ML Update A CPI(ML) Weekly News Magazine Vol.-5; No.-44; 30 Oct - 5 Nov 2002
LUCKNOW, SRINAGAR, AHMEDABAD Ironically, last week even as the Congress and the PDP were trying to thrash out an agreement over the formation of a coalition government in Srinagar, the BSP-BJP coalition regime in Lucknow was facing its first major challenge. As of now, the Congress and the PDP have managed to pull off a 'coalition coup', but Mayawati's crisis in Lucknow has not exactly blown over. After weeks of uncertainty and indecision, the Congress has finally agreed to accept PDP chief Mufti Mohammed Sayeed as the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir for the next three years. The fact that the state concerned is Jammu and Kashmir and not Maharashtra must have helped the Congress in deferring its claim to chief ministership. Also, the Congress nominee's preference for retaining his job as a political retainer operating from the interiors of 10 Janpath rather than wearing the thorny crown to occupy a risky Srinagar throne is quite well known. Of course, the PDP too has done its bit to facilitate the agreement by climbing down from its initial positions. Part of the climbdown is already visible in the form of a watered down Common Minimum Programme. The party's initial insistence on disbanding the Special Operations Group has already given way to a mere restructuring of the SOG as a part of the state's police force. The assurance of not using POTA does not really mean much in a state like Jammu and Kashmir where the security forces are permanently armed with a host of draconian special powers. What will really have to be watched now is how seriously the government implements its promise to release political prisoners and punish security forces who are guilty of gross human rights violations. Ironically, while the Congress finally chose to use Jammu and Kashmir as an example to drive home the party's new-found coalition sense (in contrast to the Panchmarhi principle of going it alone), parties like the Panthers Party and the CPI(M) only exposed their inability to read the Congress by expressing their preference for, stretching it almost to a point of insistence on, a Congress-led government. The CPI(M) remained busy countering the PDP's claims, even suggesting that if necessary, the Congress could also supply a Chief Minister from the valley and not just from Jammu. Now that the Congress has surprised all its existing and potential allies with this display of pragmatic flexibility, it may well be time now for the allies, especially for those seasoned admirers of the Congress in the Left, to start singing paeans for Sonia's 'statesmanship'! Behind the so-called reluctance shown by Sonia Gandhi to rush with claims to form governments lies the inhibition of a person who has been bitten once and must therefore be shy at least twice. In 1999 a dejected Sonia had experienced to her horror the inability of the CPI(M) to deliver on the promised support from Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party. The Presidential election this summer made it clear that the Congress and the Samajwadi Party were capable of working out their own equations without much assistance or mediation from the CPI(M). Habits, however, die hard. Whether or not Sonia and Mulayam, or for that matter, Sonia and Amar Singh need an interpreter or mediator for their transactions, they have the unhesitant service of their most trusted comrade. Meanwhile, with the Supreme Court upholding the Election Commission's exclusive authority to decide the election dates, the BJP has received yet another resounding slap on its unmasked face. The question that now waits to be answered is whether the December 12 poll in Gujarat will bring for Modi the emphatic rebuff that he deserves so thoroughly. Communists with a different vision of another kind of People's Front obviously have a lot more to do than facilitating a Sonia-Mulayam encounter. PUTIN'S ABOMINABLE WAY OF DEALING WITH CHECHEN REBELS The absurdity of attempts to find a militaristic solution to terrorism has been illustrated most shockingly by the manner in which the Putin government claims to have 'resolved' the Moscow hostage crisis. No less shocking is the fact that many governments, including the one in New Delhi, have rushed to acclaim the Putin approach of dealing with terrorism. As we go to press, reports have it that the Moscow hostage crisis has been 'resolved' by killing 117 people. Another few dozens are battling for their lives in Moscow hospitals. Of the 117 killed, only two are reported to have died of gunshot wounds. All others have been 'gassacred' by the Russian army in a way that revived memories of Hitler's gas-chambers or the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy. All that the Chechen rebels were demanding was a halt to the ongoing war in Chechnya. But the Putin government made not even a gesture of talking to the rebels. Instead, it took it upon itself to kill the very people who had been taken hostage and even as more casualties are being reported from Moscow, the war in Chechnya has been intensified, thus exposing more and more Russians to similar crises in the days to come. This is a 'cure' worse than the 'malady' and such killer cures can have no place in a civilised world. Putin's war on his 'own people' is of a piece with Bush's war on Afghanistan and Iraq and they all go to show that war can be no answer to terrorism. RANVIR SENAAGAIN SHOWED ITS UGLY ANTI-PEASANT FACE At a time when a serious crisis has broken out in the field of agriculture and almost all the sections of peasantry have come into the grip of this crisis and the CPI(ML) is endeavouring to redouble its energy to mobilise sections of beleagured peasantry in the struggle against anti-peasant policies of the government, the recent killings by Ranvir Sena are a desperate attempt to weaken the agrarian struggles and divert the attention of the struggling masses from the basic issues of the peasantry. Although, the social support of private armies, like the Ranvir Sena, of the feudal-kulaks has started thinning out. The veil with which the notorious Ranvir Sena perpetrated a series of massacres of dalits and other poorer people is falling apart. The growing internal crisis of the Ranvir Sena led to the recent surrender of its infamous and notorious chief Brahmeshwar Singh. The ugly face of Ranvir Sena is exposed again when it in desperation killed four of CPI(ML) supporters on 25 Oct at Kurmuri village in Tarari block in Bhojpur district of Bihar. The motive and pattern of the killings clearly indicates that it is only and only a criminal gang which is getting support and patronage from the forces like the RJD and the BJP and the Samata. It is only a tool being used against the movement of dalits, agrarian labourers and middle peasants by the CPI(ML) in Bhojpur and elsewhere in Bihar. In Kurmuri, Ranvir Sena criminals killed four poor people including two women and a child. The killers got active support from Sikarhatta Police Station In-charge Digvijay Singh. Out of four, three persons were killed in the presence of police. This once again reveals the growing nexus of Ranvir Sena with police. Although, two killers also fell prey to the anger of the villagers. The Kurmuri village has been a centre of the struggle for years. In last Panchayat elections, CPI(ML) supporter Gauri Shanker Mahto got elected as Mukhiya. The Ranvir Sena got further enraged after this election. Assisting the Sena criminals, the Bhojpur police and administration launched an all-out anti-ML campaign. They started implicating poor people in false cases, and terrorised them. Reports say that just before the 25 Oct killings, a secret meeting of Sena criminals, police station In-charge and some local BJP-RJD leaders was held at Sikarhatta police station. After the heinous killings, the police launched a terror campaign and raided and ransacked the houses of the poor in the village, misbehaved with women and forcibly took away money and materials from their possessions. The popular Mukhiya Gauri Shankar Mahto was arrested with 14 other Party supporters. All of them were implicated in false cases and sent to jail. Intensifying the ongoing struggle, against the Ranvir Sena-police nexus, the CPI(ML) has launched several initiatives. Demonstrations and gherao are being held at several places and statewide protest were organised on 28 Oct. A Party team led by Rameshwar Prasad, ex-MP and General Secretary of Bihar Pradesh Khet Mazdoor Sabha, and Arun Kumar, MLA, visited Kurmuri. The Party has demanded immediate arrest of the killers and their police-accomplices including the Sikarhatta PS In-charge, suspension of the police inspector who manhandled and attacked Gaurishankar Mahto and the immediate release of all those arrested and jailed. CENTRAL TRADE UNIONS CALL TO INTNSIFY STRUGGLE Various central trade unions including CITU, AITUC, AICCTU, HMS, INTUC, UTUC, and UTUC(LS) held a joint meeting in Delhi and called for intensification of struggle against increasing attacks of the government's agenda. The meeting decided to step up the ongoing campaign which would culminate in a nationwide Satyagrah on 8 January and march to Parliament on 26 February next year. The constituents of central trade unions alongwith independent trade unions and federations would organise conventions and rallies to mobilise the working masses for these two action programmes. CONFERENCE IN BHIND The first district Party conference was held at Bhind in MP on 27 Oct. It was inaugurated by CPI(ML) CC member Rajaram. Veteran peasant leader Lal Singh Gingirakhi hoisted the flag which was followed by a two minute silence in memory of the martyrs. The Conferece elected a nine-member district committee with Devendra Singh Chauhan as its Secretary. RYA AGITATION IN ANDAMANS The RYA has launched a series of programmes to make the health department of the islands a real social-service sector oriented towards benefitting entire population in these islands. The health sector in Andamans is infamous for rampant corruption institutionalised by the ruling parties and the officials in high places. There is a nexus of BJP and Cogress leaders with bureaucrats which misuses funds and sells available medicines. Neither the anti-corruption unit or the vigilance department has ever become active against this influencial nexus . SAFFRONISATION OF EDUCATION OPPOSED Several Left parties joined together on 16 Oct in Delhi to oppose the saffronisation agenda of the Vajpayee govt. in education. The CPI(ML) Central Committee member Swapan Mukherjee attended this joint meeting which was held at Ajay Bhavan in Delhi at the initiative of CPI. The meeting discussed the agenda of saffronisation of education and the Supreme Court's recent verdict on this issue. The CPI(ML) leader welcomed the idea of a concerted political move by all Left and democratic forces on this issue. He also criticised the misleading statement being issued in this connection by some Congress leaders, especially the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, who has not only dismissed the danger of saffronisation but even stopped the widely appreciated popular science education programme run by Eklavya in the state. Interestingly, the Congress leader Dr. Manmohan Singh was also present in this meeting. TEA WORKERS' PROTEST IN ASSAM Tea workers in Assam protested against cut in their bonus in the name of losses incurred by the tea gardens as well as against treachery by the Congress led union Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangh (ACMS). It must be recalled that state Congress leader Pawan Singh Ghatowar, who is also president of ACMS, and its secretary Madhusudan Khandait have adopted an anti-labour stand on the issue of bonus and sided with the owners in their bonus cut declarations. While in Betzan tea garden of Makum Junction in Tinsukia district, the management announced to pay only 15% bonus this time whereas the conventional rate is 20%. Against this almost all of the 4,000 workers led by Assam Sangrami Chah Shramik Sangh (ASCSS), affiliated to AICCTU, blocked the National Highway for one and a half hour. In the history of Makum this was for the first time that highway was blocked on tea workers' demand. The blockade was followed by a massive workers' meeting held at Makum Forest Field, addressed by ASCSS leader Brij Pradhan and AICCTU state secretary Subhash Sen. CPI(ML) ON THE QUESTION OF REVIEW OF AGREEENT ON AGRICULTURE (AOA) IN WTO (Statement delivered in the All Party meeting organised by the Ministry of Agriculture on 29 Oct '02. Comrades BB Pandey and Sanjay Sharma attended the meeting) CPI(ML) holds that the impact of WTO on our agriculture has been awesome for our peasantry. The crisis it has brought to our agriculture is not only cruelly manifested in starvation deaths in backward states like Orissa, but also in suicides by peasants in relatively prosperous "green revolution" states of Punjab, Maharashtra and Karnataka. The rosy pictures painted by the apologists of reform process and the supporters of the international discipline on agriculture that emerged out of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations have remained in the imaginary world of statistical projections of the hired researchers of WTO and their counterparts in our country. The agricultural exports from USA and EU continued to be heavily subsidized, driving down the international prices of agricultural commodities. But instead of pressurising the WTO regime to correct the aspects negative for developing countries like ours, the government has come up with a National Agricultural Policy that is a supine surrender to the WTO sponsored strategy of integration of Indian agriculture with the global market. (i) The emerging discipline of WTO on Agriculture is designed in the interest of temperate zone countries where large-scale, export-oriented, mechanised agriculture prevails and where the contribution of agriculture to GDP is less than 5% and dependence of labour force on agriculture is less than 10%. Its main aim is to secure wide , unhindered and growing access for their agricultural exports in markets of large countries like China, India, Japan. Such a discipline is ab initio inappropriate and harmful for Indian Agriculture which contributes close to 30%of GDP and on which 66% of Indian Labour force depends for subsistence. (ii) The so-called discipline on subsidies is phoney in that it does not even scratch the surface of the mountains of such subsidies that are prevailing in EU and USA. Indeed the recent Farm Bill in USA has only further increased the level of subsidisation and rendered meaningless any talk of WTO agreement reducing subsidies. It is stupid to think of combating those subsidies by obtaining a right to subsidise our agriculture for the simple reason that we do not and cannot have the enormous resources required for the purpose. (iii) The moves for creating safe "boxes" for "Development" and "Food Security" are also not very reassuring because in the course of negotiations they will be ridden with so many conditionalities that their significance for purposes protecting Indian Agriculture from the ill-effects of integration with the world agriculture, will be severely limited. (iv) It is equally futile to pin our hopes on maintaining high levels of tariffs for the purpose of protecting our agriculture, as the forthcoming round of negotiations on agriculture will have "substantial reduction in tariff levels and biding tariffs to low levels" as its main objective. Our present levels of tariff are considered too high by world standards. There will be enormous pressure on us to reduce our tariffs. (v) The only effective course open to us is to insist upon retaining an unqualified and unrestricted right to impose quantitative restrictions on imports of agricultural products, without any prior consultation with WTO members, much less their approval . Such stance can not be dismissed as unpractical. For full fifty years, similar freedom was effectively enjoyed by both USA and EU who prevented emergence of any GATT-like discipline in agricultural trade when it did not suit their agriculture. We should not have any hesitation in asserting our right to impose quantitative restrictions on imports of agricultural imports to protect our agriculture from ravages of integration. Particularly so, as agriculture is for us the very essence of our existence. (vi) Last, but not least, our stand should be driven not by the mirage of mega-agricultural exports chased by a few multi-national companies and/or their collaborators, but by the requirements of the overwhelming community of small and marginal farmers engaged largely in subsistence farming on rain-fed lands and the mass of landless labourers. JOINT ANTI--WAR RALLY TO BE HELD IN DELHI ON NOVEMBER 14 Several Left and democratic parties and organisations have formed a 'Committee Against War on Iraq' after a joint meeting held in Delhi on Oct 26. The meeting was attended by Harkishan Singh Surjeet and Prakash Karat (CPI(M)), A. B. Bardhan and D. Raja (CPI), Dipankar Bhattacharya, PV Srinivas and Swapan Mukherjee (CPI(ML)), G. Devrajan (FB), former Prime Minister V. P. Singh, Salman Khursheed (Congress), Amar Singh (SP), Kunwar Danish Ali (JD-S), Dr. Jafarul Islam Khan (All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat, Prakash Louis (Indian Social Institute), Seema Mustafa (Journalist) and many others. Representatives from trade unions and student-youth and women organisations were also present in the meeting. It was decided to mobilise all sections of the Indian people to demand 'No War On Iraq'. As the first step in this campaign, there will be a big protest demonstration opposing the US war on Iraq in New Delhi on 14 Nov. The meeting observed, "the US Government is taking serious steps to launch a military attack on Iraq in flagrant violation of all international laws. The United States has arrogated to itself the right to decide who should govern Iraq. The talk of 'regime change' in Iraq is a threat to the sovereignty of all countries. The war will lead to massive destruction and loss of lives. The Vajpayee govt. is not taking a firm position opposing the war moves of the US." Speaking at the meeting CPI(ML) General Secretary Com. Dipankar Bhattacharya said, "The world is witnessing a series of anti-war mass-protests. But, unfortunately, India has been out of this mainstream. In this context although this anti-war initiative is a belated one, but we can make it up by mobilising thousands of people in large protests in India." The meeting adopted a statement which strongly opposes the US plans for war and expressed solidarity with Iraq. DEMONSTRATIONS WORLDWIDE AGANST US WAR PLANS Demonstrations and protests against the US preparations for war on Iraq took place on October 26 in Italy, Denmark, Belgium, Mexico, Switzerland, Australia and Japan. While in Germany, despite stormy weather conditions, an estimated ten thousand people took to the streets of Berlin. Demonstrations also drew several thousand participants in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Stuttgart. The protests were coordinated to coincide with demonstrations taking place in many cities across America. In US, in the biggest anti-war demonstrations since the Vietnam War, hundreds of thousands of people on October 26 took to the streets across the country announcing, with a massive visible and vocal presence, the creation of a new anti-war movement to stop George W. Bush's plans to wage war against Iraq. The demonstrators included a vast number of people compelled to action because they were frustrated and angered when the US Congress failed to listen to the people's opposition to a war on Iraq. More than 200,000 people marched in the streets of Washington, D.C. and over 100,000 in San Francisco in addition to tens of thousands in other cities around the country and revealed the mass's anti-war opinion that exists as a majority sentiment. The October 26 demonstrations launched another major step in mass action against the war -- the grassroots People's Anti-War Referendum and a mass national 2-day mobilization on the weekend of January 18-19 in Washington, DC, timed to coincide with the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the 12th anniversary of the start of the 1991 Gulf War. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN BRAZIL SHOWS A DECISIVE SHIFT TO LEFT Luiz Inacio Lula a Silva, a former factory worker and union chief, rode a huge wave of support to win Brazil's presidential election, putting a leftist at the helm of Latin America's troubled largest economy with 170 million population in a country with vast agricultural and mineral resources with a landmass larger than the United States. During the campaign, Lula attacked the free-market reforms of out going President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, whose administration privatised many of its giant monopolies and lowered import taxes, but failed to improve the lot of millions of Brazilians. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez praised his vistory saying "we are going to form the 'axis of evil.' But no, it is the axis of good, of peoples,". Cuba's Fidel Castro has also welcomed his victory. In the context of all of Latin America this is a historic event on par with the coming of Salvador Allende to power democratically in Chile four decades ago. The impact of this leftward shift will not going to be confined to Brazil alone. The CPI(ML) has sent its message to congratulate the Workers' Party (PT) of Brazil on this historic success at the Presidential election. It has said "all of us in the Indian communist and working class movement, and especially in our Party, CPI(ML), are greatly inspired by this massive victory. We hope this marks the beginning of a new era of advance for the Left and other anti-imperialist forces not only in Brazil but all over the Latin America and the Third World. ___________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cpiml.org ______________________________________ _____ _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
