anti-caste

“NOT GUILTY”: ALL 26 ACCUSED IN 1997 LAXMANPUR-BATHE MASSACRE OF 58 UNTOUCHABLE MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN BY UPPER-CASTE, LANDLORD MILITIA ARE ACQUITTED

After acquittals, fear haunts Dalit hamlet (The Hindu)

“‘They are free and we are trapped,’ says a resident, as many villagers share her fear that they may be targeted again

Sunaina Devi, who lost seven family members in the massacre

“On Wednesday night, Baudh Paswan kept tossing and turning in bed, his appetite and sleep gone.

“‘I feel they will come back again,’ he murmured. As they did on the night of December 1, 1997 and began a killing spree. Armed with firearms and swords, members of the Ranvir Sena, militia of the Bhumihar landlords, slaughtered 58 Dalits, including 27 women and 16 children.

“On Wednesday, the Patna High Court acquitted all the 26 accused, setting aside the lower court’s verdict that awarded the death sentence to 16 and life imprisonment to the other 10.

“‘I do not have the strength to fight anymore. After 58 murders, no one is guilty. The courts are theirs, the government is theirs, the lathi [the baton of power] is theirs. The poor have nothing. This is injustice,’ Paswan said, hobbling around on his walking stick. He lost seven of his family members. Some more died later, of grief.

“The sense of victory felt by the Dalit hamlet after the conviction by the trial court has vanished. Now there lurks a threat. Will the doors be broken open again? Will the houses be invaded?

“Haunted by this fear, Sunaina Devi breaks down. ‘Jiska ghar me itna parivar mara hai vo kaise himmat rakhega? [How will the family that has lost so many members find strength?] So many were killed and nothing happened. Now, they [the upper caste] are threatening us, saying they would barge into our houses and beat us with sticks as nothing has happened to them. Since yesterday, sweets have been distributed in the upper caste quarters and firecrackers have gone off. The High Court let them off and left us trapped. We have lost all hope.’

“House after house shares her unease. ‘The whole country knows who killed those 58 people. Only the courts don’t know,’ said Pramila Devi, who lost three women relatives. ‘Last night, they staged celebrations. They are free now. But we have to think whether we will survive.’

“Laxmanpur Bathe is 100 km from Patna, on the banks of the Sone. As in any other village, there are upper caste quarters of Rajputs and Bhumihars and the Dalit hamlet comprising the lower castes of Mallah, Paswan, Ravidas and Rajvanshi. After the massacre, the hamlet got pucca brick houses from the government. But some of the mud huts with broken doors still stand, testifying to the violence.

“Laxman Rajvanshi is a survivor and eyewitness who testified in court. “Give us justice or drown us,” he said.

“Asked about the High Court’s observation that witnesses were unreliable, he said: ‘How could I not have recognised them? We stay in the same village and I see them about 10 times a day! We worked on their fields. We had no inkling of this attack, otherwise we would have been alert. The Nitish Kumar government is hand in glove with the feudal elements. He slotted us into the Mahadalit category, collected our votes and then cut our throats.’

Another eyewitness, Ram Ugraharajbanshi, said the assailants divided themselves into two groups. One was a killing squad of 35 persons and the other, of 80 men, stood guard. ‘The armed men had their mouths covered with handkerchiefs. But, of course, we were familiar with their voices.’

“The massacre was one in a series of brutal caste killings that marked the 1990s in Bihar.

“In the backdrop of a peasant struggle, the late Brahmeshwar Singh Mukhiya rallied the land-owning Bhumihars under the banner of Ranvir Sena.

“Violent and brutal confrontations between the Sena and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) were the order of the day.”

See also:

Getting away with murder (Frontline, October 30, 2013):

“Bathe is an archetypal village in central Bihar. The upper-caste tola (in this case, a mix of Bhumihars and Rajputs) is visibly affluent with pucca streets and spacious houses. The residents are from the landed class. Agriculture is their main occupation. The other tola in the village is about 100 metres away and is home to Dalits and other backward classes (OBCs). Except for agricultural work, there is absolutely no interaction between the two tolas. Surrounded by agricultural fields on three sides and with the Sone river on the fourth, Bathe presents itself as an idyllic village, far from the noise and pollution of the city. Beneath the surface, however, tensions simmer between the upper castes and the backward castes.

“The Dalits are mostly agricultural workers. Until a few years ago, they were not allowed to sit in a khatiya (cot) even in their own homes and were forced to follow a feudal code of conduct. They could not wear new clothes, smoke cigarettes, ride bicycles or dare to talk with their heads held high. The landlords determined the wages and generally doled out minuscule sums. They seized Gairmazarua land (panchayat land in a village for development activities and Dalit and OBC welfare), illegally, to prevent Dalits and OBCs from using it. Whenever Dalits protested, their women got raped and men got beaten or killed. A landlord who put his labourers under ‘house arrest’ and withheld their wages but refrained from killing them was considered benevolent. The landlords, in effect, had a complete grip over the village economy.

“This was the kind of backdrop that in the late 1970s saw the emergence of naxalite outfits in central Bihar—mainly the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC), the Party Unity (PU) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist-Liberation). These organisations took up the issues of wage and dignity of the Dalits and OBCs. Agricultural labourers rallied behind these parties and gathered strength from their ideologies. For the first time, a few parties organised Dalits and OBCs against the age-old and violent feudal structure perpetuated by the upper castes. The MCC and the PU were underground outfits, while CPI (ML-Liberation) contested elections for ‘tactical reasons’. When the massacre took place, Laxmanpur Bathe was a stronghold of the PU, which operated through its front organisation, the Mazdoor Kisan Sangram Samiti (MKSS). Under the MKSS’ leadership, agricultural labourers of Bathe were fighting for a decent minimum wage, a dignified life, and their right to Gairmazarua land. Similar struggles were led by the CPI (ML- Liberation) in Bhojpur and the MCC in Gaya. In 2004, the MCC and the PU merged into the Communist Party of India (Maoist), and at present this outfit operates mostly from Jharkhand. It has lost much of its cadre base in central Bihar.

“In response to the naxalite challenge, many private militias of the landed and dominant castes mushroomed in Bihar through the 1980s. A series of massacres happened in central Bihar, in which these armies specifically targeted Dalit tolas and killed hundreds of people. Many private armies consolidated themselves in the early 1990s and a bigger, well-structured militia emerged. It was called the Ranveer Sena and was led by members of the Bhumihar caste. [...]

“From 1995 to 2000, the Ranveer Sena perpetrated 29 massacres, in which 287 people were killed, according to official records. With time, it expanded its operations beyond Bhojpur to other parts of central Bihar. In many cases, the police allegedly helped the Ranveer Sena to kill communist cadre. The naxalite parties retaliated forcefully in eight instances, but most of these were targeted killings unlike the indiscriminate massacres perpetrated by the Ranveer Sena. The only exception was the 1999 Senari massacre, in which the MCC killed 34 people from the Bhumihar caste. [...]

“The Bathe judgment is the third in a series of acquittals by the Patna High Court. In April 2012, the court set aside a lower court judgment and acquitted all the 23 accused in the Bathani Tola massacre case. Three had been sentenced to death and 20 to life imprisonment by the lower court. In July 2012, 19 of the 20 accused were released by the High Court in the Miyapur massacre case. On March 1, 2013, all the 11 accused were acquitted by the court after they appealed against the lower court decision that sentenced three to death and eight to life imprisonment in the Nagari Bazaar massacre. In two other cases, the Narayanpur and Sendani massacres, the lower court acquitted all the accused in the last two years. In the Senari massacre case, in which the MCC was involved, all the accused were pronounced guilty by the High Court.

“In all the cases against the Ranveer Sena, the High Court found the prosecution witnesses ‘unreliable’ and gave a lot of credence to the argument put forward by the defence lawyer that the first information reports (FIRs) were lodged a few hours after the massacre. It interpreted the ‘delay’ as an indication that it was possibly politically motivated. Critics say that the judgments point to the dual nature of the judiciary: it chose to acquit the accused in all the cases where landlords were implicated and punished the accused in cases where agricultural workers were the accused.”

Parvati Devi, who lost nine members of her family
in the Laxmanpur Bathe massacre.

And see:

Bloodthirsty Justice: Laxmanpur Bathe. Bathani Tola. Mianpur. Nagri Bazar. Haibaspur. Shankar Bigha. by Sumati (Newsyaps (via Sanhati), October 27, 2013)

And see on anti-caste:

FINAL VERDICT IN BATHANI TOLA MASSACRE CASE (April 17, 2012)

and

THE “BUTCHER OF BIHAR”–LEADER OF UPPERCASTE LANDLORDS IN CLASS WAR AGAINST THE LANDLESS, ORGANIZER OF DEATH SQUADS THAT TARGETED HUNDREDS OF IMPOVERISHED, UNTOUCHABLE MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN–DIES IN THE MANNER IN WHICH HE LIVED
(June 2, 2012)

MAHENDRA KARMA–CONGRESS-PARTY LEADER WHO ORGANIZED DEATH SQUADS AGAINST IMPOVERISHED TRIBALS AND LEFTIST FIGHTERS–IS TARGETED FOR DEATH HIMSELF

Chhattisgarh: Salwa Judum Founder Among Many Killed in Maoist Attack (Outlook India)

“At least 17 people, including senior Congress leader Mahendra Karma, were killed and former union minister V C Shukla and 19 others injured when heavily-armed Maoists ambushed a convoy of party leaders inside a dense forest in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar district.

“Karma, a former home minister of the state, who was a guiding force behind ‘Salwa Judum’ (anti-Naxal operation by vigilante groups), was surrounded by about 100 to 150 Maoists who peppered his body with bullets.

“The Maoists also kidnapped PCC chief Nand Kumar Patel and his son Dinesh after attacking the convoy of Congress leaders in Darba Gati Valley near Jagdalpur, headquarters town of Bastar district, police said.”

See also:

Mahendra Karma and his cynical form of vigilantism by Sudeep Chakravarti (live mint/The Wall street Journal, May 28, 2013):

“Salwa Judum vigilantes destroyed homes, and stores of grain and any other food they had; killed dozens of men, women and children; maimed and—or—raped several. Children were forced to watch the death and dismemberment of parents. Pregnant women were disembowelled. The death and torture of those suspected of allying with Maoist rebels was instant. This intimidation, blessed by posses of state police and Union government paramilitaries who have their own record of blood, lust and war crimes in the region, at one point herded in excess of 50,000 tribal folk into little more than concentration camps across Dantewada district—since last year further split to create the additional districts of Bijapur and Sukma.

“To be fair to Karma, there was a method to his madness. Maoists had begun to infiltrate the Dantewada region as far back as the 1980s—it was then part of the vast Bastar district of the undivided Madhya Pradesh—to establish what would later enlarge into the rebel-influenced Dandakaranya zone. Landlords such as Karma, himself a child of a tribal landed family, increasingly began to see left-wing extremists, then spearheaded by the vanguard of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People’s War, as a threat. The perception was mutual.

“For the rebels, Karma and his ilk symbolized the class enemy—worse, a tribal who came from traditionally, socio-politically oppressed stock was the class enemy of fellow tribal folk. For Karma & Co., the stealthily and rapidly infiltrating rebels represented a threat in several ways. For one, at the barrel of the gun they could redistribute land to the landless. For another, they were a direct threat to the local practice of Malik Makbuja, the right of the Adivasi to cut trees on his own land that had been subverted to benefit middlemen and various vested interests.”

And see:

The war in Bastar (Frontline, June 29, 2013):

“The CPI (Maoist) has grown in strength in Bastar primarily because of three factors. One, it fought alongside the Adivasis against the local contractors and ensured that the contractors paid the Adivasis the minimum wages for tendu leaf (used for bidi manufacturing) collection, the main source of income for the Adivasis. It also helped people out of the exploitative Maalik-Makbuja bonded labour system in timber felling. Two, it organised people against the excesses of forest officials who took them for a ride. Three, through force, it distributed the lands of the malguzars (feudal lords) to landless Adivasis.

“Karma came from a feudal Manjhi family. He was one of the tribal landlords in the area who, like many other landed people, turned against the Maoists in the 1980s. Because of the land distribution process, initiated forcibly by the Maoists, Karma had always been working to form an alternative front that could fight the Maoists. Therefore, he developed strong associations with big businesses and feudal lords from across party lines. He supported land acquisition by the government, conducted Jan Jagaran campaigns against the Maoists, and advocated industrialisation and mining activities in Bastar. Because of such activities, many Congress leaders too were against him.

“In the early 2000s, he founded a group called Salwa Judum (Movement for Peace), ostensibly as a Gandhian movement. But it went on to appoint landed Adivasis as ‘special police officers’ (SPOs) and became a militant force. The State government used the Judum to its advantage as the SPOs helped the security forces in navigating the dense forests. Various civil rights groups strongly opposed the organisation. Many official and unofficial reports claimed that it displaced about 50,000 people from their villages and destroyed 650 villages in the area. Activists claim that constant plundering, torching of villages, rapes and killing of innocent Adivasis became a norm in Bastar. Salwa Judum was disbanded following a 2011 Supreme Court decision that declared the organisation ‘illegal and unconstitutional’.”

STATE POLICE LAUNCH TERROR ATTACK ON TRIBAL VILLAGES AS PART OF OPERATION GREEN HUNT

Chhattisgarh: Preliminary Report on the Fact Finding in Bijapur by Democratic Students’ Union (Sanhati)

“In the three weeks from mid-January till the first week of February, several villages in the Bijapur District of Chhattisgarh experienced the terror of the armed forces of the Indian state. The CRPF, Chhattisgarh state police, erstwhile SPO’s of the Salwa Judum along with various coercive arms of the state orchestrated a systematic targeting of villages, burnt down hundreds of homes, ostensibly in random, further, burnt down the schools built by the people, picked up villagers, young and old, and physically tortured them while their homes burned to the ground. The affected villages are Pidia, Tomnaka, Singham, Lingham, Komati, Tomudum, and Kondapadu, and in each of these between eight and thirty homes were burnt down by the armed forces. In the village of Dodi-Tumnar, a school with hostel facility for about a hundred children, both girls and boys, run by the Janatana Sarkar was looted and then burnt down by the invading forces in the last week of January. Two battalions of about 1000 CRPF personnel each, besides Koya commandos and SPO’s arrived at the village school at 9 am on that day. They systematically proceeded to destroy the school after firing into the air twice. Even as the students and the schoolmaster fled into the forest, the armed forces caught an old man on his way to the field and chopped off his hand with his own sickle. Following this, the forces looted the storeroom and the kitchen of the school, poisoned the water well, and destroyed the roof, walls, and furniture of the school before finally burning it to the ground. They then marched to the nearby village of Pidia. This village, that houses approximately 265 homes, witnessed first-hand the ruthlessness with which the armed force burn down the homes and livelihood of those who stand up for their right to life and liberty. Close to thirty homes were burnt down in one part of this village alone. The charred remains of the homes, cattle sheds, storerooms, utensils can be seen littered with empty bottles of beer and other brands of alcohol. It is clear that this planned attack is part of the routine of military life that participates in wanton destruction and celebrates the impunity they enjoy. [...]

“In the name of developing the country the Indian state officially launched a massive operation of plunder of natural resources in 2009 by displacing thousands of communities living in the states of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and parts of Bihar, West Bengal and Karnataka. This ‘operation’, ironically called Operation Green Hunt by the corporate run media, undertaken by the current Central Government, expropriates the wealth of the country that rightfully belongs to the people for the benefit of imperialist forces. This wealth, in the form of resources of land, water and forests, is sold to exploitative multinational companies and comprador bourgeoisie. In turn, the resistance of the people has been termed an ‘internal security threat’ by the current Prime Minister who expresses his loyalty to the model of ‘development’ that feeds these corporate sharks.”

See also:

OPERATION GREEN HUNT: INDIA’S DIRTY WAR ON TRIBALS AND LEFTISTS (anti-caste)

THE “BUTCHER OF BIHAR”–LEADER OF UPPERCASTE LANDLORDS IN CLASS WAR AGAINST THE LANDLESS, ORGANIZER OF DEATH SQUADS THAT TARGETED HUNDREDS OF IMPOVERISHED, UNTOUCHABLE MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN–DIES IN THE MANNER IN WHICH HE LIVED

India upper-caste militia leader Brahmeshwar Singh slain (Los Angeles Times)

“Brahmeshwar Singh, a wealthy landlord known as the ‘Butcher of Bihar,’ was killed in a hail of bullets Friday while taking his morning walk, ending a notorious chapter in Indian history.

“Singh, 67, the leader of a banned militia of upper-caste members known as Ranvir Sena, hit the headlines in the 1990s after he and fellow landlords were accused of the massacre of scores of lower-caste Dalits, or so-called untouchables, in central Bihar state. [...]

“The Sena, or ‘army,’ was formed in 1994 by landlords who felt threatened by the state's changing political winds, including louder calls for Dalit rights and land reform as well as a growing number of attacks on the wealthy by Maoists.

“Singh, who took over the group a few months after it was formed, was suspected of planning or directly participating in as many as 29 incidents in which more than 200 Dalits were killed. In 1996, 23 were killed in a village in Bhojpur district and in 1997 about 60 were slain in the state’s Lakshmanpur Bathe area.

“Little effort was made to hide the killings in Bihar, a state with a serious law-and-order problem and a centuries-old feudal structure that viewed landholders as a law unto themselves, analysts said.

“The attacks ‘were carried out openly during the day and at night,’ said Ajit Kumar Singh, a research fellow and Bihar native with New Delhi’s Institute for Conflict Management. ‘Sometimes victims were shot, sometimes butchered.’

“Singh went underground for several years after the group was banned, but he retained significant support among Bihar’s upper caste and would periodically hold high-profile news conferences.

“‘He became sort of a celebrity,’ said Sankarshan Thakur, an editor with the Telegraph newspaper and author of a book on Bihar's political system. ‘He knew how to work the system.’”

See also:

Butcher of Bihar: Brahmeshwar Singh alias ‘Mukhiya’ (Firstpost.com (India), June 1, 2012):

“The Ranvir Sena, loosely translated as the army of the brave, is suspected to have been formed around 1994 by landlords of the Bhumihar caste to battle growing Naxalite activism in the region and perhaps owes its creation to a fight between landlords and Communist party activists in which one person was killed.

“Singh, a graduate from the Jain College in Arra who was named village ‘mukhiya’ (headman) at age 17, and another landlord Dharicharan Chowdhury are credited with forming the militia and ensuring that their supporters were well equipped with weapons, provided allowances and other benefits.

“Competing with other militia like Sunlight Sena, Savarna Liberation Army, Brahmarishi Sena, Kuer Sena and Ganga Sena around the same time and which drew their cadre based on caste, the Ranvir Sena stood out with brutal massacres that catapulted them into the national consciousness.

“Horrific massacres like that of Baithani Tola in 1996 in which 21 were killed, mostly women and children; the 1997 Lakshmanpur-Bathe village massacre in which 58 were killed and the 1999 Shankarbigha village massacre in which 23 villagers were killed, ensured that the Ranvir Sena were feared and reviled.

“Promising to claim 15 lives of opponents for every murder of their own group, the Ranvir Sena were equipped with automatic guns and were dreaded for their night attacks in which they stormed villages and murdered perceived enemies. Despite being banned in 1995, the militia continued to go on rampages for years later and are accused of taking close to 277 lives.

“As the Ranvir Sena's clout grew, so did Singh’s status within his Khopira village in Bhojpur district and areas well beyond. The biggest landowner in his village owning 100 bighas of land, Singh was held in high esteem despite being on the run from the police who claimed to be seeking to arrest him in one of the 22 cases registered against him. Not all believe he was on the run as claimed thanks to his political links which were extensive.

“Proof of this was the fact that he continued to address meetings and was arrested only in 2002 while holding one such public meeting of a Ranvir Sena wing in a building located in a crowded area of Patna. Many believed his arrest took place as a result of the political cracks that emerged between the Ranvir Sena and the political parties that supported it.

“After his arrest, a defiant Singh told reporters, ‘I don’t have any remorse over the massacres carried out by the Ranvir Sena in its fight against Naxalite groups such as the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, or the CPI(ML) Liberation, the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) and the People's War (P.W.) and their supporters, particularly among the landless poor and the backward Dalit community.’”

And see:

Cast of Killers (Outlook India, June 18, 2012):

“Brahmeshwar Singh, alias Mukhiya, is said to have once publicly justified the killing of Dalit women and children. The self-styled chief of the Ranvir Sena, a private militia of upper caste landlords which unleashed terror in the 1990s killing fields of Bihar, was quoted as saying that Dalit children grew up to be Naxalites and the women give birth to them.”

And see further:

Ranvir Sena's reign to terror: Bloodshed between 1995-2002 (India Today, June 1, 2012):

1995 - Khopira (Bhojpur district): It was at the ancestral village of Ranvir Sena founder Brahmeshwar Singh, aka Mukhiyaji, that the outlawed militia of the upper caste landlords first struck, killing three scheduled caste agricultural workers.

1995 - Sarthua (Bhojpur): Six farm labourers belonging to scheduled castes killed.

1996 - Bathani Tola (Bhojpur): 22 agricultural workers belonging to the scheduled castes and Muslim communities killed.

1997 - Laxmanpur-Bathe (Jehanabad): 58 people belonging to scheduled castes gunned down.

1997 - Haibaspur (Patna): 10 more farm labourers belonging to scheduled castes killed.

1997 - Ekwari (Bhojpur): 10 people belonging to scheduled castes killed.

1998 - Nagri (Bhopur): 10 farm workers belonging to the scheduled castes killed.

1999 - Sendani (Gaya): 12 poor people massacred.

1999 - Narayanpur (Jehanabad): 11 people from the backward communities killed.

1999 - Shankarbigha (Jehanabad): 23 people of the village executed.

2002 - Mianpur (Aurangabad): 35 members of the backward and scheduled castes killed.

And:

A lasting signature on Bihar’s most violent years (Indian Express, June 4, 2012)

And see anti-caste: FINAL VERDICT IN BATHANI TOLA MASSACRE CASE (April 17, 2012)

ONGOING HISTORY

Sambuka with a smile on his lips
in executing Rama
Eklavya is chopping off Drona’s thumb
with an axe
Bali with his tiny feet is trampling
Vamana into the netherworld
Manu with needles poked in his eyes
his tongue cut
molten lead in his ears
is rolling in the graveyard
On the cruel sword of time stands
the roaring Chandala
inciting
four hounds onto Sankara
That’s it!
The ongoing history
Is a very Chandala history.

–Sivasagar (K.G. Satyamurthy: July 15, 1931-April 17, 2012)

[translated by Archana Chowan]

FINAL VERDICT IN BATHANI TOLA MASSACRE CASE

All accused in 1996 Bihar Dalit carnage acquitted (The Hindu)

“The Patna High Court has acquitted all the 23 persons accused of perpetrating the massacre of 21 Dalits at Bathani Tola in Bhojpur in 1996.

“The carnage took place on the afternoon of July 11, 1996. Upper-caste (Rajput and Bhumihar) landowners of the Ranvir Sena — a private militia of the landlords — stormed Bathani Tola in Bhojpur district's Sahar block in Central Bihar and ruthlessly hacked the Dalits, among them women, teenage girls and babies less than 10 months old.

“Ajay Singh was charged with brutally killing 10-year-old Phool Kumari, Manoj Singh was charged with the murder of the three-month-old daughter of Naimuddin (one of the prime eyewitnesses) and Nagender alias Narendra Singh was charged with slaughtering two women, Sanjharu and Ramratiya Devi. They were awarded the death sentence by the sessions court.

“Bathani Tola, along with Laxmanpur-Bathe (where more than 60 Dalit men, women and children were slaughtered by the Ranvir Sena), have since become bywords for caste massacres that engulfed central Bihar from the mid-1990s onwards.”

See also:

Broken People: Caste Violence Against India’s Untouchables (Human Rights Watch, March 1999):

“The Ranvir Sena was founded by upper-caste Bhumihars in Belaur village, Bhojpur district, in 1994. It first made international headlines in July 1996 with its attack on Bathani Tola in Bhojpur district, Bihar, which left nineteen Dalits and Muslims, mostly women and children, dead. Sixty members of the sena reportedly descended on the village and set twelve houses on fire. Using lathis, swords, and firearms, the attackers continued the onslaught for two and a half hours. The attack was reportedly in retaliation for the earlier killing of nine Bhumihars in Nadhi village, also in Bhojpur district, by the CPI(M-L). The conflict began when CPI(M-L) began organizing the agricultural laborers to demand the statutory daily minimum wage of Rs. 30.75 (US$0.77). Landowners were only willing to pay Rs. 20 (US$0.50). CPI(M-L) members convinced laborers to refuse employment at that wage and called for an economic blockade against landowners. The attack on Bathani Tola, press reports claim, was an effort to weaken the resolve of CPI(M-L) cadres organizing in the village and to prevent a labor boycott on hundreds of acres of land. None of the Ranvir Sena leaders were ever arrested for the Bathani Tola massacre.

“Since its inception, the Ranvir Sena has been implicated in killings, rapes and lootings in the villages of Belaur, Ekwari, Chandi, Nanaur, Narhi, Sarathau, Haibaspur, Laxmanpur-Bathe, Shankarbigha, and Narayanpur. On April 22, 1996, the sena gunned down five members of a marriage party in Nanaur village. The victims were believed to be CPI(M-L) supporters. In 1997 the sena killed three Dalits in Jehanabad district for raising their voice against the rape of a Dalit girl by upper-caste youths.”

And see:

Agrarian Conflict in Bihar and the Ranbir Sena (People’s Union for Democratic Rights, October 1997)

And see further:

A travesty of justice (editorial) (The Hindu, April 25, 2012)

members of the Ranvir Sena responsible for the Bathani Tola massacre (Outlook India)

INDIA ESCALATES ITS DIRTY WAR ON LEFTIST GUERILLAS AND IMPOVERISHED TRIBALS

Operation Green Hunt Enters New Phase (Sanhati)

“It is quite evident that after the phase of ‘Salwa Judum’ and the phase of ‘Operation Green Hunt’, anti-Naxal operations have entered a new phase variously called ‘Operation Haka’ [meaning driving out the wild animals in tribal Gondi language] and ‘Operation Vijay’.

“While certain media reports present very different pictures of this Operation [see appendixes], both the spokespersons of the Security Forces and Maoists claim that this Operation took place in the Abujhmaad/Maad area fairly deep in the forests; a large number of joint paramilitary forces about 3000 in number participated.

“While the police reports speak of Naxalite camps destroyed, Maoists encountered and arrested, the Maoist spokesperson claims that houses were burnt down, adivaasi villagers were beaten, including beaten to death, and those arrested have not been produced before courts.”

See also:

Security forces launch “Operation Abujhmad” in Chhattisgarh (March 12, 2012, UNI):

“Security forces today claimed to have captured vast areas from the Maoists' control in Chhattisgarh by launching their first and biggest ever anti-naxal operation in the rebel bastion of Abujhmad forests. [...]

“This was for the first time in the four-decade-old Naxal movement, the security forces entered the Naxal-controlled areas of Lalchawad, Pagdu, Bhatpal, Kohukameta, Chotedongar, Irukbhat, Toke, Donderaj, Mardapal, Jatawada and Kurusnar in the deep jungles of Abujhmad, which is considered as the safe heaven of the rebel outfit, the sources said.”

And see:

Naxals allege atrocities by forces on tribals (April 9, 2012, The Asian Age):

“The North-Bastar Divisional Committee (NBDC) in a statement issued to different media organisations here alleged that security forces had unleashed reign of terror against tribals in Abujhmad, said to be the Maoist capital, under the pretext of the anti-Naxal operations in March 13-18, assaulting scores of innocent tribals, leading to death of one of them, torching their houses and looting their foodgrains. [...]

“‘Security forces have launched anti-Maoist operations in Abujhmad to pave way for the Army to set up training centres in the area,’ the statement charged. The anti-Maoist operations, conducted under the code name, “Operation Haka” (meaning driving out the wild animals in tribal Gondi language), were launched simultaneously in more than one dozen villages of Narayanpur and Bijapur districts of Chhattisgarh and Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, in which around 3000 jawans of CRPF, CoBRA battalion and the police forces of the two states participated.”

ICL ARTICLE ON CPI(M) DEFEAT IN WEST BENGAL

West Bengal After the Elections:
The Political Bankruptcy of Indian Stalinism
Forge a Leninist-Trotskyist Party!

(Workers Vanguard)

“The humiliating rout of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI[M]) in the West Bengal elections last May puts a harsh spotlight on the political bankruptcy of Indian Stalinism and its Maoist variants. The dominant force in the Left Front, the CPI(M) had ruled continuously since 1977, wielding the repressive powers of the capitalist state against the deeply impoverished and oppressed masses of West Bengal. The CPI(M) has committed many crimes against the toilers, but its bloody repression in Singur and Nandigram virtually assured its defeat at the hands of the right-wing Trinamool Congress (TMC).[...]

For a Workers India in a
Socialist Federation of South Asia!

“For the CPI(M), the workers are voting cattle, buttered up with promises and fake Marxist phrases while their struggles are contained and betrayed. To the CPI (Maoist), the workers are—at best—just another urban support group for their rural struggles. In practice, the Maoists end up supporting a section of the bourgeoisie, as with Trinamool in West Bengal.

“Yet it is the proletariat—in the car factories, mines, steel mills and railways—whose labour produces the massive profits that enrich the Indian ruling class. This vibrant working class holds the key to the future. The Indian capitalists and the imperialists to whom they answer are sharply aware of the potential power of this sleeping giant, and continually work to obstruct or prevent the growth of unions, especially in new enterprises. A new labour bill would exempt operations with fewer than 40 workers from almost all basic laws governing minimum wages, payment of wages, working hours and contract work. This would give legal sanction to virtual slave conditions for millions of workers.

“Indian workers have been on the defensive in the face of unremitting capitalist attacks, and strike levels are at record lows. Nevertheless, labour battles in some vital and highly profitable industries have rattled the Indian bourgeoisie. In Gurgaon, a massive industrial area near Delhi, workers have repeatedly struck against the giant car producer Maruti Suzuki. Hundreds of thousands of auto and other industrial workers in the area suffer brutal superexploitation, as their labour creates fabulous profits for Indian, Japanese, American and other capitalist magnates.

“In some of the very areas where the Maoists are leading peasant insurgencies, large numbers of workers in coal and other mines have been waging hard-fought battles from protests to strikes and blockades. In October, a one-day general strike of some 300,000 workers against Kolkata-based Coal India Ltd. (CIL), the world’s largest coal producer, swept the country. With record commodity prices, mining conglomerates worldwide are raking in the profits, and workers from Chile to South Africa have struck for higher wages. Just how massive these profits are may be gauged by the fact that the one-day strike against CIL cost the company 1.2 billion rupees ($25 million).

“A small spark could light this enormous social tinder, but a revolutionary Marxist leadership that fights for proletarian unity and class independence is essential. The fighting power of the proletariat is greatly undercut by the fact that the unions are divided politically. Congress, the Hindu-communalist BJP and various of the Stalinist-derived parties, among others, each run their own unions and there are some 13 separate labour centrals. A working class divided by caste, religion and ethnicity is further fractured by these competing party-linked unions. An authentic proletarian leadership would fight for industrial unions which include all workers in an industry as an elementary defense of the working class.”

[Read the full article]

POLICE RAMPAGE IN DANTEWADA: FIVE DAYS OF KILLING, RAPING, AND ARSON THAT LEFT HUNDREDS OF POOR TRIBALS HOMELESS AS PART OF INDIA’S OPERATION GREEN HUNT

Chhattisgarh villages torched in police rampage (The Hindu)

“The operation began in the early hours of March 11 when about 350 heavily armed troopers marched into the forests of Dantewada. They returned to their barracks five days later, with three villages aflame, about 300 homes and granaries incinerated, three villagers and three security personnel dead, and three women sexually assaulted, the victims and several eyewitnesses told The Hindu.

“Last week, the Chhattisgarh police said three Koya commandos were killed in a Maoist ambush during a routine search, yet journalists attempting to reach the site were turned away by gun-toting special police officers. On visiting the area through a forest route, this correspondent was confronted by the aftermath of what appeared to be an attack by security forces on three tribal settlements in a 15-km radius of the police camp at Chintalnar, which has left hundreds homeless and brutalised. [...]

“Villagers say the force left by noon, having torched 37 houses. They also picked up Madavi Ganga, 45, his son Bima and his daughter Hurre, 20. ‘They took us to the Chintalnar police station and put me in a separate cell and stripped me,’ said Hurre.

“Hurre said she was kept all night in the station and sexually assaulted. Ganga and Bima said the police repeatedly asked them whether Maoists visited their village, and beat them through the night. The Madavi family was released when the women of Morpalli demanded their release at the Chintalnar station.

“Police sources say they found neither arms factories nor Maoists at Morpalli that day, though they did find a 15-foot memorial commemorating the death of eight Maoists in the April 2010 encounter, in which 76 CRPF troopers were killed near Tarmetla village.”

See also:

Scorched-Earth Tactics Return to Chhattisgarh by Eric Randolph (Current Intelligence, March 23, 2011):

“I saw the effect of these operations for myself when I travelled to the area recently. Trauma and fear pervades everyday life for these tribal communities. Whenever an outsider appears on the outskirts of a village, everyone prepares to flee. Only when they recognised our guide did they calm down. [...]

“An ongoing case in the Supreme Court has collected testimonies implicating the state’s security forces in the deaths of 537 people, including 33 children, as well as 99 rapes and the destruction of at least 2,825 houses. These testimonies relate only to the period between 2005 and 2007, when the violence was at its peak. The difficulty of reporting in this remote region means the figures cannot be exactly accurate – and the real numbers could be far higher. A large number of attacks have occurred since then as well and, it would appear, are continuing.

“In its early phase, the violence was fuelled by the formation of an anti-Maoist movement called the Salwa Judum, set up in 2005 by local elites keen to regain control of the region and its resources. The Judum quickly gained the backing and support of the police and the government, but by arming local tribals and seeking to divide communities, it triggered a spiral of brutal violence.

“The Judum held processions through the forests, forcibly relocating people to camps under police control. Evidence in the Supreme Court case states that 47,238 people were moved to the camps. The numbers have been steadily reduced to around 25,000 according to the Chhattisgarh government, spread across 23 camps. The majority of those remaining had joined the Salwa Judum and now fear reprisals from the Maoists and their fellow villagers if they return to their homes.”

And see:

In Dantewada, poor fight poor in a dehumanising war (Times of India, March 24, 2011):

“Newspaper images from the villages showed men and women staring at the charred ashes of their homes, food grains, belongings and lives. ‘What will we eat this year? All our grain is lost,’ former sarpanch Nupo Muta was quoted in Patrika, a Hindi daily. The paper reported 300 homes had been torched, five men killed and three women sexually assaulted.

“Between 2005-2007, villages here witnessed intense and savage clashes between Salwa Judum and the Maoists.

“Salwa Judum is translated as 'peace march' by some and as 'purification hunt' by others. This dichotomy of definition extends to accounts of how it began and what followed.

“Judum supporters claim it was a spontaneous upsurge by adivasis – fed up of Maoist diktats, they declared rebellion, moving out of their villages, to escape the wrath of rebels.

“But critics allege it was a government backed militia that launched brutal attacks on villages, forcing thousands to abandon their homes, in a ‘scorched earth' strategy, aimed at exposing rebel hideouts and cutting their supplies.

“Whatever be the truth, either way, the clashes of those years left the area brutally ruptured.

“Thousands moved to refugee camps along NH 221. Others stayed back – but found themselves abandoned by the government, as schools, health centres, anganwadis, every wing of the civil administration folded up in the villages.

“Last October, the state government informed the Supreme Court that Salwa Judum no longer exists. But this week, the rampage came as a reminder of its enduring legacy.”

And see also anti-caste: Operation Green Hunt–India’s Dirty War on Tribals and Leftists

LIBERAL WRITER AND ACTIVIST MEETS REFORMISTS WITH GUNS

Walking with the Comrades by Arundhati Roy (Outlook India)

“The Indian Constitution, the moral underpinning of Indian democracy, was adopted by Parliament in 1950. It was a tragic day for tribal people. The Constitution ratified colonial policy and made the State custodian of tribal homelands. Overnight, it turned the entire tribal population into squatters on their own land. It denied them their traditional rights to forest produce, it criminalised a whole way of life. In exchange for the right to vote, it snatched away their right to livelihood and dignity.

“Having dispossessed them and pushed them into a downward spiral of indigence, in a cruel sleight of hand, the government began to use their own penury against them. Each time it needed to displace a large population–for dams, irrigation projects, mines—it talked of ‘bringing tribals into the mainstream’ or of giving them ‘the fruits of modern development.’ Of the tens of millions of internally displaced people (more than 30 million by big dams alone), refugees of India’s ‘progress,’ the great majority are tribal people. When the government begins to talk of tribal welfare, it’s time to worry.

“The most recent expression of concern has come from home minister P. Chidambaram who says he doesn’t want tribal people living in ‘museum cultures.’ The well-being of tribal people didn’t seem to be such a priority during his career as a corporate lawyer, representing the interests of several major mining companies. So it might be an idea to enquire into the basis for his new anxiety.

“Over the past five years or so, the governments of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal have signed hundreds of MoUs with corporate houses, worth several billion dollars, all of them secret, for steel plants, sponge-iron factories, power plants, aluminium refineries, dams and mines. In order for the MoUs to translate into real money, tribal people must be moved.

“Therefore, this war.”

See anti-caste: OPERATION GREEN HUNT: INDIA’S DIRTY WAR ON TRIBALS AND LEFTISTS

PRAFUL BIDWAI ON OPERATION GREEN HUNT

War on Maoists by Praful Bidwai (Frontline)

“The much-dramatised public exchange of telephone numbers between Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Communist Party of India (Maoist) leader Kishenji and their sparring over a 72-hour or 72-day ceasefire would have been amusing if it did not involve a grim life-and-death issue for millions of wretchedly poor and underprivileged people in India’s heartland. They face the full heat of Operation Green Hunt, the biggest-ever military-style mobilisation launched by the security forces in the central-eastern tribal belt. Until recently, such large-scale deployment was confined to Kashmir and the northeastern region.

“The operation, involving over 40,000 paramilitary troops and policemen armed with weapons ranging from night-vision-capable automatic rifles to helicopter gunships, supposedly aims in its first phase to clear parts of Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra of the Maoists. By all accounts, it will last indefinitely–until the tribal belt is fully ‘sanitised’ and the naxalites are militarily defeated.

“The Centre is coordinating, planning and directing Green Hunt–unlike in the past, when State governments led such operations. In a disturbingly strong signal, a brigade headquarters of the Indian Army is being established in Chhattisgarh, the most turbulent part of the tribal heartland. [...]

“According to numerous credible, well-documented reports, 30 to 40 tribal people are being killed each week in the Adivasi belt. Some 200,000 people have fled their homes. This number does not include the 50,000 who were driven out by Salwa Judum, the militia sponsored, armed and funded by the Chhattisgarh government in 2008-09. The bulk of the 50,000 cannot return home and have taken refuge in Andhra Pradesh and in forests close to the border. In addition to the paramilitary forces, the tribal people are being attacked indiscriminately by private militias or Special Police Officers (SPOs), who enjoy state support, as well as by Maoist guerillas. The testimonies of some of the victims, backed by eyewitness reports, speak of the deliberate targeting of non-combatant civilians by the police and the private thugs they support. Rape and sexual violence are rampant in Bastar and parts of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. The civilians killed greatly outnumber the Maoists shot dead–perhaps by a factor of 10. [...]

“[T]he state has lost legitimacy in tribal India. It is laughable to claim that its project of militarily overpowering the Maoists has popular support. Its police force is inefficient, corrupt, trigger-happy and anti-poor. The State represents little more than predatory, rape-and-run industrial groups, besides super-corrupt Ministers (like Madhu Koda who allegedly amassed wealth equivalent to a fourth of Jharkhand’s tax revenue in three years). It is no accident that the Centre has intervened to assert its full coercive power in an area that contains much of India’s immense mineral and forest wealth, now under transfer to private capital.”

See anti-caste: OPERATION GREEN HUNT: INDIA’S DIRTY WAR ON TRIBALS AND LEFTISTS

PHOTO ESSAY EXPOSES...

The Reality of Mining in India by Tom Pietrasik

“Beneath the lofty headline, ‘DEVELOPMENT KNOCKS ON BOKARO’S DOOR,’ was a list of planned local education and health initiatives. Upon closer inspection it was apparent that there was no substance to any of these projects. [...]

“When I mentioned the Hindustan Times article to Xavier Dias of BIRSA, an indigenous people’s group, a couple of days later, his rather bleak response was that, ‘The extraction of minerals is a guarantee that an area will never be developed.’ The tragedy is that Jharkhand desperately needs development. With only a quarter of indigenous Adivasi women able to read and an annual per capita income of just $330, there is every need for investment in local communities.

“For those that pull the strings of power however, talk of development is simply a means to an end. Health and education projects matter only to the extent that mentioning them helps placate the public. Development aspirations are a tool in much the same cynical way that the specter of a Maoist takeover can be used to justify the removal of obstinate communities from their land.”

“The Tata open cast coal mine at West Bokaro. Few of those employed at the mine are from the locally displaced Adivasi community.”

[photo and caption by Tom Pietrasik]

WAR ON TRIBALS AND LEFTIST GUERILLAS IS BEING HIDDEN FROM VIEW

Green Hunt: the anatomy of an operation by Aman Sethi (The Hindu)

“Away from the gaze of the media and the judiciary, the adivasis of Bastar are paying a heavy price... for just being there.

“An operation is underway in Central India, but no one really knows what it is. Variously described as a media myth, a comprehensive hearts and minds strategy, and an all-out offensive by paramilitary forces and the state forces along the borders of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, Operation Green Hunt has become a shoebox of news clippings, police reports, public demonstrations and armed encounters.

“Depending on the definition, Green Hunt either began in July 2009, September 2009 or November 2009. Speaking off record, senior policemen confirmed that the intensification of ‘search and comb’ operations in Chhattisgarh began as early as July last year. In September 2009 the press reported on the progress of ‘Operation Green Hunt’: a massive 3-day joint operation in which the central CoBRA force and state police battled Naxal forces in Dantewada.

“By November, the press was regularly reporting on the planning and progress of Green Hunt, prompting Home Minister, P. Chidambaram to term the operation a ‘media invention.’ Since then, the security apparatus has scrupulously avoided all mention of Green Hunt. The week-long joint operation, launched on December 25 2009 in Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra for instance, was termed ‘Police Week.’ The change in nomenclature could be prompted by a realisation that the battle between the state and the Naxals is unlikely to end anytime soon. Speaking on background, police sources confirm that the conflict shall take the form of ‘a prolonged, open-ended engagement’ rather than a short, fierce ‘operation.’

“There is also little clarity on the extent of troop deployment, the composition of the forces and the chain of command between central paramilitary forces and the state police. Privately, sources in the security apparatus admit that part of the confusion is by design rather than by default to control the information available to Naxal commanders. At present, the only information independently confirmed by The Hindu relates to the Bastar Zone, a 40,000 square kilometre area in Chhattisgarh that lies at heart of the battle. Sources state that 7 additional battalions of central forces have been moved in the area, bringing the strength of central forces in Bastar to a total 20 battalions including troops from the CRPF, ITBP, BSF and SSB. Taken alongside the 6,000 policemen deployed in Bastar, the size of the total fighting force in the zone is about 20,000 troops.”

See also:

India is ignoring its citizens by Eric Randolph (The Guardian)

“Under the broadbrush moniker of Maoists or Naxalites, these [left-wing insurgents operating in India’s poorest regions] represent one of the few forms of resistance for villagers and hill tribes against the inequities of continuing feudal structures and the encroachment of global corporations—backed by the state—who treat them as awkward impediments to mining plans.

“The Naxalites can be brutal, and the villagers under their control often find themselves unwillingly cut off from health services, education and development. But they have held on to the moral high ground thanks largely to a state response that has been unremittingly heavy-handed: special forces operations, the arming of vigilante groups, the dispossession of land, forced encampment—all accompanied by tales of extrajudicial killings, rapes and, for some godforsaken reason, the chopping off of children's fingers.

“India's civil society looks on in abhorrence at what is widely seen as a full-blown war against the poor. Even the government-appointed Council of Experts had to conclude that: ‘Often any individual who speaks out against the powerful is dubbed a Naxalite and jailed or otherwise silenced. The search for Naxalite cadre leads to severe harassment and torture of its supporters and sympathisers.’

“‘Those who try to report these crimes find themselves bundled away to police custody ‘for their own protection.’ This has been happening to Sodi Sambo, a 28-year-old woman from Gompar village in Chattisgarh who says she witnessed security forces murder nine of her neighbours in October 2009, and was herself shot in the foot in front of her two small children. She tried to file a complaint, only to find herself under armed guard in a nearby hospital with no visitors allowed and denied the right to travel to Delhi for treatment.

“With Amnesty International and the supreme court wading in, her case might just be heard. A couple of troops might even be reprimanded. In the meantime, the operations will continue. Just a fortnight ago, home minister Palaniappan Chidambaram announced another massive offensive across five states, confidently claiming it would target only insurgent leaders. Since no journalists are allowed anywhere near these war zones, we have to take his word for it.”

See anti-caste: OPERATION GREEN HUNT: INDIA’S DIRTY WAR ON TRIBALS AND LEFTISTS.

NEW OFFENSIVE IN INDIA’S WAR ON LEFTIST GUERILLAS AND THE POOR

India launches Maoist offensive in five states (BBC)

“Thousands of Indian paramilitary troops and state policemen have launched a large offensive against Maoist rebels across five states this week.

“The offensive specifically targets top Maoist leaders, a senior interior ministry official told the BBC. [...]

“Home Minister P Chidambaram is personally co-ordinating the operation in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra.”

See anti-caste: OPERATION GREEN HUNT: INDIA’S DIRTY WAR ON TRIBALS AND LEFTISTS.

“OPERATION GREEN HUNT”: INDIAN GOVERNMENT TARGETS TRIBALS AND GUERILLAIST LEFTISTS

India prepares to fight rebel Maoists (UPI)

"India is preparing for a prolonged counterinsurgency fight against Maoist rebels once discounted as a ragtag group of irrelevant ideologues, officials say.

"The Maoists, intent on overthrowing the government, are operating in 20 of India's states, and have become a strong and dangerous insurgency, The New York Times reported on its Web site Saturday.

"Indian leaders are prepared to deploy nearly 70,000 paramilitary officers for the extended counterinsurgency effort.

"The Maoists say they represent the dispossessed of Indian society. Especially hard-hit, they claim, are indigenous tribal groups burdened with the highest rates of illiteracy, poverty and infant mortality.

"The insurgents charge the government wants to push tribal groups from their lands to grab valuable natural resources, the Times says. Maoists have escalated their efforts to sabotage roads and bridges, and even have attacked an energy pipeline."

The heart of India is under attack by Arundhati Roy (The Guardian (UK), October 30, 2009):

"Right now in central India, the Maoists' guerrilla army is made up almost entirely of desperately poor tribal people living in conditions of such chronic hunger that it verges on famine of the kind we only associate with sub-Saharan Africa. They are people who, even after 60 years of India's so-called independence, have not had access to education, healthcare or legal redress. They are people who have been mercilessly exploited for decades, consistently cheated by small businessmen and moneylenders, the women raped as a matter of right by police and forest department personnel. Their journey back to a semblance of dignity is due in large part to the Maoist cadre who have lived and worked and fought by their side for decades.

"If the tribals have taken up arms, they have done so because a government which has given them nothing but violence and neglect now wants to snatch away the last thing they have—their land. Clearly, they do not believe the government when it says it only wants to 'develop' their region. Clearly, they do not believe that the roads as wide and flat as aircraft runways that are being built through their forests in Dantewada by the National Mineral Development Corporation are being built for them to walk their children to school on. They believe that if they do not fight for their land, they will be annihilated. That is why they have taken up arms.

"Even if the ideologues of the Maoist movement are fighting to eventually overthrow the Indian state, right now even they know that their ragged, malnutritioned army, the bulk of whose soldiers have never seen a train or a bus or even a small town, are fighting only for survival."

anti-caste: Marxists in India would seek to mobilize the working class to defend tribals and leftist guerillas against this threat of massive state repression.

Unlike liberals and reformists, Marxists would not call on the capitalist state to better the conditions of tribals rather than killing and displacing them; to do so is to reinforce the illusion that this state does not necessarily act in the interests of the Indian bourgeoisie and its imperialist masters. The masses of the subcontinent need a revolutionary workers’ state to serve their own, counterposed interests.

While defending them militarily against police and paramilitary forces, Marxists would give no political support to the Naxalite (guerillaist) Maoists who, though presently under the gun, openly seek an alliance with a mythical “progressive national bourgeoisie.” Despite their claims to Marxism, the Maoist guerillas have nothing to do with the working class and base themselves entirely on peasants and the landless. As Trotsky explained, these classes, unlike the industrial proletariat, lack the unity, organization, and social power to play an independent revolutionary role. The burning social questions of the region—including the liberation of tribals, who are among the most oppressed and marginalized populations on earth—will not be settled in the jungles.

See also anti-caste: INDIAN GOVT COMMITTEE: "LARGE LANDOWNERS INVARIABLY BELONG TO THE UPPER CASTES" WHILE TATA AND ESSAR STAGE "THE BIGGEST GRAB OF TRIBAL LANDS SINCE COLUMBUS" (October 25, 2009)

And see anti-caste updates on Operation Green Hunt

INDIAN GOVT COMMITTEE: "LARGE LANDOWNERS INVARIABLY BELONG TO THE UPPER CASTES" WHILE TATA AND ESSAR STAGE "THE BIGGEST GRAB OF TRIBAL LANDS SINCE COLUMBUS"

Experts seek land ceiling like Bengal (The Telegraph (Calcutta))

"The Centre has been asked to impose the Bengal model of land distribution across the country by a panel it appointed to suggest land reforms.

"The non-binding advice, which recommends rural land ceilings more stringent than those in Bengal, comes at a time the [CPM-led] Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government has tried to raise those limits to promote industry but seen its efforts stalled. [...]

"In Bengal, the ceiling in non-irrigated areas is 17 acres and in irrigated areas, 12 acres. Left-ruled Bengal, Kerala and Tripura are the only states with rural land ceilings, the limit for irrigated land in Kerala being 15 acres. Some other states have tried and failed to enact land ceilings.

"So, although the report on 'State Agrarian Relations and the Unfinished Task in Land Reforms' was handed in last January, the Centre has been unwilling to reveal its contents given their controversial nature."

anti-caste: The report of the government-appointed panel mentioned above, which is available online here in full, makes interesting reading, with frank and well supported analyses of the near-total failure of capitalist India to solve the land question. And it's only getting dramatically worse, with the current drive to separate poor and middle peasants, landless laborers (who are overwhelmingly untouchable), and tribals from what meager resources they had claim to on behalf of native and foreign-based capital. That shouldn't be news to the government that commissioned the report, since, as documented there, it's the one facilitating it. Liberal reformers regret the state taking on this role; Marxists know it's only doing its job. It's a dirty job, too: just look at Operation Green Hunt.

Excerpts below from the report's fourth chapter, Alienation of Tribal and Dalits Lands (with emphasis added by us throughout):

"Land and Social Hierarchy - Dalits and Adivasis in India

"Land is not merely an important economic asset, its ownership is also socially valued, sought and denied. In rural societies, ownership of land was and to a large extent is still coterminus with social status. Hence, its unequal distribution reflects both prevailing social stratification and also helps maintain the hierarchical structure of the society. In contrast, fair distribution of land strikes directly at the roots of an unequal social order and skewed power relations, and frees the marginalized from the clutches of perpetual bondage, for want of a sustainable livelihood. The landless, whose only remaining asset is their labour, are effectively separated from the other means of production, namely land, and remain dependent on large land holders for their survival. Powerful landlords have always opposed land reforms, fearing not only loss of control of assets, but also their dominant position in society, which straddles the economic and the political realms. The denial of access to land, thereby, functions both as a means of exclusion as also a mechanism of bondage. [...]

"The pattern of land distribution in India, therefore, reflects the existing socioeconomic hierarchy. While large landowners invariably belong to the upper castes, the cultivators belong to the middle castes, and the agricultural workers are largely dalits and tribals. [...T]he data of absolute landless families proves that the feudal society is firmly anchored in large parts of India, notwithstanding claims to the contrary.

"Tribal India – Land and People

"The tribal people, referred to in the law and constitution, considered the descendents of the original inhabitants, are largely located in the hilly tracts of Central and North Eastern India, Andaman and Nicobar Islands. [...] Earlier the temples of modern India reduced millions of tribal people to ecological refugees, now the minerals seen as the building blocks of modern India put the tribal people at risk of losing their land through acquisition and further disruption of their societies and economies. [...] Left without an alternative, either in the government or non government organizations, and left to a harsh fate of unmitigated exploitation, the tribal people initially gave the Naxalites succor and now have become their base. Most tribal areas in Central India are the abode to the naxalites, whose presence is a response both to past and future land alienation, the failure of the government to live up to its constitutional mandate and the withdrawal of the state from its responsibility to protect the tribal realm. [...]

"The data gathered from the village studies and from the records of the various governments all point out to the inescapable conclusion that alienation of tribal land continues unabated and alienation of land has actually accelerated in areas where irrigation and modernization of agriculture are making rapid strides and roadways, industrialization and urbanization is enveloping larger areas in the towns and cities. Four apparent forms of tribal land alienation are listed below. [...]

"Conclusion - The Biggest Grab of Tribal Lands after Columbus

"A civil war like situation has gripped the southern districts of Bastar, Dantewara and Bijapur in Chhattishgarh. The contestants are the armed squads of tribal men and women of the erstwhile Peoples War Group now known as the Communist Party of India (Maoist) on the one side and the armed tribal fighters of the Salva Judum created and encouraged by the government and supported with the firepower and organization of the central police forces. This open declared war will go down as the biggest land grab ever, if it plays out as per the script. The drama being scripted by Tata Steel and Essar Steel who wanted 7 villages or thereabouts, each to mine the richest lode of iron ore available in India.

"There was initial resistance to land acquisition and displacement from the tribals. The state withdrew its plans under fierce resistance. An argument put forward was ‘you don’t play foul with the Murias [a tribal group]’, it’s a matter of life and death and Murias don’t fear death. A new approach was necessary if the rich lodes of iron ore are to be mined.

"The new approach came about with the Salva Judum, euphemistically meaning peace hunt. Ironically the Salva Judum was led by Mahendra Karma, elected on a Congress ticket and the Leader of the Opposition and supported wholeheartedly by the BJP-led government. The Salva Judum was headed and peopled by the Murias, some of them erstwhile cadre and local leaders of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). Behind them are the traders, contractors and miners waiting for a successful result of their strategy. The first financiers of the Salva Judum were Tata and the Essar in the quest for ‘peace’. The first onslaught of the Salva Judum was on Muria villagers who still owed allegiance to the Communist Party of India (Maoist). It turned out to be an open war between brothers. 640 villages as per official statistics were laid bare, burnt to the ground and emptied with the force of the gun and the blessings of the state. 350,000 tribals, half the total population of Dantewada district are displaced, their womenfolk raped, their daughters killed, and their youth maimed. Those who could not escape into the jungle were herded together into refugee camps run and managed by the Salva Judum. Others continue to hide in the forest or have migrated to the nearby tribal tracts in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa.

"640 villages are empty. Villages sitting on tons of iron ore are effectively de-peopled and available for the highest bidder. The latest information that is being circulated is that both Essar Steel and Tata Steel are willing to take over the empty landscape and manage the mines."

See also:

‘The biggest land grab after Columbus’ (Hindustan Times, December 4, 2009):

"It seems no coincidence that India’s mining heartland is also the Maoist heartland.

"'If you map the forest wealth, the mineral and the poverty of India, it’s a complete match,' said Sunita Narain, head of the Centre of Science and Environment."

And see anti-caste: OPERATION GREEN HUNT: INDIA’S DIRTY WAR ON TRIBALS AND LEFTISTS.

POLICE "ENCOUNTERS": IN POOREST AREAS, EXTRA-LEGAL KILLINGS OF LEFTIST REBELS AND THEIR SYMPATHIZERS IS NORMAL

India Makes a Place for Dirty Harry (The New York Times)

"Numbering in the thousands every year, 'encounters' or 'encounter killings' are shootouts between the Indian police or army and any criminal element, from terrorists to petty thieves. Many Indians believe that at least some are stage-managed — with, say, a police officer placing a gun in the hands of a dead person — leading to the popular phrase, 'fake encounter killing.'

"The Singaram encounter was part of a long-running campaign to stem an insurrection in impoverished and isolated parts of eastern India by Maoist-inspired rebels known as Naxalites. Other cases, elsewhere in India, have involved Muslim militants and gangsters in Mumbai."

See also:

Chhattisgarh Killings: The Jungle Justice of the Trigger Happy (Tehelka, February 7, 2009):

“'They made us stand in a line and ordered us to bow our heads,” Deva says of those terrifying moments between life and death. “I was the last and that gave me just enough time to escape.'

"Four more proved lucky. But 19 others did not. A posse made largely of men from the Salwa Judum (literally, Peace Gathering), the tribal militia raised by the state as a quasi police force, killed 15 men and four women at this spot on the afternoon of January 8, 2009, triggering a massive furor across the state and worsening the battle lines between the armed Maoist insurgents, popularly called the Naxals, and the state police."

And see:

Rights Groups Probe India's Shoot-Out Cops (Time, February 14, 2009):

"That was when the media began to ask questions of the police account: Two terrorists tasked with staging a Republic Day attack on the national capital had stopped at a tea stall to seek directions; a police informer, who just happened to be present, spotted an AK-47 sticking out of a bag. An urgent tip-off prompted a dramatic chase and shootout, but the 'terrorists' lived just long enough to 'confess' their Pakistani nationality. Nor did it go unnoticed that this was the fourth such 'encounter' between police and suspects in the same area in less than a month."

HINDU MONARCHY CRUMBLING

King No Longer Sacred in Nepal (Reuters)

"'Gyanendra, thief, leave the country' is the warcry of the tens of thousands campaigning against his rule, a slogan that would have been heretical just a few years ago when the Shahs were worshipped by the Himalayan nation as reincarnations of the Hindu Lord Vishnu."

See also:

This Turbulent Monarchy: Nepal and the Shah dynasty (AsiaMedia, February 17, 2005) traces the rule of the bloody Shah dynasty from its founding by the eighteenth-century military king Prithvi Narayan Shah, who upon conquering Kathmandu Valley "cut off the lips and noses of every male citizen of the city-state of Kirtipur (save those who were musicians) after they successfully resisted his invasion force." (Obviously a music-lover.)

And see:

Turmoil (The Hindu, February 20, 2005) discusses the recent social context:

"The democracy movement had politically mobilised the voiceless, but post-multidemocracy, the representational pyramid remained even more restricted than under the Panchayat regime. Bahuns (Brahmins) and Chettris (including Ranas, Shah-Thakuris) made up 29 per cent of the population and monopolised 70 per cent to 90 per cent of the jobs and political representation. Many of the 69 indigenous nationalities which fought for multi-party democracy would turn to the Maoist revolution for their liberation. Indeed the insurgency is a testament to the failure of Nepal's experiments with (autocratic and) democratic governance to make a real difference to the desperate poverty and plight of the vast majority of Nepal's 24 million people. Forty-two per cent of them remain under the poverty line ... ."

But the Maoists offer no political alternative. They actually made a bloc with the old king, Birendra. One of their leaders declared in 2001:

''Many Marxists called the Maoists royalists. There were similar thoughts between King Birendra and us, with reference to many national interests. There was unannounced unity in the approach between us in many contexts. So, it was natural for the colonialists and their brokers to be frightened.''

See Maoist ideologue blames India, US for massacre [of royal family] (rediff.com, June 6, 2001).

And in fact there is no political solution to the deprivation and oppression of the Nepali masses within the national limits of this deeply impoverished country. But though there is only a small industrial working class inside Nepal, up to a million Nepalis—one out of eleven adult males—now work in India, making up part of a growing proletariat that has the power to transform the whole region. (See Nepal's Dependence on Exporting Labor by David Seddon.)

Update: (November 21, 2006) The Maoists have joined the bourgeois government and will liquidate their militia into the national army. See Nepal celebrates peace deal with rebels (The Guardian (UK), November 22).