India: Nationwide trade union strike hits banks, Noida protests turn violent

Bharat Bandh turns violent in Noida.

Noida, February 20, 2013

[Protesters put a truck on fire during the 2-day trade union strike in Noida.]

A union leader was killed in Haryana and factory units damaged in Delhi suburb Noida in sporadic violence on Wednesday as the start of a two-day nationwide strike called by trade unions evoked a mixed response with banking services paralysed and public transport disrupted. Kerala, Tripura and Bihar were among the worst hit states where normal life was thrown out of gear while stray incidents of violence were reported in Odisha and Karnataka. Protest marches were taken out in several cities.Flight and rail operations remained unaffected in the strike called by 11 trade unions against UPA’s economic and alleged anti-labour policies.

Reports from state capitals said financial services were crippled and bus commuters faced difficulties.

In Noida Phase 2 area, workers clashed with factory owners in a hosiery complex and set ablaze vehicles prompting authorities to deploy PAC in the area. Workers went on a rampage and damaged industrial properties, police said.

From Sector 82 till Greater Noida entry point, which is the industrial belt, workers set ablaze a car, bus and a fire engine, police said.

“People just barged in, looted everything in sight and even tore our registers,” an industrialist said while another said every single building in the hosiery complex had their windows broken and many vehicles were set on fire.

India: Farmers vs corporate will

Root Cause: A fear of loss of livelihood accompanies anger in Charkudih and nearby villages

By Sudeep Chakravarti, LiveMint

[Photo of farmers agitating against the government’s land acquisition activities. Photo: Hindustan Times]

The rain has softened the dirt lanes in Charkudih. The slim strip of tar that brings me to this tiny village is cracked. In what passes for the village square, a child, too young to be in school, wails as he slips in a pool of muck and dung. Hens are more adroit. The surrounding green is compensatory: Lush fruit trees and knee-high paddy. A short walk away the Subarnarekha river marks the state border in this part of eastern Jharkhand. Across lies a stunning line of cloud-crested hills in Purulia, West Bengal.

This is usually a quiet time. But there is already much excitement in Charkudih and 14 neighbouring villages of Sonahatu block. A steel company—among India’s top five—wants much of their land. A document I possess marks the details of the plots to be acquired by the steel maker, totalling about 6,400 acres.

Embedded in the phrase “to be acquired” is obfuscation, confusion and apprehension far removed from lofty corporate pronouncements; even the ongoing government-and-business versus greens tug of war over land acquisition, resettlement and rehabilitation. This is a tiny story about some farmers’ initial encounter with corporate will.

About a dozen of us huddle in a tiny room of a resident that evidently doubles as Charkudih’s clubhouse. A card game is in abeyance. A grimy table fan awaits electricity. A battered black and white TV set is hooked up to a small battery, both dead. A calendar of a brick-making firm is turned to September.

Locals say there hasn’t been any public meeting to discuss the project. They first twigged on to it last year when some local land agents started visiting landowners—farmer-owners of tiny plots to landlords—with a simple message: jameen bech do (sell your land). The price: `5 lakh an acre. When villagers queried the purpose, they received evasive answers. A few have sold land to agents—villagers share their names—but when they queried the local revenue officer in whose names the purchased lands have been registered, they were shooed away.

Kolkata: so-called “democracy” denounces questioning students, prompting cyber campaign of outrage online

Cyber campaign for apology from Mamata Banerjee

TNN May 22, 2012

KOLKATA: Scores of youngsters from Jadavpur and Presidency universities have launched a cyber campaign against chief minister Mamata Banerjee for branding a group of students “Maoists and CPM cadres” for asking her uncomfortable questions at a TV talk show.

“Can anything be funny and terrifying at the same time?” says one post. “She is ruining the anti-Left movement which was a very hard fought success,” says another.

Mamata had stormed out of the show after accusing Presidency student Taniya Bharadwaj a “Maoist”. The CM alleged that she was being asked “only CPM and Maoist questions”. The video has gone viral on the internet.

Tweets and posts have flooded social networking sites, condemning the chief minister’s “irresponsible and uninformed” remark. They demand that Mamata apologise to Taniya for the “slander”.

Facebook is abuzz with messages from students urging each other to join a campaign against “politics of terror” and make sure that Taniya and the other students who were present at the show (being recorded at Town Hall last Friday) were not persecuted. Many students have uploaded the TV clip of Mamata calling Taniya a Maoist and invited Netizens to view it and lodge their protest.

Shashank Shah, a Jadavpur University international relations student, who was present at the show, said his university mates felt scared initially.

“They were worried about being taken to task for angering the chief minister. Word went around that the police were looking for our telephone numbers and that we could be questioned for our supposed Maoist links. But soon we found that these fears were unfounded and realized that we should rather be protesting the unfair comments and not be afraid. We condemn her remark and will carry on our campaign on the internet,” said Shah.

“It was unfair on her part to call Taniya a Maoist without even knowing her. She owes her an apology. Aren’t Maoists and CPM supporters Indian citizens too? Don’t they have the right to demand answers from the chief minister?” he asked.

India: Ongoing Hunger strike and Resistance of Evicted People at Nonadanga

April 16: Pamphlet issued by Uchhed Pratirodh Committee  —  Nonadanga, Kolkata

The incident

On 30th March, the present TMC-led West Bengal government, its administration and police have demolished our temporary shanties with their bulldozers, set fire to them and tried to evict us from the area. We tried twice to organize peaceful sit-in protests and demonstrations in the nearby Ruby Hospital crossing to publicly highlight our condition and demand our legitimate right to housing. Instead of listening to our concerns, on 4th April, police forcefully broke and dispersed the gathering by rampant lathicharge; some plain-clothes personnel also pounced on the unarmed women.

Though majority of the protesters were women, no women cops were present at the site. Police kicked Rita Patra, a twenty-one year old woman in advanced pregnancy, nor did they spare two-and-half year old Joy Paswan, whose head was hit with lathi. Many of the injured were taken to the Calcutta Medical College, where some of them were admitted. And the second demonstration on 8th April was nipped at its bud when police arrested majority of the protesters and whisked them away to Kolkata police headquarter (Lalbazar). Late in the night, the protesters were released except seven of them, who were produced in the court and charged with various false and ridiculous charges including illegal gathering, illegal possession of weapons etc. All of these seven people are from different democratic organizations and individuals who came in support for us. To make matters worse, a section of the media, especially the ones loyal to the ruling party, are continuously branding the protesters as ‘Maoists’ and cooking up entirely distorted stories, to the point of being preposterous. The arrested seven were remanded to three days of police custody till the 12th; in the next hearing, they were sent to jail custody up to 26th April. One of the seven has been charged under UAPA and sent to CID custody till 21st April. Surprisingly, about forty lawyers, allegedly having allegiance to the ruling party stood against the accused in the courtroom along with the public prosecutor. To add to the instances of virtual clampdown, unprecedented in recent times, police again arrested about seventy protesters on April 9th they were about to start their protest march from the College Street square.

Indian State’s war on the people, Stage Two: Army deployed for combat against Indian People

Announcement of Public Meeting in Delhi by Forum Against War on People—

“Let’s Intensify our Opposition to the Indian State’s War on the People”

Speakers:

JAN MYRDAL the internationally acclaimed author will talk on the War on People in India

SUJATO BHADRA will speak on atrocities by Joint Forces in Jangalmahal in West Bengal

The Indian government’s war on people in central and eastern regions has entered its second phase with the deployment of the Indian army. The surreptitiously declared war on the people of this country codenamed Operation Green Hunt (OGH) which was launched in September 2009 by the Indian government is continuing unabated till today. In fact in the recent months, the ruling coalition at the Centre in connivance with political parties of all hues in power in the Central and Eastern states have intensified their brutal war on the poorest, most maginalized and oppressed people of the subcontinent. Contrary to the rhetoric of not deploying the Indian Army in direct combat, the Government of India has increased the number of troops in the region with the intent of crushing the growing people’s resistance against its policies. It is well known that the first batch of 2000 Army personnel were sent by the government to the forests of Narayanpur District in the Bastar on 3 June 2011 with a plan to occupy an area of 600 square kilometres, albeit in the name of Jungle Warfare Training. Just six months later, another 2500 personnel descended on the forests of Bastar on 4 November 2011. Though the Central and Chhattisgarh governments maintain that they have set up this so-called Jungle Warfare Training Centre in Bastar merely to put pressure on the Maoists and to dominate the region militarily, the real purpose is to hand over the vast swathes of mineral-rich forested lands to the Multinational Companies and to evict the people who have stood up to defend their jal-jangal-zameen, their very existence.

“Remembering Kishanji”: his impact on West Bengal

Relatives and supporters accompany the body of Kishenji, a senior Maoist rebel leader killed by government forces in eastern India, during his funeral procession at Peddapally village in Karimnagar District of Andhra Pradesh, India, November 27, 2011.

by Amit Bhattacharyya

On 24 November 2011, the body of the Maoist leader Kishanji, with multiple injuries all over the body, was found in the Burishole jungle of the Jhargram area of the West Medinipur district of West Bengal. One of the main operatives of the Chidambaram-Mamata joint forces, Mr. Vijay Kumar, the DG of the CRPF, described it as a ‘clean and successful operation’. The mutilated body bore marks not only of bullet wounds, but wounds of four types. One was the bullet wounds; the second was the wounds caused by sharp weapons; the third was wounds caused by burning; and the fourth was the wound caused by pounding parts of the body such as fingers by heavy instruments. Facts such as these drive home the truth that Kishanji was captured in some other place, tortured to death and then his dead body was placed on the spot and a drama concocted in defence of the so-called encounter theory. The WB chief minister, after keeping mum for three days came out with a theory at a by-election campaign meeting that the joint forces told Kishanji over the microphone to surrender before shooting him down—a claim refuted by the villagers themselves in their conversation with the 22-member investigation team formed by civil rights bodies that visited the spot and adjoining areas on 1 December 2011. And this so-called encounter was engineered at a time when the process of dialogue between the government interlocutors and the Maoist state leadership of WB was on. The revolutionary intellectual, Varavara Rao, one member of the group that came to take Kishanji’s body to his native Peddapally town in Karimnagar district, declared that for the last 43 years he had been witnessing dead bodies—killed either in real or fake encounters—but never before was he the witness to a body that bore marks of so much injury. This brutal killing of the Maoist leader, Kishanji by the Chidambaram-Mamata combined forces will go down in history as a crime against humanity.

“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.

India: RDF Statement–‘Condemn the Murder of Maoist leader Kishanji!’

Press Statement on the cold-blooded murder of Maoist Leader, Kishanji   (25/11/2011)

We strongly condemn the cold-blooded murder and planned assassination of Kishanji alias Mallojula Koteswara Rao, Politburo Member of CPI (Maoist) in Burishol forest area, Paschim Midnapore District, Jangalmahal, West Bengal on 24 November 2011. At the time of this murder Kishanji was dealing with the process of peace talks through the interlocutors appointed by the Chief Minister of West Bengal Ms. Mamata Banerjee. Such a heinous crime should be condemned by all justice loving people.

According CPI (Maoist) statement issued to the media on today, Kishanji was arrested and tortured and then brutally killed. This murder looks much similar to that of Azad’s in July 2010, when Azad was brutally tortured and killed while he was dealing with the Union Government’s offer of peace talks through union Home Ministry appointed interlocutor.

In these circumstances, the Joint Forces’ story of a fierce gun battle in Burishol forest of Paschim Midnapore district comes out to be a concocted one. It is significant that the mother of Kishanji, Ms. Madhuramma while maintaining it is a fake encounter has also demanded a judicial enquiry. Under the circumstances, we demand:

West Bengal, India: Maoist-interlocutor ‘talks by August 31’ — Rebels accept govt invite

by MONALISA CHAUDHURI, The Telegraph

Calcutta, Aug. 26: The Maoists and the state-appointed interlocutors will hold their first peace talks by Wednesday, government sources said today.

Two representatives from each side will attend the meeting, the sources said. They said the committee of interlocutors had sent a letter to CPI (Maoist) state secretary Asim Mandal alias Akash on Tuesday on behalf of the home department, inviting the rebels to the talks to start the peace process in Jungle Mahal.

The letter mentioned that the talks would be “unconditional” and that the Maoist leaders attending the meeting would be given “safe passage”, the sources said. Maoist sources told The Telegraph that they had received the letter, adding the rebels had verbally conveyed their acceptance to the government.

India: The electoral “Marxists” in W. Bengal are slipping; what is the alternative?

The peasants have it 21 May 2011 GN Saibaba says the real alternative will come from the maoists, not the Trinamool THE RECENT debacle of Communist Party of India (Marxist) has led to widespread speculation in the media and elsewhere that this indeed is the end of the CPI(M) in West Bengal. It is being predicted that the way they have been literally routed in the assembly poll will lead to their gradual demise. The defeat of the CPI(M) in West Bengal after its uninterrupted rule of 34 years is literally seen as the fall of the fortress. However, such a reading of the situation is misplaced. The CPI(M) is like any other ruling class party in this country. These parties come and go in central and state legislative bodies and Parliament and take their turns in pursuing anti-people policies. They never provide an alternative to their immediate predecessor, but simply capitalise on the growing grievances of the people against the existing government. The performance of the DMK, the ruling party in Tamil Nadu, is a good example. Yet the media is not talking about the end of the DMK, despite their abysmal performance. The reason for this is the turns the AIDMK and the DMK take in routing each other in successive elections and in exploiting people in a similar manner.

India: 27 injured in clash between Maoists and jail staff in WB

// <![CDATA[// The Hindu, PTI

Midnapore, March 22, 2011

Twenty seven people, including six jail staff, were injured during a clash with Maoists lodged in Midnapore Central Jail here today.

Six jail staff, including head warden Deepak Kumar Baidya, were injured when Maoists lodged in the prison complex clashed with them following the death of an undertrial prisoner here last night, said officials.

West Bengal, India: Tribal group calls a 24-hour shutdown to protest atrocities

2010-12-18

Kolkata, Dec 18 (IANS) Pro-Maoist tribal group, Peoples’ Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) Saturday called for a 24-hour shutdown Monday in West Bengal’s three rebel-dominated districts to protest ‘atrocities’ of the joint security forces. ‘The shutdown on Monday has been called in Purulia, Bankura and West Midnapore districts as the common tribal people living in the areas were facing torture and harassment from the joint forces and armed cadres of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M),’ a PCAPA spokesman told IANS on phone from Lalgarh area of West Midnapore. ‘Police are also picking up our supporters and local people on false charges of being Maoists and carrying out inhuman torture on them. Earlier, the joint forces picked up and detained Muhammad Israieel. He was released just three days ago, but he cannot even stand as police had beaten him severely on his feet and legs,’ said the PCAPA spokesman, who wished to be anonymous. He added that two other people were also picked up by the police and beaten ‘mercilessly’. ‘We demand that the government and administration should stop atrocities on our people and urge people to support the shutdown,’ the spokesperson said. –Indo-Asian-News Service

 

Mednipur Central Jail, West Bengal: 150 Political Prisoners Start Indefinite Hunger Strike, Issue Sweeping Demands

COMMITTEE FOR THE RELEASE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS, New Delhi

Press Release, December 10, 2010

On the Occasion of International Human Rights Day—

In Solidarity with the Political Prisoners in Medinipur Central Jail, West Bengal, India who have started their Indefinite Hunger Strike on 10^th December!

Nearly 150 political prisoners—mostly under trial and incarcerated in the state of West Bengal which the Indian government calls ‘Correctional Home’—will start hunger strike from 10^th December 2010 on Human Rights Day for an indefinite period, true to the long tradition of hunger strikes organized by political prisoners in Medinipur, as also other jails of West Bengal and outside in near and distant past.

Convicts working at Midinapore Central Jail, where countless freedom fighters were martyred in struggle against British colonialist rule, and where hundreds of opponents of the oppressive Indian regime are held as political prisoners today

The prisoners include those arrested on the charge of having Maoist links, or becoming members of the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) that spearheaded the Lalgarh (Jangalmahal) movement in the state of West Bengal from November 2008, or common villagers standing by the cause.

Many of these prisoners have been languishing in jail for years together in abysmal conditions virtually without trial. Some other prisoners arrested in Maoist connections will also join the hunger strike in Krishnagar Jail, Nadia, Alipur Central Jail and Presidency Jail in Kolkata. Among the prisoners spearheading the hunger strike are Chhatradhar Mahato [leader of the PCAPA until his arrest-ed], Sukhshanti Baskey, Prasun Chatterjee and Raja Sarkhel in Medinipur Central Jail, Chandi Sarkar, Sabyasachi Goswami, Zakir Hosen and Pradip Chatterjee in Krishnagar Jail, Gour Chakrabarti in Presidency Jail and Telugu Dipak in Alipur Central Jail.

Ever since its inception, it has been a constant demand of the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners [CRPP] for the unconditional release of all political prisoners in the Indian Subcontinent. It has in this regard also stressed the need to completely do away with all draconian laws like the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), Public Safety Act (PSA) and all similar acts meant to suppress and stifle political dissent among the most oppressed and exploited people of the subcontinent.

Struggle of sharecroppers in West Bengal expose tall claims of land reform

Shramik Shakti, April 2010. Translated by Koel Das, Sanhati

For a long time, we have been hearing tall claims about land reforms in West Bengal. The law was passed back when Siddartha Shankar Ray was the Chief Minister. After the Left Front came to power in 1977, the sharecropper law had also been amended a few times. But the recent struggles of villagers of Sujapur in Murshidabad is evidence to the fact that real land reform does not happen by just passing the law.

Sujapur is a village in Murshidabad and almost all of its inhabitants are sharecroppers or farmers. Most of the villagers belong to the fisherman community. The land in the village is wetlands (land J L no:129). These lands cannot be cultivated if there is excess rainfall. Most people earn their living by fishing in these wetlands. When the rainfall is less, Boro rice is cultivated here. There are about 2000 Bighas of wetlands.

For about ten generations, the villagers have either been farming or fishing in this place. 150 bigha of the wetlands were declared barga land which resulted in landless sharecroppers getting patta. Poor villagers had purchased some of these lands from the landlords. Villagers knew that the land belonged to the members of Ray family or the Trivedi family like Abhaypada Ray, Shibendramohan, Shubendumohan Trivedi, Jagannath Trivedi and others.

None of these landlords stay in Sujapur; they do not know definitively which land belongs to whom. But the village sharecroppers regularly give them a portion of the produce year after year. They have requested the landlords repeatedly to sell the lands to them. Although the landlords took cash advance from them, they never registered the land. They just showed the land map but never specified the plot of land and could not even produce a legal document for the landownership.

“Pro-Maoist” Organization Builds a Dam in Eastern India

[This is a translated, partial transcript of a Bengali video recently released.  The PCAPA, while under attack by the State military and para-military forces, is nonetheless continuing to serve the people and enable them to organize to meet their basic needs.  The media which released this information referred to the PCAPA as “pro-Maoist” though they have never, to our knowledge, described themselves in those terms.  Maoists have, it seems, worked with them, but the PCAPA represents a broad range of forces and views among adivasi people.-ed.]

PCAPA women doing development work in Lalgarh

A Pro-Maoist organisation Peoples Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) builds a dam to protect the village from being flooded

1. LOCAL VILLAGERS DIGGING

2. WOMEN CARRYING BASKETS OF MUD ON THEIR HEAD

3. LOCAL VILLAGERS AT THE SITE

4. MEN DIGGING THE GROUND

5. A BANNER WRITTEN IN BENGALI

6. A BANNER ON THE SITE WITH RAW MATERIALS IN SACKS

7. A MAN WATERING THE SOIL

8. MEN CARRYING RAW MATERIALS FOR CONSTRUCTION

9. (SOUNDBITE) (Bengali) MANGAL MAHATO, PCAPA MEMBER, SAYING: “By this dam, almost thousand of families and the land would be protected and therefore we have started and undertaken this work ourselves.”

Q. Is the government helping you or any other private body helping you?