India: Peasant producers of kendu leaves demand higher returns

Rebel bandh call for kendu price hike

OUR CORRESPONDENT, The Telegraph, Calcutta Jamshedpur, April 12: Maoists have called a 48-hour bandh on Saturday in districts along the interstate borders of Jharkhand, Bengal and Odisha demanding a hike in prices of kendu leaves — a source of livelihood for tribals in summer. The CPI(Maoist) bandh, to be effective from the midnight of April 15, is likely to impact East Singhbhum in the state, besides West Midnapore district of Bengal and Mayurbhanj in Odisha. The Naxalite stronghold of Ghatshila sub-division in East Singhbhum shelters thousands of poor tribals who pluck kendu leaves from April to July, apart from working as seasonal farmers or wage earners. The rebels are demanding a 20 per cent hike in the prices of kendu leaves, which are used for manufacturing bidi.

The Kendu leaf business has been providing livelihood support to millions of poor and marginalized people in Orissa for over a century. Two types of kendu leaves are sold — dry and raw. At present, raw kendu leaves are priced at Rs 60 per bundle and the dry leaf at Rs 120. Each bundle contains 2,000 leaves. Sources said the Naxalites were demanding that the government pay Rs 70 and Rs 140 respectively for every bundle of raw and dry kendu leaves. East Singhbhum senior superintendent of police Akhilesh Kumar Jha said the police were aware of the Naxalite-sponsored interstate bandh call, adding they were taking steps to frustrate the attempts of the rebels to disrupt normal life. “We will make necessary arrangements for ensuring that life in Ghatshila township as well as rural areas remain normal on April 15 and 16,” said the SSP, adding the police would deploy additional forces, if required. According to forest officials, a tribal collects 5,000 kendu leaves on an average per day. The leaves are then sold to contractors authorised by the state forest department for collecting the bundles. The season for collection of kendu leaf provides healthy earnings for tribals, especially the poorest among them, who do not have fixed sources of income throughout the year.

Police recover rebel posters

TNN | Apr 14, 2012

JAMSHEDPUR: Ahead of the two-day bandh call given by CPI (Maoist) in the bordering areas of three states, Odisha, Bengal and Jharkhand, the Ghatshila subdivision police have recovered posters and banners, allegedly put up by the rebels, demanding hike in kendu leaves procurement rate and support to the bandh call. The posters and banners were found in two different police station areas – Chakulia and Dhalbhumgarh. A banner put up on a tree at Bodamchati in Chakulia block asked for “level-playing field” so that the villagers trading in kendu leaves can earn enough. Kendu traders said last year also the Naxalites had put up such posters following which the villagers had earned good return on their produce.

Kishenji Fought for a Better World

Indian ‘Republic Killing Its Own Children’ – Kishenji Fought for a Better World

by Bernard D’Mello 

India’s Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, West Bengal Chief Minister (also in charge of the province’s home affairs) Mamata Banerjee, Union Home Secretary R K Singh, and the top bosses of the security forces involved in the operation have all been bent on establishing one point: that the alleged encounter in the Burishol forest in West Midnapore district, 10 km from the West Bengal-Jharkhand border, in which Mallojula Koteswara Rao, popularly known by his nom de guerre Kishenji, a member of the politburo of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) [CPI (Maoist)], was supposedly killed was “real”.  Frankly, given the complicity of the media bosses and the journalistic profession (the latter, at the higher levels) with official mendacity, we must admit that the circumstances of his death are as yet unknown.  A press statement from Abhay, spokesperson of the Central Committee of the Party, dated 25 November 2011, unambiguously states that Kishenji was killed “after capturing him alive in a well planned conspiracy”.¹

The renowned radical Telugu poet Varavara Rao, who accompanied Kishenji’s niece Deepika to bring the body back to Kishenji’s hometown of Peddapalli in Karimnagar district of Andhra Pradesh, is reported to have said: “In the last 43 years, I have seen so many bodies killed in so-called encounters but have not seen a body like this one. . .  There is no place on the body where there is no injury.”²  Indeed, according to CDRO (Coordination of Democratic Rights’ Organisations) activists who saw the body before the commencement of the postmortem, “on the back side of the head, part of [the] skull [and] brain [was] missing”; the right eye had come out of the socket; the lower jaw was “missing”; there were four stab wounds on the face; knife injuries were observed on the throat; there were hand fractures and two bullet injuries under one of the arms; “one-third of the left hand index finger was removed”; there were signs of enrooted bullets through the lungs; the right knee was hacked; the foot of the left leg was “totally burnt”; in all, “there were more than 30 bayonet-like cut injuries on the front of the body”.  And, while there were “bullet, sharp cuts and burn injuries”, “surprisingly” there were “no injury marks on his [Kishenji’s] shirt and pant corresponding to [those on] his body parts”.  (The postmortem report is yet to be handed over to Kishenji’s relatives.)

A press release (“Killing the Talks and Faking an Encounter”, Kolkata, 2 December 2011) by the CDRO — based on the observations of a CDRO fact-finding team who visited the spot in Burishol forest where the alleged encounter took place on 24 November — states that “the extent of the damage caused to the body against the rather undisturbed surrounding of the spot where the body lay raises our suspicion about the official version”.  Indeed, “right next to where his [Kishenji’s] body lay on the ground is a termite hill” that “remains undamaged by all the alleged exchange of fire”.  Indeed, even nearby, “not a single termite hill was damaged and [there was] no visible sign of burn or fire due to heavy rifle and mortar firing!”  Clearly, the veracity of the official story must be seriously doubted (actually, there are now versions of it that are contradicting each other!) and it is high time that an independent judicial inquiry headed by a sitting or retired Supreme Court or High Court judge into the circumstances surrounding Kishenji’s death is constituted at the earliest.

from Nepal: “Red Salute ! to our Beloved Comrade Kisanji”

Comrade Kisanji

It is a  matter of deep sorrow that the reactionary Indian  government has murdered Comrade Kisanji  alias Malloujula Koteswara Rao, Politburo Member of CPI (Maoist), in a fake incounter in Burishol forest area, west Midnapore District, Jangalmahal, West Bengal on 24 November 2011. He was a leading figure and spokesperson for CPI (Maoist) . According CPI (Maoist) statement issued to the media,  Kishanji  was arrested and tortured and then brutally killed.

Comrade Kissan is not unknown to us. We have already published his interviews in Nepalese magazines. In this moment, our Revolutionary Cultural-Intellectual Front strongly condemns the cold-blooded murder of Comrade Kisanji -a true revolutionary hero of the oppressed people of India.  And we urge to  all intellectuals and cultural activists of this region to denounce this cowardly killing of Comrade  Kisanji by the Indian reactionary forces.

In a famous article ‘Serve the People’, Comrade Mao has mentioned:  “Though death befalls all men alike, it may be weightier than Mount Tai or lighter than a feather. To die for the people is weightier than Mount Tai, but to work for the fascists and die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter than a feather.”

 Yes, it is true Comrade Kishanji died for the people, and his death is indeed weightier than Mount Everest. From the bottom of our hearts we express our Red Salute to the people’s hero  Comrade Kisanji .

The Indian reactionary government has murdered Comrade Kisanji, but not his ideology. They can’t kill Marxism-Leninism and Maoism. The movement will continue, the revolution will continue.

We know the reactionary government of Nepal, an  Indian Puppet government led by Baburam Bhattarai and Prachanda, a new avatar of  Samanta (Fedual) will not denounce it. Now they are turned into the real traitor of Indian expansionism.  But we, the revolutionary intellectuals and  the  political activists who fought ten years People’s War and who are still fighting for the people’s liberation, are always with the brave communist fighters of India, oppressed people of India. In fact, the hundreds of millions of oppressed people of the world, who dream of liberation, are always with the oppressed people of India.  The red flag of revolution will not be bent down. The long march of revolution will not be stopped. Let us march ahead.

Rishi Raj Baral, Convener: Revolutionary Cultural-Intellectual Forum

Kathmandu, Nepal, November 26th, 2011

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source:  http://thenextfront.com/politics/red-salute-to-the-comrade-kisanji.html

“Kishenji tortured and killed in fake encounter”

The killing of top Maoist leader Kishenji raised a controversy on Friday with his supporters and some political parties alleging he was eliminated in a fake encounter, a charge denied by CRPF which said it was a “clean” operation. The Maoists demanded an independent probe into  the circumstances leading to the killing of Kishenji in Burisole forest in West Midnapore district on Thursday. A call for a two-day bandh in West Bengal from November 26 was also given by Maoists in protest against the alleged fake encounter.

“Kishenji was killed in a fake encounter. To protest this we are calling a two-day statewide bandh from November 26 and a week-long protest,” Maoist state committee member and spokesperson Akash told PTI on phone from an undisclosed location.