JHARKHAND
Following the police attack on Party’s district conference in Garhwa, CPI(ML) initiated a campaign against police terror with the slogan “Bhatia (the notorious SP of Garhwa) hatao, Garhwa bachao!”. In the course of the campaign the administration and the police were forced to take a defensive posture, but they continued repression and harassment in a planned way.
In many places the police took direct initiative to wash out our prominent wall writings against police terror. On August 27, 2001, the police arrested Ganesh Baitha, a Party District Committee member at Putur village under Dhurki block. When local women activists attempted to resist the police party by encircling it, they were dispersed by means of blank firing. On August 28, hundreds of people organized road roko at Dhurki-Nagar Road and 300 people staged a demonstration in front of the SDO office protesting illegal arrest of Com. Ganesh. Under people’s pressure the police was forced to release him on bail.
On August 30, when people in various parts of Garhwa district were preparing to march to Garhwa to participate in a massive rally against police terror, they were attacked by the police at Dhurki block. The police prevented at least 13 vehicles carrying more than 1,000 people, beat up the drivers and smashed the windscreens. People then staged a sit-in demonstration there, but they were brutally lathicharged.
Despite all this terror and continuous rain, however, more than 2,500 people armed with traditional weapons and red flags reached Garhwa and joined the militant march there. The procession turned into a mass meeting, addressed by Party leaders Comrades Akhilendra Pratap Singh, Mahendra Prasad Singh and others.
This success made the Garhwa police more desperate. On September 7, forces from Durki, Nagar and Meral police stations organized a joint raid in Bulka village under Meral block around 1 a.m. to arrest Com. Tahir Ansari, a popular mass leader. The police continued the operation for 4 hours and harassed all the villagers like mad dogs. But instead of getting terrorized, even in the thick of night more than 700 people came to the streets in protest, and when police arrested 4 persons including Com. Tahir, agitated villagers encircled the police and snatched three of them.
-- DP Buxi
On the night of 24 August, CPI(M) sponsored assassins murdered Com. Jagannath Mandal, the Kalna Block Secretary of CPI(ML) in Burdwan District of West Bengal, as he was returning home on his motorcycle on that fateful night. The next morning, Jagannath’s blood-stained bike was found on the road near his house. The efforts of hundreds of people assembled there to search out the body proved futile. The police came, and to everybody’s surprise, the body was found out in no time buried vertically at the bank of the rivulet Behula about half a kilometre away from his house. The connivance between police and the perpetrators of the crime was thus quite evident. An FIR was lodged naming seven CPI(M) elements.
On 26th August a funeral procession was taken out, with Jagannath’s body in a hearse. It was led by district and state leaders of the Party. The procession marched for four hours around Kalna town and covered about ten kilometres. A popular leader of the area that he was, people from nearby as well as far-away villages thronged to pay their homage to the slain leader. In protest against the murder, the CPI(ML) called Kalna Bandh on 27 August which turned out to be a total success. Bandh was also observed in the neighbouring town of Nabadwip in Nadia district, and protest programmes were held all over the State.
On 3rd September, more than 500 people staged a militant demonstration at the Kalna police station after marching through the streets of Kalna town. The demonstration was led by State Secretary Com. Kartik Pal along with other Central and State leaders. Representatives from other left and CR organisations like SUCI, COI(ML), CCR also participated in the demonstration. A seven member delegation led by Com. Kartik Pal met the Circle Inspector and the OC of Kalna and charged them of inaction in arresting the culprits. The CI admitted having evidence regarding CPI(M) member of Kalnaghat Panchayat, Basudeb Mal’s involvement in the murder, and also that the money required for the operation was supplied by Arindam Pal, an accused in the FIR. The CPI(M) still continues with its politics of terror, and CPI(M) minister Anju Kar and her husband Harish Kar, a CPI(M) leader, have reportedly instructed their cadres to intimidate CPI(ML) activists and even resort to physical attack.
Being disillusioned with CPI(M)’s political degeneration, and also in reaction to its patronage to vested interests and all pervading corruption, CPI(M) cadres began leaving the party and joining the CPI(ML) from the beginning of the 1990s. The ruling party’s first reaction in Burdwan district was the Karanda massacre in Memari block (1993). Undaunted and rebellious, Com. Abdul Halim and Com. Jagannath, among others, deserted the Kalna CPI(M) organisation and crossed over to CPI(ML) and built up the party’s organisation there. But instead of dealing with them politically, all that the CPI(M) could do was to take recourse to terror and physical annihilation. Com. Halim was brutally murdered inside Kalna hospital on 28th March 1994, at the behest of local CPI(M) boss Harish Kar. And now it was the turn of Com. Jagannath.
Instead of condemning such heinous acts and asking their party men to refrain from murdering left activists, the CPI(M) state bosses are fuelling their cadres’ passion for physical violence. Ganashakti, the CPI(M) daily, reported “Naxalite activist Jagannath Mandal had to pay dearly for his hobnobbing with BJP. On Friday night he was murdered at Tamsapur village at Kalna at the hands of his own partymen.” This is how the CPI(M) organ engages itself in spreading canards and maligning leaders whose left credentials could not be questioned.
In September issue of Liberation we had reported about the Left Front Government’s decision to evict the poor people residing along Tolly’s Nullah (a sewage canal) and the people’s resistance against the eviction attempts. Meanwhile the government has further gone ahead and ‘steeled’ its determination in executing its eviction agenda and 22nd September has been fixed as the demolition dateline. The question of rehabiltation has been put on the backburner, and as a mark of their ‘love’ for the poor the govt. has increased its eviction transport cost per family by a ridiculous sum of Rs. 500, which now stands at Rs. 2000 in place of the earlier determined sum of Rs. 1500. But the residents have refused it, and they are insisting on rehabiltation. Along with the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) Chairman Subrata Mukherjee of Trinamool Congress (TMC), the man enthusiastically leading the demolition operation is CPI(M) minister for urban development, Mr. Ashoke Bhattacharya.
The CPI(M)’s anti-poor thrust has become so manifest, it has become so eneamoured of the Asian Development Bank gospel that it does not hesitate to readily brush aside even the opinion of other Left Front partners. The RSP, the CPI and the Forward Bloc have openly opposed the eviction drive without rehabiltation as anti-poor measures. As we go to the press, Trinamool chief Miss Mamata Banerjee has declared her opposition to the eviction attempts, even though her lieutenant at the CMC, Mayor Subrata Mukherjee is hand in glove with the goverment in carrying out the demolition. The government has deployed RAF and increased the strength of the concerned police stations with reinforcements. The affected people uneder the leadership of Anti-eviction Jukta Morcha are however not ready to succumb to the gorvernment’s threat and have prepared themselves to put up a powerful resistance. The morcha had undertaken several programmes which included agitation at different places at KolKata on 12th September, burning the effigies of urban development minister and the mayor of CMC, and two-day relay hunger-strike at the Garia bus stand in South Kolkata on 14th and 15th September, and a padayatra from Garia station to Kudghat on 15th September. On 19th September a relay hunger-strike was observed at Rashbehari Avenue and on 20th September a series of processions covered the whole length of Tolly’s Nullah running to 18 KM. A seven-member delegation led by, among others, convenor Arijit Mitra and Prabir Das, Shaktiman Ghosh, SUCI MLA Debaprasad Sarkar met urban development minister Mr. Ashoke Bhattacharya and urged him not to proceed with the eviction operation. They also cautioned the minister that people will not let go their eviction attempts unresisted, and in case there is bloodshed the government will have to bear the full responsibility.
— Partha Ghosh
uttar pradesh
The adivasi-vanvasi community under the leadership of CPI(ML) held a convention at Ramlila Maidan, Madhupur of Mirzapur on 28 August, 2001. It was participated in by the adivasis and vanvasis from Mirzapur, Sonebhadra, Chandauli, Ghazipur, Allahabad, Banda and Varanasi districts. They belonged to Kol, Chero, Kharwar, Panika, Gond, Anjhi tribes and Mushahars (vanvasis) residing in this area. Inaugurating the conference Comrade Akhilendra Pratap Singh, State Party Secretary said that it amounts to a criminal act on the part of the government to expel adivasi-vanvasi community residing in this area from the 9th schedule of the Constitution. The Constitution must be amended and the UP Govt. should award scheduled tribe status to these tribes and Mushahars.
Com. Akhilendra said that there is no sense of social justice behind the govt. move to grant reservation to most backward and most dalit castes. He also criticized the new formula, which was implemented through Governor’s ordinance and subsequently approved in the assembly, whereby the quota for the tribal people, who are on the lowest rung of our society, has been halved from 2% to 1% on the flimsy ground that the proportion of their population has reduced because of formation of Uttraranchal. He said that CPI(ML) does not accept any such division among dalits. The new formula, dividing Scheduled Caste reservation into two categories, singling-out the most numerous toiling community namely Chamars and Jatavs, is blatantly unjust. However, he said that most backward castes should get the benefits of reservation. He also demanded a separate quota for backward Muslims. Emphasising that the most deprived section of the society is adivasi-vanvasi community, he demanded a special package for the community in this area along with scheduled tribe status to them. Criticizing BSP and SP Com. Akhilendra said that Rajnath Singh is able to cash this reservation card only because SP and BSP did not pay any attention to this problem during their tenure. They are also silent while Dalits and adivasis are being killed in the state. Com. Akhilendra said that people will oppose police repression at all levels and capture arable land in the forests. A powerful movement against false encounter, cancellation of debt and payment of arrears of Tendu leaves will be launched. The convention was presided over by adivasi leader Ramkrit Kol and conducted by Rajendra Vanvasi of Vanvasi Vikas Parishad. It was addressed by Party leaders Yashwant Singh, Sudhakar Yadav, Dinkar Kapoor, Prashant Shukla, RYA state president Md. Salim, and several human rights activists.
In the first week of September, when a Party fact-finding team consisting of Party State Committee member Sudhakar Yadav and Naugarh Block Pramukh Basmati Kol was visiting Laubari Kalan village of Naugarh block in Chandauli district, it was attacked by police. The team had gone there to investigate the killing of three villagers on 1 September in the village. Against this repressive act, a powerful protest march was organised on 7 September at Chakia of Chandauli district, which was led by Com. Akhilendra Pratap Singh. The protest march was attended by over 2,000 villagers from the area.
To oppose the reign of terror created by Rajnath Singh Govt. in this adivasi-dominated area of Naugarh in Chanduli district, where encounter killings have increased alarmingly, a week-long padyatra was started on 12 September under the leadership of Com. Akhilendra Pratap Singh to demand democracy, development and peace. It started after a mass meeting at Gangapur village near Naugarh. A team of 50 leaders, activists and supporters visited different villages and held meetings there. The padyatra drew encouraging response from the people and on 19 September it culminated in a mammath rally in Naugarh. Daring the prohibitory orders clamped by the administration, around five thousand people, mostly agrarian labourers and poor peasants, took out a militant march and a mass meeting was held. The procession was led by Comrade Sudhakar Yadav and RYA State President Comrade Md. Salim.
-- Dinkar Kapoor and Lal Bahadur Singh
In the month of August, just within a week two villages of Dhanarua block in Patna district, Mataurha and Datmai, witnessed ghastly killing of dalits by dreaded Jaynandan Yadav gang. On 16 August 8 poor dalit villagers of Mataurha were killed. Then, a few days before Party’s 6th State Conference, the killer gang struck again in Datmai village on 22 August and killed 6 dalits including three women and two children. The Party sent an investigation team to Datmai, which revealed that the same Jaynandan gang, now patronised by RJD, was behind the killing. A protest meeting was held at Datmai on 24 August, addressed by Party Polit Bureau member Comrade Ram Naresh Ram, who urged the villagers to rise in self-defence and cast away the illusion that police or para-military forces can save them. He appealed to them to demand weapons from the state for this purpose.
This Jaynandan was earlier a ‘commander’ of PWG. As generally happens with such gun-in-command roving rebel groups, he degenerated and a clash of narrow interests made him enemy of other PWG commanders. Jaynandan soon got closer to a RJD minister Surendra Yadav of Jahanabad. It is a known fact in Bihar that at grassroots many PWG and MCC ‘commanders’ are patronised by RJD politicians. Under RJD backing, he attacked erstwhile PWG bases, killing dalits there. However, no effective resistance was offered because with PWG type politics, masses solely rely on squads for retribution, and squads flee whenever there is a threat of attacks by murderous gangs.
As decided in the Bihar State Conference, Party launched a week-long people’s campaign to protest killings of dalits from 6 to 13 September. Under this campaign dozens of teams were formed in Gaya, Patna, Jahanabad and Nalanda districts and a mass contact programme was launched. A team led by Com. Rameshwar Prasad and Vidyanand Vikal visited around 25 villages in Dhanarua block. Three other teams contacted in 50 villages in the Dhanarua-Masaurhi area. Similarly, In Jahanabad, more than 70 villages were contacted in various blocks.
All this helped restoring people’s faith on the strength of mass movement and in the concluding phase of the campaign, around 8,000 people participated in Masaurhi March on 14 September which originated from Datmai and Mataurha. The mass meeting held in Gandhi Maidan, Masaurhi, was addressed by Com. Dipankar who said that the time has come when the killers will be crushed under the rock of unity of the people, however mighty their patrons may seem to be. Accusing RJD Govt. for patronising criminals Com. Dipankar said that poor dalits were killed by Jaynandan gang at the instance of Laloo Yadav and his minister, because on the one hand they wanted to suppress the assertion of dalits and on the other to create a rift between backwards and struggling dalits. He also criticised the state govt. for not introducing the system of reservation in panchayat elections.
The meeting was presided over by peasant leader Com. Shivpujan Yadav and addressed by among others Com. Ramjatan Sharma, Nand Kishor Prasad, KD Yadav, Rameshwar Prasad, Kunti Devi, Shashi Yadav, Vidyanand Vikal. Resolutions read out by Com. Gopal Ravidas were passed by the gathering with thunderous applause. It has been decided to stage a dharna before the Assembly on 25 September against massacre of dalits.