Democratic Illusions Infect Judiciary in India’s Repressive State

[The Indian state, thoroughly repressive toward over 90% of the people in India, has often claimed, since being “granted” independence by the British Empire, that it is democratic, even “the world’s largest democracy.”  This claim is belied by the brutal displacement and oppression of the majority of the people–the adivasis, dalits, the peasantry, the women of the oppressed castes and classes, Muslims, political opponents of the neo-colonial, semi-feudal state and their imperialist masters, and the Maoists (and all other opponents loosely, and falsely, labelled “Maoists”).  As the opposition continues to grow against the oppressive police state, the contradiction with the democratic myth has grown sharply, infecting even the ranks of the repressive judiary.  The rebellious people will carefully study how these “democratic dissidents in high places” will be dealt with by the repressive “powers-that-be”.  —  Frontlines ed.]

Person can’t be taken into custody just because he is a Maoist, Kerala HC rules

Sudha Nambudiri,Times of India, May 22, 2015

Justice AM Muhammed Mushtaq said that a Maoist can be arrested and put behind the bars only if he or she indulges in unlawful or anti-national activities.

KOCHI: In a significant development, the Kerala high court made it clear that a Maoist cannot be taken into police custody just because of his political leanings.  Justice A M Muhammed Mushtaq, in his order on Friday, said that a Maoist can be arrested and put behind bars only if he or she indulges in unlawful or anti-national activities.  “Being a Maoist is no crime, though the political ideology of Maoists would not synchronise with our constitutional polity. It is a basic human right to think in terms of human aspirations,” Justice Mushtaq said in his order.The court was hearing a petition filed by Shyam Balakrishnan of Wayanad stating that he was arrested and harassed by the Thunderbolt team — a special police unit – for alleged Maoist links. The court ordered a compensation of Rs one lakh for the petitioner and also asked to state to pay litigation costs of Rs 10, 000.

India: “Protracted People’s War at Hand,” Warns Top Maoist CPI

By Express News Service, 17th March 2015

HYDERABAD: The CPI (Maoist) sees new opportunities to advance ‘protracted people’s war’ with the Central Government  allegedly pursuing pro-imperialist and ‘country-selling’ policies at a faster pace and also advancing a Hindu-fascist agenda in various forms.

CPI (Maoist) general secretary Ganapathy, in an interview to Maoist Information Bulletin (MIB), a copy of which is with Express, spoke of the challenges his party has to overcome and on a host of other issues.

CPI(Maoist) Gen’l Secretary Ganapathy

“After coming to power, the BJP is implementing pro-imperialist, country-selling policies at a break-neck pace catering to the needs of foreign and Indian big capitalists and big landlords while, at the same time, advancing the Hindu-fascist agenda in various forms. Thus, there is need for uniting all democratic, progressive, secular and patriotic forces. Newer and more numerous classes, social sections, forces of society will be brought into the arena of struggle, and new opportunities for advancing the PPW will open up.“The situation around the world is becoming increasingly favourable for a revolution. “The imperialist world economy is still reeling under a serious crisis and all  fundamental contradictions in the world are sharpening. Consequently, the revolutionary, democratic and national liberation forces all over the world are gaining strength against imperialism and its domestic props. Maoist forces too are consolidating.”

Modi Taking Operation Green Hunt to the Western Ghats: Bulldozer Development and Displacement

 As Operation Green Hunt Extends To Engulf The Western Ghats, What Do We Stand To Lose?

By JNU Forum Against War on People

06 December, 2014
Countercurrents.org

Unite to stop the state-backed corporate-sponsored war on people

As is obvious today, the Modi-Rajnath combine is desperate to carry forward the Manmohan-Chidambaram model of ‘development’ albeit with much more ferocity and single-mindedness. As the new “iron man”, Modi is expected to deliver to the expectations of the MNCs & big business by way of ironing out all possible dissent or “road blocks” in the path of ‘development’. This of course entails more death, destruction & displacement for the people and irreversible devastation for the environment. Taking it on from where the UPA left it, the present government has already embarked upon the vicious design to bypass, flout, dilute or do away with all safeguards pertaining to the grant of forest/environment/wildlife clearances and the acquisition of land for mining/industrial/SEZ projects. And to ensure that all possible resistance to this profit/loot-oriented anti-people and environmentally unsustainable model of ‘development’ can be quelled by force, the present government is not just willing to add more teeth to the ongoing Operation Green Hunt in the central & eastern parts of the country, but also expand this fascist corporate-sponsored war on people to newer areas.

India: 4,500 anti-nuclear farmers walk out of public hearing

Villagers shout slogans after boycotting a public hearing for a proposed nuclear plant, near Bhavnagar, Gujarat, on Tuesday. Photo: AP Photo/Ajit Solanki

[The proposed nuclear power plant is slated to be constructed by Westinghouse Corporation of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, by contract with the Nuclear Power Corporation of India.  To prevent yet another Bhopal and another Chernobyl and Fukishima, farmers whose lands are in the path of the proposed nuclear plant are acting to stop the project, its nuclear poison and its mass displacement. — Frontlines ed.]

The Times of India, March 5, 2013

RAJKOT: Thousands of farmers walked out from a public hearing in Nana Navagam organized by Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) for the proposed 6000 MW nuclear power plant at Mithi Virdi in Bhavnagar district.  The hearing was held on behalf of Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) that will build the plant. The public hearing was held to discuss the environment impact assessment of the proposed plant prepared by Engineers India Limited (EIL).  The nuclear plant is expected to have six light-water reactors. The public hearing was attended by Bhavnagar collector V P Patel along with officials of GPCB and NPCIL.As soon as the NPCIL officials started their project presentation, about 4,500 farmers from around 28 villages started protesting and demanded they be heard first. “When they refused to address our queries first, all the farmers walked out in protest,” a resident of Jasapara village Khengarsinh Gohil said. The farmers said they will not allow the nuclear power plant to come up here in the area.Environment activist Krishnakant said the hearing was conducted in an illegal manner and the issues raised by farmers were not heard.

India’s Growing Role in the Scramble for (displacing) Africa(ns)

Indian investors are forcing Ethiopians off their land

Thousands of Ethiopians are being relocated or have already fled as their land is sold off to foreign investors without their consent

John Vidal in Delhi

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 February 2013

[Farm workers remove weeds from young plants at the palm oil plantation owned by Karuturi Global, near the town of Bako, in Ethiopia. Photograph: Jose Cendon/Getty Images]

Ethiopia‘s leasing of 600,000 hectares (1.5m acres) of prime farmland to Indian companies has led to intimidation, repression, detentions, rapes, beatings, environmental destruction, and the imprisonment of journalists and political objectors, according to a new report.

Research by the US-based Oakland Institute suggests many thousands of Ethiopians are in the process of being relocated or have fled to neighbouring countries after their traditional land has been handed to foreign investors without their consent. The situation is likely to deteriorate further as companies start to gear up their operations and the government pursues plans to lease as much as 15% of the land in some regions, says Oakland.

In a flurry of new reports about global “land grabbing” this week, Oxfam said on Thursday that investors were deliberately targeting the weakest-governed countries to buy cheap land. The 23 least-developed countries of the world account for more than half the thousands of recorded deals completed between 2000 and 2011, it said. Deals involving approximately 200m ha of land are believed to have been negotiated, mostly to the advantage of speculators and often to the detriment of communities, in the past few years.