India and Pakistan Must Return to the Negotiating Table

In the wake of the December 13 attack on Indian Parliament, the Government of India embarked on a self-proclaimed course of diplomatic offensive. The Indian High Commissioner was recalled from Pakistan and the strength of the two High Commissions was scaled down. Five months after the December 13 incident, in the early hours of May 14, terrorism resurfaced at Kaluchak near the Jammu-Pathankot highway on a much bigger scale. Thirty people, including soldiers, their family and seven passengers of a Jammu-bound bus were gunned down when three terrorists stormed the bus and opened indiscriminate fire inside the police lines housing complex at Kaluchak.

The attack once again coincided with the visit by an American dignitary. US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca was in Delhi holding talks with the minister and officials of the External Affairs Ministry. Journalists were quick to remind us of at least two previous occasions which had witnessed major terrorist strikes - the massacre of thirty-five Sikhs in Chhattisinghpora village on March 20, 2000 when Bill Clinton had come calling and the killing of policemen in American Centre in Kolkata which coincided with FBI chief Robert Mueller's visit to Delhi. American intervention - the Americans of course call it only friendly facilitation and not even mediation - in the bilateral affairs of India and Pakistan is a sure invitation to a growing spiral of terror. The Kaluchak tragedy provided a much-awaited opportunity to the Vajpayee government to deflect national and international attention away from Gujarat. The same Parliament which had witnessed bitter debates on Gujarat just a fortnight ago passed a consensus resolution backing an appropriate Indian response to the terrorist challenge. And once again, the response of the Vajpayee government looks strikingly similar to the post December 13 course of action.

The outcome of the so-called diplomatic offensive unleashed by India since the failed Agra summit can at best be described as barren, if not counter-productive. With no decline in the level of terrorism, the government obviously cannot claim any success in terms of its own parameters and standards. In fact, the strategy is only liable to land the country in greater trouble. Given the crucial role and relevance of Pakistan in the US strategy in Asia, it is foolish to expect the US to abandon Pakistan and fight India's battle against terrorism. At the same time, it is also clear to all sane and right-thinking people on both sides of the Indo-Pak border that a war between the two nuclear-powered neighbours is and should no longer be an open option. This leaves India and Pakistan with the only option of a direct and effective bilateral diplomatic engagement. The Indian course of action however amounts to a movement in the opposite direction. In the name of diplomatic offensive or coercive diplomacy, the recalling of High Commissioners is tantamount to a policy of diplomatic disengagement. This can only mean greater leeway for the Americans and loss of initiative for India.

The growing incidence and scale of terrorism also signifies a total failure of the Indian Government's policy of tackling Kashmir with the help repressive legislations like POTA. In another few months, elections are due in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Evidently over the last five years there has been no forward movement in Kashmir in terms of creation of a credible political environment conducive to free and fair elections. The thoroughly opportunist and increasingly tenuous alliance of convenience between the BJP and the National Conference only heightens the bankruptcy and hypocrisy of official politics in Kashmir. New Delhi has always tried to manipulate electoral politics in Kashmir through its trusted lieutenants, but when a senior moderate leader like Abdul Gani Lone is openly humiliated and heckled by the Shiv Sena and Yasin Malik is put behind the bars under POTA, the people of Kashmir can only feel alienated from the routine motions of formal politics. And, let there be no mistake, alienation and anger of the people is the mother of all terrorism, imported or home-grown. The secular democratic opinion in India must not allow the NDA government to deepen the mess in Kashmir with its current policy of short-sighted adventurism and the so-called diplomacy of disengagement with Pakistan and dependence on Washington. War and jingoism must be out, diplomacy and dialogue must be in.

Summary of CC Deliberations and Decisions (Bhilai, 13-15 May, 2002)

The CC meeting at Bhilai began on 13 May by paying homage to martyr comrade Laldhan Mahato of Bagodar who was killed in police firing on April 4 Giridih bandh and Comrade Tapan Chakraborty, member of West Bengal State Committee and Secretary of Darjeeling district Committee who died in road accident on March 19. The major points of discussion in the meeting were as under:

1. Genocide in Gujarat and Growing Aggression of Communal Fascism:

The Central Committee took a serious note of the Gujarat situation and called for intensifying countrywide mass protests demanding dismissal of the Modi government and exemplary punishment to all the perpetrators of the genocide in Gujarat. The CC pointed out that while till date the genocide remained confined to Gujarat, the saffron brigade was working overtime to spread the fire to every corner of the country. The CC also noted that while the violence in Gujarat was directed primarily against the Muslim community, journalists reporting the violence and non-Muslim citizens working for peace were equally vulnerable to attacks by the saffron goons. As communal violence acquires an increasingly fascist character, the attacks are bound to intensify against a whole array of targets ranging from the minorities to communists to the liberal intelligentsia. Indeed, RSS ideologues often vent their ire against the 'children' of three M's: Marx, Macaulay (the designer of modern education in colonial India) and Madrasas. The CC therefore warned against treating communal fascism just as a communal question and called for paying greater attention to the fascist aspect of communal fascism.

The CC noted that the fascists had not yet succeeded in hijacking the entire system and some pockets of resistance could be identified within institutions like the press, Parliament, judiciary and various bodies of active citizens. While the fascists are trying hard to whip up communal tension and effect a total communal polarisation, the country is also witnessing large-scale anti-communal awakening and activism. To intensify popular resistance against fascist aggression, the CC called for mobilisation of the entire Party on the basis of a three-pronged approach: (i) leading the resistance with exemplary revolutionary courage, determination and initiative, (ii) strengthening the resistance by going to the masses and arousing and mobilising them in anti-fascist struggle, and (iii) broadening the resistance by enlisting the support and cooperation of all possible allies who are demarcating themselves from the fascists and offering a degree of opposition.

The CC appreciated the initiatives taken so far by various Party Committees independently as well as in cooperation with other progressive forces including organising team visits to Gujarat, publication of reports on the genocide and the role of the state and various social and political forces, collection of monetary relief for the riot-affected people, and conducting mass political campaigns. Considering the continuing gravity of the situation and the intensity of the fascist offensive, the CC called for sustained and still bigger efforts on the part of the Party and mass organisations.

2. May 4-10 Campaign against Communal Fascism and for People's Unity:

The CC heard reports of the May 4-10 campaign in different states. The campaign has been marked by a number of conventions, seminars, dharnas and marches. The high point of the campaign was the May 10-11 programme at Faizabad demanding separation of religion and politics and construction of a memorial at Ayodhya as a tribute to the great martyrs of 1857 who symbolised Hindu-Muslim fraternity as well as an intense yearning for liberation from the yoke of British colonialism. The programme was organised primarily under the banner of AISA, RYA, Jan Sanskriti Manch and AIPWA. The Faizabad unit of the Party was also a constituent of the organising committee. Visualised as a Shaheed Mela (cultural festival dedicated to the martyrs of 1857), the programme evoked encouraging response from sections of the local people and intelligentsia, but the participation of non-Party activists and intellectuals from outside Faizabad remained very limited. The total mobilisation was of the order of 1,000. While the organisers were expecting a bigger turnout, the number was not insignificant considering the prevailing situation and the fact that it was essentially an independent effort on the part of the concerned mass organisations.

At the behest of the Sangh parivar, the Mayawati government banned the programme at the eleventh hour and resorted to an unprecedented police crackdown. Nearly 1,000 comrades including, apart from students, youths and cultural activists, many women and some children were arrested when they took out the Sadbhavna March (peace and goodwill march) defying prohibitory orders. In an unprecedented repressive move, the arrested were remanded for 14 days and sent to two separate jails. The next day a convention was held at the local press club in police encirclement and six comrades including a professor of Delhi University were arrested. The crackdown evoked widespread opposition, questions were raised by some opposition MPs in Parliament and many intellectuals and political figures like Surendra Mohan and Arif Mohammed Khan joined the citizens' protest in Delhi on 13 May. The comrades have eventually been released after a week. The CC congratulated the participants of the Ayodhya March for their spirit and determination and called upon the entire Party to widely propagate the message of the struggle.

3. Save Democracy Campaign from June 26 to August 9:

As a follow-up to the May 4-10 Campaign, the CC has called for organising a bigger national campaign from June 26 to August 9. The campaign will start on June 26, the day Emergency was clamped down in 1975, with a national convention against fascism in Delhi. The day will also be marked by similar programmes in other state capitals and if possible also in district headquarters. Attempts should be made to involve other Left parties and democratic organisations and personalities in this convention and also in the entire campaign. The campaign should be observed all over the country through a variety of programmes and August 9 (Quit India Day) we should have a countrywide mobilisation against fascism and imperialism. Unless otherwise decided later, the August 9 programme would be organised in the form a massive jail bharo campaign.

4. Preparation for the 7th Party Congress:

The Seventh Congress of the Party will be held at Patna from 25 to 29 November. The CC has called upon all State and District Committees and lower units of the Party to start full-scale preparation for the Congress with immediate effect. District Committees that have not yet sent their replies to the questionnaire must do the same by the end of May. Some states are yet to complete their membership renewal charts. Complete renewal charts must reach the CC latest by 30 June.

The CC calls upon all Party committees and members having audio/video materials on Comrades Vinod Mishra, Nagbhushan Patnaik and Anil Barua to deposit the same immediately with concerned State Committees and inform the CC. This is to facilitate preparation and production of some propaganda materials for the Congress and the materials may subsequently be returned to the respective committees/members/individuals if they so desire.

From the Jails of Mayawati

On May 10, the 13 police buses filled beyond their capacity were too few to hold the surge of humanity at Faizabad railway station. Thousands of activists had assembled for the Sadbhavana March and around 1000 were arrested and sent to Mau and Sultanpur jails. On May 11 the UP govt. sent the PAC to lathicharge and arrest more people outside the Convention venue. Six more were arrested. All of them were sent to a 14-day remand custody. Thanks to the resistance inside and outside the jail, they were released in a week's time.

The anti-national character of the UP govt. can be gauged from the fact that 6 people were confined for remembering the martyrs of the independence struggle in the same Faizabad jail, where revolutionary Ashfaq Ullah Khan was executed and more than hundred freedom fighters including 1857 hero Mangal Pandey were confined. The jail authorities claimed they were only following orders from Lucknow and denied the B class status to the political prisoners and sent everybody to the criminal barrack. On the first day food was not provided till a hue and cry was raised and from the second day the women activists were given the "punishment" diet reserved for the other prisoners. However, continuous protests brought the jail authorities to their senses.

The underlying feature of the jail was that everything was available for a bribe. In the women's barrack, not pleasing the wardens meant humiliating beatings for the undertrials. Attending visits by relatives also meant paying the wardens. Cases went on for years before the undertrial could even be proved guilty. The jail manual was grossly violated and prisoner's food was compromised upon. Rice had been denied for more than a year and substandard diet was provided even to the innocent children with the imprisoned mothers.

The inmates of the barracks expressed solidarity with the "Andolankaris" (agitators), who in turn organised meetings and held classes for them. On May 13 the activists held a meeting to condole the death of the noted poet Kaifi Azmi. A press conference highlighting the state of affairs in the jail was held in Faizabad upon release.

Built about two years ago, the new walls of the Mau Jail now carry slogans of struggle and resistance, thanks to the incarceration of 639 activists brought here. The jail authorities faced unprecedented protests led by a 7-member jail committee. Medical facilities and other rights of prisoners only followed the protests. As people had been arrested on May 10, the Ayodhya Convention was organised on 11th within the jail campus and the resolution passed. From May 14 onwards 10 persons started a relay hunger strike demanding unconditional release and refusing release in batches. Evenings were for cultural resistance and women improvised songs on police repression and other jail experiences. A press conference was held within the jail. Sultanpur jail housed 250 Mela participants including Com. Ambarish Rai. The walls of the jail were decorated with inspiring slogans. The May 11 convention was also held here and Ayodhya resolution passed defying the jail authorities. Student groups sang songs and kept up the struggle inside the jail. The people of Sultanpur provided immense support to those imprisoned and upon release welcomed them warmly outside the gate.

Delhi State Party Conference

The 6th Conference of Delhi State unit of CPI(ML) was held on 18-19 May. It was inaugurated by Party GS Com. Dipankar Bhattacharya. Com. Partha Ghosh was the central observer. PB member Com. Swadesh Bhattacharya and Party incharge of Delhi Com. Swapan Mukherjee were also present. The presidium comprised Comrades AS Sidhu, NM Thomas, Suneeta, Surendra Panchal and Chandan Negi. Out of 67 delegates present in the conference, 3 were women. A lively discussion took place on the report presented by Com. Rajendra Pratholi, secretary of the outgoing State Committee. On 19 May, the conference elected a 11-member state committee. Com. Pratholi was reelected its secretary. Com. Swadesh made the concluding speech. The conference passed a 5-point resolution and called upon the ranks to defeat communal fascism by mobilising masses in greater and greater numbers.

AISA's 48-hour mass hunger strike in Kolkata

The AISA unit in Jadavpur University raised relief fund through intensive class-to-class campaign and sent students to Gujarat. AISA also organized a 48-hour mass hunger strike of students against state-sponsored genocide in Gujarat on May 6-8 in a public place outside the campus demanding ouster of Modi and resignation of Vajpayee and Advani. Personalities like Rudraprasad Sengupta, Swatilekha Sengupta and Usha Ganguly, noted economist Amiya Bagchi, writers Abul Basar, Subodh Sarkar, Mallika Sengupta, Nabarun Bhattacharya, Jiyad Ali, journalists Imanul Haque, Kinnar Roy, singer Mousumi Bhowmik and Prof Sujoy Basu came to meet the fasting students and addressed the gathering. And at the end of the programme, famous writer Mahasweta Devi, noted linguist Dr. Pabitra Sarkar and CPI(ML) State Secy. Com. Kartik Pal came to formally conclude the programme.

Protest Day Observed in UP Against Prohibition on Shaheed Mela and Arrests in Faizabad

CPI(ML) held protest statewide on 14 May against the prohibition imposed by Mayawati government on Shaheed Mela and arrest of around 1,000 activists in Faizabad. In Lucknow, dharna was staged in front of UP Legislative Assembly and a memorandum was given to the Governor, in which apart from condemning the prohibition as an attack on minimum democratic rights a demand was made to release all the activists detained in Faizabad, Mau and Sultanpur jails. Similar dharna and demonstrations were staged in Ballia, Kanpur, Lakhimpur Khiri, Pilibhit, Ghazipur, Sonebhadra, Mirzapur, Allahabad and other districts of UP. Those who have criticised the prohibition include CPI, CPI(M), Samajwadi Party and some minority organisations, Prof. Rooprekha Verma, ex-VC of Lucknow University, noted art critic KN Kakkar, writers Virendra Yadav, Surya Mohan Kulshretha and Rakesh of IPTA. Samajwadi Party legislators raised the issue in the Legislative Assembly and Ram Sumer Yadav of CPI raised it in the Legislative Council. Ultimately, after seven days the government had to release all the arrested activists.

Remembering Naxalbari

This 35th anniversary of Naxalbari struggle falls on May 25, 2002. We pay our homage to all martyrs of the Naxalbari upsurge as well as all those who sacrificed their lives advancing the revolutionary legacy of Naxalbari. To mark this occasion we reproduce here excerpts from Comrade Vinod Mishra's article of the same title as above published in September 1990 issue of Deshabrati.

Naxalbari: Then and Now

May 25 is Naxalbari Day. Naxalbari is one, but it carries a number of meanings. And taking different meanings as their basis different groups emerged who have been involved for a long time in endless debates against one-another. Often the relationship between them has become antagonistic. On all this account there is no end to confusion...

What is the real meaning of Naxalbari? Naxalbari means awakening of basic peasant masses. Not just some scattered armed squad activities or miraculous actions like kidnapping. It means not just pompous revolutionary phrase-mongering, sitting in coffee houses of Kolkata, Delhi or Mumbai. To cover up their failure, however, different groups rain slanders on us, yet the truth is that the peasant awakening of Naxalbari stream has occurred only in Bihar and our party is in its forefront.

Naxalbari means introduction of a revolutionary political stream in the national politics on the basis of this peasant awakening. Naxalbari does not just mean fulfilling a few economic demands of peasantry on the local basis. All those who tried to establish an alternative revolutionary stream by going to mountains and jungles and building "red army and base areas" there have failed. Now there it is not politics that commands the gun, rather the gun is running politics.

Naxalbari does not mean success in an abstract struggle between Marxism and revisionism, between armed struggle and parliamentary path. But petty bourgeois revolutionism has precisely this way of thinking. So it holds that with revolutionary sentiment and some fundamental Marxist formulas alone it is possible to build Naxalbari anywhere and everywhere if only so desired. All sorts of anarchist activities and pessimism generating therefrom and ultimately taking an about turn - there are examples galore of all this - behind all this a petty bourgeois dream of revolution works.

Naxalbari has its roots in the contradictions present in the rural social system of India, and behind it there exists a long history of peasant struggles, the continuity of Telengana and Tebhaga. There exists a protracted process of struggle between two opposite tactical lines, which had culminated, at a specific juncture, in the revolt of Naxalbari. All this must be understood in order to understand Naxalbari.

Whether democratic revolution will be successful through awakening of the toiling people or initiative of the peasant masses will be curtailed in the interest of united front with this or that section of bourgeoisie - the struggle between these two opposing tactics was going on within the party for quite a long time. In a specific situation of 1967 this struggle reached at its acme - when the ruling united front government tried to check the surge of peasant movement and revolutionaries led by Comrade Charu Mazumdar stepped forward to lead this movement.

It was not possible for Naxalbari to make compromises or retreat, nor was it proper, for it had become the harbinger of a new revolutionary path. In history, the first revolutionary campaigns always rush for the ultimate solution and thus they create history. Taking two steps backward for combining tactical aspects etc. etc. are always reserved for the latter attempts. Although he was one of the senior-most leaders of Naxalbari, Kanu Sanyal could not grasp this essence of Naxalbari. History therefore has comically pushed him to the stature of a leader of Naxalbari area only. Despite his umpteen endeavors he could not become the leader of Naxalbari stream per se.

As history never repeats itself just as it is, similarly the rebirth of a great movement never acquires the old form. In the period we were greatly suffering from metaphysics, we tried our most to overcome the setback with the old forms and methods, but we could not achieve success.

Only the essence of Naxalbari, i.e., the awakening of the basic peasant masses, can carry democratic revolution forward. Dreaming for democratic reform of the society and state system through a united front with this or that section of bourgeoisie is plain hoax - this is true even today. What is required is to flow the same essence through newer forms of organisation and struggle in conformity with the development of the situation. Holding aloft the banner of revolutionary democracy on the basis of mass awakening of broad peasantry, with the slogan of developing independent left force against tailing behind the bourgeoisie in the name of secular front and through the concept of extreme revolutionary opposition in parliamentary struggle, we are in essence carrying forward the same struggle between two opposing tactics.