VIOLATING PRINCIPLES OF FEDERALISM MAOIST MAMATA BANERJEE FORCES P.CHIDAMBRAM TO SEND CENTRAL TEAM TO WEST BENGAL

It is an open secret that the Maoist-TMC armed goons and rapists have created a reign of terror in Nandigram, Khejuri, Khanakul, Lalgarh, Jangalmahal, Jhargram, Birbhum, Mangalkote, Purulia, Bankura and other parts of West Bengal with the help of perverted intellectuals, a section of media and right reactionary forces.

It is most unfortunate that surrendering to the pressure of Mamata Banerjee, the Union Government has decided to send a central team to assess law and order situation in West Bengal particularly in Khanakul. This is clearly in gross violation of the basic tenets of federalism. The impartiality, integrity and neutrality of this team are already under doubt. The one and only one purpose of sending this ‘so-called’ fact finding committee is nothing but to malign the Left Front Government in West Bengal in order to satisfy the whims and arrogance of Mamata Banerjee.

It is an open secret that the Maoist-TMC goons under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee have been trying at their best to create serious problems of law and order throughout the state to pave way for the imposition of President’s Rule in the name of breakdown of law and order. Almost all the victims are CPI (M) leaders, cadres and supporters.

Today Mamata Banerjee desperately supports all sorts of disruptive and terrorist forces to gain political mileage. She supports Maoists, Gorkha Janamukti Morcha, Kamtapuri People’s Party, Adivasi Bikash Parishad, Greater Coochbihar, Kamtapuri Progressive Party and other separatist & communal forces with eyeing to the chair of the chief minister.

If the committee is really neutral and impartial, it must meet all parties irrespective of political affiliation, visit all troubled spots including Lalgarh, Junglemahal, Nandigram, Khejuri, Mangalkote and other disturbed places and areas where the Maoist-TMC alliance has unleashed a reign of terror and talk to people from all walks of life including those who have been raped and guardians of those who were raped and killed by Maoist-TMC goons. They should also meet the dependants and guardians of all who have been murdered by them. If they don’t do so, they will not be able to reach a logical and reasonable conclusion.

Till 2006 the Left Front had won repeatedly majority of seats in assembly, parliament and other local self-government organizations. But there were never problems of law and order as the state witnesses now. During all these 32 years people lived peacefully. But with the winning of majority seats by TMC-Congress-SUCI alliance the picture has changed completely. It is needless to mention that Mamata Banerjee and her rainbow alliance of Maoist-TMC-Congress-SUCI have thrown the entire state into the furnace of murder, lawlessness, anarchy and disorder.

Only one example of their misdeed and lawlessness is sufficient enough to corroborate the same. How are the people of Nandigram and Khejuri now?

Aleya Bibi of Jadubarichak of Nandigram is shelterless for last 13 months. Her children donot go to school. Her cultivation remains stopped. She is jobless. Maoist-TMC goons are ready to allow her to return to her ancestral home on condition that she has to pay a huge amount of money as fine and she has to participate in the political activities of the Maoist-TMC alliance.

Mohammad Saha and Jakir Saha of Garchakrabedia of Nandigram informed that they had to leave their ancestral homes at night of 10th November 2008 in one cloth. Thereafter they could not return to Nandigram. The Maoist-TMC criminals threat that if they dare return to Nandigram, they have to face the fate of Niranjan Mondal and Khalek Mallik. It is relevant to point out that Niranjan Mondal, a school teacher, was the Secretary of the CPI (M), Kalicharanpur Local Committee. He was murdered brutally in front of his school. Similarly, Khalek Mallick was murdered at Hajrakanta by cutting his veins.

Hundreds of poor innocent people evicted from Nandigram and Khejuri pass their days in refugee camps at Haldia and other places. Their only fault is that they are supporters of the CPI (M).

In one such refugee camp at Haldia, there are 284 persons. They live bundled together in one room. There are 92 women and 72 children. Among 72 children, there are 41 girls. None of the 72 children go to school. They are surviving anyhow with the financial assistance from the workers and citizens of Haldia.

Nearly 5000 people of Nandigram and Khejuri are shelterless. Most of them now live in different refuges camps at Haldia and other places. 2375 people of Nandigram have been forced to leave their ancestral homes whereas in Khejuri about 2500 people have left. Most amongst them are old people, women, children and babies. After the victory of Maoist-TMC alliance at Janaka and Nichkasaba Gram Panchayats in Khejuri, 264 and 232 people had to flee. Apart from this, 207 people from Hedia, 159 from Lakhi, 175 from Birbandar, 198 from Kamarda, 235 from Kalagachia, 184 from Tikashi, 374 from Khejuri, 198 from Haludbari and 274 from Baratala have fled their ancestral homes.

Union Minister Sisir Adhikari and his son Subhendu Adhikari have created a reign of terror at Khejuri with the help of armed Maoist-TMC murderers. Crores of rupees in the form of levy and fine are being collected from the people. About 2500 people from two blocks of Khejuri have been rendered homeless and shelterless.

Even no party other than TMC is allowed to work in Nandigram and Khejuri. The Congress Party wanted to bring out a peace procession in the wake of the murder of TMC leader Nishikanta Mondal. But the TMC goons foiled the same forcibly.

Since 8th June 2009 more than 40 offices of the CPI (M) have been either torched or captured by Maoist-TMC goons. 834 persons have been driven out of Khejuri for being supporters of the CPI (M). Maoist-TMC criminals raped Anjali Maiti of Kalamdan village under Tikashi Gram Panchayat continuously for seven days taking advantage of the absence of her husband, who being a CPI (M) supporter had fled to save his own life. Apart from this, two more women have also been subjected to rape in the meantime.

Both father and son Sisir Adhikari and Subhendu Adhikari have declared openly that they would not allow red flag to unfurl in Nandigram and Khejuri.

Subhash Maiti of Janaka and Subrata Dhali of Kalagachia have been paralyzed as a result of inhuman torture of TMC-Maoist goons. 425 houses of poor people have been either torched or razed to ground. The cultivation of 620 families has been stopped.

CPI (MAOIST) LEADER CHATRADHAR MAHATO WITH SOCALLED INTELLECTUALS IN LALGARH ON 17TH JUNE, 2009

OUTMODED IDEOLOGY OF MAOISTS INVITE STATE REPRESSION AGAINST TRIBALS

SPEECH OF PRAKASH KARAT, GENERAL SECRETARY, COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MARXIST) AS PUBLISHED IN PEOPLE’S DEMOCRACY, 15TH NOVEMBER 2009

“In a hard hitting speech on the Maoist Role in India Today, Prakash Karat, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), denounced the Indian Maoists, “warped and outmoded world view” and their terrorist acts against political activists and officials of the state. Suggesting that the essence of Maoist ideology and polity today is that they are divorced of reality”, Karat called for the isolation of the Maoists by fighting them “politically, organizationally and ideologically”. The discussion was organised by a group of individuals under the banner of “Left-view” in New Delhi on November 6, 2009. Prabir Purkayastha of Delhi Science Forum chaired the programme.

OUTMODED IDEOLOGY

Prakash Karat mentioned that ultra-Left sectarianism has existed for more than 40 years in India and the Maoists have refused to learn lessons from the past. The Maoists continue to repose faith in concepts borrowed wholesale from the Communist Party of China in a period when it was itself in the grip of Left sectarianism and adventurism during the so-called Cultural Revolution. The outmoded and warped ideology of the Maoists thus continues to term India as a “semi-feudal, semi-colonial country and deny the strong capitalist base of the Indian state, the development of capitalism in agriculture, and has no place in its politics for the working class. Despite claiming to represent the peasantry, the Maoists have been unable to build up any major peasant movement, limiting their activities to remote and backward tribal dominated areas where, taking shelter in this type of terrain, it is possible to maintain or sustain to some extent armed squads and guerrillas. Paying lip service to the peasantry, the Maoists are engaged only in a violent war against the state, attacking its officials, the police, and the also the representatives of other political parties. Maoist actions are limited to the violent methods, which their armed squads resort to and, after receiving setbacks in Andhra Pradesh, they have squeezed themselves in a geographic area that adjoins Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and three districts in West Bengal bordering Jharkhand.

Commenting on the deliberate and violent attacks on the cadre of the CPI (M) in West Bengal, where nearly 70 of them were recently killed in continuing attacks, Prakash Karat said that this was not a new phenomenon. The Naxalites, particularly in the years between 1970 and 1971, were directly responsible for the murder of 350 people associated with the CPI (M), taking part in a pincer attack. They were then a part of the concerted violent campaign unleashed by the ruling Congress against the CPI (M), which claimed lives of nearly 1200 cadres and sympathizers of the party. The collusion between the Trinamul Congress and the Maoists today is therefore reminiscent of the 1970s, which saw the unleashing of widespread violence against the CPI (M), he said.

Prakash Karat attacked the Maoist claims of “successful boycotts of elections” in West Bengal. He pointed out that in the epicentre of recent violence in the Jhargram constituency (of which Lalgarh was part), the CPI (M) won by the highest margin of votes in the backdrop of CPI (M) suffering losses elsewhere in the state. The tribal voters enthusiastically voted for the CPI (M) in other constituencies as well in West Bengal. Even in other areas, where the Maoists called for a boycott, the people voted in large numbers, Karat said. He called into question their politics, suggesting that even in areas where the Naxalite movement was relatively strong, as in Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh in the past, there existed no movement led by the Maoists or any support for them today. He pointed out that the cycle of violence started off by the Maoists only invited a vicious state response, which affected the very people whom the Maoists claimed to represent, and this phenomenon was very true to day as well. After the Maoists’ violent actions and state response, the tribal people are finding themselves in the worst situation possible, he said.

CPI (M) SAYS NO TO PARAMILITARY RESPONSE

Calling into question the centre’s paramilitary response to the Maoists, he said that the centre should not deal with the Maoists in the same manner as it does with terrorist organizations such as the Laskhar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad or Harkut-ul-Jihadi-Islami (HUJI). He said that the security actions that were planned by the centre, according to media reports, would end up targeting the tribal people only, as the Maoists would slip away and expose the tribals to the repression of the state paramilitary forces. Instead, he said that the Maoists had to be fought ideologically, politically and organizationally, as the CPI (M) had done and was doing in West Bengal. The Maoists have to be tackled administratively wherever they are engaging in wanton violence but a purely militaristic solution would lead to disaster, he said.

Secondly, the centre has suggested that it recognizes the socio-economic problems of the people in areas where the Maoists are influential and the prime minister pointed out recently it is necessary to implement the Forest Rights Act for the tribals. However, it is glaring that the centre is refusing to acknowledge the roles of its mines and minerals policy in those areas. Pointing out that the neo-liberal policies have opened the tribal habitats to depredations of the big mining companies, leading to the displacement, loss of livelihood and traditional habitats of the tribal people. Karat called for reversal of such neo-liberal policies and for the implementation of a socio-economic programme in these regions. The centre has to ensure that the tribal people are not deprived of their elementary rights. In its stead, development should mean that the tribal people remain in their traditional habitats where they can find work, apart from the basic rights and facilities that a state should deliver to all its citizens including roads, education health etc. This, he said, would negate the very claims of the support base the Maoists have built on the grievances of the tribals in those regions.

Prakash Karat pointed out that the outright hostility of the Maoists towards the CPI (M) was visible not only in West Bengal but also in other places like Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh where party cadres are being deliberately targeted for annihilation. He said that the Maoists are indulging in these activities with the explicit belief that “elimination” of the CPI (M) is necessary for them to advance. But the CPI (M) would fight back ideologically, organizationally and politically by winning over the support of the poor, he said. He mentioned that sections of the urban intelligentsia had a romantic understanding of the Maoist activities, despite their violent methods. Thus, it is necessary to confront and engage with them to make them realize the futility of the Maoist politics, its inability to raise issues that matter to the people or its inability to work on alternative people friendly models of socio-economic development – an agenda that has been taken up by the organised Left in the country.

Lastly, Prakash Karat said that these were difficult times when the opportunist political opposition in West Bengal, led by Trinamul Congress had joined hands with the Maoists in bringing about physical attacks against and to eliminate the CPI (M). This they are doing to destabilize the Left Front Government in the state. Karat emphatically said that the CPI (M) will overcome this opportunist collusion by intensifying its democratic resistance and movement.”

LALGARH - MAOIST MAMATA BANERJEE WITH MAOIST BUTCHER CHATRADHAR MAHATO ON 04-02-2009