In this Issue
Manmohan Government's Second term: Early Signals and New Rhetoric
President Pratibha Patil's address to the joint session of the two houses of Parliament has outlined the priorities and direction of the second term of the UPA government. While the government has listed ten points as priority areas, the basic thrust is essentially three-pronged: an unfettered pursuit of the agenda of privatisation, commercialisation and globalisation; intensification and legitimisation of repressive measures in the name of national security; and strengthening of Indo-US partnership as the cornerstone of India’s foreign policy.
The President's speech underlined the UPA government's commitment to attracting "large foreign investment flows ... through an appropriate policy regime," ensuring systematic removal of “bottlenecks and delays in implementation of infrastructure projects” taking public-private partnership as the key, and granting “fellow citizens ... every right to own part of the shares of public sector companies.” It is not difficult to figure out the “fellow citizens” the government has in mind! Combating monopolisation and concentration of wealth in private hands was one major declared objective of public sector units; today the UPA government is advocating wholesale disinvestment of PSUs precisely to promote corporate consolidation.
The ‘bottlenecks and delays in implementation of infrastructure projects’ mentioned in the President’s address can hardly be a reference to bureaucratic or procedural issues – because on the level of policies and procedures, the framework has already been sufficiently liberalised. The bottlenecks must refer primarily to either popular opposition to land acquisition plans or environmental objections raised by the people and concerned experts. Clearly, the Congress now believes that it has got the strength to bulldoze all such objections and impose all these mega projects in the name of infrastructural development.
It is instructive to note in this context the poll results from West Bengal and Maharashtra. The electoral upheaval against the ruling Left Front in West Bengal can only been described as a popular backlash against the government’s arrogant move to treat popular objections as ‘bottlenecks’ and remove them by force. In Maharashtra too, the Congress lost the Raigad seat, the site of the Reliance's proposed massive Mahamumbai SEZ – the Congress lost its seat in the Lok Sabha polls. In fact, the Congress-led State Government had held a referendum on the issue of land acquisition for SEZ in some villages of Raigad in 2008. But, flouting the promise of declaring the outcome within a week, the Government never declared the result even as reportedly 92% local people voted against the proposed SEZ.
By refusing to allow any further extension to the deadline for land acquisition for this SEZ, the Supreme Court has now set the stage for possible scrapping of the Mahamumbai SEZ project. While the government talks of bulldozing all objections, democratic forces must exert pressure on the government to scrap the SEZ Act and put a complete halt to corporate landgrab.
In most parts of the country, a massive fraud is being perpetrated on the rural poor in the name of NREGA and the jobless in rural areas have massive complaints regarding the extremely tardy implementation of this so-called employment ‘guarantee’ Act. This has however not stopped the President from lauding the NREGA as the world’s largest ongoing rural reconstruction programme. The government has also gone on to promise a slum-free India within the next five years by introducing a Rajiv Awas Yojana on the lines of the corruption-ridden Indira Awas Yojana. Going by past experience the Congress can only try to achieve a slum-free India by organising massive evictions of slum-dwellers. While the Congress beats its drum, the people’s movement will have to boldly confront the government on issues of jobs, housing, health and education for all.
The question of national security and a zero-tolerance approach to terrorism figure on top of the ten priority areas underlined in the President’s address. The phrase ‘zero-tolerance approach’ is borrowed from the American lexicon of “war on terror”, and it essentially seeks legitimacy for all sorts of infringement and assault on democracy and human rights, whether directly by the state or through some Salwa Judum kind of public-private partnership. Draconian laws like AFSPA, Chhattisgarh's Public Security Act, or the recent amendments to UAPA and affronts to peace and democracy like the Salwa Judum have all been justified by the UPA Government in the name of countering terrorism and Maoism.
Such draconian laws have not only been opposed tooth and nail by the democratic opinion in the country, the judiciary too has occasionally questioned the validity of such moves. The Supreme Court which had earlier made adverse remarks regarding Salwa Judum, recently granted bail to Dr. Binayak Sen, indicating in the tone of its brief order that the last two years of his incarceration in jail was a serious travesty of justice. This order is a reprimand, not just for the BJP Government of Chhattisgarh but also for the UPA Government which also actively backed the Salwa Judum and the jailing of Dr. Sen under Chhattisgarh's draconian anti-terror law. In the name of countering terrorism, the Congress cannot be allowed to ride roughshod on basic democratic rights and norms.
The Indian diaspora and India’s “restless” young population find prominent mention towards the end of the President’s speech. The speech talks of the strength and power of the Indian diaspora, but remains blissfully oblivious of the growing uncertainty and racist assaults that Indian students, workers and professionals abroad are experiencing in today’s recession-marred milieu. There is a glowing mention of how our “young people are tearing down the narrow domestic walls of religion, region, language, caste, and gender that confine them,” but not a word about the new walls that are daily being erected, whether by a paranoid US desperate not to lose jobs to India and Indians, or a sectarian Raj Thackeray and his men who would like to drive away North Indian students and workers from President Patil’s own home state of Maharashtra.
Promises for the poor and performance for the rich; rhetorical commitment to secularism and political concessions to communalism; lip-service to empowerment and democracy, and doles, batons and bullets in practice – such has been the characteristic track record of the Congress. For all the new phrases and ambitious pronouncements, it is not difficult to discern the familiar trappings in the initial steps and declarations of the new Congress-led regime.
Tributes: Habib Tanvir & Kamla Das
“He was our Bertolt Brecht”
Habib Tanvir, considered one of the great dramatists not only in India, but in many countries, passed away in Bhopal at the age of 85 on 8th June, 2009. His passing away is really the end of an era. He brought drama so close to life that you felt there is an actor hidden inside every individual whenever you watched his plays. He transformed the labourers living in working class colonies in Okhla in Delhi, students of Jamia and folk artists of Chhatishgarh into brilliant performers. As performers in his plays he relied on common people from the general populace rather than artists trained in big and famous institutes. His intense association with the Indian Left, progressive movements and IPTA since 1945 had taught him that people’s art will emerge from within them and not from intellectuals engrossed in their own world or in elite institutions. Habib saab could turn any place into a stage, whether it was a market place, or street-bylanes, or the villages. He was the Bertolt Brecht of South Asia. Through the staging of “Agra Bazaar” in 1954 itself he gave shape to his persistent-vision of a rare and extraordinary theatre activism. Through his plays he reinvented Nazir Akbarabadi, the extraordinary people’s poet of 19th century, in similar style as Kumar Gandharva did Kabir through his music. Habib saab was a poet and an actor too. He acted in 9 films including Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, and wherever he appeared on screen he left others far behind in performance. He had been staging the play “Ponga Pandit” since 1960’s, but since the 1990's the Sangh Parivar attacked the play repeatedly. But what could they do to this bold and courageous artist. Governments and Academies heaped Habib saab with a lot of awards- Sangit Natak Academy Award, Fellowship, Padmshri, Padmbhushan, membership of the Rajya Sabha, etc., but these awards are dwarfs in front of the artist he had within. It was he who brought international recognition and fame to the folk cultures like Pandwani and Naach. World knows of Chaatisgarhi language due to him as it’s the language of his great play “Charandas Chor”. How many cultural personalities are there today who earned so much recognition in foreign countries, have been/are associated with the top European institutions, but who had no beginning nor end except his own soil as Habib saab. His play “Jahrili Hawa” (poisonous air) on the Bhopal Gas tragedy was staged in 2002, and a film on this tragedy by the same name as the play is about to be released, and he has himself acted in the film. Meanwhile, he has taken leave from us and it has made us all sad. Its our fondest hope that the “New Theatre” continues to thrive even without him.
Kamala Das: Pioneering Feminist Voice in Indian Literature
Kamala Suraiya (Kamala Das) is no more. She passed away on May 31 at the age of 75. She was a pioneer who blazed a new path for women in Indian writing – both in Malayalam and in English. Not only lovers of literature and poetry, but also the women's movement will mourn the loss of this remarkable writer and feminist pioneer. Born at Punnayurkulum in South Malabar, Kerala on March 31, 1934, Kamala was brought up in a literary ambience – her mother was a poet and her uncle a famous writer. Writing since her late teens, she began her literary career in Malayalam. At the age of 42, she wrote her autobiography 'My Story', and in later life wrote short stories, novels and also columns, and even created paintings. But it was for her poetry in English that she is best remembered.
Virginia Woolf wrote of a woman writer's need for a "room of one's own" and of her inevitable life-and-death struggle with the "Angel in the House" who seeks to prevent women from writing honestly about their bodies, their emotions, or about men. Kamala Das no doubt faced those same struggles: and what emerged, in her poetry, was an uncompromisingly honest voice that mapped the ground for a generation of women writers, writing of subjects that were considered taboo for women. Speaking without self-pity of the circumstances in which she wrote, she once said, "There was only the kitchen table where I would cut vegetables, and after all the plates and things were cleared, I would sit there and start typing. That was my work area. My mother's uncle was a writer, quite well known too. Nalapat Narayana Menon. He had nothing else to do but write and I have watched him work from morning till night. I think that was a blissful life. "
Always a rebel who revelled in surprises, she chose to embrace Islam in 1999, not long after the Vajpayee Government had called for a "national debate" on conversion.
Kamala Das is gone, but her poetry, disconcertingly direct, will continue to connect with readers and will always be a treasure for the women's movement.
The Changing Facade of US Imperialism
Barrack Hussein Obama stoops – well, only a little bit – to conquer. His carefully prepared and brilliantly presented speech at the Islamic University of Cairo contained quotations from the Quran, rich references to Islam’s contribution to civilisation and his own personal connection to the faith – all geared to get Muslims around the world to accept US aggression in Afghanistan and Pakistan in return for lavish promises of benevolent policy changes elsewhere .
Eloquent rhetoric apart, Obama renewed his criticism of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the commitment to withdraw all troops from that country; showed a willingness to talk to the Iranian government without preconditions; and most important, dwelt extensively and forcefully on the Israel-Palestine imbroglio. He called on Arabs and Israelis not to “point fingers” at each other or to “see this conflict only from one side or the other” while remaining conveniently silent about the third side, that of the United States. He did reiterate a "two-state" solution (which has been the formal US position since a long time back) but did not utter a word about putting an end to US indulgence towards Israel. He opposed continued building of new settlements by Israel, not the "continued" existence of existing ones, which comprise half a million– and growing – illegal Jewish settlers. He decried regime change a la Iraq, but continues to practice it in Afghanistan, invoking women’s rights to gain support from secular Arabs and others. In his first 100 days, Obama has in fact managed to create two million Pakistani refugees; it took Israel 60 years to create 3.5 million Palestinian refugees.
Inconsistencies notwithstanding, Obama’s address has generally been well-received in the Arab world. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ spokesperson said the speech contained “a message that Israel should understand well”. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said Mr. Obama’s words reflected a “tangible change,” despite containing “many contradictions”. True to its colours, Israel has reportedly planned a balancing act: to take down 22 unauthorized settlement outposts in the West Bank while pressing ahead with so-called "natural growth" construction in the settlements. Iran on its part insisted that the US President should match his words with concrete action.
Indeed, here lies the crux of the matter. This is something that cannot be left to the good wishes of an individual; it has to be achieved through struggle. And the present juncture is especially suitable for that, as we can see from several other developments.
A day before Obama delivered his celebrated speech in Cairo, the Organization of American States (OAS) unanimously scrapped the US-sponsored 1962 resolution expelling Cuba from the organisation. This represented an important victory for the growing anti-imperialist resistance by the people of Cuba, Latin America and the Caribbean and a defeat for US policy in the region. Similarly the Cairo speech signifies a partial retreat from the failed policy of arrogant, absolute confrontationism of the George W. Bush era and a frantic attempt to overcome extreme international isolation. Connecting the dots, the bigger picture that we get is a continuation of US imperialist policy in a "soft power" mode that is counterbalanced by further intensification of aggression in the "Af-Pak" front.
This is the time -- when the enemy is tactically on the defensive and is trying to recoup its strength for a future offensive -- that the people of Palestine, of the Middle East, of the world at large must unite as one and intensify the struggle to compel the US President to carry out his promises and also to accede to what he has not promised, like immediately ending the interventions, armed or otherwise, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and other countries around the globe.
CPI(ML) Condemns Repression on Kashmiri People’s Movement
The CPI(ML) condemns the police firing on the ongoing people’s movement in Kashmir. The people are on the streets again in Kashmir against the rape and murder of two young women in Shopian, Kashmir. The rape, murder and subsequent repression has once again exposed the empty boasts of the NC and the Congress-UPA Governments at State and centre, that the Kashmiri people, by voting, have ‘rejected’ their struggle against the Indian State’s repressive policies. The people suspected security forces of having a hand in the rape and murder – a suspicion strengthened by the fact that the police denied the possibility of rape entirely. A week-long movement forced a fresh forensic report to be conducted - which vindicated the movement by confirming rape. The Government then belatedly ordered an enquiry – which however commands no confidence among the people. The struggle, reminiscent of the Manipuri women’s movement after Thangjam Manorama’s rape and murder by Assam Rifles personnel soon after the last Manmohan Singh Govt took office, now demands withdrawal of army from Kashmir and scrapping of the AFSPA – necessary preconditions for any freedom and democracy for the Kashmiri people. The CPI(ML) expresses whole-hearted solidarity with this struggle.
AIPWA’s Dharna & Nationwide Programmes to Demand Release of Arrested Rural Poor in Punjab
Supports Kashmiri Women's Struggle against AFSPA
The All India Progressive Women's Association (AIPWA) held a dharna at Parliament Street in New Delhi on 9th June, 2009, to protest against the severe repression and mass arrest of Dalit agricultural labourers, women and children in Punjab.
The protesting women from various parts of Delhi were joined by Comrade Bant Singh and some of the women who have been released after several weeks in Punjab's prisons. Bant Singh, the agricultural labour activist from Punjab who survived a murderous assault by rich farmers with three limbs chopped off, said, "The Parliament, led by Mr. Manmohan Singh, boasts of a Dalit woman Speaker. Will this same Parliament and the UPA Government remain silent when Dalit rural poor including women and even children are jailed for demanding basic rights of housing and jobs? Be it a Congress or BJP Government in Punjab, the struggles of the rural poor have always been answered in the language of repression and mass arrests. The former Congress State Government protected the attackers who disabled me in 2006; in 2005 the same Congress Government jailed 2500 poor peasants fighting against usurious extortion.”
Manisha Sethi, Assistant Professor, Jamia Millia Islamia, who recently visited Punjab as part of a women's team to meet the jailed workers also addressed the dharna. and said that “the Punjab government acting at the behest of upper caste landlords, who habitually occupy common land, has acted with vengeance on the Dalit, rural poor who demanded to live in dignity."
A number of women from Punjab villages spoke at the dharna, describing their struggle and their stay in jail, who were separated from young children, and were not even informed where their arrested children were being held. They also said that the AIPWA National Council Member Jasbir Kaur Nat is still being held in Naba jail, and in violation of her rights as a political prisoner, she is being confined along with hardened criminals who are harassing her. AIPWA, in solidarity of the Kashmiri women's struggle, also demanded scrapping of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and withdrawal of the armed forces from Kashmir.
Several other programmes were held by AIPWA in different parts of the country.
Punjab: In Punjab the protest demonstration was held at 15 major places of the State including Jalandhar, Nawashahar, Ludhiyana, Sangrur, Bhatinda, Mansa, Fatehgarh Sahib and Moga. Highlight of the day was a rally and demonstration by three hundred women in Mansa overcoming the intense climate of terror and fear created by the Administration and the Police. However, there was no repressive measure adopted by the Govt. today indicating the movement’s growing political status. Meanwhile, the High Court responding to habeas corpous writ filed by us has served notices to the State’s Home Secretary and the DC and SP of Sangrur and Mansa. The Dy. CM Mr. Sukhbir Badal while in Noormahal for byelection campaign indicated the Govt. is opening up for dialogue on this whole episode.
Protest was also held in Patna, Bihar jointly by AIPWA and Bihar Mahila Samaj. The organisations also demanded implementation of the 35 percent quota for women and lambasted SP President Mulayam Singh Yadav for his patriarchal and anti-women statement.
Bengal Cyclone: Initiatives for Relief Work
Around 35 lakh people are affected by the cyclone in W.Bengal. Even though the cyclone was forecasted by the weather department, there was complete failure on the part of the State Govt. in evacuating and rescuing people. The disaster management mechanism of the government lay in tatters. The constant squabbles and blame-game between the Panchayat Samities and Zilla Parishad(of North 24 Parganas) controlled by the TMC-Congress and the CPI(M) led state government hampered relief and rescue operations. Activists of AISA, RYA and People’s Health and Nagarik Samannay Manch actively involved themselves in collecting relief materials. On 6th June, a team led by Com. Amalendu Chowdhury went to Gosaba to deliver relief materials. On 8th June, a team of doctors led by Dr. Debashis Dutta, was sent by People’s Health to Hasnabad and Hingalganj. There, comrades belonging to an AICCTU affiliated motor-workers union actively helped in relief operations. People responded wholeheartedly when CPI(ML) activists appealed for relief materials and funds. A team led by Com. Shouvik Ghoshal is scheduled to leave for Hingalganj on 10th June with relief materials.
Dr. Binayak & Ilina Sen in Kolkata
Dr. Binayak Sen and Dr. Ilina Sen recently visited Kolkata responding to an initiative taken by People’s Health. They addressed the Calcutta press at Calcutta Press Club on 29th May. Dr. Binayak Sen’s two year long unlawful detention in a Chattisgarh jail ended on 25th May. “I want to resume my unfinished work as early as possible.” He said. “I could finally come out of jail but many colleagues and comrades of mine are still in Chattisgarh jails on fictitious charges – we have a long fight due for their unconditional release.”
Dr. Debasish Dutta, President, People’s Health, initiated the press conference by introducing Dr. Binayak Sen and Dr. Ilina Sen as pioneering figures in people’s health movement who have been working for last three decades in different corners of India where the Indian State has been absent completely in providing even the basic medical care. Dr. Sen was arrested on 14th May 2007 by Chattisgarh govt on the charges of sedition and revolutionary activities.
People’s Health organised a seminar on 30th May addressing the issue ‘Whither People’s Health’ and dedicated the seminar to the efforts of Dr. Binayak Sen. Speakers from different parts of India spoke at the seminar. Dr. Kaustav Roy presented an audio-visual documentation to expose the underdevelopment in primary health care services. He shows that some diseases which we assumed nearly extinct from the world, is coming back, often in the form of epidemic. The last UPA govt, Dr. Roy says, closed down three public owned factories which were there to produce few crucial vaccines. The govt offered the tender to private companies and they supply low quality medicine at unusually high prices.
Swati Bhattacharya, researcher and journalist, focused on the poor scenario of primary health care services for the women in West Bengal. According to the statistics, 57% of the pregnant women in WB are deprived of primary health care during child-birth. Dr. Sudip Chakrabarty of Medical Service Centre, Mr. Ramkishen of All India Central Health Care Services and Com. Suresh from Jharkhand addressed the audience.
Dr. Ilina Sen remarked that issue of people’s health must be seen from the point of view of equality and social justice. In India, Dr. Sen explains, primary health care progammes are more bureaucratic than participatory. She firmly says that the demand for the primary health care must be framed in the plane of people’s rights movement. Dr. Binayak Sen indicates that anyone having body-mass index less than 18.5 is said to be suffering from mal-nutrition. And when most of the members of a population have body-mass ratio less than 18.5, the population is said to be affected by famine. He says that most of the tribal villages in Chattisgarh in respect to this parameter are affected by famine. Dr. Binayak Sen and Dr. Ilina Sen, both agree that only pro-people political intention and proper ideological thrust can change the scenario.
Dr. Sen also spoke on the human rights conditions in Chattisgarh and said that as Chattisgarh is full of valuable underground minerals, Salwa Judum is often found deputed by mine barons to snatch the land from the poor villagers. In the name of encounter police kills innocent poor people in villages. The villagers in Chattisgarh are living in a state of terror. The industrialists, with the direct help of the govt. are robbing the land, water resources and forests from the villagers. The poor people are becoming poorer everyday. The issues regarding health, nutrition, education and occupation are entirely neglected.
AISA’s Demonstration against Racist Attacks in Australia
In Chennai, the All India Students’ Association (AISA) held a protest demonstration on 6 June against attacks on Indian students in Australia. Scores of students participated in the demonstration. They demanded immediate action on the part of Indian government to protect the Indian students in Australia. A similar protest was held in Namakkal also led by comrade Venkatachalam in which more than 50 students participated.
The participants also raised slogans against capitation fees being collected by the medical universities and colleges in TN and demanded cancellation of licenses given to these universities. They later moved to the Directorate of Medical Education to gherao the Director. But, as the Director was not in the office they submitted a memorandum demanding cancellation of licenses for the medical universities which demanded exorbitant sum as capitation fee. The demonstration was led by Com. Bharathi, SCM, and State organizer, AISA. In TN, no other student organization has come out in response to the capitation fee issue or the racist attacks.
|
