AISA’s Clean-sweep in JNUSU Polls: Reflecting the Spirit of the Student Movement of our Times  

For the first time ever, AISA has swept all the four central posts in the JNU Students Union elections. This is also a rare occasion in JNU’s history where the SFI-AISF has failed to find a single place on the central panel; and where a sitting JNUSU President from a Left organisation seeking re-election has been rejected. AISA has also achieved its highest-yet tally of councillor seats, winning two seats each in the Schools of Social Sciences (SSS), International Studies (SIS), and Language, Literature and Culture Studies (SLL&CS) respectively.     
What does this resounding and refreshing mandate for AISA signify for the broader student movement? In the first place, the mandate for AISA was an overwhelming vote of confidence for the student movement against rustications of student activists who took up the issue of violation of minimum wages for daily wage workers on the campus. AISA’s JNUSU office bearers were at the forefront of this movement, and spearheaded a successful resistance to the crackdown – while the JNUSU President SFI had taken a pro-Administration stance and had ‘dissociated’ from the struggle.
In the past year, AISA and its JNUSU leadership through a series of initiatives had spoken out against the failure of courts to deliver justice in cases of communal pogroms, as well as against minority witch-hunting in the name of ‘war on terror’, fake encounters, and draconian laws like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act deployed to crush people’s movements in the North East and Kashmir. This was in contrast with the very loud silence maintained by the SFI-AISF on most of these issues.
At a time when people of Singur and Nandigram were inspiring peasants all over the nation to resist corporate land grab and SEZs, and governments of all hues fired bullets on peasants agitating in Kalinganagar, Sriganganagar, Nandigram and Khammam, the Left and democratic sections of JNU students naturally expected the JNUSU to stand in solidarity with the peasant resistance. Here again, they were disappointed in SFI and its JNUSU leadership, which not only defended the repression at Singur and Nandigram and justified SEZs in the name of ‘development’, but even failed to hold a single protest action against the firing on CPI(M) cadres at Khammam – no doubt because in the mirror of Khammam they could see the spectre of Nandigram. AISA’s JNUSU leadership on the other hand had led a team of Delhi students to Singur, and had mobilised students to vent their anger against the massacres at Nandigram and Khammam. The fates of Rajkumar Bhool, Tapasi Malik and Rizwanur Rehman, all young people from socially vulnerable sections killed at the altar of the CPI(M)-led West Bengal Government’s love for corporate houses awoke a sense of outrage in students – and this outrage found voice, not in any anti-Left rhetoric, but in the AISA’s robust assertion of radical left politics.
The mandate for AISA was also a measure of AISA’s success in rallying students around a plank of genuine equality to be achieved by thoroughgoing social transformation, challenging social and economic inequalities and demanding and end to policies of commercialisation of education in order to guarantee education and employment for all. This agenda caught the imagination of students – who rejected the Youth for Equality’s slogan of ‘equality’ – a divisive and narrow slogan that essentially denied and defended existing inequalities and relied on the insecurities of young men and women due to rapidly shrinking avenues of education and employment. AISA called upon students to channel their sense of betrayal and frustration – not by pitting sections of students against each another, or falling prey to elitist and facile notions of ‘merit’, but rather by challenging the Government’s policies that were leaving the education and employment of India’s youth at the mercies of the market. 
In 1993 in the wake of the Babri Masjid demolition and the anti-Mandal frenzy cynically whipped up by ruling class parties as well as the assault of privatization and liberalisation, AISA had first taken JNU by storm by winning the posts of President, Vice President and General Secretary, taking the communal forces head-on and offering a new model of vibrant, vigorous Left student movement. This year’s mandate has again asserted the aspirations of students for democracy and social change in the wake of a fresh assault of privatization of education, corporate land grab, state repression and communal targeting, and slavish surrender to US imperialism.

The results
	Winners	AISA	SFI/AISF	YFE
President	Sandeep Singh	1218	869	924
Vice President	Shephalika Shekhar	1077	775	764
General Secretary	Pallavi Deka	1029	779	927
Joint Secretary	Mobeen Alam	933	895	870
Sandeep Singh, General Secretary in the outgoing JNUSU was elected President, defeating his contender from YFE by 294 votes as well as sitting President from SFI, Dhananjay Tripathi, by 349 votes. YFE finished second on the posts of President and General Secretary while SFI was runner-up on the posts of Vice President and Joint Secretary. Sucheta De, AISA’s sitting Councillor from SSS, was re-elected with the highest number of votes, while the Councillor with the second highest votes in SSS is another AISA candidate Mira Visvanathan. In SIS, both the victorious AISA candidates are from third-world African and Asian countries – Khaled Abdulla Abdelwahab from Sudan and Monalisa Adhikari from Nepal. In SLL&CS, AISA’s sitting Councillor P K Mangalam repeated his feat of being elected with the highest number of votes while the Councillor with the second highest number of votes is another AISA candidate Mohd. Raghib. The AISA-backed GSCASH candidate Sharda Vishwanathan was also elected to one of the two GSCASH posts.

CPI(ML)’s Bihar Bandh Against Nitish Govt.’s Patronage for Rape-and-Murder-Accused JD(U) MLA Anant Singh

The Nitish regime’s claim for clean and crime-free governance has been rudely exposed with the JD(U)’s own MLA Anant Singh accused of rape and murder and his brutal assault and threats of murder of a news reporter who dared to ask him for a response against the accusation. The JD(U)-BJP coalition’s much-touted claim of ‘Rule of Law’ is actually nothing but ‘Legal Goonda Raj’.  The incident where an impoverished youth was tied and dragged by a bike by a policeman, the firing on people by the DM’s bodyguards as well as the custodial murder of Ashok Sah, in addition to the rape and murder by JD(U) MLA Anant Singh and his murderous assault on reporters are examples of this.
On 2 November 2007 the CPI(ML) called for a Bihar Bandh in protest against the incident, demanding that his Assembly membership be scrapped and a ‘Fast-track Trial’ be conducted against him so that he can speedily receive a harsh sentence. The Bandh, with the central slogan of ‘Nitish Govt, Protector of Police-Gonda Raj, Must Step Down’, also demanded action against the accused including the JD(U)’s local MLA in the case of custodial killing of Comrade Ashok Sah, the CPI(ML) activist from Runni Saidpur, Sitamarhi.
In Patna as well as in small and big towns all over the state, CPI(ML) activists held protest marches to ensure the success of the Bandh. In Patna, thousands of CPI(ML) activists led by CPI(ML) PBM and State Secretary Comrade Nandkishore Prasad, Comrade Ramjatan Sharma, AIPWA State Secretary Shashi Yadav, CPI(ML) CCMs Saroj Chaubey and K D Yadav, as well as student-youth leaders Kamlesh Sharma and Abhyuday led separate processions. CPI(ML) leaders and activists were asserted at the Dak Bangla Chauraha.
The Bandh’s success could also be seen at Patna city, Masaurhi, Paliganj, Dulhinbazar, Bikram, Naubatpur, Arwal, Kaler, Kinjar, Karpi, and Kurtha, where CPI(ML) activists held massive processions and transport, marketplaces, government offices and schools came to a standstill. The Bandh was also observed with processions at Ara, Jehanabad, Biharsharif, Gaya, Siwan, Gopalganj, Betia, Muzaffarpur, Samastipur, Darbhanga and Bhagalpur.
At Naubatpur, Bhabhua, Arwal, Biharsharif and Dumraon, there were sharp clashes between CPI(ML) activists and the police during the Bandh, and more than 1000 activists of the party were arrested all over the state. During the Bandh, CPI(ML) activists held a dharna on the train tracks at Bhitiharva, Leheriasarai and Taregana (Masaurhi) to stop train services. 

Red Salute to Comrade Vijendra Anil

Fearless Voice of People’s Culture and Peasant Resistance

Literary personality and Bhojpuri balladeer Vijendra Anil passed away on 4 November 2007 of a brain haemorrhage. His untimely demise was deeply mourned by writers, theatre-persons, artists and citizens in Bihar as well as all over the country.
Vijendra Anil was a prolific writer, uncompromisingly committed to being the voice of the revolutionary movement of poor peasantry in Bhojpur – and tirelessly dedicated to the cause of building a people’s culture movement. His career as a writer began in the turbulent 1960s where the Naxalbari movement simmered and burst out ion 1967. In that year the spark of Naxalbari caught fire in Bhojpur too, and caught up Vijendra Anil too in its flames. He wrote several collections of stories, a Bhojpuri novel, several collections of poetry and novels in Hindi and several collections of Bhojpuri songs.
He initiated a cultural organisation called ‘Lekhak-Kalakar Manch’ which had over a 100 members, and which was intended to raise the consciousness of peasants and workers and the rural poor. In reaction, the casteist-feudal and obscurantist forces tried to break it, and set up a ‘Dharm Sangh’ against it. The notorious feudal landowner Vir Bahadur Singh sent his goons to attack Vijendra Anil and his hand was broken in the attack. He is remembered for fearlessly asserting people’s culture in the teeth of the feudal reaction.
In 1980, he organised a major cultural programme in his village in Premchand’s honour, presenting Bhojpuri stage adaptation of Premchand’s classic stories ‘Kafan’, ‘Poos ki Raat’ and ‘Sava Ser Gehun’.
He was one of founders of Bihar Navjanwadi Sanskritik Morcha and Jan Sanskriti Manch and was Vice President of the Janwadi Deshbhakt Morcha of which he was also one of founders. He had also ben the National Vice President of Jan Sanskriti Manch. In 1080-82 he became a member of the CPI(ML) and remained with party all his life.
He played a notable role in establishing the Little Magazine movement, and was closely associated with a range of literary and cultural magazines in which his writings appeared.
In December 2006, speaking at the ‘Banarsi Prasad Bhojpuri Samman Samaroh’ on ‘The Peasant in Literature’, he lamented on the irony of writers being cut off from the masses, and he stressed that writing about rural life did not mean a mere description of rural life – the need was to effect a fundamental transformation in the life of the peasant and the village; and that was the responsibility of the writer of today.
On November 4, a programme titled ‘The Contribution of Ara to 1857’ began with a glowing tribute to Vijendra Anil. The keynote speaker, senior journalist Shrikant said that it was no coincidence that the same Bhojpur that was home to 1857 was also a site of the peasant upsurge in the 1970s – and Vijendra Anil was a determined voice of this upsurge and assertion.
Ramji Rai, editor-in-chief of Samkaleen Janmat, noted poet Alok Dhanwa, writer Rana Pratap, Shekhar, critic Karmendra Kishore, as well as many leaders of AISA, AIPWA, and CPI(ML) paid tribute to Vijendra Anil. Among those who expressed condolences for Vijendra Anil were writer and critic Ram Nihal Gunjan and Ravindranath Rai, writer Suresh Kantak, Bhojpuri poet Prakash Uday, Balbhadra and Hiraji Thakur, former JSM General Secretary Ajay Singh, JSM General Secretary Pranay Krishna, critic Avadhesh Pradhan, theatre activist Santosh Jha and others.
At his last rites on the banks of the Ganga river at Buxar, Leader of the CPI(ML) group in the Bihar Assembly Comrade Ram Naresh Ram, former MP Rameshwar Prasad, MLA Arun Singh, Samkaleen Janmat editor Sudhir Suman and many other writers were present.

US-Brokered 'Democracy' Gives Way to Emergency in Pakistan

In the course of implementing a US-brokered rapprochement between Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto, President Musharraf has now declared a state of Emergency in Pakistan. As the Pakistani military steps up its operations, Benazir Bhutto who had just been greeted with a massive bomb blast on her return to Pakistan after spending years in self-imposed exile has once again gone back to Dubai. Meanwhile the declaration of Emergency has been greeted with spirited protests all over Pakistan, with lawyers at the forefront. Lawyers who were the mainstay of the recent pro-democracy upsurge in Pakistan, have staged rallies in several major cities, and have been greeted by baton-wielding riot police. More than 1500 people have been arrested in Pakistan in protests against the imposition of emergency.
Musharraf has justified the emergency as necessary for fighting terrorism. While the US has advised Musharraf to 'shed his uniform' and restore democracy, the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has emphasised that President Bush's "first concern" is "to protest America and protest Amercian citizens by continuing to fight against terrorists."
The imposition of emergency so soon after the much-touted restoration of democracy and return of Benazir only goes to show the fragility of US-brokered democracy. The forces of democracy in Pakistan are on the streets - and among them, Musharraf’s policy of compliance and active collaboration with the US naturally remains a source of tremendous mass anger. Simultaneously, there is a visible yearning for restoration of democracy, for a real end to military rule and not just a civilian facade. We in India hope for a coalescence of the struggles for these two concerns into a real anti-imperialist democratic resurgence in Pakistan that alone can bring some meaningful political change in that country and lasting peace in the subcontinent.
Long Live Comrade Shivnandan Sinha
Born into a middle peasant family in Kurtha Block in Arwal District, Comrade Shivnandan Sinha was drawn into the CPI(ML) movement in Bhojpur in the 1970s. he was then the Block Agriculture Officer in Bhojpur, and came into contact with comrades like Ram Naresh Ram, Vyas Muni Singh, Sahto, Jiut, and Kesho. He would offer his home as a secure centre for party meetings. On retiring in 1999 he became a wholetimer of the party and began to work on the peasant and party front in the Karpi-Kutha area. He mobilised landless labourers on issues of wages and dignity and also organised many padyatras and mass meetings with peasants to demand effective sluice gates in times of floods. In these struggles, he emerged as a popular peasant leader. He had been a member of the Party's Karpi-Kurtha-Vanshi joint area committee, and of the Bihar Pradesh Kisan Sabha Arwal District Committee.
BPKS President Comrade Rajaram Singh, CPI(ML) MLA Comrade Arun Singh, Jehanabad District Secretary Comrade Ramadhar Singh as well as thousands of Bhojpur's rural poor participated in his funeral procession on 10 October. A foundation stone was laid for  a memorial to him.