India–“Peals of Spring Thunder”: Oppressive System cannot control the struggle against oppression

[See two articles, below,  on India’s counter-revolutionary quandary.  —  Frontlines ed.]

May 27, 2013

The Naxalite Attacks at Sukma

by BINOY KAMPMARK, writing in CounterPunch

They have been considered one of India’s most pressing threats, and the recent attack by the Naxalites that ambushed a convoy of the Congress Party went that much further.  The ambush took place over the weekend in Sukma on the Maharashtra, Andra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh border. Reports suggest that there were as many as 200 Maoist rebels who inflicted heavy losses – 28 killed and 24 others wounded – before fleeing.

The attacks have shaken the establishment.  Among the dead were four state party leaders including Mahendra Karma of Chhattisgarh, and five police officers.  For BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar, “This new aggressive strategy of the Naxalities is a real threat to the Constitution and the rule of law. It is a challenge to sovereignty” (Times of India, May 26).  Former police chief of Punjab state KPS Gill is pessimistic about the new surge – the government of the day did not “have the political will and bureaucratic and police set-up to prevent such attacks” (Dhaka Tribune, May 26).

How the Naxalites have been treated has varied.  In 1967, when the movement first made its presence felt in the West Bengal village of Naxalbari, the Home Minister Y. B. Chavan treated the matter as a case of “lawlessness” in action.  The mistake was classic but fatal.  During the 1970s, the state authorities moved in on the movement hoping to crush it with repressive enthusiasm.  As usual with such measures, the quotient of extra-judicial killings and corrupt practices accompanied the operations.  Legislation was passed to enable various state authorities to take measures – the attempt, for example, by the N.T. Rama Rao government to free up arms licensing in Andra Pradesh in 1983 for individuals to protect themselves against the Naxals.

Where Ants Drove Out Elephants

The Story of People’s Resistance to Displacement in Jharkhand

January 6, 2012

By Stan Swamy, Sanhati

This article is an introduction to the trajectory of peoples’ movements against displacement in Jharkhand in the last few years. As the author writes, the resistance in Jharkhand has resulted in the fact that “[o]ut of the about one hundred MOUs signed by Jharkhand government with industrialists, hardly three or four companies have succeeded in acquiring some land, set up their industries and start partial production.” – Ed.

2010: A rally against Operation Green Hunt, in Ranchi, Jharkhand

Displacement is painful for anybody – to leave the place where one was born and brought up, the house that one built with one’s own labour. It is most painful when no alternate resettlement has been worked out and one has nowhere to go. And when it comes to the indigenous Adivasi People for whom their land is not just an economic commodity but a source of spiritual sustenance, it can be heart-rending.

A very conservative estimate indicates that during the last 50 years approximately 2 crore 13 lakh people have been displaced in the country owing to big projects such as mines, dams, industries, wild-life sanctuaries, field firing range etc. Of this, at least 40%, approximating 85 lakhs, are Indigenous Adivasi People. Of all the displaced, only one-fourth have been resettled. The remaining were given some cash compensation arbitrarily fixed by local administration and then neatly forgotten.

Independent studies done during the mid-1990s reveal that in Jharkhand about 15 lakh persons have been displaced and about 15 lakh acres of land alienated from mainly Adivasi people. Needless to say, during the last 15 years a lot more displacement of people and alienation of land have taken place. Strange but true, rehabilitation of the displaced was never taken seriously by any govt during all these six decades when the process of industrialization for ‘national development’ has been in vogue. In fact there was no rehabilitation policy at all!MOU-signing spree after the creation of Jharkhand

The real reason for the creation of Jharkhand as a separate state in November 2000 was not so much to respect and honour the long cherished wish and struggle of the indigenous people to govern themselves as per their culture & traditions, but in view of opening up the vast mineral resources to national & international mining companies whose pressure was increasingly brought to bear on the government. Quite understandably, one MOU after another was signed between the state government and various companies without any reference or consultation or consent of the mainly Adivasi people in whose land all this natural wealth is stored.

Displacement: The Indian State’s War on its Own People

By Asit Das, Sanhati.com

A mass rally in Nandigram against forced displacement (file photo)

This write-up is dedicated to the memory of Ashis Mandloi, Rehmal Punia and Sobha of ‘Narmada Bacho Andolon’, Shri Dula Mandal of POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samity, the martyrs of Kalinganagar, Kashipur and Nandigram, and numerous other struggles against forcible land grab……….

Development

A bridge with no river
A tall façade with no building
A sprinkler on a plastic lawn
An escalator to no where
A highway to the places
The highway destroyed
An image of a TV
Of a TV showing another TV
On which
There is yet another T.V
……………………..

 

1. Introduction

The blood bath in Nandigram, Kalinga Nagar reflects the Contradictions between India people and the predatory land grab by the National and International big business. The Indian state in service of its imperial masters and their agents in India has unleashed a ruthless war on its own people. Under the Neo-liberal regime the Indian state has resorted to brutal terror and repression on its own people especially Adivasis, Farmars, Dalits and other marginal communities by forcibly evicting them from their habitat. World imperialism led by U.S has forced all the subservient third world states to sell their land, forests, water, natural resources to the profit-hungry Multinational Corporations and their Junior Partners in third world Countries. If the local regimes refuse to fall into line military aggression is the order of the Day. Iraq was ruthlessly invaded and millions were massacred in the direct military assault and economic sanctions to control Iraq’s oil. Millions in Afghanistan have died as a result US aggression since 2001. Libya is being ruthlessly bombed by NATO forces for its oil resources. Taking cue from their imperial masters the Indian state and its provincial administrations have resorted to massacres, tortures and police trying to facilitate land grab by greedy corporation. The massacres in Kalinga Nagar and Nandigram to Police firing, murders of farmers and Adivasis in Bhatta Parsaul, Tappal, Kathikund, Kashipur, Karchhana (Allahabad) Sompeta offer a partial testimony to this ongoing plunder, not to mention custodial deaths, fake encounters in Kashmir, North East and Central India. Unprecedented in the history of state repression on its own people the Indian state has unleashed operation Green-hunt with hundreds of thousands of paramilitary forces, including killer brigades like Cobra, greyhound and special operation group backed by the India army. Operation Green-hunt is launched to grab land, forests, water, minis and other natural resources in resource-rich regions of Central and east India like Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhatisgarh. The National and International Corporations are out of grab the iron ore and other mineral resources of Bastar, which the local Adivasis are resisting to save their homes, livelihoods and habitat. Salwa Judum has displaced more than two lakh Adivasis from 250 villages in Bastar to hand over the mines to the Corporates.

Orissa, India: Odisha Police arrest 17 people for opposing land acquisition for Posco Project

OrissaDiary.com, Friday, June 03, 2011

Report by Orissa Diary correspondent; Jagatsinghpur: At least 17 persons including PS member, Female arrested for obstructing land acquisition for proposed Posco Project and they have been released from Kujanga Police Station. On the other hand 41 bittlevine farm has been demolished and compensation paid Rs 66 lakh .

As per the information the Police arrested PS member Basudev Behera, Jagu Behera,Fagu Behera, Rangadhar Behera, Sachikanta Mohapatra, Gyan Mohapatra, Sarat Mohapatra, Laxmi Mohapatra, Charu Mohapatra, Beena Mohapatra, Sabita Mohapatra, Rashmi Ranjan Mohapatra, Harihar Behera, nakula Behera, Manoranjan Mohapatra, Meera Behera etc 17 persons were arrested for obstructing land acquisition. Latter they have been released from Kujanga Police Station.

On the other hand POSCO Pratirodha Sangram Samiti in a statement alleges that on 3rd June 2011 (today), at around 9 am, the Odisha police and administration have brutally beaten villagers of Nuagoan who opposed the forceful acquision of their land to be handed over to the POSCO Company. Basu Behera, the Panchayat Samiti member of Gadkujang Panchayat and vice President of PPSS (POSCO Pratirodha Sangram Samiti) bled owing to the attack. The police destroyed their betel vines.

17 people including women and 6 children (5-12 years old) have been arrested. Police platoons, numbering about 20, are creating an atmosphere of fear to terrorise and force us to obey their dictates. Now the police is threatening, by using loud speakers, that if the villagers do not leave their betel vines voluntarily, then force will be used indiscriminately to destroy them. The administration incited pro-POSCO people to burn down the betel vines of Natha Samal, PPSS member from Nuagaon village.

India: Women’s social and economic conditions, struggles for land and women’s resistance

Armed with traditional weapons, adivasi (tribal) women march in Lalgarh, West Bengal

 

From International Campaign against the War on People in India  www.icawpi.org

Contemporary Anti-Displacement Struggles and Women’s Resistance

By Shoma Sen, Associate Professor, RTM Nagpur University

Women’s exclusion in the present model of development needs to be understood as inherent to a system that benefits from patriarchy. Seen as a reserve force of labour, women, excluded from economic activity are valued for their unrecognized role in social reproduction. The capitalist, patriarchal system that keeps the majority of women confined to domestic work and child rearing uses this as a way of keeping the wage rates low.

The limited participation of women in economic activity is also an extension of their traditional gender roles (nursing, teaching,or labour intensive jobs requiring patience and delicate skills) with wages based on gender discrimination. Largely part of the unorganized sector, deprived of the benefits of labour legislation, insecurity leads to sexual exploitation at the workplace. In the paradigm of globalization, these forms of exploitation, in export oriented industries, SEZs and service sector have greatly increased.

In spite of 63 years of so-called independence, women’s presence is negligible in political bodies and reservations for the same have been strongly resisted in a patriarchal political system. Though at the lower levels, reservations have made a limited entry possible, the success stories are more exceptions than the rule. Social institutions, thriving on feudal patriarchal notions are disapproving of women’s participation in production and laud her reproductive roles; violence against women at the familial and societal level is given social sanction and women are confined to a dependent life within the domestic space.

Therefore, women’s access to economic and political activity itself is a first step to their participation in decision making processes rather than the symbolic steps towards their “empowerment” that are seen in this system. Women’s resistance to this imperialist backed model of development, therefore, must be seen as their attempt to find space and voice in a system which has not only neglected their communities but even their gender within it.

Delhi, India: Call for Week of National Action against Land Acquisition Act and Forced Displacement

Demonstration against proposed Tata Steel plant in the Kalinganagar industrial area. In 2006, Orissa police killed 12 adivasis protesting the beginning of construction of the Tata plant. Since then, they have stopped any further construction.

Sansad Gherao ! Delhi Chalo !

A Week of National Action (Sangharsh) Against Land Acquisition (Act) & Displacement For Right to Life & Livelihood

November 22 – 26, 2010, Jantar Mantar, New Delhi

Dear Friends/Comrades,

Many of you participated in the National Consultation on the proposed Land Acquisition (Amendment) and Resettlement and Rehabilitation Bill that was held on 23rd September 2010 at the Indian Social Institute in New Delhi. The consultation was attended by several peoples’ movements, mass organisations, Trade unions, advocacy groups and members from research and academic community.

The consultation was unanimous in its demand:

– for the repeal of the current colonial Land Acquisition Act and complete rejection of the proposed Land Acquisition (Amendment) and Resettlement and Rehabilitation Bills in their current form

– to enact a comprehensive National Development, No Enforced Displacement and Rehabilitation Bill instead of two separate legislations

– for a moratorium on all acquisitions until the process for a new comprehensive legislation is complete

– that a white paper on all the Land acquired since independence and its current status and the situation of the displaced be presented before the people of India

Rondonia, Brazil: Construction of big dams and transport corridors displace indigenous people and destroy environment

Cattle Ranching Areas in the Amazon Industrialize

By Mario Osava

Cement rules where Santo Antonio dam is being built on the Madeira River.

PORTO VELHO, Brazil, Nov 18, 2010 (IPS) – The agricultural frontier state of Rondonia in Brazil is a byword for deforestation in the Amazon jungle, much of which has been cleared in the northwestern state for cash crops and a cattle herd that has grown to 12 million head.

But industrialisation is arriving by the hand of the construction of two big hydropower dams and transport corridors — including roads, railways and waterways — that will provide an overland link connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The Indústria Metalúrgica e Mecânica da Amazônia factory, a joint venture between French engineering company Alstom and Bardella, a Brazilian capital goods company, marks that transition.

The plant, inaugurated in March in Porto Velho, the capital of Rondonia, will produce equipment for hydropower projects on Amazon jungle rivers in the state and the rest of Brazil, as well as neighbouring Bolivia and Peru, despite protests by environmentalists, indigenous groups and riverbank communities.

Update on the people’s struggle against South Korea’s POSCO steel project

POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS), Nov 11th 2010

POSCO, a large corporation, wants to invest in the mining industry in Orissa (India) and build a steel plant, captive power station and port in Erasama block of Jagatsinghpur district – people’s protest intensifies.

Police at the 1st April, 2008 rally

A Note of POSCO Pratirodh Sangharsa Samiti ( PPSS), Jagatsinghpur, Odisha

A Brief Background:

On June 22 2005, Pohang Steel Company (POSCO), a large South Korean corporation, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of Orissa in eastern India. This MOU outlined POSCO’s proposal to invest in the mining industry and build a steel plant, captive power station and port in Erasama block of Jagatsinghpur district.

For the last five years, people living in the villages of the proposed site under the banner of POSCO Pratirodh Sanghrsa Samiti (Anti-POSCO People’s Movement) have been relentlessly protesting against the land acquisition process. More than 4000 families totaling a population of 30,000 will be affected by the project. These include all those persons directly dependant on the betel vine cultivation, pisiculture, cashew nut cultivation, and fishing in the Jatadhari Muhana (estuary) where the port has been proposed.

Another 20,000 people from Erasama, Tirtol, and Kujang block will be affected if the port comes up at Jatadhari. Loss of self-sustained and thriving local economy, of livelihood and of an entire way of life is the major concern on which the local resistance to the project is based.

China: More than 50 million farmers have lost their land since the 1980s

[When the article mentions the “reform and opening up,”  the “reform” refers to the dismantling of socialism that took place after the death of Mao in 1976 and the arrest of his closest allies in the party leadership.  Under China’s collectively-run system of agriculture  from the 1950s to the 1970s,  the vast dispossession of farmers from their land described in this article would have been unthinkable.  The “opening up” refers to the decision in the 1980s by the new government led by Deng Xiaoping to invite a host of multinational corporations looking for cheap labor into China.–Frontlines ed.]

China Daily, November 11, 2010

Rural land disputes lead unrest in China

BEIJING – About 65 percent of mass incidents in rural areas are triggered by land disputes, which are affecting rural stability and development more than any other issue, land experts said.

China’s quick urbanization has provoked a new round of land seizures in rural areas to facilitate economic development, Yu Jianrong, a professor with the Rural Development Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, was quoted by the Beijing News as saying on Friday.

Jiangsu Province: Some of the 20,000 farmers who came to protest against illegal takeovers of their land by local government officials. When the officials were unresponsive, the farmers took over a government building for 5 days--after which riot police beat up hundreds of farmers to drive them away.

“Since the reform and opening-up,  more than 50 million farmers have lost all their land and nearly half of them have no jobs or social insurance. This has caused social conflict,” Yu said.

Land disputes are mainly caused by forced land acquisition, low compensation and unfair appropriation of the compensation, Yu said.  Land transactions have become a substantial contributor to local governments’ revenue.  For the past two decades, the difference between the land compensation paid to farmers and the market price of the seized land is about 2 trillion yuan ($294 billion) for 14.7 million hectares, Yu said.

Zheng Fengtian, a professor of the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development of the Renmin University of China, said that due to the conflict between the shortage of land for construction required for quick economic development and the strict “red line” of 1.8 billion mu (120 million hectares) of arable land – the least amount necessary to feed the country’s 1.3 billion population – local governments turn to rural homesteads for development.

Governments should be service providers, not money-makers, in rural land management, but now many local governments want to make money through real estate development, triggering conflicts, the Beijing News quoted Li Changping, professor of the Rural Development and Construction Research Center of Hebei University, as saying, on Friday.

Fact-Finding Report on the Anti-Displacement Movement in India

Villagers man checkpoint to keep out government and company officials at site of planned POSCO plant in Jagatsinghpur, Orissa.

Over the past three years, there have been a number of particularly significant victories by the anti-displacement movement in India:  In West Bengal at Nandigram (Dow Chemical), Singur (Tata Motors), Salboni (Jindal Steel); in a number of places in Jharkhand; and now the historic victory at Vedanta’s proposed bauxite mine at Niyamgiri, Orissa.

In the summer of 2008, US activist David Pugh travelled to five states in India to report on the anti-displacement movement, including the intense ongoing battles against US and South Korean owned POSCO, and against Tata Steel in Kalinga Nagar, both in Orissa. Below is the complete report on his fact finding trip.

by David Pugh

I recently spent three weeks gathering information about the anti-displacement movement in India. I traveled to India on this fact finding mission in my capacity as a member of the Initiative Committee of the International Campaign Against Forced Displacement that was launched in June 2008 by the International League of Peoples’ Struggle.

As a guest of Visthapan Virodhi Jan Vikas Andolan, I traveled across five states in central and eastern India visiting the sites of proposed industrial and mining projects, Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and real estate developments.  I spoke with hundreds of villagers who are threatened with displacement and with many dedicated activists who are helping to organize the people’s resistance.

The villagers I spoke to, tribals, dalits and members of “other backward castes,” told me that the lives of their families are at stake.  Rapacious industrial and mining enterprises, supported by the state and central governments, are trying to grab fertile agricultural land. When bribery doesn’t work, the industrialists and government officials have sent in the police and hired outside goons to terrorize the villagers into submission.

Lohandiguda, India: We won’t give up our land!

Land nor Freedom

August 22, 2010, New Indian Express

‘Nahi denge zameen!’ (we won’t give our land) – said one villager of Lohandiguda, as over 150 villagers – Sarpanches and ward members with their families, stood up, and walked out of the meeting with government officials on the 12th of May of this year. In 2005, the villagers in Lohandiguda didn’t even know their land was up for acquisition by Tata Steel – they learnt about it after they read the newspapers.

It is a known fact that the Adivasis have existed long before there was any idea of India. And there are estimates that there has been more displacement by development projects in India than by the Partition, and a majority of the displaced have been Adivasis.

It’s therefore not surprising that the Maoists don’t believe that India has attained independence. In a school in the liberated-zones of Dantewada, a lone poster of Chandrashekar Azad remains, there’s no sign of Gandhi or Nehru. In the Red Corridor, the Maoist squads go to schools in the middle of their Independence Day celebrations, remove the tricolour, holster up a black flag, distribute sweets or biscuits to the children and leave.

Dispossession of the Adivasis of Jharkhand, India

Coal strip mine in Jharkhand

By Stan Swamy

05 August, 2010,  Sanhati.com

The dispossessed Adivasi is hunted as a criminal; the looter-outsider has become ‘honourable citizen’

1. The sad story of impoverishment of the Adivasi [the tribal people of India]: A few examples will suffice. Gladson Dungdung is a young human rights activist and writer. His family had 20 acres of fertile land in Simdega district, Jharkhand . It was forcibly acquired by the govt for the construction of a dam at a terribly low rate. The compensation for the 20 acres fertile land the family got was Rs. 11,000. Even by minimal standards, it should have been at least Rs. 20 Iakhs. This is just one example among many many such deprivations. Is this not deliberate impoverishment of a people ?

2. The Suvernrekha Project in Chandil, Jharkhand, displaced 120 villages and alienated 43,500 acres of land from the Adivasi, Moolvasi communities. A rehabilitation package was worked out 27 years ago. But it has not been implemented in about half of the villages. Yet people of these villages have lost every thing they had. To add insult to injury, the project management wants to close the radial gates of the dam which will inundate 44 villages awaiting rehabilitation Is this not a deliberate act of deprivation of a people?

3. Heavy Electricals Company (HEC) in Ranchi displaced 12,990 families and alienated 9,200 acres of land from Adivasi, Moolvasi communities. Of this, about 2000 acres of acquired land has been lying idle during half a century. This surplus land should as per law be returned to the original land owners. But the govt is giving it for real estate housing for the well-to-do. Is this not a deliberate violation of the legal rights of a people?

4. During the past five decades, about 17 lakh of Adivasis & Moolvasis [1.7 million people] have been displaced and about 24 lakh acres of their land has been alienated from them at minimal compensation. Of the displaced, only 25% have been resettled. The remaining 75% have been neatly forgotten. This whole process of dispossession took place without any rehabilitation policy in place. Is this not a deliberate dispossession of a people ?

Over 200,000 Narmada Dam Oustees Still To Be Resettled; A Crime That Goes Unpunished For 25 Years

 

People's Occupation Of The Maheshwar Dam Site January 11 2000

By Devinder Sharma

26 June, 2010
Ground Reality

For 25 years now, they have struggled to get justice. In a peaceful and democratic manner, over 200,000 people displaced from the rising waters of the Narmada dams, have waited endlessly for a rehabilitation package, which is their legitimate right. Justice has been denied to them.

Yesterday, July 24, about 200 displaced people were present in the Gandhi Bhawan, in the heart of Bhopal city, to listen to the conclusions and recommendations of the three-member Independent People’s Tribunal on displacements in the Narmada valley. Chaired by Justice (Retd.) A P Shah, former chief justice of the Delhi and Madras High Courts, I had the privilege and honour of being part of the panel. We had travelled through some of the affected areas in the Narmada valley in the first week of the month, and then spent some days putting it all together in the form of this report.

Twenty five years after the work for a series of dams on the mighty Narmada began, the displaced people, a majority of them being adivasis, have been treated worse than cattle by successive governments. Looking at their plight, and their lost years, and knowing that they will continue to be deprived of justice, I wonder why have these people not picked up arms? At a time when the UPA government is asking the naxalites in neighbouring Chhatisgarh State to give up arms and come to the negotiating table, I fail to understand why the government is not talking to those who never picked up the gun?

Orissa, India: Brutal Police Attack on Anti-POSCO Protestors, Leaving 100 Injured

27 May, 2010
Counter-currents.org

A fact finding team traveled to Jagatsinghpur district of Orissa to look into the human rights violations in the wake of May 15 police attack on the activists of POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) and villagers affected by the proposed POSCO project. The team headed by retired judge of the Bombay High Court Justice H Suresh comprised veteran social activist Chitranjan Singh, Professor Kalpana Kannabiran, veteran public health doctor Dr. Punyabrata Gun, senior journalist Bolan Gangopadhyay and human rights activist and journalist Harsh Dobhal.

Upon its arrival on 24th morning, the team held detailed discussions with representatives of political parties, leaders of people’s movements, journalists, academics and other concerned citizens at Bhubaneshwar. On 25th the team traveled to Balituth, proposed POSCO site of Dhinkia, Gobindapur, Patana and other villages and interacted with the local residents and victims of May 15 police firing in an attempt to get first hand information. Following are the prima facie observations by the fact finding team and a detailed report would be compiled and published soon: