August 2005

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Liberation Index 2005
Liberation Index



Publications
Vinod Mishra: Selected Writings
Thirty Years of Naxalbari

August 2005

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Editorial

The Crisis in the Sangh Parivar and Tasks of the Left

few could have expected the BJP and the Sangh Parivar to be ensnared in such an acute and protracted internal crisis so soon after being ousted from power. For the best part of its post-defeat period, the Parivar has been busy holding introspection sessions and battling ideological confusion and organisational dissidence. The authority of the BJP leadership has been completely eroded. Even a leader of Advani’s stature has to survive on a daily dole of approval from the RSS. The contagion of the Sangh’s crisis has also spread to the BJP’s closest ideological partner, the Shiv Sena, which continues to suffer a succession of desertions and splits....Full text

Commentary

Bush-Manmohan’s ‘NSSP’: National Sovereignty in for a Suicidal Pact?

f one examines aspects of the Indo-US ‘Next Steps in Strategic Partnership (NSSP)’ - the 10-year Defence Framework signed by Pranab Mukherjee, speeches of leaders during PM Manmohan Singh’s visit to the US - all have invoked the rhetoric of ‘natural partnership’ and ‘shared concerns’ between the ‘two democracies’... . Full text

Imranas and Anjalis: Miles to Go Before You Sleep

Raped by father-in-law, served ‘talaq’ against the will of husband under the shadow of fundamentalist fatwas, forsaken by the ‘secular’ state – with the Chief Minister of UP endorsing the injustice meted out to her and the Union government shifting all responsibility to the State government – the hapless mother of Muzaffarnagar is not alone. Supporting her cause are any number of women’s organisations and other progressive forces.. . Full text

What is in a name?

In July 2004, the rape and murder of Thangjam Manorama Devi by Army men sparked off a huge mass movement in Manipur against the draconian AFSPA. One year later, have Manorama and the people of the North East got justice?. . Full text

World Bank Comes to Bihar

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THE SEEDS BILL 2004: The Seeds of Our Destruction?

The new Seeds Bill 2004, soon proposed to become an Act, has to be seen in the wider context of imperialism’s increasing control over agriculture, over all inputs, over food security and the very sovereignty of nations. In India , both NDA and UPA forces, and the ruling elite they represent, are hand-in-glove with imperialist designs....Full text

Petrol Price Hike: Domestic Policies Responsible, Not the International Market

... Now, there is no doubt that there has been a continuous trend of steep rise in crude oil prices in the international market, and because we import more than 70% of our needs, a pressure was being mounted for a hike in the domestic market. But this is only an excuse ... Full text

CPI(M)’s ‘Regulatory’ Guidelines for 'Engagement with World Realities'

IN April this year, while the Political and Organizational Report (POR) was being debated in the 18 th Congress of the CPI(M), the discussions on Part-II of the Report, dealing with certain crucial policy issues, remained unresolved and had to be shelved for the time being purportedly to avoid bitter division in the Congress.... Full text

Left Front Government’s‘PSU Restructuring’ Campaign and DFID’s Sinister Design

Here we place before you an abridged version of an article by Subhashis Gupta , published in Sangrami Hatiyar, the monthly organ of CPI(M)-led Co-Ordination Committee of State Government Employees, in June, 2005. The caption is ours. The article deals with the sinister role of the British financial institution DFID in designing and implementing the process of public sector restructuring in Indian states including West Bengal . Citing the disastrous consequences of the DFID-designed restructuring in Andhra Pradesh, Mr. Gupta questions the collusive silence of the Left Front Government of West Bengal regarding the conditionalities and consequences associated with the process. ... Full text

Campaign

Down with the UPA Government’s Anti-Poor and Pro-Imperialist Policies!

Unite and Fight for Livelihood, Employment, Democracy and National Dignity!

As we approach the 58 th anniversary of India ’s Independence , look around us. We are a free people supposedly exercising our free and democratic choice. But what choice do the bulk of our people have? Masses of agrarian poor can choose between the many faces of death – they may die of hunger, commit suicide out of desperate unemployment, or be shot for demanding water. In Independent India, the deep colonial scars of famine, exploitation and repression are yet to heal.. . Full text

Special Feature

Revisiting History

Colonialism’s ‘Human Face’?

Manmohan Singh didn’t get carried away with emotion in his speech at his alma mater –his views on the legacy of British Rule were not for the benefit of the British audience alone. Addressing the District Collector’s Conference in Delhi in May this year, he was even more glowing in his praise; he declared that the British Empire was ‘an act of enterprise, adventure, creativity’. What makes it possible for an Indian Prime Minister to turn the infamy of two centuries of colonial exploitation and brutal domination into a feat of ‘adventure and enterprise’? ... Full text

Tracing the Path to Partition

If Jinnah‘s ghost still haunts the RSS, more than half a century after his demise, and a debate on partition sparks off the most serious internal crisis of the Sangh‘s history, then it is the surest proof that its Achilles’ heel lies here, in the Two Nation Theory - the forced subjugation of the ‘minority’ nation to the ‘majority’ nation, within or without India. Whatever Advani said in Karachi and howsoever fiercely the Sangh fights to project itself as the most diehard opponent of partition, the fact remains that the Sangh and the Hindu Maha Sabha put whatever skill and resources they had at their command to plunge the country into a communal holocaust, thus pushing the country towards partition. ... Full text

Guest Column

An Unconscionable Judgement

The problem of illegal migrants into India , particularly from Bangladesh has been a longstanding and vexed political and legal one, especially since 1971 when there was a large scale influx of Bangladeshi refugees into India . However, a large number of Bangladeshis continued to enter India even after 1971 in search of jobs, through a long and porous border.. . Full text

Update

New Possibilities of Peasant Awakening in Punjab

Punjab witnessed a remarkable agitation of the debt-trapped peasantry and labourers in the month of June (initial reports have already appeared in the July issue of Liberation). It all started on 2 June when some peasants were beaten up at Tapa Mandi (a grain market at Barnala Tehsil in Sangrur district) by the local police and henchmen of the grain merchants. These peasants were protesting usurious extortion by ‘commission agents’ (a euphemism for money-lending middlemen who lend money at exorbitant interest rates hovering around 50% per annum or 4-5% every month) – in this case a farmer was being pestered for shelling out more even after he had repaid Rs. 1,50,000 as per a settlement mediated by the local DSP. . . . Full text

The Upsurge of Jadavpur University

The university of Jadavpur, for at least a hundred years or so, has been the hot bed of consciousness, and now again students created a “festival of protest and upsurge” on the campus, which spilled over onto the streets of Kolkata. . Full text

Investigation

Food For Work: No Jobs – All-Out Loot

T o dilute the Employment Guarantee Scheme, the Central Government has launched a National Food For Work Scheme in 150 backward districts, providing work for agrarian labour and rural poor at the local level. This time, it is claimed to be a dress rehearsal for the EGA. Among the 15 Bihar districts selected under this scheme, three are from the Darbhanga Commissionary – Darbhanga, Madhubani and Samastipur. Let us take a look at how the FFW scheme works here. . . Full text

International

Britain : The Road to 7/7

The blasts in London have brought a new urgency into the debates on the linkages between the ‘War on Terror’, imperialism and terrorism, and has fuelled concerns about a racist backlash on British Muslims. Kalpana Wilson , writing from London , discusses the bombing and its fallout.

London , July 22 : It is now just over two weeks since the four bomb blasts which rocked central London – three in crowded rush-hour underground trains, one probably intended for the underground too, exploding prematurely on the top deck of a No. 30 bus. The death toll has now risen to at least 55, with those identified a typical cross-section of working Londoners with their origins in every continent. ...Full text

Struggle

350,000 Tea Workers on a War Path in North Bengal

Three and a half lakh tea garden workers from the Darjeeling hills, the Terai and Dooars areas of North Bengal are on an indefinite strike against their bosses from 11 July. Over a 1000 small estates and 310 large ones are involved in the strike.. Full text

Municipal Transport Workers’ Movement in Pune

The Pune Municipal Transport workers were justifiably agitated. Wage revision was due since 1997, and had finally been settled in 2003; however the agreed arrears were yet to be paid.. Full text

Trade Unions Call For Struggle Against UPA’s Anti-People, Anti-Worker Policies!

On July 9, a range of Trade Unions held a National Convention at Mavalankar Auditorium in Delhi , to chalk out a plan of action against the UPA’s offensive against the working class and common people. The Convention adopted the following Declaration: .. Full text

Obituary