social commitment in student movements becomes a very real danger. As a result, while their proclaimed concern is to purge violent and anti-social elements to ‘make the campus safe for study’, the University authorities seem more anxious to ‘outlaw’ the very student movements that seek to enforce laws pertaining to the rights of workers and women on campuses.

Begin All-out Preparation for the Party’s Forthcoming Eighth Congress

The meeting began by paying homage to Comrades Jeeta Kaur,Ujagar Singh Ladhara (Punjab), Arvind Kumar (member, Bihar State Committee), Sohan Lal (workers’ leader, Lucknow) and Punjab Rao (veteran leader of the Naxalbari peasant upsurge).

The 8 th Congress of the Party will be held in Kolkata from 10 to 18 December. The inaugural session will be held on December 10 and delegate sessions will be held between December 11 to 15. The concluding ceremony will be held in the form of a public rally on 18 December. The hall will be named after Comrade Mahendra Singh while the stage will be dedicated to the memories of Comrades Jeeta and Ajanta.

Publicity work for the Congress in the form of wall-writing and distribution of public appeals should begin immediately. The two central themes for the 8 th Congress propaganda will be: (i) Intensification of mass struggles/resistance against growing imperialist attacks on national dignity and sovereignty, corporate appropriation of national resources and deprivation of the people from their land, livelihood and liberty/rights, (ii) Unification of all sincere communists under the banner of the CPI(ML) so as to strengthen the Communist movement and combat the utter ideological degeneration/derailment and political bankruptcy/betrayal/opportunism promoted by the CPI(M) leadership. Demands included in the 10-point People’s Charter should also be highlighted in the course of the pre-Congress political campaign.

The electoral colleges for election of delegates to the Congress will be constituted on the basis of the membership chart as on October 31, 2007. The election process will have to be completed within November 10 so that delegates elected have sufficient time to prepare themselves for participation in the Congress. All District Committees and Leading Teams must therefore finalise their charts by October 15 so that the process of election of delegates can be completed within the stipulated time frame. Before elections district committees and leading teams will have to obtain no-dues (levy and up-to-date payment for Party literature) clearance from respective State Committees/Leading Teams. The CC will fix the number of delegates and other necessary details in its next meeting to be held in September.

Draft documents for the Congress will be released by October and specific amendments will have to be submitted within November. However, as stipulated by our Party Constitution any amendment to the Constitution must be submitted at least a month before the Congress. The last date for submission of amendments related to the Party Constitution is therefore November 10.

All pending district or state conferences will have to be completed within October unless otherwise permitted by the CC.

The subscription and circulation drive for Party organs must also be stepped up.

The PB has endorsed the proposals made by student-youth organisations and cultural organisations for a fitting finale of Bhagat Singh centenary. Comrades are planning a series of programmes spread over two weeks culminating in a student-youth assembly in Delhi on 28 September. In Bihar and UP the programmes will be held as part of Bhagat Singh Sankalp Yatra from Siwan to Delhi.

Our motto must be to motivate and mobilise the entire Party and its mass base, reach out to all our friends and well-wishers and make the Party Congress an important milestone towards realising Comrade VM’s clarion call of making CPI(ML) the biggest and leading Communist Party of India.

“Pakistan’s Bloodshed at Lal Masjid is a sign that US’ ‘War on Terror’ is forcing its way into South Asia” – CPI(ML)

New Delhi, July 11

In a statement issued today, the CPI(ML) Liberation expressed shock and sorrow at the Pakistan army assault on Lal Masjid that claimed a huge toll of at least 60 lives. CPI(ML) remarked that the negotiations of the Pakistani Government with the Lal Masjid militants seemed to be near resolution yesterday, and it is the adamant attitude of the Musharraf regime that has led to this bloodshed. This decision to storm the Masjid is all the more problematic given the presence of a large number of women and children inside the mosque.

Musharraf himself has throttled democracy and pampered fundamentalist and obscurantist elements all along these years and when people are rising against his pro-US anti-democratic policies today, they are being crushed by brute force.

The CPI (ML) said that the re-enaction of ‘Operation Bluestar’ at Lal Masjid was clearly done at the behest of the USA – and it is an indication of the US ’ ‘war on terror’ forcing its way into South Asia and India ’s own neighbourhood. India must beware – the US now wanted South Asian regimes to massacre their own people in order to prove their ‘commitment’ to the US-sponsored ‘war on terror’. If India and other South Asian regimes succumb to such pressure, it will have grave and dangerous implications for the region as well as individual nations.

REPORTS

Agricultural Workers and Rural Poor's Struggles in Bihar

A week-long campaign was conducted by AIALA in Darbhanga on the issue of proper implementation of NREGS and payment of wages from July 3-10 in all the blocks of the district. Protest dharnas and indefinite hunger-strikes were organised in Bahadurpur on July 9-10, in Hayaghat on July 3-6, at Sadar on July 3-4, at Biraul on July 5-9, at Ghanshyampur on July 3-9, and at Singhwara on July 6. The agitation forced the authorities for an immediate payment of the pending wages at Ghanshyampur and Bahadurpur blocks, while assurances were given that the payment of wages will be done on an urgent basis at other places. AIALA has warned the authorities that an strong movement will be organised against the anomalies being practiced in this scheme.

AIALA organised a strike for minimum wages for the agricultural workers from June 7 in a village in West Champaran which continued till June 20 despite many confrontations and threats by the domineering landlords of the village. The landlords banned the entry of poor villagers into the pathway going through their fields and even threatened of dire consequences. But the struggle continued which ultimately forced them to come to the negotiation table in presence of SDM and Labour officer. An agreement was reached for daily wage of Rs. 40 per day or 5 Kg. of foodgrains in place of the existing Hatai system. It was also agreed upon to give one bundle of crop as wages for every 8 bundles of cutting instead of existing 12 bundles. This rise in wages, though still much below the government approved minimum wages, in one village was a cause of jubilations for the rural workers and also sent a favourable message to nearby villages. In another village Bhawal the landlords had to remove the hatai system on public demand under pressure of this struggle. Still dozens of panchayats are there where hatai system is continuing.

The agrarian workers of Noorchhapra village in Minapur block of Mujaffarpur district organised a dharna in front of the DM office to press for their demands of arrest of the criminals who attacked three rickshaw-pullers, action against the BDO who is not implementing NREGS, to include all poor into the BPL list, and to smoothly run the PDS. A good number of women workers participated in this protest. This was led by AIALA District Secretary Shatrughna Sahni, AIPWA District President Sharda Devi and CPI(ML) leader of the block Santosh Prasad.

CPI(ML) and Bihar Pradesh Kisan Sabha organised a demonstration in Samastipur on July 5 to press for the demands of distribution of job cards, employment or unemployment allowance, removal of contractors and middlemen from NREGS, payment of unpaid wages, and to prepare the works-plan involving the common villagers and not as per the wishes of the dominant people of the villages which has become the norm in the scheme meant to carry out the developmental work in rural areas. The protesters also demanded to correct the faulty BPL lists and submitted a report of the survey conducted in 27 panchayats where panchayat representatives were found guilty of anomalies in the BPL lists. The other demands included to make the government borewells functional, to stop the sale of bogus fertilizers and seeds, to restart the closed sugar mills of the area, and to curb the corruption under the PDS. The demonstrators condemned the arrest of CPI(ML) leader Jeevachh Paswan who has been implicated under false cases, and demanded his immediate release. The protest was led by CPI(ML) District Secretary Jitendra Kumar who said that the Cabinet Ministers in the Nitish Kumar Govt. are openly protecting the criminals under the garb of 'good governance'.

A programme of gherao of panchayats was organised before this protest in all the panchayats of Varishnagar block and some panchayats of Samastipur block on these demands.

AISA Workshop

A two-day workshop of All India Students' Association was held in Allahabad on July 6-7 which was attended by nearly a hundred activists from eleven states across the country. This was inaugurated by Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya where he called upon the participants to carry forward the legacy of 1857, Naxalbari and Bhagat Singh to intensify the struggles against the imperialist onslaughts and the policies of liberalisation. Pointing towards the formation of special economic zones and India's Nuclear deal with the United States, he reminded the audience of two existing trends of ruling class nationalism, one represented by the Congress and the other by communal fascist BJP, both favouring the policy of surrender before the imperialist forces and called upon to rise up and work for the people's democratic India by mobilising various sections of the society into the movement. CC member Ramji Rai and Jan Sanskriti Manch UP President Prof. Rajendra Kumar also addressed the gathering.

The workshop was conducted on three topics namely '1857, Bhagat Singh and Naxalbari and current political situation', 'Challenges before the students' movement', and 'On organisational matters'; these were conducted by Comrades Dipankar, Dhirendra Jha and Sunil Yadav respectively.

It was also decided to organise a yatra which will start from Siwan and conclude in Delhi on 28 September, on the birth anniversary of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh, to mark the conclusion of Bhagat Singh Centenary celebrations. The latest issue of 'Nai Pirhi', AISA's organ in Hindi, was also released on this occasion.

Daily Wage Workers' Protest before the CM

CPI(ML) activists and the employees of Jharkhand State Minerals Development Corporation working on daily wage basis for more than two decades, but like any regular employee, held out a demonstration in front of the Chief Minister's office in Ranchi. They are agitating for more than 71 days sitting on a dharna in front of the corporation's head office in Doranda. It is an irony that the High Court, the State Assembly and the Board of Directors of the Corporation have given favourable orders to regularise the workers but the recalcitrant administration is still not willing to give workers their due right. Party's Ranchi unit decided to intensify the agitation and supported the cause of the workers against the obstinate Madhu Koda Govt. which is deliberately ignoring the workers' demands. A large number of Party activists as well as corporation workers participated in the protest despite heavy rains, and took out a demonstration across the city's main streets. A memorandum was submitted to the Chief Minister warning him of further intensification of the movement if an immediate solution was not sought.

Demonstrations to Condemn the Docking of US Warship on Indian Port

CPI(ML) held protest demonstrations in many parts of Tamilnadu against the arrival of US warship Nimitz on the Indian coast in Chennai. The day before the arrival of the ship, a poster campaign was taken up in Chennai and an Anti-Nimitz Demonstration was held on July 5 at the Port Trust office. Central Committee member V. Shankar, addressed the gathering. A.S.Kumar, State Committee Member, led the demonstration. A demonstration was also held in Pudukottai which was led by Viduthalai Kumran,SCM. In Coimbatore, a demonstration was organised along with PUCL and some dalit organisations. A poster was also released in Tanjore condemning the arrival of the warship.

For Land to Landless Patta-holders

A CPI(ML) delegation submitted a memorandum to the District administration of Karnal demanding the possession to landless patta-holders over the lands allotted years ago in their favour but still occupied by domineering landlords. They also demanded to redistribute surplus gram sabha land to the landless poor.

Meeting in Memory of Comrade Jita Kaur

Party's Gorakhpur unit organised a memorial meeting on June 26 to pay tributes to Comrade Jita Kaur. A number of people including activists, intellectuals, journalists and persons from many other walks of life attended the meet and recalled her struggles in Gorakhpur, particularly the struggle she led against the displacement of thousands of poor people in the Ramgarh Tal Project during the eighties. Comrade Jita Kaur had started her journey into the revolutionary politics from this town. Speakers in the meeting said that the intensification of struggles against the ongoing land grab by the big capital throughout the country could be the only tribute to Comrade Jita in the present context.

Ashok Chaudhary, journalist and Jan Sanskriti Manch convener in Gorakhpur , said that Comrade Jita never compromised with the principles throughout her life and this was the reason that she became so popular during the Ramgarh Tal struggle. The poor struggling peasants of the region even wrote an Alha (a folk song) on her. The intensity of that movement sent a clear warning to the then Birbahadur Singh Govt. of UP that it was not easy to evict the peasants. Senior Advocate Brijbihari Lal who fought the case of Ramgarh evictees in the court said that it was the vigour, militancy and commitment of Comrade Jita that impressed him and he joined the movement and came forward to defend the rights of peasants in the court. Poet Devendra Arya remembered her as a revolutionary who dared to join the movement at a time when there were very few women in the left politics, defying every kind of social discrimination. Dr. Sandhya Pandey recalled her as a person whose struggles started from within the confines of a home and went to the heights of challenging the state power. She proved herself a model of women's liberation struggles. AIPWA activist from Deoria Gita Pandey said that Comrade Jita was the sole inspiration behind her joining the movement. Prof. Asim Satyadev and litterateurs Kapil Dev, Gunjeshwari Prasad, Madan Mohan and journalist Manoj Kumar Singh also addressed the gathering and said that her life and struggles will be a source of inspiration for the next generation of communists. The memorial meet was presided over by CPI(ML) State Committee member Yashwant Singh and conducted by Rajesh Sahni.

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