COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)
Central Committee
Press Release
April 28, 2023
Observe the revolutionary May Day. Build Political militant working class and peasant movements in India against the Fascist BJP Four Labour Codes, anti- farmer’s policies and all anti people policies of the government.
CPI (Maoist) conveys it’s heartedly wishes to all working class, the toiling masses of India and rest of the world onthe occasion of May Day. This time we are going to celebrate May Day at that historical juncture when the global Capitalism is undergoing one of its worst crisis. Imperialism is staging severe repression and exploitation on oppressed countries and its toiling masses as well as all over the world. Inter- imperialist wars are intensifying and is heading towards nuclear war. The proletariat all over the world has today transformed into a mere appendage to supply-chains as a source of surplus value. This has degraded all the elements of its existence and devoid it’s humanely life, compelling it to revolt against this given reality of Capitalism that dehumanizes the vast majority of the human population. In semi- feudal and semi-colonial country like India different forms of capital coexist and the working class exist into different contingent. Still in India labour is not entirely free as it is in the capitalist country and there is prevalence of the process of surplus extraction via the unpaid domestic labor, labor bondage and casual labor.
Social and economic inequality has taken a giant leap since Modi came to power. Top hundred billionaires in India controls wealth of around 54 lakh crore. Such a huge amount is enough to finance the union budget for 18 months at least. Concentration of wealth and resources in the hands of exploitative classes has caused tremendous distress in Indian economy and to the working class.
Agriculture conditions: BJP government policies at the centre and other ruling class parties at the state has failed to create favourable conditions for the accumulation of profits for the small, medium as well as large scale farmers.
The recent budget by the central government has constructed a plan of 20 lakh crore rupees for credit. This is nothing but an outrightly mockery of the farmers demand for the cancellation of debts, framing laws on MSP and reduction of the input costs. Whatever surplus is generated by the small and medium farmers are extracted and exploited by the landlords and Monopoly finance capital, and the end result is that such surplus fails to develop the production.
According to the last census, the total population of landless labourers was around 14 crore, and going by the recent trend their population has further increased. Around 83 percent of rural households holds less than 30 percent of land, and this clearly states the concentration of lands in the hands of new feudal landlords and corporate classes.
Employment Scenario and attack on working class: Around 90% of the labour force in India is involved in informal sector. In the financial year 2022-23, around 10,655 micro, small and medium enterprises have closed down and this is the highest in the past four years. This informal sector constitutes around 30 percent of the economy and 40 percent of the labour force has been struggling from demonetization, GST and Pandemic. The share of government jobs in the organized sectors is rapidly going down the hill. From 2014-2021, the total job applications were above 22 crore but, the Modi government was able to give around only 7 lakh jobs in government sectors. Apart from this
around, 44 percent of government jobs are temporary or on contract basis. At the same period crores of workers and employees lost their jobs due to Modi government pro imperialist and pro Comprador bourgeoisie policies. The informalization of the Indian economy has further led to the exploitation of the working class and the peasantry. One of the major factor behind the steep decline in the share of wages (from 30% in the 1980s to 9.5% in 2009) compared to the huge increase in the share of profits (from around 15% to 55% during the same period) has been the rapid contractorisation of the labour force.The proportion of contract workers in formal sector manufacturing increased from about 12.26% in 1990–91 to about 42.27% in 2013-14. The labour participation rate has fallen from 42.9 per cent
to 39.8 per cent in the past few years. The decline in real wages have attacked the purchasing power of the workers and the toiling masses. Between 2016-17 and 2021-22, there has been a drastic 62 percent decline in jobs in the cement industry, in the metal industry the employment has gone down by 10 percent and in the mining sector jobs have gone down by 28 percent. According to NCRB report 2021, around 80 thousand daily wage laborers have committed suicide in the last two years. In fact it is not a suicide but a murder orchestrated by the ruling classes.
Privatization of Key Public Sectors: As BJP captured the political power in 2014 it has unleashed a series of
programs to privatize the core public sectors which are the arteries of the Indian economy. It is trying all its effort to
hand over the Coal India limited and Singareni Collieries Company Limited to Adani and Ambani. In order to facilitate
that move it has enacted Coal Mines (Special) provision Act, 2015 that allows the private players to produce and sell
coal on their own administered price. Under National Monetization Program, BJP government is willing to privatize
400 railway stations, 150 passenger trains, 2,843 km of Dedicated Freight Corridors and track infrastructure, among
others. Several Public Sector Banks, Insurance sectors, telecom and other have been kept in line for privatization.
Corporatization of natural resources is heading forward with the help of fascist onslaught on the people’s movements against the privatization of the natural wealth of our country.
International Working class struggles: The French working class movement clearly shows the political and economic crisis of the bourgeoisie system in France. Macron is sustaining its rule through decree and severe repressive measures on the mass working class movements. On March 23rd, the working class movement in France against the new pension policy and other working class problems acquired a militant form which made the ruling class to describe the movement as an act of insurrection. The revisionist parties in France are all marching shoulder to shoulder in order to protect the Fifth Republic from the onslaught of the working class. The Revisionist parties are trying all its effort to destabilize the ongoing workers movements in France through its compromise tactics that plays
in the interest of the bourgeoisie. The genuine Communist and revolutionary forces need to wage a political and ideological struggle in order to continue the working class movement for building socialism in France. It is necessary at present for the French working class to go for general strike in order to break the spine of the system. In United Kingdom series of working class protests erupted from May 2022 that has also given rise to the political crisis in the United Kingdom. In USA, the nurses’ movement, Amazon Workers movements and other working class movements are continuing. All these resembles the intensification of the class contradictions arising from the deepening crisis of
the global capitalist system.
Trade unions in India rather being having partisan approach towards working class movements, it is in fact adjusting itself to the compulsion of the system. In front of the concentric power of the capital and the government, the working classes is divided into diverse isolated parts. Trade unions are not taking the working class movements’ one step further in terms of political directions. At present the working class movements are displaying spontaneous consciousness that is largely linked to the dominance of partial demands as put forwarded by the Trade unions.
Unions Strikes have become formal in essence which is losing its potency for any minimum transformation in the living conditions of the working classes in India. Between 1991 and 2022, there has been a total of 21 strikes call given by the central trade unions, but all these strikes could not put any pressure on the state and it depicts a kind holiday strike. The Indian working class movements is passing through a toughest time in its history and only through having a clear political approach of forming unity with the peasantry and other toiling masses it can overcome from its persisting weakness. Today trade unions all over the world are under the grip of revisionist and social democratic
forces which has entangled the working class movements in the chains of economism and reformism. It is the duty of the working class to fight against this anti proletariat ideology by building militant working-class movements and must move forward in the aim of capture the political power.
Comrades,
The existing production relations is exploitative and is acting as a fetter on the development of the production forces. The persisting backwardness of the Indian production relationship that is connected with the imperialist Monopoly finance capital, Comprador Bourgeoisie capital and landlords are impediment to the overall development of the working class and the masses. The Indian working class and the peasantry must overthrow these fetters by making New Democratic Revolution successful and by marching towards socialism. Central Committee of CPI ( Maoist) gives a call to all mass organization, workers and peasantry, women, intellectuals,students, Dalits, Oppressed and nationality organizations to built a joint militant political working class and peasantry movements
against the four labour codes, anti farm law and Brahmanical Hindutva Fascism all over the country.
Abhay
Spokesperson
Central Committee
COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)
International Affairs
Central Committee
Dated 15 th April, 2023.
Long Live World Proletarian May Day
Let us consolidate the proletariat whose livesare becoming destabilized in the recessionary conditions across the world .
Fight against the threat of I mperialist war!
Intensify the anti- imperialist struggles!
Dear workers of the world!
“Workers of the world, unite, ‘ There is nothing to loosen for proletarian except the
shackles of the slavery “was said by our great teachers Marx and Engels. May Day is the
day of the World proletarian class who achieved their genuine rights with their heroically
struggles. For the past 137 years, the world wide working class is celebrating this day with
great determination and the revolutionary enthusiasm. They are waging very militant
struggles against the suppression of their rights and achieving their just demands. On the
occasion of this World May Day, the proletarian Day, let us convey our best red salutes to
the working class of the world and pay our rich tribunes those who laid their precious lives
to the sake of the world socialism.
Last century was the century of the successes of the proletarian revolutions. Apart
from the revolutions of the Russia and China, the revolutions of the working class in many
countries of the world were successful and formed a socialist camp. The red flags were
hastened on the one six of the globe. But those successes were not stood last long. The
political power of the proletariat and the people’s democratic dictatorship was defeated.
The revisionists has become strong in the revolutionary parties and in the governments of
the working class and captured the power. This is the misery of working class.
The socialist camp of the world had ended with the emergence of Soviet social
imperialism first in the USSR and then after China has become as a new social imperialist
country in the history. In spite of it, the working class movements are still going on all over
the world. The anti- imperialist mass struggles are also intensifying across the world. On the
other hand, the new Maoist parties are emerging in different countries across the world.
This has become a trend of the day. To break these struggles and the new trend, the
revisionists and neo revisionists who colluded with the bourgeois class are the main danger
for it. Without exposing them and without defeating their machinations, the working class
will not be able to advance their struggles in the direction of seizure of political power. We
are very confident that, on this occasion of the May Day, the advanced section of the
revolutionary proletariat of all the countries will recognize the danger of it and alert the
working class to use better the present revolutionary conditions to intensify the working
class struggles.
Dear proletarian comrades,
For the past few years, the working class movement across the world is gaining
momentum year by year. Today’s world has bogged down in the conditions of severe
recession and the lives of the laborers of all the countries are becoming very miserable.
Now, once again the collapsing of the banks has started. America’s third largest bank,
Silicon Valley Bank, collapsed due to the gigantic fall in the share values. The collapse of the
banks will destroy and destabilize again the economies around the world. On the other
hand, for the last three years, the Covid-19 pandemic created by the imperialists is making
the entire public, including the working class has been destabilized. Still the world is
suffering with different variants of Covid. In the name of vaccine, the imperialists looted
the toiling masses, but none of the vaccines could completely eradicate the epidemic. In the
time of Covid, the lives of poor laborers were largely ruined by the lockdown policies
implement ted by the governments. The exploitative governments around the world did a
great deal to save the big corporates houses in the times of recession. But, no one
government was worried about the welfare of the toiling masses. No comprehensive police
were devised to save the poor and toiling ones. Therefore, this is right time for the working
class who has identified the cunning nature of the governments, has to intensify the
struggle against it.
The world is being burning in the flames of the war since last year which was ignited
by the imperialists. On the one hand the imperialist Russia and on the other hand U.S
imperialists and its NATO alliance are disastrously burning the land of Ukraine in to the
ashes of war. The imperialist Russia imposed the war on Ukraine in the name of special
military operation is condemnable and it is more seriously condemn- able which U.S and its
allies NATO war mongers are implementing the disastrous war policies which are leading to
the destructive results. With the consequences of war the people of both countries are
facing serious problems. Till now, there are reports of death toll is more than 1.5 lakh
people in Ukraine. Millions of people have been displaced and migrated as refugees. The
fields of Ukraine is wetting with the blood of soldiers and people. But the neo Nazi Zelensky
is not only even getting ready for talks but also encouraging his armies and people to fight
with neo Tsarist Russia with the help of US and its NATO alliance. In this war, it is crystal
clear that military corporate houses and U.S imperialist are mainly getting enormous
profits. In the last one year’s war, U.S imperialist alone has delivered more than $ 30 billion
of war material to Ukraine in the name of assistance, which shows the extent of its profits.
The working class of the world is raising its voice to stop this war immediately. Public
demonstrations against the war are continuing in many countries of the world. They must
step up their voices against the ongoing war. In that direction, on the occasion of the May
Day it is the need of the hour to take resolute decision by the working class of all the
countries.
There is an upsurge of working class movements all over the world. Meanwhile,
millions of workers in Britain are undergoing strike like never before in this decade to
demand higher wages and lower prices of essential commodities. The working class of
France is fighting for their demands by taking themselves to the streets. The workers of all
countries of Europe and America are struggling to achieve their just demands. In India also
all types of government employees are resorting for strike. Mainly lakhs of contract
workers, Aanganwadi workers, Asha workers, Sanitation workers and Health workers are
undergoing strike to increase their wages and to treat them equal with government
employees and get them be permanent. Millions of farmers of India are also struggling in an
unprecedented way. In South Asia mainly Sri Lanka and Pakistan are entrenched in
economic crisis i, the poor and oppressed people are getting troubled by the soaring prices.
In the countries of Africa and Latin America also the toiling masses are fighting for their just
demands. Today the world is burning with the strikes of working class. Another side it has
become a phenomenon of the world to entrench the workers from their jobs. The big
corporate houses are entrenching the labor in big number. They are coming on the roads
with their just demands. There is a need of working class revolutionary parties to lead this
struggles. It’s high time to consolidate the working class in the appropriate forms of
struggle and organization al structures. All the militant struggles must be equipped with
the seizure of political power politics. Failing to do so, the working class will become a
scapegoat for revisionist politics, being satisfied with a four dollar increase in the wages and
trapped in the decades of economism and reformism. That’s why on the occasion of May
Day, we will take an oath by taking the red flag in our hands that we will not do like this.
The Ukraine war instigated by the imperialists does not seem to stop; they are
intensifying the threat of a world war. The threat of nuclear war is also on the rise. Ukraine
is not only the country in the world that is falling prey to imperialist war. Millions of people
are dying in Yemen. In so many countries, millions of people are becoming scapegoats for
the interests of the imperialist wars. The world is more disturbed due to imperialist policies
of serving their own interest. Due to the imperialist policies the environmental crisis is
increasing. The imperialists wars are one of the main reasons behind the increasing of in
the sufferings of the working class. The root cause of today’s crisis is also the same.
Imperialism is the only reason for the violation of the rights of the working class and also
for the massacres across the world. The wars led by single U.S imperialist are more than
300 in the history after it has become a nation killed millions of people across the world. It
wants to fulfill its lust of hegemony of the world and get enormous profits it never
hesitated to destruct the world. Every single step taken by U.S imperialism leads to a
devastating war somewhere in the world in one or the other way. The U.S imperialists and
its traditional ally Europe are on the one hand and the Russian imperialists and Chinese on
the other hand are very greedy to re divide the world. As a result, the whole world is
suffering with devastating war, crisis, recession, hunger, poverty, oppression,
unemployment and price rise. Let us strive to create the world which will be war free. But
that is not possible without the end of imperialism. So, let us more intensify the anti-
imperialist militant struggles. Let us equip it with the revolutionary politics to protect it
from the temptations of economism and reformism of all kinds of revisionists.
In some countries of the world, particularly U.S imperialists and its European ally
countries t the right wing parties are promoting racism. The danger of fascism is increasing
in many countries. For the last 10 years, the Hindutva forces are in power in India are
implementing their fascist policies. To destroy the diversity of the country, they are
imposing their reactionary policies on the people of the country. They have declared 2024
as the last date to completely eliminate the people’s war going on in the country for more
than last five decades. The areas of Maoist movement are being suppressed by drone
strikes, helicopter firing and deployment of lakhs of police and paramilitary forces. In order
to end the decades- long revolutionary movement of the Philippines, the government of
Junior Marcos is increasing the repression with the help of American imperialists in an
unprecedented manner. In order to stop the ongoing people’s wars in Turkey, Peru and
some other countries, the comprador ruling classes of that states are intensifying the
attacks under the guidance and assistance of the imperialists. Palestine and different
national movements are also being crushed for decades. But their struggles are going on.
Let us stand firmly with the people those who are continuing the people’s wars and
nationalist movements in their countries opposing the imperialists and comprador
bureaucratic bourgeoisie and feudalism. This is the duty bound task of the proletarian. On
the occasion of the May Day the working class must take oath to consolidate the ongoing
revolutionary struggles in their respective countries and to increase mutual fraternal
movements. Every step of the working class has to advance in the direction of revolutionary
politics of seizure of political power. This May Day must be celebrated as the Day of
Struggle by the working class to intensify its struggles in the direction of ending the
imperialism on the globe.
Long live Proletarian class May Day.
Down with revisionism and neo-revisionism.
Down with imperialism
Let us fight against the danger of world war/atomic war
Let us stand resolutely in the support of ongoing people’s wars and build strong solidarity movements in support of it.
With revolutionary greetings,
Amrut,
I/C. International affairs
Central Committee,
CPI (Maoist)
Kandhamal District, May 24, 2023: Security forces engaged in a brief skirmish with a squad of CPI (Maoist) cadres in Budhanai Reserve Forest under Tumudibandh Police Station in Kandhamal district of Odisha state today.
The personnel of Special Operations Group (SOG) along with the district police launched a combing operation in the reserve forest in the early morning after receiving intelligence inputs regarding the presence of armed cadres of the CPI (Maoist) in the area, during which the police team came across a squadron of around 20 Maoists inside the reserve forest, said an official.
The Maoists opened fire on the police team, with the police personnel retaliating in self defense, he added.
“The exchange of fire continued for about half an hour. The Maoists managed to escape by taking advantage of the jungle terrain,” said the official.
Khordha District, May 15, 2023: The bandh call by the CPI (Maoist) in seven districts of Odisha state over their 12-point charter of demands saw road traffic being affected with the Maoists erecting blockades by felling trees at several places, including Pankalguri near Hanumantpur under Chandrapur block in Rayagada district on Monday.
Posters and banners, alleging that underprivileged individuals in the state are being denied access to essential services such as education, healthcare, and housing, were also found at Chandrapur and Basadhara-Ghumusur-Nagavali blocks.
In an audio release on Friday, the Maoist party announced that it would enforce a bandh in Rayagada, Kandhamal, Ganjam, Kalahandi, Boudh, Gajapati and Nayagarh districts to press its demands. However, essential services including hospital, ambulances, medical stores and examination centres would be exempted from the bandh, it added.
The Maoists demands included allotment of houses to deserving beneficiaries under PM Awas Yojana or Biju Awas Yojana in 6 months, free supply of oil, dal, salt along with PDS rice, construction of roads, drinking water supply and power connection to all villages and construction of hospitals in every panchayat.
Stating that education has been most neglected in the backward areas of these districts, the Maoists demanded establishment of Adarsh Schools in every panchayat, reopening of the schools closed for lack of sufficient number of students, appointment of teachers in vacant posts and monthly scholarship of Rs 3,000 to tribal students.
Highlighting the unemployment problems in the area, the Maoists demanded payment of monthly unemployment allowance of Rs 3,000. Besides this, increasing the old age and widow pension to Rs 3,000 was also demanded by them.
New Delhi, April 19, 2023: The Supreme Court on April 19 set aside a Bombay High Court decision to discharge political prisoner and former Delhi University professor Dr. G.N. Saibaba in a UAPA case linking him with the CPI (Maoist).
A Bench led by Justice M.R. Shah referred the case back to the High Court for a fresh look on merits. The State of Maharashtra had appealed the Supreme Court against the High Court order of October 2022.
A Sessions Court had sentenced him to life imprisonment in 2017. The High Court had agreed with Dr. Saibaba’s appeal that the Sessions Court had framed charges and tried him without obtaining sanction from the Central Government as mandated under Section 45(1) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
On April 19, the Bench requested the Bombay High Court Chief Justice, in the observance of propriety, to place the case for hearing before another Bench, and not the one which had discharged him.
The apex court urged the High Court to consider and decide the case expeditiously, preferably within four months.
The Supreme Court said it would be open for the State to argue in the High Court that once the accused had been convicted by the Sessions Court at the conclusion of a trial, the validity of sanction cannot be gone into by the appellate court.
Senior advocates Nitya Ramakrishnan and R. Basant, appearing for Dr. Saibaba, said they should be allowed to counter the arguments of the State in the High Court
Patna District, April 20, 2023: Enraged over the police murder of five of its cadres in a fake encounter, the CPI (Maoist) has called for a 48-hour bandh in the states of Bihar and Jharkhand starting Thursday.
The Maoist party claimed that the fake encounter took place in Chatra district on April 3. In the incident five Maoists — Gautam Paswan, Amar Kumar, Nanu, Sanjit Kumar and Ajit Kumar — were gunned down by the security forces. The Maoist party accused the security forces of hatching a conspiracy against their cadres and killing them in cold blood.
In view of the announcement of the bandh, several districts including Gaya, Aurangabad, Sheikhpura, Lakhisarai, Munger, Nawada, Jahanabad, Arwal, Rohtas, Kaimur have been put on high alert.
Manoj Ram, the SDPO of Imamganj district said: “We are keeping an eye on Maoist groups and have asked the villagers to stay alert. We are following the instructions of senior officials and coordinating with Paramilitary forces.”
COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)
International Affairs Central Committee
Dated: 18th April 2023.
Withdraw All The Additional Police And Paramilitary Forces From The Bastar
Stop The Drone Strikes And Helicopter Gun Fire On People
Dear Comrades and friends of Indian Revolution Abroad, Red salutes. On 7th April, 2023 again the Bastar police dropped bombs through drones and did bun fire from three helicopters on the villagers of Bastar Division. In this drone strike the villagers were injured seriously. This is the 4th time drone strike on the same area. The police never confirmed their cruel and anticonstitutional and anti-people activity in the last two years. Our Central Committee CPI (Maoist) appeal to you to condemn the Indian State war on its own people and raise your voices in support of people who are in midst of people’s war since last 5 dacades.
The Bastar police started their first drone strike in 2021 on june 19th. On that day they have dropped more than 12 bombs on the Bottalanka and Palagudem hamlets of Bijapur distrit. Similarly, in the intervening night of 14-15th April 2022, villages namely Bottenthong, Mettagudem, Dulod, Saklet and Pottemangi of Bijapur and Sukma districts were bombed using drones. Again on 11th January 2023 the police simultaneously conducted drone strikes and helicopter gun firing on our PLGA guerillas and people. In this attack we lost our young guerilla comrade Ungi (17yrs). In spite of heavy bombing and in midst of helicopter gun firing our brave PLGA guerillas retaliated it and seriously injured 6 GARUDA commandos including a technical staff person. The two helicopters were also damaged. In this attack first time the notorious NSG (National Security Guards) commandos were involved. In this sequence, the Bastar police again dropped bombs on big scale through drones and did helicopter gun firing in the same area i.e. the border area of Sukma and Bijapur Districts. In this drone strike and gun firing some veillagers of Jabdbagatta were injured seriously, those who are collecting forest product i.e. Muhua flowers.
Now it has become their routine activity in that area. The people were panicked and seriously condemned the state undeclared war on them. Their life is under great threat in that area, because they are 2 living under the intensive surveillance of modern drones. In that undeclared war zone the police is conducting continuously their war crimes but never accepting it. This is seriously condemnable attitude of the state. The Indian State openly declared to eliminate CPI (Maoists) on the name of LWE (Left wing extremism) within 18 months i.e. before the forth coming general elections which are scheduled to be held in April-May 2024. So, they are in very hurry to complete their task. This plan was made in the reactionary Surajkund Chintan Shibir in the last October. This Shibir (Conference) was conducted to review their five years Samadhan military operation (2017-2022) which was heroically retaliated by our great revolutionary people and PLGA. In this conference the unpopular think tanks and police brass took part under the guidance of Indian Home Minister Amit Sha and addressed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
They are in dire need of the raw materials to exploit from the mineral rich tribal belt. But there is the revolutionary movement which is going on since more than last five decades and it established alternative power organs in that belt. The people of that area are struggling for their just demands. Now, it has become a war between Indian people and Indian State which represents the exploitive Indian ruling classes. So, once again our CC appealing you to stand firmly with the people to defeat this reactionary Chintan Shibir military plan on the name of Operation Vikas (Development). At, present the Bastar police has concentrated their forces and attacks particularly on the borders of Sukma and Bijapur Districs of Chhattisgad state. They are openly declaring to eliminate of Battalion 1 and its commander Com. Hidma. They are constructing special roads to his village Puvvara. They have posted number of police camps to encircle the above said area with hundreds of special commando forces. The State Government accepted the Central Government operation and it is also increasing its brutal anti-people activities. So, let us cry again to stop the fascist attacks on the people and the blood thrust state will never eliminate the Indian revolution
With revolutionary greetings,
Amrut,
I/C. International affairs Central Committee,
CPI (Maoist)
Palamu District, April 14, 2023: A two-day bandh called by the CPI (Maoist) affected normal life in three police station areas of Jharkhand’s Palamu district on Friday, an officer said. Many shops remained shut and few public transport vehicles were visible on the roads in areas under Hariharganj, Pipra and Naudiha police stations.
The bandh, beginning Friday, has been called by the CPI (Maoist) to protest a recent police encounter in which five Maoists were killed, a senior police officer said. Chhatarpur sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) Ajay Kumar told PTI, “Markets are almost closed and few vehicles are on the roads. No untoward incident has been reported till evening.”
Meanwhile, security forces have been put on high alert in the western districts of the state in view of the bandh call. The districts that have been asked to be alert are Palamu, Latehar, Garhwa, Chatra, Hazaribag and Lohardaga, the police officer said. On April 3, five Maoists were killed in a gunfight with security forces in Chatra district. The Maoist party claims these cadres were murdered by the police in a fake encounter.
Lesliganj sub-divisional police officer (SPDO) Alok Kumar Tutti said that the police are alert in Manatu, Tarhsi, Pipratang and Panki police station areas of Palamu district. A police officer said that Maoists had pasted posters on some electric transformers in Bihar’s Gaya district announcing the two-day bandh in Jharkhand.
Visakhapatnam District, April 11, 2023: With the verdict in the Vakapalli gang-rape case “the state once again exposed its class bias,” said Andhra-Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), Comrade Ganesh, in a statement on Tuesday.
A special court in Vishakhapatnam district on April 6 acquitted all the 13 policemen who were accused in the Vakapalli gang-rape case. 11 Adivasi women belonging to the Kondh community were gang-raped at a village in Andhra Pradesh’s Alluri Sitarama Raju district in 2007.
“It has been 16 years since the Greyhound (a special anti-Maoist police force) police gang-raped 11 tribal women in Vakapalli. The incident happened on Aug 21, 2007. One of the officials of the inquiry commission appointed on the incident died. Another could not give a proper investigation report. So the court declared that the police who committed the rape are innocent. Through this judgment, the state once again exposed its class nature,” said Comrade Ganesh in a statement released on Tuesday.
In the statement, he also alleged, “It has been proved once again that under this system, poor tribals especially women cannot get justice.”
Comrade Ganesh, in the statement, also called for a protest of the Maoists against the court’s verdict.
In the verdict, the court had cited the failure of the investigating officers in conducting a fair and impartial investigation and therefore acquitted all the accused in the case.
Central Committee
Press Release
10 April, 2023
Society does not remember every human being but, it admires those who commits one’s life for the betterment of society. One of that life took birth on the land of India on 14h April 1891, his name is Doctor Babasaheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar. Communist Party of India (Maoist) pay its revolutionary homage to Ambedkar who epitomized the value of struggle against injustices of the social order. He taught us that human sufferings are having social causes and it can only be removed through “Agitate, Educate and Organise”. Ambedkar’s contributions towards the construction of a democratic and a humane society, both in his thought process and social praxis is immense.
Today Ambedkar jayanti is being celebrated at a time when the danger of Hindutva fascism has almost encircled the nation. He is that light from which the darkness of Hindutva is terrified of. RSS and BJP regime is a negation of Ambedkar’s thought and has completely thrown his principles of Equality, Secularism, Fraternity and Democracy in dust bin. BJP – RSS today represents “the sick men of India whose sickness is causing danger to the health and happiness of other Indians”. RSS and BJP project of saffronisation of Ambedkar is integrally linked to their agenda of Hindu Rashtra. BJP and RSS is planning to replace the constitution with Manusmriti. Today we are BJP is celebrating its foundation day from 6th April to 14 April and has taken several programs for Ambedkar Jayanti in order to bring
Dalits and people from oppressed castes into its fold. Bunch of misinformations has been produced by the RSS and BJP consciously about Ambedkar especially his views on Marxism. The right wing forces has declared an open war on Marxism and Revolutionary dalit politics with its effort of saffronising Ambedkar. But, it is a historical fact that the ideology that was much closer to Ambedkar was Marxism. But, the RSS and the BJP obfuscates the truth because truth is bitter for those who denies it.
CPI (Maoist) feels proud like every other individuals to perceive the highest statute (125ft) of Ambedkar in Telangana, but by witnessing the sufferings and pathetic conditions of Dalits in Telangana and in other parts of India, Ambedkar’s ideas and principal has been transformed microscopical in front of his own enormous statue. Ruling classes remembers Ambedkar because they see him as their easy deposits. KCR and BRS is on the path of appeasing the Dalit sections. As Modi – RSS rule has engulfed over India, the atrocities on Dalits and on other oppressed castes has surmounted. The fascist Cow vigilant are attackings and killing Dalits and muslims in the name of cow protection.
Discriminations in the education sector has increased which is leading to not only poverty of knowledge in society but, also to denial of knowledge to the Dalits students and oppressed castes. After the implementation of neoliberal policies by the comprador bourgeoisie the oppressed castes people have suffered the most. Landlessness among the Dalits have increased and still non- economic exploitation of Dalits and other oppressed castes is the norm in rural India. This depicts the hegemonic dominance of the Brahmanical fascist forces and the perseverance of semi feudal
conditions. The annihilation of caste which Ambedkar stood for is only possible by annihilating the semi-feudal and Semi-colonial social order of India. Ambedkar has rightly pointed out that Dalits have two enemies one as Brahmanism and the other as Capitalism.
Central Committee of CPI (Maoist) gives a call to all mass and class organizations, workers, peasantry, Ambedkarites, Dalits, OBCs, Women’s, Adivasi and intellectuals, writers, youth and students to absorb 14th April as a Anti- Brahmanical hindutva and Anti- Capitalism day and built a strong militant anti- caste throughout India.
Abhay
Spokesperson
Central Committee
COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)
Central Committee
Press Release
1 April, 2023
With the election in Karnataka around the horizon, the Fascist BJP government of Bommai has come up with
a nefarious plan to disrupt the social harmony across the religious communities. Motivated with its ideology of
Brahmanical Hindu- Rashtra, BJP- RSS and corporate nexus is all about to communalize the political discourse for the
aggravation of their selfish political gains. Central Committee of CPI (Maoist), strongly condemn the fascist decision
to abrogate the 4 percent OBC reservation for the Muslim community in Karnataka and alloting them reservation in 10
percent EWS category. The logic of BJP for denying Muslims reservation in the OBC category stems from the fact that
OBC reservation is not based on religious angle. But, the reservations for the Jain’s, Sikhs and Buddhist continue to
exist in OBC as before. We are not against the inclusion of them in the OBC list. But, Picture is clear here that the
target for BJP is Muslims and it stands for their total subjugation by transforming them into second class citizen. Any
abrogation or addition of the community in the reservation criteria has to be done through an empirical study by the
backward class commission and the BJP government has totally over sided the required procedure. BJP totally denies
the Sachar Commission report that depicts the pathetic conditions of Muslims in India.
In Karnataka BJP is facing innumerable corruption charges that is fuming people’s anger against the BJP
government in the state. Also, the Modi’s anti people, anti- farmer and pro Adani and Ambani policies has alienated the
people from their life. To cover all its failures, BJP in Karnataka is hiding behind the bush of communalism and
appeasement of Lingayats and Vokkaligas castes by allotting them quota of 2 percent reservation each. But, the
people of Karnataka are not going to be deceived by this Neo divide and rule policy of the BJP and majority of the
people even from the Lingayats and Vokkaligas are opposing this ill desired act of the Bommai government. BJP
government in Karnataka has remained an abode of communal fascist attacks on the minorities in the past few years.
The political strategy of BJP in Karnataka and elsewhere is to centralize the Hindu votes and make the Muslim votes
ineffective in the electorate system. In order to achieve this, BJP is organizing the subalterns as its foot soldiers
against the Muslim community.
Karnataka, the land of the great philosopher Basavanna, poet Tyagraja, anti-colonial fighter Tipu Sultan and
many other revolutionaries and personalities, is today facing the fascist onslaught where seeds of hate redness are
been trying to sown right from schools to every locality and in the hearts of every individual. This darkness that
prevails over Karnataka is a reflection of what is happening in the entire nation and this darkness has to be fought
with the light of revolt and protests by the masses. In this regard, CC of CPI (Maoist) party gave call to all democratic
and mass organizations, women’s, workers, peasants, students, intellectuals, Dalits and minorities organizations in
Karnataka and all over India to Protest against the BJP decision to remove Muslims from the OBC reservation in
Karnataka. Today they have done in Karnataka and tomorrow they are going to do in all the states of India. Comrades
and friends, we should remember that future lies in the present and our silence will lead to our own grave. In order to
overcome such situation it is pertinent that we should build a militant a mass movement.
Abhay
Spokesperson
Central Committee
COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)
Central Committee Press Release
28 March, 2023
Let us support the ongoing working class struggles in France (viva la France ).Let us strive to build a militant
working class and peasantry movements all over India. Let us stand for proletariat Internationalism !
Communist proclaims that, history is created through class struggle and today, world is witnessing a Revolutionary
historical situation, an revolutionary turn in the history of mankind. The Capitalist system is passing going through one
of its worst crisis and the working class movements are becoming more radical and militant. On 23 March, 2023, the
entire world saw a militant working class movement on the streets of Paris, Nantes, Bordeaux, Lorient and others
parts of France against the Pension Reform policy (that increases the age of retirement rom 62 to 64 years) of the
Macron’s government. Around 3.5 million protesting workers took to the streets across France and 1 million alone in
Paris, that sent shivers in nerves of the ruling classes in France. Also in America, Switzerland, Britain and all over the
world, we are witnessing an massive working class movements. From the perspective of the ruling classes, the
demonstration in France was an act of ‘insurrection’. The memories of the Revolutionary Paris Commune 1871 has
been rightly brought afresh in front of our eyes. In Bordeaux, the town hall was set on fire, in Nantes ransacked the
Administrative Court, in Lorient (Morbihan), the police station were targeted by the protesters. The Fascist Macron’s
police ruthlessly attacked the workers demonstration with tear gas, water canons, pepper sprays, bullets and
grenades. Around 457 arrests have been made by the police all over the France in order to suppress the movement.
Capitalism is a system of accumulation of profit and exploitation of the labouring classes. The capitalist production is
marked by “between ever more social production and ever more private appropriation” is the fundamental
contradiction that will cause its inevitable decline. In the last past one decade the 99 percent of world’s wealth is being
controlled by the 1 percent of the capitalist class. In India, between 2012 to 2021, 40 percent of the wealth generated
has been accumulated by just 3 percent of the population. The working class all over the world is de-humanized in
the capitalist system. Words of the 17th century French Philosopher Rousseau is rightly apt to the present time: “when
the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich”. The ongoing Working class demonstration is a living
inspiration for the Indian working class and the peasantry to build a militant movement against the Fascist BJP
government and the comprador bourgeoisie. Modi government has scrapped 44 labour laws and have introduced four
draconian labour codes and in the same way, it is playing to bring the Farm laws that was forced to get implemented
by the government because of more than one year of militant peasant movement in India.
Central Committee of the CPI (Maoist) from its soul and heart gives solidarity to the ongoing French working class
movements and encourages it to hold the banner high of the workers Red flag. CC appeals to all class and mass
organizations, workers, peasantry, students, intellectuals, Adivasis, Dalits, women’s and nationality organizations to
hold demonstrations in support of the working class struggle in France and all over the world and also appeals to build
a militant working class and peasantry movements in India. Marx has rightly pointed that “capital comes dripping from
head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt” and the only emancipation of the working class is to destroy the
capitalist system with full force.
Abhay,
Spokesperson
Central Committee
COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)
International Affairs Central Committee
2023 March, 15th
Free all the Political Prisoners across the World
Let us Support the International Prisoners Day March – 18
International Committee in Support of People’s War in India has given a call to support the International Day of Political Prisoners on March 18. Our Party Communist Party of India (Maoist) Central Committee has decided to commemorate that day across the country and called the people to demand free all the political prisoners across the world.
At present, world toiling masses are facing so many problems in their lives. Till the Covid -19 is haunting the people across the world in the form of various variants. Due to that the people are facing the price rice, unemployment, ill health and so many other social problems. The economic and financial crisis has been intensified. Meanwhile the imperialist proxy war was started in Ukraine. The Russian imperialists started the war on Ukraine on 24th Feb, 2022. The world people’s number one enemy US imperialists and their European NATO forces are stood behind the neo nazi Ukraine rulers and supporting the war for their vested interests. This war is going on since last one year. This proxy war affected nook and corner of the world people.
World-wide people are fighting against the worst consequences of the imperialist proxy war. This war is hastening the disastrous danger of nuclear war. So, world-wide people and anti-imperialist forces, peace lovers, democrats, environmentalists and revolutionaries are demanding to stop immediately the war. But, the imperialists and their tycoons, lackeys’, puppet rulers of other countries of the world are not in interested either to stop the war or to save the environment. They even do not want to sphere the anti-war and peace loving forces. They are arresting them and applying notorious laws against them and pushing in to the jails. So, let us cry and demand to release all the incarcerated people across the world.
Amrut i/c,
International Affairs
Central Committee CPI (Maoist)
Sukma District, March 21, 2023: Armed cadres of the CPI (Maoist) staged a protest march in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district on March 18 against the atrocities by the security forces on tribals.
As per the reports, a few top leaders of the Maoist party were part of the march, which culminated near Etraj hilla of Sukma adjoining the Odisha border. It’s been learnt that a large number of locals were also part of the said protest where slogans against the incumbent State and the central leadership were raised.
In a video that surfaced pertaining to the protest, Maoist sympathizers can be seen attacking effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel and local MLA Kawasi Lakhma with sharp weapons, and the effigies were later set on fire.
Members of the Chetna Natya Mandali (a frontal organization of the Maoist party), along with the locals, can be seen dancing while the other armed cadres can be seen pasting posters on the trees.
It’s been learnt that the Maoists are in opposition to the establishment of 4 new security camps in the Konta area of Sukma, against which they are calling on the locals to organize more such protests; it is to be noted that more than 20 security camps have been set up in the Maoist affected zones of the State in the last one year alone, the development occurring after the Central Government gave the nod to a major offensive against the Maoists operating in the State.
COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)
Central Committee
Press Release
9 March, 2023
Observe 23rd March as an Anti- Imperialist Day. Condemn the Imperialist wars, the loot of natural resources and subjugation of working class and the toiling masses!
On 23rd March 1931, the great sons of India, Comrade Bhagat Singh, Comrade Sukhdev and Comrade Rajguru were
murdered by the British colonial power in collaboration with Indian Right wing and comprador bourgeoisie forces.
With their slogans of “Inquilab Zindabad” (Long Live Revolution) and “Down with Imperialism”, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev
and Rajguru had opened a new chapter in the Indian history. Those slogans still echoes in every corner of India, still
boils the blood of every youth against the injustices that runs the order of the day. Communist Party of CPI (Maoist)
pay its humble to homage to those great revolutionaries of India who sacrificed their life in a struggle against
Imperialism, Religious fanaticism, caste system and all forms of injustices.
Nine decades has elapsed since 1931 and India’s economy still remains in shackles under the regime of Imperialist and
comprador bourgeoisie forces. In the last eight years, the attack of Imperialism on India has escalated with the rise of
Brahmanical Hindutva Fascist forces. This clearly shows the close nexus between the hindutva forces- Comprador
bourgeoisie- imperialism. After becoming Prime Minister Narendra Modi has laid down a red carpet for the welcoming
of foreign capital in the Indian Market. The dominance of foreign capital in the Indian Market has led to pauperization
of the working classes and the toiling masses, plundering of natural resources and transfer of wealth because of the
unequal exchange system. The comprador bourgeoisie are nurturing a strong bond with Imperialism and they jointly
are devastating the economy of India. In order to facilitate the faster accumulation of profit for the ruling classes, the
Indian state under fascist BJP rule has scraped several labour protections laws, has totally turned the environment
laws as upside down, made an flow of easy credit, land grabbing and unprecedented scale of privatization. The growth
reality of India economy remains a classic example of irony where the rich are becoming richer and the poor poorer.
India which aspires to be a ‘world leader’ is unable to take care of its own children when they are dying not because
of any disease, not because of any natural disaster, not because of external aggression, but due to hunger. On the
other hand, the wealth of Ambani and Adani are touching the sky. The facts are clear that the rise of Ambani and Adani
has been accompanied with the help of foreign capital and transfer of public money and industries of public sectors
to the comprador bourgeoisie, even before the rise of Modi. But, with the rise of Modi the process of flow of foreign
capital, privatization and allocation of subsidies to comprador bourgeoisie has enhanced in an unprecedented manner.
In the case of Adani, the use of manipulations of stocks was followed to acquire cheap credit from public banks with
the help of Modi to build his empire. The nexus between Modi and Adani has been exposed which was hidden under
the skin cover of propaganda. Millions of Indians are surviving on less than 70 rupees per day and living a life devoid
of dignity. This is a modern form of barbarity in the rule of imperialism.
Capitalist Imperialism is in deep crisis and its contradictions are becoming day by day more intense. History has proved
that, in order to overcome from the crisis, imperialism has sprouted war intentionally for the division of the world and
the capture of the world market. American Imperialism and its allies are waging wars in Syria, Yemen and Palestine.
The present Russian – Ukraine war is a by- product of Imperialist rivalries between Russia and America. It is a war of
re-division of the world and for monopolist control over natural resources. The involvement of American imperialism
and the NATO forces to aggravate the war is beyond any doubt. America and NATO has agreed to supply more
weaponry and financial support to Ukraine. Since the start of war, the profits of the weaponry industries and oil and
gas companies has doubled. Whereas the conditions of the working class, peasantry and common masses has retarded
further because of the war. The prices of goods of daily necessities that are essential for social reproduction of the
masses is highest in the last 40 years in many countries. At the same time the real wages of the working class have
further declined creating a severe problem of consumption and revival of demand of mass goods. Unemployment and
cutting down of labour force is rampant in all major industries. Utilizing these conditions, imperialist institutions like
IMF and World Bank have leashed a series of austerity measures and restructuring of economy for not only third world
countries but also for many western nations. These measures are going to transform these countries as a rentier to
the Monopolist Imperialist powers.
Imperialism is today facing resistance and mass movements from the working class, peasantry and other sections.
Working class movements are rising all over the world, and in all sectors of industries. We are witnessing a large scale
of working-class movements in America, France, Britain, Germany, South Korea, Sri Lanka and in many other places.
In India, the working class, peasantry, Adivasi, social activists and students are revolting and challenging the anti-
people policies dictated by fascist BJP-RSS and imperialism. Not only working-class movements but there is a rise in
the popularity of socialism and communism in the world. Out of fear of Socialism and Communism, the Democrat
Biden government in America with the support of Republicans has outlawed Socialism in United States of America.
Similar measures have taken in Indonesia. Capitalist Imperialist system is ” rotten” and “parasitic” and therefore need
to be overthrown with full force. With passing of each day, the working-class movements will raise its innumerable
heads against capitalism and its highest stage -Imperialism. The words from Communist Manifesto is pertinent to
remember that states “What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers.” All
revolutionary party and Maoist, communist parties of the world need to turn the present crisis of Imperialism and the
Imperialist war into a militant working class and mass movements.
Central Committee (CC) of Communist Party of India (Maoist) appeals to all Revolutionary, democratic and patriotic
mass organizations, intellectuals, students and oppressed castes, womens and minorities organizations and
nationalities to observe 23rd March as an Anti-Imperialist day and join in the struggles of working class, peasantry and
Adivasi of India and stand in solidarity for the working-class movements all over the world. Friends and Comrades, it
is time to stop the colonialization of our lands, our water, our forests, our air and our existence. We also appeal the
masses to build movements for the nationalization of the wealth of Ambani and Adani, and against privatization of
social wealth, of public sectors and public spaces. It is time to rise against the Imperialist plunder and war, against the
inhuman conditions that is prevailing in the country. Our struggle will not only define the future, but also the meaning
of the future that we aspire to build.
Abhay
Spokesperson
Central Committee
Condamm the Center and Chhattisgad State Government’sUnprecedented fascist Drone Strikes and Helicopter gun firings on the people
OPPOSE THE CORPORATIZATION, MILITARIZATIONAND HINDUAZATION
Dear Comrades, Friends and Well-wishers of Indian Revolution, Red Salutes.
2023 January 11th will be remembered for ever in the history of Indian
Revolution. In the Indian Revolutionary history there were no helicopter gun
firings previously on our people and revolutionaries in the Chhattisgad State,
Bastar forest. Even though our PLGA guerillas ferociously resisted it and injured 5
Garuda Commandos and one technical staff member of Indian Air Force. This is a
big achievement in the New Year. On the same day, another side in Jharkhand
State, Saaranda Jungle the CoBRA forces of Indian para-military forces were
started a huge combing operations campaign. There our PLGA guerillas heroically
retaliated it and injured 6 commandos seriously. In this brave retaliation we lost
one of our beloved women guerilla comrades Gangi. Let us pay our rich
revolutionary tributes to that martyr. Our CC, Communist Party of India (Maoist)
is appealing you to condemn this brutal attacks on the indigenous people of Bastar
and Saaranda and organize protest rallies before the Indian embassies on the so
called Indian Republic Day i.e. January 26 across the world.
Since the last October, the exploitative Indian ruling classes particularly
hindutva forces were concentrated heavily on the Indian Revolutionary movement.
Under the leadership of Indian Home Minister Mr. Amit Sha a special meeting was
conducted in Surajkund, Haryana. In that meeting Indian Prime Minister addressed
the police and intelligence officers and ordered them to eliminate the Maoists
whether they are gun holders or pen holders. Since last few years a new phrase was
introduced in India by the Hindutva forces is urban naxal. Now the PM used the
same phrase again but in his own satirical speech style Kalamdhari (Pen holder).
So, this indicates that the Indian Prime Minister and Home Minister both are very
eager to eliminate the Indian revolutionary movement to fulfill their Make in India
dreams.
On December 11th the Indian Home Minister conducted a high level crucial
meeting with Indian Intelligence officers in New Delhi and he cleared his plan in
that meeting. He said that the police forces are ready to enter in to the Maad area of
Narayanpur District, Chhattisgad to take it in to their control.
On January 7th the same person Indian Home Minister Mr. Amit Sha
addressed a public meeting at Korba, an industrial center of Chhattisgad State. In
that meeting he declared that their government will create Maoist Free India before
2024 general elections. Meanwhile number of meetings was conducted at local
level with the police officers for the better coordination of state and central forces
in the forth-coming military operations.At last, they were started their Maoist eradication operations in the Sukma,
Bijapur and Dantewada district border forest which is the adjoining area for the
Telangana state. In this ever big operation the NSG (National Security Guards),
Gray Hounds, CoBRA and so many other notorious central armed police forces
were participated along with Indian Air Force Garuda commandos. But the PLGA
guerillas were retaliated it with the full support of the local revolutionary people.
The Indian ruling classes and their governments of the Central and State
were very hasty to clear out the Indian Revolutionary Movement. Because, it is the
main hurdle in their loot and plunder of the rich resources of the country. Another
side the indigenous people of India is struggling for their just demands. They are
fighting for their legal rights on their forests. They are against to the exploitation of
the forests. In this back ground, the utmost reactionary governments of the Central
and State which are working for the benefit of big Corporate Houses are launched
new and higher form of strikes on the people. So, our CC once again appealing you
to condemn these attacks and raises your voices against the Hindutva fascist forces.
In our country the democratic and revolutionary intellectuals, patriots, rights
activists, students, youth, Secularists, Writers, Artists, Lawyers, well-wishers of
the indigenous people, anti-imperialist peace loving forces, and environmentalists
are extremely opposing the corporatization, militarization of the forests and
particularly Hinduazation of the country. So, it is the most favorable time to
develop and consolidate the Indian Revolutionary solidarity movement in support
of people’s war across the world.
Amrut
I/C International Affairs,
CC, CPI (Maoist)
COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)
Central Committee
Press Release
15 January,2023
With the onset of New year, the Fascist Indian state under the regime of BJP repeated its aerial
bombing on its own people in order to crush the people’s movements as early as possible . On Wednesday, 11th January,2023 in the name of Anti- Maoist operations conducted by the orgy of fascist forces (CRPF, Cobra Battalion, District Reserve Guard and Greyhounds) dropped several bombs indiscriminately on places inhabited by one of the weakest sections of the Indian society. In this joint operation several bombs were dropped with the help of combat helicopters and Drones in Madkanguda, Mettaguda, Bottethong, Sakiler, Madpaaduled,Kannemerka, Pottemangum, Bottalanka, Raspalli and Erpad of Pamed and Kistaram blocks of South Bastar at Chhatisgarh-Telangana Border from 11 AM onwards. However, this is not the first time aerial bombings are being conducted in this region. From the past two years the Indian state has undertaken the
approach of aerial bombings in order to eliminate the Maoist party. The recent onslaught occurred just before few days when Union Home Minister Amit Shah stated in a rally in korba in Chhatisgarh that, before 2024 General election there will be no sign of Maoist party. It is clearly visible that how desperate is the fascist BJP to eliminate the Maoist forces. Their desperation is crystal clear that they want to sale all the natural resources to Imperialist and comprador bourgeoise thieves, and to turn our country into their absolute subjugation.
Another vaild reason behind the 11 January attack is that the ruling classes and its marauders are unable to enter those regions through land. As because the people of those regions are highly political and radical which gives shivering to the CRPF and other forces to enter through land. In order to terrorize those people and inflict harm on their determination towards the Indian Revolution, the enemy had to undertake the approach of aerial bombings and aerial attacks. However, the PLGA forces with their strong will to serve the people and the nation retaliated those aerial attacks with utmost bravery and in that effects enemy’s one helicopter got damaged and their six forces were injured. In its statement CRPF stated that it was the Maoistforces who launched attack on them when the CRPF forces were being shifted for forward base camps. This is nothing but to veil their brutality on people and fear that they undergo day and night. It has to be brought
to people notice that shifting of forces to forward base camp is not a recent phenomenon, but it is going through several years. In the coming days the enemy is going to expedite its aerial attacks and bombings on Maoist leadership. With the help of National Technical Research Organization which was set up with the aid of US intelligence operative NSA, CRPF in collaboration with Indian Air Force is conducting drone surveillance and bombings. But enemy need to listen this that your bombs and Drones cannot match the sacrificing spirit of every single Maoist guerrilla , it cannot crush the Indian Revolution and it is totally impotent in front of Marxism-Leninism and Maoism. In history the oppressive forces failed to bomb the rebellious nature of people in Vietnam, Cuba, Korea, Afghanistan and in present they are failing in India and Phillipines.
In the past one years, the Indian state has opened 20 new CRPF camps in the Telangana and Chhatisgarh borders, turning it into highly militarized zone in India. People’s resistance towards these new camps aregrowing and it is gaining strength with the each passing of days. These camps are providing security to mining barons who are looting our natural resources and turning our country into a commodity. In the past few months the Central Government has granted permission for fresh four mines in Bailadila. To facilitate the loot of the natural resources, BJP government has brought amendment in PESA act and in Forest Conservation Act. The growing socio-economic crisis because of the policies of the Hindutva forces is giving birth to people’s movements which the government is unwilling to tolerate at any cost.
Through People’s War the masses are able to withstand the most savage and the most barbaric moments in history. We Maoist have pledged to liberate this suffering land from the vicious clutches of the ruling classesband we remain faithful in the deed of liberation until death. Central Committee of Communist party of India (Maoist) appeals to all democratic and progressive forces and oppressed nationalities and marginalized communities to continue and increase their protests against the Hindutva forces. Comrades and friends let us fight against this unjust regime and uproot it from its base and establish true people’s democratic state growing and it is gaining strength with the each passing of days. These camps are providing security to mining barons who are looting our natural resources and turning our country into a commodity. In the past few months the Central Government has granted permission for fresh four mines in Bailadila. To facilitate the loot of the natural resources, BJP government has brought amendment in PESA act and in Forest Conservation Act. The growing socio-economic crisis because of the policies of the Hindutva forces is giving
birth to people’s movements which the government is unwilling to tolerate at any cost.
Through People’s War the masses are able to withstand the most savage and the most barbaric moments in history. We Maoist have pledged to liberate this suffering land from the vicious clutches of the ruling classes and we remain faithful in the deed of liberation until death. Central Committee of Communist party of India (Maoist) appeals to all democratic and progressive forces and oppressed nationalities and marginalized communities to continue and increase their protests against the Hindutva forces. Comrades and friends let us fight against this unjust regime and uproot it from its base and establish true people’s democratic state.
Abhay Spokesperson
Central Committee
COMMUNIST PARY OF INDIA (MAOIST) INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS CC, CPI (MAOIST)
Appeal Date 8 th Jan, 2023 Dear Comrades, friends and well-wishers of Indian revolution Red Salutes. In 2021 September the Indian Home Minister Mr. Amit Sha was conducted a meeting in Delhi with Maoist affected states ministers and Chief Ministers, Police bosses. In that meeting they have taken a devastating decision that the Indian Maoists will be eradicated within one year stipulated time. But it is in vain, they were not succeeded in it. Our Party CPI (Maoist) was determinedly retaliated it with our brave PLGA and our revolutionary masses with great immortal sacrifices. In this process we got utmost solidarity from you and it played a crucial role in retaliating it. Our CC conveys its best revolutionary regards to you.
In 2022 October under the same home minister like the same meeting was held in Surajkund, Haryana. The Indian Prime Minister was also attended that meeting and addressed it on eradicating the Maoism in India. He repeatedly illustrated not to exclude the pen holders (kalamdhari) from gun holders (Aayudhdhari). After this meeting Indian Home minister was conducted another meeting in Delhi on 11th Dec, 2022. In this meeting he said that the forces are ready to enter into the Maad area which covers near about 3,900 square kilometers to liberate it from Maoists control. The local police officers with Central Armed Police Forces are being conducting regular meetings to execute the plan for the operations across the Maoist affected areas of the country particularly Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgad, Maharashtra, Telangan and Odisha. In Jharkhand the police officials are repeatedly conducting the search operations on big scale and firing thousands of bullets, Shells in the forests and targeting the people. Police atrocities are in rampant.
The Maad area which covers 3,900 sq. K.M. of the Narayanpur district, Bastar division is having one of the old tribal i.e. Madia inhabitants which comes under the PVTG according the Indian government (Particular Vulnerable Tribal Group). Already the government allotted more than 700 square kilo meters for the police department to build counter-guerilla training center. The people are opposing it and they are opposing even to establish the new police camps in Maad. In spite of the people’s opposition the police and other government officials are intensifying their activities in the Maad area.
On 7th January, the Indian Home Minister addressed a public meeting in Korba a working class center in the north Chhattisgad. In that meeting he said that they are going to start “Operation Vikas (Development)” to eliminate the Maoist from Maad to liberate it. One side he is saying that the Maoism is the out-come of under development and backwardness of the areas. And another side he is saying that they are going to wash out Maoists from the area. Actually the Maoist are not others, they are all the local inhabitants only. They are the sons and daughters of the local people. They are fighting and resisting the exploitation of corporate houses. They are not ready to vacate their fore-fathers lands and villages for the benefit of industrialists or big business people. But, now the Indian ruling classes are decided to eradicate the local tribal people to hand over this mineral rich wide forest swathes to the corporate houses to loot it.
Now, our India is presiding the G-20 countries and Indian Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi is as a president of that group he is very interested to fulfill his Make in India ambitions. He needs FDIs, he needs industries, he needs business, he is dedicated to serve imperialists but people are dead against for his dreams. Because the people want forest, they want their fields, they want their villages and they are determined to oppose displacement for big corporate houses. Now a new slogan is emerged from the people’s struggle is that oppose corporatization and militarization. So, our CC appeals you to come forward and condemn the ongoing onslaught of police and fight against their forth coming military operations to so called liberation of Saaranda in Jharkhand and Maad in Chhattisgad.
Amrut, I/c International affairs,
central committe CC, CPI (Maoist)
Mumbai, December 6, 2022: Eighteen international human rights organizations wrote a letter to Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, expressing concern over the health of professor G.N. Saibaba and urging him to review the order suspending his release from the Nagpur Central Jail.
On October 14 this year, the Bombay High Court ordered the release of Saibaba, who is wheelchair-bound and 90% disabled, after eight years of a procedural lapse during his prosecution. However, the next day, the Supreme Court granted an urgent hearing to the Maharashtra government’s appeal and suspended his release. Prof. Saibaba was arrested on May 9, 2014, from the campus of Delhi University and on March 7, 2017, he was sentenced to life imprisonment under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) on charges of “being a member of a terrorist gang or organization”. He is suffering from 19 separate medical conditions, including post-polio syndrome, pancreatitis and gallbladder stones.
The organizations are Scholars at Risk, International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India, Freedom Now, Norwegian Students’ and Academics’ International Assistance Fund, Southern Illinois Democratic Socialists of America, Hindus for Human Rights, India Labor Solidarity, Coalition for Justice in India, Indian Workers Association, South Asia Solidarity Group, Turbine Bagh, Stichting the London Story, Anti-Caste Discrimination Alliance, The Humanism Project, India Justice Project, Free Saibaba Coalition, Coalition Against Fascism in India, Jericho Movement Boston, India Civil Watch International wrote this letter to the CJI on December 5.
The letter mentions, “Just a few months ago, Pandu Narote, who was convicted alongside Professor Saibaba, died in prison after contracting swine flu and reportedly being denied medical attention. We are deeply concerned about Professor Saibaba’s health should he remain in prison and not receive appropriate care.” The letter read, “Professor Saibaba was subject to arrest, prosecution, and detention in retaliation for his nonviolent exercise of the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of association—conduct that is expressly protected under international human rights instruments including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which India is a party.”
The organizations urge the CJI “to review Professor Saibaba’s case and reinstate the High Court’s order so he may be released and finally receive the medical care he urgently needs.”
Great !! We are always with the revolutionary masses of India. Our party, the Communsit Party of Nepal (Bahumat) is always with the Communist Party of India (Maoist). Hail the heroic day of formation of the plga ! Hail the CPI (Maoist)!
COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)
Celebrate the 22nd Anniversary of PLGA!
Intensify Class struggle-Guerrilla war
Defeat ‘SAMADHAN’ offensive and Advance People’s War!
On the occasion of the 22nd Anniversary of PLGA on 2nd December 2022, the Central Committee
of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) calls upon the entire ranks of the party, PLGA units,
Revolutionary People’s Committees, Mass Organisations and Revolutionary people to grandly celebrate
in rural and urban areas all over the country with revolutionary enthusiasm. It calls upon to defeat the
counter revolutionary ‘SAMADHAN’ offensive widen-intensify class struggle-guerrilla war, enhance the
mass base and advance the People’s War.
On the occasion the CC conveys revolutionary greetings to the entire Party committees,
Commands, PLGA Commanders-fighters, Party members, Revolutionary People’s Committees, leaders-
activists of Mass Organisations, members of People’s Militia and revolutionary people and to all the
comrades of political, military, organisational, technical and cultural spheres. It hopes that the comrades
injured in the guerrilla actions will recover soon.
The CMC pays humble revolutionary homage to the heroic guerrillas who laid down their lives in
the past one year. One hundred and thirty-two comrades became martyrs all over the country in a period
of 11 months.
The central and the state governments initiated the counter-revolutionary ‘SAMADHAN’ strategic
offensive in 2017 May with a time limit of 5 years to eliminate the Indian Revolutionary Movement. With
the objective to defeat the offensive PLGA took up People’s War-Guerrilla War in the leadership of our
Party all through this period. We cannot separate the participation of people and people’s militia in this
war. The central government reviewed the offensive last September and another action plan was adopted
for one year.
PLGA held nearly 200 guerrilla war operations in the various guerrilla zones, red resistance areas
all over the country in the leadership of our party in a period of 11 months from 2021 December to 2022
November. Through these actions 31 police, Para-military and Commando forces were eliminated and
154 were injured. 7 modern arms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition and other war material were
seized. 69 police informers, 7 political leaders of exploitive parties, 6 people’s enemies, 6 traitors were
eliminated. Properties of the government and comprador bureaucratic capitalists were destroyed. PLGA
forces resisted these forces in around 100 encounters.
On the whole, our PLGA forces made deliberate and opportunity ambushes, sniper actions, booby
trap, remote actions, sabotage actions on the armed forces of the enemy, seized their supplies, eliminated
informers, counter revolutionaries, people’s enemies, shelled the police camps with improvised artillery
and dug spike holes.
There are large scale people’s struggles in Dandakaranya and Bihar-Jharkhand for the past two
years against police camps, mines, roads-bridges, dams, police massacres and on the whole, against the
imperialist companies, comprador bureaucratic capitalist companies, against the central and the state
governments, against their local compradors and against corporatisation-militarisation. Thousands of
people are mobilising in these struggles..
People are struggling against the imperialist Multi-National Companies, the domestic comprador
capitalist corporate companies, the several kinds of basic infrastructure that the central and the state
governments proposes to build such as roads, dams, mines, power plants in many areas of the country
apart from the areas of movement. There are agitations for the release of political prisoners imprisoned
in conspiracy cases such as Bhima Koregaon and to withdraw fascist Acts such as UAPA.
Solidarity movement is growing in around 30 countries against the fascist offensive of the
comprador ruling classes on our party and revolutionary movement and in support of the People’s War
in India in the leadership of ICSPWI.
On the whole, class struggle relatively expanded and intensified. In the process, various kinds of
United forums are being formed leading to increasing participation in revolutionary movement and
support from friendly forces.
The central and the state governments deployed more than six and a half-lakh police, Para-
military and Commando forces in the areas of the movement. Since the beginning of 2020 to March 2021,
CRPF established 23 Forward Operational Bases (FOB) in the country and 35 from 2021 March to 2022
March. The state had been using various kinds of drones for surveillance. It is organising lumpen youth
into informers in the name of employment schemes.
In the international plane, although there are slight flexibilities in the economic crisis that is going
on since 2008, imperialist financial and economic crisis in intensifying. World Bank (WB) and International
Monetary Fund (IMF) stated that the world economy is going into the mire of depression. One third of
the world economy is estimated to decline this year or the next year and the three biggest economies,
the US, EU and China shall stagnate. Imperialist globalisation policies are leading the proletariat in
capitalist-imperialist countries into daily intensifying struggles.
BJP under the leadership of Narendra Modi is making severe attempts to transform India into a
‘Hindu state’ by 2047. Revolutionary-democratic forces, oppressed classes, oppressed social communities
and oppressed nationalities must take up united, organised resistance movement and people’s war. This
is the foremost, utmost important, main and immediate task of the Indian people.
The coming times would witness a spate of people’s struggles in the world and the country and
there shall be a third line of revolutions all over the world.
It is the responsibility of the vanguard Communist Party to politically enlighten the broad masses
and intensify class struggles and guerrilla war so as to achieve state power. We shall thus defeat the
counter-revolutionary ‘SAMADHAN’ offensive of the enemy and advance the revolutionary movement.
We shall achieve the final victory.
On the occasion of the 22nd Anniversary of PLGA, hail the victories the PLGA in the leadership of
our party gained in the past one year. Hail the invincibility of the revolutionary movement that sustained
resisting the counter revolutionary ‘SAMADHAN’ offensive.
Abhay
Spokesperson
Central Commitee
28 November, 2022
with actions and meetings and with the issue of this message in all languages
the Message of 26 pages can be asked to ICSPWI committees in the world or at csgpindia@gmail.com
From bourgeois press (The Hindustan Times)
On October 14, the Bombay high court (HC) passed a judgment discharging professor GN Saibaba and five other people in a case under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). The accused were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by a trial court for various offences, including links with the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist). The case was appealed to the Bombay HC, and at the time of its judgment, the accused had spent more than five years in jail.
The basis of the HC’s judgment was that certain important procedural requirements under UAPA were not followed. Under UAPA, before a prosecution can go ahead, the government must grant sanction for it. This sanction follows upon a recommendation by a competent authority, which is supposed to conduct an independent review of the evidence provided by the investigative agencies.
In this case, however, the HC found that the directorate of prosecutions — the competent authority — failed to apply its mind to the material before it. This, the HC held, was a critical failure in maintaining the procedural safeguards under UAPA, especially given the stringent character of the Act. Consequently, the convictions of the accused were set aside.
The six accused, however, were not fated to walk free despite the HC’s judgment. The same evening, the State’s counsel “mentioned” the case before the Supreme Court (SC). The SC listed the State’s appeal against the HC’s judgment for the following day (ie, Saturday, the weekend). After a hearing, a two-judge bench of the SC “suspended” the HC’s judgment while it considered the “larger issues” in the case. In the meantime, the accused persons would stay in jail.
The SC’s conduct is profoundly concerning and undermines the procedural safeguards under a draconian law such as UAPA and the authority of the HCs.
First, the urgency with which the appeal was heard was extraordinary. Yes, the SC — and other courts — have had weekend sittings before, and sittings at late hours of the night, in exceptional cases. But these were cases where an individual’s life or liberty was under immediate threat: A death sentence at dawn, imminent imprisonment or loss or destruction of property. This is consistent with the judiciary’s role as the guardian of fundamental rights and a bulwark against State impunity. However, in this case, the position was reversed: Here, the SC held an extraordinary weekend sitting to suspend an HC judgment that granted certain people their liberty and to keep them in prison. When we notice that one of the accused — professor Saibaba — is 90% disabled, the SC’S action grows even more concerning.
Further, this was compounded by the fact that the two-judge bench that heard the case was not a “regular” bench but was constituted for this hearing; indeed, one of the judges on the bench — justice MR Shah — is not even on the roster for hearing criminal law cases. All this calls into question the way in which the Chief Justice of India — as the “master of the roster” — exercised his discretion in the assignment and listing of this case.
On its terms, the SC’s order is of equal concern. The HC passed a reasoned, 100-page order justifying its conclusion, including the importance of taking procedural safeguards under UAPA seriously. None of this is dealt with in the SC’s order, where the basis for “suspending” the HC’s judgment is that “larger issues” must be addressed. Apart from depriving the accused of the liberty they were entitled to by virtue of the HC’s reasoned judgment, the order sends a signal across the judiciary, ie, that the sanctity of procedural safeguards under UAPA is negotiable, at best. Given that UAPA has several draconian provisions — which make the grant of bail virtually impossible — procedural safeguards are all that stand between the individual and State impunity.
In recent times, the SC has won praise for re-establishing its role as a constitutional court, hearing matters that have been in storage and holding the State to account. However, with its order in GN Saibaba’s case, one cannot help but fear a reversion of the SC to an “executive court”, where considerations of expediency and reasons of the State submerge individual liberty and constitutional rights.
Gautam Bhatia is a Delhi-based advocate
The views expressed are personal
Action Week Report 13/19 September
The Global Week of Action on 13/19 September for the release of India’s political prisoners and to stop the Indian state’s aircraft and drone strikes against rural populations has been successful. It has created even better conditions for the development of the solidarity movement and for support for the people’s war in India.
It was a blow to the Modi regime and its fascist, murderous and genocidal action.
At the same time it was an action of the international proletariat against imperialism and against all the imperialist governments, primarily the USA, marching towards a third world war.
The call of the International Committee of Support for the People’s War in India (ICSPWI), launched together and in connection with the Communist Party of India (Maoist), touched several countries where the Organized Committee exists, contributed to the birth of new Committees, pushed other anti-imperialist forces to join the campaign and to accept the invitation of the Indian comrades to make the week a success.
There have been numerous parties, organizations, revolutionary and internationalist forces, proletarian organisms of struggle, associations that have contributed to the campaign in the countries where it has developed.
Although within the framework of the differences in the way and form in which to develop the campaign, the unity of the solidarity and support movement advances.
It is difficult due to the different conditions and difficulties of information to represent and document all the initiatives and actions carried out in this important week.
This report provides a fairly complete picture and in any case invites all the forces that participated in the campaign to send further news and reports, in full autonomy, which will be spread internationally.
The information on the campaign, with the spreading of the materials of the Committee and the Communist Party of India (Maoist) – CPI (Maoist) – and the actions of the week reached countries of the 4 continents.
In Europe: Italy, Galicia, Spain, Germany, Austria, France, Holland, Great Britain, Ireland, Finland, Denmark; in Africa, Tunisia, which is the reference point of a Support Committee that touches seven other countries.
Turkish comrades from various organizations and associations in solidarity with political prisoners, reaching as far as Kobane/North Kurdistan have been well engaged in the campaign.
In Latin America, Brazil, Colombia, and other countries, up to Uruguay.
In Asia the campaign came to the Philippines, Afghanistan, Iran. Great is the debate about the form of support for the battle for the release of political prisoners and the people’s war in India in Nepal, among all mlm parties and organizations.
We point out, for the breadth and ability to reach the broad masses, the development of the actions carried out in Italy, Germany and Brazil. We attach a part of reports, photos and images received from these countries.
In this week the understanding of the worldwide importance of support for the people’s war in India and the CPI (Maoist) as a determining part of support for the people’s wars and anti-imperialist struggles taking place in the world has advanced. And it has grown also the understanding of the indispensable unity of the development of true internationalism, which means linking support for the people’s war in India to the struggle against its own imperialist governments and states and the governments and states of the oppressed countries linked to imperialism.
The Indian fascist regime develops, like so many other governments in countries oppressed by imperialism, a war against the proletarians and peoples, creating death and destruction, filling prisons, hitting proletarians, popular masses, intellectuals and artists, attacking democratic freedoms and human rights.
The week served to advance the struggle of the need to oppose the war against the peoples in India and around the world, strengthening internationalist unity, working for an anti-imperialist front and for the strategic battle for liberation from imperialism which is as always misery, war and oppression, with an attack on the self-determination of oppressed nations and peoples.
In this campaign we salute the commitment and the strong position taken by the Communist Party of the Philippines and the mass organizations linked to it, for the fraternal support given to the people’s war in India and to the CPI (Maoist) and to the campaign and organization of the International Committee (ICSPWI)
The internationalist unity of the MLM communist parties that lead the people’s wars is today a solid anchor and reference point of the campaigns for the release of political prisoners in India and in the world.
In this campaign the mobilization against the Indian embassies has grown in some countries, in particular on this occasion, in Italy, where prohibitions imposed have not been able to prevent this initiative, just as it is important the descent into the field of the Indian proletarians of the different nationalities of India present in the imperialist countries, who participated in the initiative bringing in it the denunciation of how the Modi regime affects Muslims, Kashmir, etc.
This campaign must now be continued and extended, merging it with the proletarian and popular struggles and demonstrations against imperialism and war and, as the Communist Party of India (Maoist) indicates,
“There is a need to build militantly and on a global scale a movement that demands for political prisoners in all countries, such as the Philippines, Turkey, Peru, Galicia, Afghanistan, and in all countries, including India, to be unconditionally released. All those who are arrested for political and social struggles and who are in prison must have the status of political prisoners, and especially for prisoners and women prisoners must end the atrocities and killings of them, and their conditions in prisons must be defended. The efforts of the International Committee go in this direction and – declares the CPI(Maoist) – efforts will be made in India in this regard and firmly believes that the movement will gradually develop more and more”.
The International Committee in the meeting of July 1st appealed to establish Committees in each country and declares today to work on a great international Forum, public and mass, to be realized in the coming year, with the hope that all the forces of support and solidarity will unite to build together this Forum.
available on request
- Call of the CPI (Maoist) - Call of the International Committee
- Calls from Philippines, Turkey, Afghanistan
- Report of the Campaign in Italy, Colombia, Galicia
- Images of the campaign in different countries
ICSPWI
csgpindia@gmail.com
October 2022
The following is an interview that I have been honoured to conduct and publish, with the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), one of the strongest, most successful, most dynamic, most popular and most feared by the ruling classes communist parties on the planet. Indeed, the people’s war in India, being led by the CPI (Maoist), is of equal importance in the current era, as the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia, led by Comrade Lenin and the Bolsheviks, was to the decades of the 1910s and 20s. Both myself and the interviewee have sought to do our best to ask and answer major questions that you and others in the International Communist Movement may have about the Indian Revolution.
Q — Which mode of production does your party judge India to be in; semi-feudal and semi-colonial, or industrial capitalist?
A — Revolutionary Communists in the leadership of Comrade CM [Charu Mazumdar] and Comrade KC [Kanhai Chatterjee] concretely analysed the class contradictions in existence after a study of the economic, political, social, cultural and geographical conditions of India in the light of MLM. They affirmed that India is a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society and that the path of revolution shall be Protracted People’s War, that it shall first accomplish the stage of New Democratic Revolution and later advance to the stage of Socialism. Our united CPI (Maoist) is
implementing this political-military line.
In the background of large scale discussions and debate among Marxists, revisionists, neo-revisionists, bourgeois intellectuals and NGOs as to whether our country is a capitalist society or semi-colonial, semi-feudal society, our party analysed and synthesized the reports of the studies of Relations of production that our party took up in various states since 2011, and the CC released a detailed document on ‘Changes in Relations of Production-Our Political Program’ in its Sixth (contd.) meeting in December 2020. The document asserted that our country is yet a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society. However, it also said that there are considerable distorted capitalist changes favourable to the imperialists and comprador bureaucratic capitalists and landlords. We adopted our political program so as to adopt corresponding tactics. You must have seen the document.
Earlier to British aggression, our country was a feudal society. After the British occupied India it changed into a colonial country. In fact by the time the British seized India, capitalism had been developing from the womb of feudal society in some areas of the country. During this time the Parsis of Mumbai, Banias of Gujarat and Marwaris of Rajasthan worked as agents to occupy India. The Indian big bourgeois class did not fight against British imperialism as per its character but extended total support during the days of war and other times. The British collaborated with the feudal Kings, Zamindars, money-lenders and merchants of India and came in the way of the independent development of capitalist developing in the country, basing on the feudal social base in the country. They introduced a culture that serves British imperialism. They introduced distorted capitalist relations in their interests. Many old independent big traders and bankers of the country became bankrupt. Similarly the British made several changes in feudalism as per their colonial rule. They rejuvenated the weakening feudal relations. They destroyed the self-sufficient rural economic order in India. This made the peasantry and the artisans bankrupt. Forces of production were destroyed in a big way. The domestic market further declined. They introduced permanent tax collection method, ryotwari, mahal Wari and zamindari methods and turned land into a commodity. Thus the farmers lost their traditional right to land. India became a centre of production of raw goods and industrial goods necessary for industrial production of the British. They developed few industries, commercial crops, plantations, transport and communications only for the needs of the British. Comprador big bourgeois class emerged from the feudal Kings, Zamindars, Divans, comprador traders and money lending classes that helped the British. This class played an important role in allowing the British to loot the natural resources of our country. New Zamindar-feudal class developed in the place of old zamindars. Indian economy became an inseparable part of the world capitalist system in a colonial and dependent level. On one hand the Indian comprador bourgeoisie depended on imperialism for its existence and development and on the other became an instrument for colonial exploitation and suppression. Thus Indian feudal society became colonial, semi-feudal society. The British changed the country into a colony for two centuries and continued their exploitation.
The imperialists faced a difficult situation with the big defeat of the fascist forces by the Red Army of Soviet Union and the people of the world in the leadership of great Marxist teacher Stalin during the Second World War; due to the considerable weakening of imperialism after war; the
establishment of people’s democratic states in East European countries; the reach of the great success of China Revolution in the leadership of Mao to the edge; the emergence of world socialist system in one-third of the world; the development of independent/national liberation movements all over the world. Thus they changed their earlier direct colonial rule and form of exploitation and took up new form of exploitation — the neo-colonial form basing on the compradors trained by them and comprising indirect rule, exploitation and hegemony in a new style.
There was a unique revolutionary condition in the Indian sub-continent also during this time. There was a powerful movement to release ‘Azad Hindu Phouz’ prisoners all over the country; the effective anti-imperialist demonstrations of the students; apart from powerful anti-feudal movements in princely states, the Tebhaga and Bakast movements, the strike of postal and telegraph employees ; the great rebellion of the Royal Indian Navy in Bombay and the rebellious trends in Army and Airforce; the rebellion of Bihar police; struggles in solidarity to proletariat, the beginning of the historic peasant armed struggle in Telangana — all these brought the imperialist rule in India almost to an end. In such condition, the Indian comprador big bourgeois class collaborated with the feudal class and betrayed the Indian democratic revolution. The British imperialists made conspiracies depending on Congress and Muslim League leaders who happen to be reliable agents to them, instigated them to religious massacres and divided the country on the basis of religion.
In this background an agreement was made on 15th August 1947 to transfer power. This happened only after agreements such as the Bombay plan of the imperialist monopoly capitalists and Indian comprador bourgeoisie. In a word, the British imperialists handed over power to their reliable agents, the Congress party and Muslim League that represented the comprador big capitalist and big landlord classes and went back stage. That is the reason the comprador ruling classes did not disrupt the semi-feudal relations in the country. After 1947, our country initially went into the economic and political control of Britain, America and subsequently to Soviet imperialism and again into the hands of America. As a result of the hegemony of various imperialist countries in terms of economy and politics on our country, Indian society transformed into semi-colonial, semi-feudal order in the indirect rule, exploitation and hegemony of several imperialist forces. Therefore we say that India did not achieve genuine independence on 15thAugust 1947, that it is nominal and in essence is fake. Colonial exploitation and oppression changed its form but essence retained. The objective of national democratic revolution and national liberation was not achieved due to the betrayal of the Congress party and Muslim League. CPI not only tailed the Congress party but withdrew the great Telangana armed struggle and betrayed revolution.
After 1947, the Indian comprador big bourgeois and landlord classes utilised the state power and minted utmost profits through extreme exploitation and oppression on the people. the comprador big bourgeois class thus transformed into comprador bureaucratic big bourgeois class.
The 1944 Bombay plan and the mixed economy adopted after the transfer of power in fact are in the interests of the imperialists, comprador bureaucratic bourgeois and landlord classes. Public and private sectors were given place in the plan. But in fact the actual intention of the public sector industries is to utilise people’s money in a large scale, build heavy iron and steel industries, thermal electric projects, coal, iron mining and heavy dams, to provide opportunities to the imperialists, comprador bourgeois and landlord classes so as to develop basing on those, depend on the imperialist capital and technology to build them and to provide an opportunity for their exploitation.
For the past 75 years since 1947, several agrarian, industrial, service sector policies, fake reforms, Five Year Plans, green revolution and other such things have been implemented according to the interests of the imperialists and exploitive ruling classes. Later the LPG policies came into implementation. Disinvestment, deindustrialisation and deregulation came to be implemented. In the name of disinvestment public sector enterprises are being handed over to the imperialists and comprador capitalists at dead cheap rates. Thus unorganised sector and private sector became the main trend. Labour exploitation intensified further. The rights that they achieved through struggle are being trampled. Casual contract methods have become the main form for the workers. The ongoing semi-colonial relations are the reason for these difficulties and misery.
During the period of the First Five Year Plan in 1951–56, although land ceiling laws were made in various states, the comprador governments did not implement them properly. The landlords could retain land on benami names. On the other hand land under Coffee, Tea, rubber, fruit plantations, cattle rearing, sugar factories, in lands cultivated through modern methods and lands under temples, churches and masjids were exempted and so land reforms became a farce. They either removed tenant farmers or changed them and saw that legal tenant rights are not implemented. Since land ceiling was imposed on the basis of individual instead of family, landlord families could retain thousands of acres of land. While in 1955, nearly 6.2 crore acres of surplus land was available for distribution, by the end of 1970s, the surplus land declared was 24 lakh acres only. Only half of it was distributed. Thus it is clear that the land reforms have not been implemented towards the direction of structural changes in land ownership.
Although there was a little industrialisation in the name of Five-Year Plans, it took place only on semi-feudal base and in the interests of the imperialists and comprador ruling classes. So all this development was distorted and topsy-turvy.
The strategy of green revolution that came to be implemented in the second half of the 1960s was in fact the program of Multi-National Companies of the US. Green revolution was implemented in Punjab, Haryana and other areas of Western Uttar Pradesh and later in one-third of the country in the name of overcoming deficiency of food, with the objective of making it an alternative to the armed peasant rebellions that spread to Naxalbari, Srikakulam, Mushahari, Lakhimpur-Kheri, Debra-Gopivallabhapur, Bheerbhum, Kanksa, Budbud and several areas of 10 states in a spate in the rural areas and to create a captive market for the products such as agricultural machinery, chemical fertilisers, pesticides and HYV seeds of Multi-National Companies.
The comprador governments mainly provided heavy subsidies, cheap loans and irrigation through dams to the landlords and rich farmers without transforming the land relations fundamentally, distorted capitalist relations developed in the semi-feudal rural economy. The ‘Green Revolution’ only benefitted imperialist Multi-National Companies, comprador capitalists, landlords and a section of the rich peasantry. It devastated the poor and middle class farmers and land. Farmers left land in a big way. Growth in productivity, decrease of crop rates, more inequalities between the rich and the poor, rise in unemployment, increase of inequalities between areas, rise in environmental pollution, reduction of land fertility, vulnerability of crops to severe diseases where pesticides also do not help are some of the negative results of ‘green revolution’. Finally these pesticides helped for the suicides of the farmers.
Before the implementation of LPG policies, Soviet Social imperialism unleashed hegemony on the public sector economy of India since the end of 1960s in the name of aid. This gradually declined since 1980s. With the growth of public sector in 1970s, the comprador bureaucratic bourgeois class also grew utilising it.
In order to fulfil the interests of the imperialists and the interests of Indian comprador ruling classes as a part of it, Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation policies were implemented in the first phase from 1985 to 1991. The second phase is going on since 1991.
The Soviet Union fell into an intense economic crisis since 1985 and the dependency of India started to decline and so US sponsored New Economic Policies were brought to be implemented in India. In the first phase of LPG, the private corporate sector gained several tax subsidies in the first phase. The properties of comprador big bourgeoisie rose multi-fold.
With the commercialisation of agriculture globalisation started through contract agriculture in the first phase as per the schemes of imperialists and spread to several areas. Corporate companies gained total control on agriculture in contract lands.
Now let us see the second phase of globalisation of semi-colonial, semi-feudal system.
In this phase imperialism created 7 intense crises that devastates the oppressed nationalities and people living on planet earth. They are –economic crisis, employment crisis, environmental-ecological crisis, forcible migration crisis, fuel crisis, socio-cultural crisis, politico-military crisis. Imperialism took shelter in fascism since it cannot solve these crises. Racism grew all over the world. Fascist parties strengthened. Those came to power in several countries. The Hindutva Fascist forces came to power in the leadership of Modi in India as a part of it. As a result of the pro-imperialist, pro-comprador policies of the ruling classes of Modi government dependence and neo-colonial exploitation intensified in our country. Apart from the working class, peasantry and other toiling classes exploitation intensified on small and medium kind capitalists and traders, in order to fulfil the interests of imperialist comprador bureaucratic capitalist, feudal interests. Especially due to the economic, industrial, mining, agricultural, service sector policies taken up as a part of implementation of LPG policies at various times, mainly the total foreign partnership in domestic industries, allowing the control of imperialist MNCs and dependency on foreign technology made the country further dependent. Domestic and foreign corporate enterprises are looting the labour power, products, services and mainly raw materials in export-import dependent industries, especially the outsourcing industries and agribusiness companies. Public-Private Partnership is spread and implemented.
During this time, the slavery of comprador governments to imperialism reached its zenith. They are giving total opportunities to loot the land, labour, raw material and other natural resources of the country. They are handing over the economic, political, military and cultural sectors to imperialism. Micro, Small and Medium kind — MSME sector is shrinking day by day. Comprador governments are destroying the independent market of this sector. There is a drastic reduction in the growth rate of this sector. Demonetisation and GST led to the closure of 4,86,291 Micro, Small and Medium kind industries all over the country. Lakhs of workers are becoming unemployed.
Due to LPG policies our country is further getting into the clutches of foreign loans. The bankrupt rule of Modi led the foreign loans in the past eight years to Rs. 135 lakh crores. India is in the 5th place among the most loan receiving countries. The share of agriculture and industrial sectors that provide employment to 70 percent of the economy in GDP is going down and that of the service sector that provides employment to a mere 30 percent is rising. The fact that 100 prominent US companies acquired half of the economy of our country is enough to understand the joint onslaught of International monopoly enterprises and domestic comprador bureaucratic bourgeois corporate enterprises. During this period prominent comprador bureaucratic monopoly capitalists such as Mukesh Ambani, Adani, Mittal, Birla, TATA, Ruyiaya, Jindal, Vedanta, Infosys, ESSAR, Anil Ambani, TVS Iyyengar, Thapar, RPG, Bajaj, Mahindra and Pathanjali Ramdev rose heavily.
A new rich class and new forms of exploitation came forth in the country. Vital sectors such as mining, heavy industries and tourism and the utmost profitable telecom, power and finance sectors are in the public sector. Therefore plans are aggressively and speedily being implemented to eliminate those and hand over to foreign corporate enterprises. Special incentives and facilities are being provided to privatise each and every sector with a special policy. Public sector enterprises are pushed into losses in a planned manner and are put in the hands of corporate enterprises at dead cheap prices. Rise in high tech machinery, utilisation of technology and outsourcing deprived lakhs of workers and employees of livelihood. Organised sector declined and unorganised sector became the main one. The domestic and foreign corporate companies achieved Rs. 17.5 lakh crores during 2014–18. Imperialists are taking away nearly Rs.47.09 lakh crores from the country every year. It is not possible for a country put to such intensive exploitation to develop.
Due to considerable changes that took place in semi-feudalism during this period, a wide collective form of collaboration of government and nongovernment ‘party-cooperative association-panchayat-police’ systems came forth newly in the place of earlier forms of feudal hegemony. Cooperative bank is an important structural form of collaboration of bureaucratic capitalism and semi-feudalism. The cooperative capital of these cooperative banks is the amalgamation of the surplus of investments of imperialists, comprador bureaucratic capitalists and local semi-feudal elements. A new system of local hegemony and exploitation came forth on the base of government properties/funds through these.
According to the statistics of NABARD of 2017, the number of landlords in the rural areas is 5.76 percent. Although the number of landlords came down and also that of extent of big land ownership, feudal hegemony is going on in the economic, social and political sectors. This is a change in form and not in essence. One more important development in the period of globalisation is the acquisition of lakhs of acres of cultivable, forest lands of farmers and tribal people. MNCs, comprador bureaucratic big bourgeoisie, NGOs, religious organisations, stock market brokers and several kinds of mafias are seizing the government lands and the cultivable lands of the farmers. The lands of farmers and forest lands are being allotted to non-agriculture projects. Nearly four crore acres of land had been acquired forcibly by the exploitive comprador governments displacing six and a half crorespeople in 1951–2010. Compensation and rehabilitation are nominal. The problem of displaced became a main factor in land problem.
On the other hand, Indian market was widely opened for agricultural imports. Investment in agriculture sector reached a worse level. Food security policy had been liquidated. Public distribution system had been weakened. Public sector acquiring policy had been privatised. Minimum Support Price is not at least two times the expenditure on production of crops. Agricultural goods produced heavily and cheaply with heavy subsidies in imperialist countries are poured into the domestic market. Due to all these and other factors the agrarian sector fell in severe crisis. In one word, due to globalisation, the inequalities between the rich and the poor rose to the highest level.
When compared with capitalist/imperialist countries, crop productivity is very less in our country. There is a constant rise in small land ownership. Production of ordinary crops continues to be the main trend even now. This is an important criterion to semi-feudal relations and backward semi-feudal mode of production. Although there is a rise in wage labour in agriculture and affiliated sectors of agriculture and in the number of agricultural labour and semi-proletariat working on wages, there is a large discrepancy between their wages and those of the modern proletariat in the industries. This change did not lessen the semi-feudal exploitation to the least extent.
Most of the surplus created in agriculture is in the bureaucratic hegemony of banks/cooperative associations, money-lenders, shahukars and various finance enterprises. This is coming in the way of capital accumulation. The condition of capitalist reproduction is seen nowhere. Semi-feudal relations are an obstacle to the development of capitalism from the top to the bottom. Money lending and commercial capital seizes the agricultural products/goods of the farmers but not the process of production. This process is binding the farmers in semi-feudal relations. It controls their labour power and do not transform them into workers. It neither lets them transform into capitalists.
The labour contract between a hegemonic caste landlord and a Dalit landless labourer is semi-feudal in nature. This is at the same time a base for economic and non-economic exploitation and oppression. Brahmanic caste based feudalism and caste-class oppression is yet lively and prevalent in the rural areas. Caste hierarchic system is integral to semi-feudal relations. Most of the people are bound to backward relations of production and this is acting as a chain to the development of forces of production. This is keeping the majority of the people in utter poverty and miserable condition. It is shrinking their purchasing power thus it is limiting the development of domestic market. Suppression, oppression, discrimination, untouchability, social boycott, direct violence, massacres, live burning, sexual atrocities on women, burning of houses, exploitation of properties, destruction on the oppressed Dalit castes and tribal people are yet an ordinary feature.
As a result of the policies the comprador rulers are implementing since transfer of power in 1947 and the globalisation policies implemented since 1991, as a result of the anti-feudal class struggles that took place in the leadership of our party for the past five decades and the anti-imperialist, antigovernment movements, there are considerable changes in the various states/areas where revolutionary movement is going on under the leadership of our Party. Distorted capitalist relations are spreading in production. The earlier landlords shifted their properties and investments to the town areas. Revolutionary peasant committees/Ryot Coolie Sangams, Revolutionary People’s Committees (RPC) are built and consolidated and class struggle is spreading. This led to considerable changes in class composition of the villages. Non-agricultural rural hierarchs were established and land was mainly concentrated in their hands. New methods of exploitation came forth. Due to all these, semi-feudal relations relatively became weak. In the tribal areas where revolutionary movement took place strongly, forest lands and the surplus lands of non-tribal landlords and the bad gentry were seized. There is a stop to the exploitation and oppression of government, forest and revenue departments, money lenders and market traders. Wage labourer system reduced to a large extent. Struggles against imperialists, public-private investment, state and its compradors are rising.
As per the changes in the past seven decades, it is undoubted that Indian economy is not at all capitalist or in the path of transforming capitalist, that there is no such democratic trend in the country and more so, on the contrary semi-feudal relations are relatively weak. Land problem is the main problem and land reforms on the basis of land to the tiller yet bears importance and relevance in the broad rural areas.
Semi-feudalism means although capitalist relations developed at various levels in the womb of feudal system, those did not yet develop into fundamentally independent capitalist relations in a comprehensive level and so this is a system where semi-feudal relations continue. These capitalist relations that developed at various levels are considerable but those are quantitative only. There is no qualitative change in the relations of production. There is no fundamental change in the nature of Indian revolution or in the friendly and enemy classes of revolution. However much capitalist changes took place in Indian semi-colonial, semi-feudal economy bound in imperialist economy, all are in the interest of the imperialists, comprador big bourgeois and feudal classes. There are no chances of a change into an independent capitalist country.
When we observe these changes, it makes it clear that these changes cannot fundamentally affect our ordinary political line and the path of Protracted People’s War followed to make success this political line, that our party adopted, basing on the changes in the era of imperialism, especially all over the world in neo-colonial period and the social changes that took place until the great revolutionary spate of Naxalbari in our country, the document that was enriched in the Unity Congress-Ninth Congress and, moreover those would further complicate the implementation of our path. It, therefore makes it clear that we need to creatively implement our political-military line according to the social changes that took place in the country,, learning lessons from the experiences of social revolution and to adopt our strategic plans so as to fulfil the tasks of our political-military tactics according to these changes. It is possible to defeat the enemy classes by uniting the entire friendly classes and isolating the enemy classes against the common enemies according to these changes.
For this purpose we must destroy the three hills such as the exploitation, oppression and suppression of imperialism, comprador bureaucratic bourgeois and feudal classes that are depressing the Indian people by bringing down the outdated semi-colonial, semi-feudal system in the country to establish New Democratic society with the objective to establish Socialism-Communism by accomplishing the yet incomplete tasks of National democratic revolution in India. The only path for this is New Democratic Revolution with the axle of Agrarian Revolution on the basis of land to the tiller. India can attain liberation from the exploitation of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic comprador big capital only through this revolution.
Depending upon the distinct characteristic features of Revolutionary war in India, military strategy will be Protracted People’s War. It means, as Comrade Mao said, establishing revolutionary base areas in the rural area where the enemy is relatively weak and gradually encircle the cities that are forts for enemy forces and then seize them.
We can fulfil national liberation and democratic revolutionary tasks such as seizing land without any compensation to the landlords on the basis of ‘land to the tiller’ and distribute the lands of the landlords to agricultural labour, poor farmers and lower middle class farmers; to occupy the agricultural estates and plantations of imperialist MNCs, capitalist landlords, comprador bureaucratic capitalists and government institutions; to nationalise revolutionary people’s governments; to industrialise the country basing on serial policies on the principle of ‘basing on agriculture and keeping the industries in the lead’, ‘walking on two legs’; encourage and develop cooperative agricultural movement and agricultural cooperative associations; nationalise imperialist enterprises, companies, comprador bureaucratic bourgeois companies and government lands; seize their properties and banks, annul domestic and foreign loans and the unequal agreements; and eradicate unemployment only through New Democratic Revolution.
Q — Many of the areas in which your Party and the PLGA are active in are very rich in biodiversity and in rare and important plant and wildlife. What is the Party’s stance towards conservation in these areas, and on the capitalist-imperialist destruction of the environment more broadly?
A — The areas of the revolutionary movement under the leadership of our party are rich of bio-diversity. There are countless trees, green forests and ever flowing rivers, medicinal herbs, forest animals, various kinds of birds, mammals, insects, rivers, water animals, amphibians, hundreds of fish, dozens of small forest produce available from the forests, various kinds of roots, fruits, bushes and trees that give fruits, thousands of kinds of paddy grains protected in traditional methods, pulses, oil seeds are abundant. There is enormous danger to the valuable, magnificent, unique, balance natural biodiversity from imperialists, comprador bureaucratic capitalists for a long time. Due to the anti-people, imperialist sponsored policies of the exploitive ruling classes, this bio-diversity and environment are facing destruction. Nature must not be let fall for profits of a few domestic, foreign big exploiters. natural balance must be preserved, environment must be protected and natural wealth and resources must be utilised in a balanced manner to improve human living conditions. Environmental protection and natural balance and improving human living conditions are mutually dependent. We must constantly fight against the destruction of resources by capitalist imperialism. New Democratic Revolution shall form the fundamental basis for permanent solution to this problem.
These are a few examples to show how the imperialist MNCs are destroying the bio-diversity of our country. Dr. Richaria collected more than 22,000 paddy grains and above 1800 leafy vegetables from thousands of farmers from hundreds of villages in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh and preserved its germplasm in the Indira Gandhi National Agricultural University in Raipur, the capital of the present Chhattisgarh in 1950s and 60s. Out of these, there are those that grow with less water, that give less grass, more grass, spread good smell, that are long, short, that grow in any season and so on. But the germplasm of these paddy grains was stolen by the MNCs of the US and other such countries in collaboration of comprador rulers of our country. The MNCs claim to have developed those grains in the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Manila and sell them with names such as IR36, IR-72 to India and other countries. They force the farmers to depend on MNCs for seeds every year.
The actual story behind the preservation of the development of so many thousands of kinds of seeds that hands over a great historic experience is very interesting. The world must know. The peasantry of Chhattisgarh make a festival called Akti. On that day, all the youth play Kolatam and ask paddy from every house. They sow the crop collected from the whole village in a common land. Naturally new kind of seeds are generated in the process of growth of crop. They collected those crops separately and sowed it. Thus every year seeds with new characteristics emerged in every village. Thus every village developed into an agricultural laboratory and every farmer into an agricultural scientist and so many thousands of paddy seeds developed. Paddy seeds developed in the country and that possess such diversity have been stolen by the MNCs with the support of comprador governments and are owning those. Hundreds of kinds of local paddy seeds, pulses, roots, leafy vegetables, vegetables, fruit seeds and other such are yet available in the interior tribal areas. There is a strong need to protect and preserve them from not going into the hands of corporate companies.
In 1990 also a MNC Syngenta tried to steal the germplasm of various kinds of seeds in collaboration with the management, when a patriot Professor took the initiative to expose the matter. Democrats, Mass Organisations and Trade Unions took up struggles and the attempts were stopped.
With the indiscriminate exploitation of resources by the imperialists and their agents, the comprador bureaucratic capitalists for their profits, lakhs of acres of forests, forest lands and riverine areas are being devastated with the heavy mining projects, mega industrial projects and big dams. Trees, organisms and animals are becoming extinct. Sound, underground, surface water and air pollutions are intensifying. Environmental destruction is going on in a big way. Rich bio-diversity is becoming extinct.
Due to mining in the country, many small rivers and canals apart from the big rivers are being polluted. The waters of these rivers and canals are not feasible for cultivation. The water is polluted to the extent that it cannot be used even for washing, leave alone for drinking. Almost all the rivers flowing from near the mines are being polluted. Water organisms and bird species are becoming extinct. People are suffering from severe ill health apart from various kinds of skin diseases.
Drilling, explosion, goods trains, lorries (trucks) and machines used for the transport of mineral resources in heavy mining and the heavy sounds of the machines cause intense sound pollution. According to an estimate, one tonne of explosive material needs to be used for 5 thousand tonnes of iron. In a few places the sound of mine explosion is heard up to a distance of 150 kms. This is causing cracks in the walls of the houses of the people of the towns and villages near coal mines, iron ore mines, bauxite mines. The firing and shelling from the field firing range of various government forces are causing harm to the ears of the people. sound pollution and explosions are leading to heart diseases, blood pressure, deafness and premature deliveries.
Field firing ranges are arranged near the residential areas. People are being injured due to firing and shelling from this range. Their properties are destroyed. In Jharkhand, people fought and stopped few field firings ranges. Movements are going on against field firing ranges in many states.
The gases that emanate out of the explosions in mining, the poisonous gases from the heavy industries and the pollution from blast furnaces all together are intensifying air pollution day by day.
Capitalist imperialism only squeezes more and more profits from its industries but does not make proper arrangements to see that no accidents occur. Scores and thousands of people lost their lives in the several industrial accidents and in underground coal mines due to sheer negligence. Lakhs of people suffer from severe physical and mental ill health. The example of the accident in Union Carbide, a MNC of the US in Bhopal in 1984 reveals the situation. More than two and a half thousand people lost their lives due to leakage of Methyl Iso Cyanide. Thousands more became ill. Warren Anderson, the MD of the factory who was responsible for such a grave accident was sent in a respectful manner and with heavy security by the government officers to the US by flight. This is the model of slavery of the ruling classes to imperialism.
In May 2020, 12 people died of a gas leak in LG Polymers, a MNC of South Korea in Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. Hundreds were ill. Thousands of birds became extinct. There are many such examples.
The Indian exploitive governments who saw with their own eyes the fierce accidents that occurred in nuclear projects in Russia and Japan are purchasing the outdated ones from imperialists leading the people to death.
No one can forget the tragic story of the villages that were drowned due to dam on River Narmada. The construction of Polavaram dam on River Godavari drowns 250 villages and lakhs of acres of forest and agricultural lands of four states. This is the case with each and every heavy dam. Ecology, bio-diversity, natural wealth, resources, land and water resources, environment and the livelihood of the people are destructed due to heavy mining, the construction of dams and industries. Rain water is stored in the layers of mineral resources, especially bauxite mines and flows into streams and rivers slowly all through the year. These streams and rivers are the life line for the tribal and non-tribal people living in the forest areas. The exploration of these minerals leads to a drastic reduction of water level in these rivers and underground. The polluted water from the mines and industries and the water from the bathrooms and latrines of these areas into the rivers is polluting the whole river water.
According to an estimate, the production of one ton of iron needs 44 tons of water and one ton of Aluminium needs 1378 tons. We can easily understand how much water is spent on mining and production of minerals and the extent of pollution.
Normally hills-hillocks, forests, especially the high and broad mountain ranges and broad dense forests are an important factor in monsoon. For example the Raoghat hills of Bastar are very much favourable for monsoon rains. Due to mining in this area, the monsoon is negatively affected and the environmentalists say that this shall cause a reduction of rains in not only Bastar but also in South Chhattisgarh and that these hills are very important in environmental balance in the country. Moreover TATA, Adani and the like are very eager to explore these mines. The central and the state governments are preparing the ground in all ways to facilitate the same.
Rise in global warming is causing extreme heat for a long time, famines and untimely rains and other such natural calamities. It is estimated that the sea water levels are going to rise by 27 cms due to global warming.
Electronic goods are more and more produced that are emanating radiation to an extent more than approved. This is leading to unimaginable diseases. People’s health is severely disturbed. The MNCs are utilising this situation also to mint profits. They are spreading the health sector and are exploiting the people through super-specialty hospitals. They are looting people’s money in the name of various people’s health schemes with the support of the exploitive governments.
On the other hand the governments are establishing tourist centres in the interior forest areas. These are the centres of luxury for the rich classes. The culture, traditions, song and dance of the local tribal people is made a commodity in these places. Bad culture is being introduced from other places. The people’s democratic culture is affected. Body trade is being encourages. Diseases such as AIDS might spread to interior areas and to all those visiting these tourist centres. So our party is severely opposing the establishment of such tourist centres. Capitalist imperialism is suffocating workers, employees and people to the core. It is putting constant pressure on them and is unleashing intense labour exploitation. It turned human life utmost narrow and is forcing people to visit certain places by week end or month end once in a year. The total situation needs to be changed.
Political leaders, big contractors, timber mafia, mining mafia, forest and police officers collaborate and are smuggling timber in a big way from National Parks, Reserve Parks. The Hasdeo forest and other such ever green forests are being indiscriminately cut for industrial purposes. Forest animals are being hunted in a big way with the help of forest and police officers.
On the other hand the central and the state governments are chasing the tribal and farmer people in the name of parks, tiger reserves, reserve forests and centers of protection of wild animals. They are trampling the right to life of the tribal people. The anti-development governments and imperialist sponsored NGOs are making ill propaganda that tribal people are a danger for the protection of forest and wild animals. This is absolutely not a fact. In fact, the tribal people living in the forests for generations are the protectors and conservators of the forests, the bio-diversity and environment. Tribal people are the children of forests. They are entangled with the forest. Their life and livelihood are entwined with forest. The forests and forest animals survive due to them and their struggles. But now when they are being displaced, one must thing how to protect the forests, environment and bio-diversity. This is not the problem of tribal people alone. It concerns the existence of the whole human race. Therefore the people of the country and foreign countries need to fight against all the schemes such as the pro-imperialist, pro-comprador bureaucratic capitalists and pro-feudal classes development models, heavy mining, industries and construction of dams that displace tribal people. Anyone who causes damage to environment must be chased away from the forest. One must be prepared to retaliate together with the people and armed retaliation with the available weapons. We must develop the same. We call upon the youth to recruit in a big way into PLGA in the areas of revolutionary movement under the leadership of our party and take part in intensify-expand people’s war/guerrilla war to all corners of the country and to come forward to join hands with the people.
Imperialists, comprador bureaucratic capitalists and landlords cause severe harm to environment for their profits. They indulge in sound, water an air pollution. The bureaucratic Modi government at the centre recently amended the Acts that provide action on such persons against the interests of the workers, peasants, middle class and tribal people and the country and in the interests of the comprador bureaucratic capitalists and imperialist MNCs. All the amendments to the Environment (Preservation) Act 1986, Water (Pollution prevention and control) Act 1974, Air (pollution prevention, air control) Act 1981 are meant to protect the imperialists, comprador capitalists and landlords in violation of these Acts. These amendments leave capitalists who indulge in environmental, water and air pollution without punishment. There is only a nominal fine. However no capitalist was sent to jail even before the amendments. These Acts provided a basis for people’s struggles and the present amendments give indiscriminate powers to the capitalists. They shall indulge in environmental destruction. Environment shall fall into further crisis. Our party calls upon the people and people’s organisations of the country to fight against the pro-capitalist amendments in these Acts.
Our party is committed to preservation of bio-diversity and environment comprised of forests and all kinds of plant species. PLGA, Mass Organisations and RPCs are working together with the people under the leadership of our party for this. They are raising the consciousness of the people. The Forest Protection Department of our people’s governments is specially concentrating on this aspect. We come in the way of any public or private scheme that displaces the people and causes harm to environment and bio-diversity. We call upon the environmentalists, biologists, scientists, democrats, civil rights organisations, social organisations and tribal social organisations to come and work with us in this regard. We opine that we need to build strong movements all over the country for protection of environment and bio-diversity and take up struggles in the direction of achieving various demands. On the other hand we wish to say that New Democratic India that would be established by accomplishing New Democratic Revolution in the path of Protracted People’s War shall guarantee the protection of forest, environment and bio-diversity.
Q — Similarly, many of the areas in which your Party and the PLGA are active are rich in natural resources, such as coal and bauxite. These resources are sought-after by large multinational capitalist corporations, who are invited by the fascist old Indian state to steal the resources for themselves, and many people are forced from their homes to give these corporations access to the resources. Can you go into more detail about the practices of imperialism in India, and how the CPI (Maoist) and PLGA resists this imperialism?
A — Our country is not a poor one but it is a country of poor people. there are green forests in our country. There are ever flowing rivers, fertile cultivable lands, invaluable, abundant mineral resources. This apart, there are crores of toiling workers and farmers. Crores of government and private employees, lakhs of educated and intellectual toilers and crores of youth are there in the country. 700 kinds of indigenous, tribal people constitute 8.5 percent of the population. But, majority of the people of the country are suffering from hunger, illiteracy, superstitions, ill health, unemployment, poverty and other such problems. They are fighting in various forms to solve the fundamental livelihood problems and for democratic rights. The natural wealth, resources, the abundant labour power and local technology is not being used in the interests of the people of the country the initiative and efficiency of the broad masses is not explored but their democratic rights are supressed in the interests of a few comprador bureaucratic capitalists, landlords and imperialist MNCs.
To be more specific, there are abundant natural wealth and mineral resources not only in the forests and semi-forest areas of the indigenous, tribal and non-tribal people of the country but in the areas of revolutionary movement, i.e., the areas where the Party, PLGA, Mass Organisations and in some areas the RPCs are working such as the states of West Bung, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka (Western Ghats). India produces 90 kinds of minerals such as iron, coal, bauxite, mica, manganese, silver, gold, lime stone, granite, Aluminium, copper and cement. Procurement of diamonds is going on as a big trade. India happens to be one of the 5 big producers of important minerals. 25 percent of mineral resources of India are in Jharkhand. 70 percent of the bauxite resources and 28 percent of iron ore resources re in Odisha. Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have coal and bauxite mines. Iron, mica, gold, diamonds, coal, Uranium, bauxite, Corundum, dolomite and cassiterite are abundant in Bastar and Sarguja of Chhattisgarh. There 9 crores of tons of iron ore in Surjagarh hills of Maharashtra. There are several mineral resources in both the forest and plain areas of almost all the states.
The exploitation of these resources started and spread right from the time of British occupation of India. The British declared their authority on the forests, minerals, land and water resources through various Acts (such as the India Forest Act 1867, Forest Act 1878, Land Acquisition Act 1894, India Forest Act 1927). The loot of natural resources was intense in the phase of industrial capital and finance capital when there was intense exploitation and oppression and cruel political authority. Political suppression too intensified during this time including exploitation of forcible cheap labour. Agricultural policy of the country was changed according to the needs of the market for colonialists and their world market. Large forests were cut for laying Railway lines. British imperialists allowed TATA, Birla and other such comprador big capitalists of the country to establish industries for their war needs during World War I and thus they too joined the loot. They started large scale iron ore and coal mining for iron and steel industries.
India became a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country after transfer of power in 1947 and since then, it had been under the indiscriminate exploitation and oppression of several imperialist countries. The Indian feudal, comprador capitalist classes that seized state power in collaboration with the imperialists have been serving them and are unleashing indiscriminate exploitation and oppression. With the change of political power, the Indian comprador capitalist, feudal class changed into comprador bureaucratic capitalist class. Whichever parliamentary parties those belong to, the central and the state governments that represent the exploitive ruling classes of our country are implementing the policies of economy, industry, minerals, agriculture, education and health in favour of imperialist, comprador bureaucratic capitalist and feudal classes. Those are creating infrastructure facilities in favour of them and are following domestic and foreign internal policies. Those are implementing LPG policies in all sectors since 1991.
See these examples! Indian government established National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) in 1958 to look after survey of mineral resources, mining, production, sale, exports, establishment of steel industries and other such things. This made an agreement with Japan Steel Mill in 1961 and vacated 22 tribal villages to start iron mines in Bailadilla in Dantewada district of Bastar division in Chhattisgarh state, the present Dandakaranya struggle area. No one was provided rehabilitation. Since production started in 1968, the iron ore from Bailadilla is being looted at a dead cheap rate of Rs. 50 to Rs.400 per ton by Japan, China and Korea imperialists. ESSAR and other comprador bureaucratic capitalist companies are also looting it. You must have been aware that iron ore costs Rs.5600 to Rs.10000 per ton in the world market. Iron ore needed for mini Steel Plants and sponge iron industries is not given at least at the export price to the small and medium kind capitalists of Chhattisgarh. This led to the closure of nearly 150 industries and ten thousand workers are on the streets. The mines are being spread further. There are a lot of such examples.
More than two dozen of goods trains move on the Kirandul-Visakhapatnam Railway line built in the name of ‘development’ and to provide facility to the people and there is only a single passenger train. What for is the Railway line claimed to be a big engineering feat? The rise in water and air pollution is leading to the danger of ill health and destruction of the people, cattle, forest animals and fish. Presently Dalli-Raoghat-Jagadalpur Railway line is being laid in the same name of development. In fact the railway line is meant for shifting of mineral sources from the proposed mines in Rajnandgaon and Bastar divisions of Chhattisgarh and armed forces.
The government allowed the laying of ESSAR pipeline of a comprador capitalist company by reducing Rs.550 per ton to supply iron ore through rail costing only Rs.80 per ton. Iron ore powder is being shifted through pipelines from Bailadilla to Visakhapatnam. Water resources of Bastar are going waste into the Bay of Bengal for this shift. This is causing water shortage in Bastar. ESSAR company used land in a stretch of 20 meters for laying the pipeline at a lengthof 267 kms but did not pay a single paise for the displaced. It also cut thousands of hectares of forests.
Here is one more example. The government is not supplying the necessary coal produced in Chhattisgarh to the industries of the small and medium kind capitalists of the state. Moreover the Modi government stopped supply of coal since August in the name of coal crisis for the past 6 months. The Chief Minister (of Congress party that is in opposition at the centre) himself appealed in vain. Hundreds of small and medium kind industries are in the danger of closure. Meanwhile in the name of solving coal crisis big comprador capitalists are being supplied with large amounts of coal and on the other is importing coal at high prices from other countries. This is a traitorous, anti-people policy of the government.
There is yet another surprising instance. Government sold a stretch of 23 kms of Sivnadh river that flows through Durg district of Chhattisgarh to Radias Water Limited in 1988. The conditions of the agreement mention the responsibility to purchase water from the company. The company laid fencing on both sides of the river to the extent it took on lease. The people of the scores of villages on both sides of the river are not utilising the river waters and have been deceived. Who gave the authority to the government to sell the natural river and river waters to private companies? It is interesting to know that the farmer people destroyed the fencing declaring their authority on the river.
In Raigarh district of the same state comprador bureaucratic capitalist Jindal built his empire of Steel and electric industries. He displaced ten thousand farmer families from 1990 to 2010 for this purpose. These farmers and the agricultural labourers became migrant labour. Jindal acquired the lands of these villages with the support of the revenue administration of the government. He also seized the pool that the villagers have been using for generations.
The central and the state governments are handing over the public sector industries in the name of disinvestment as a part of the LPG policies at dead cheap prices to the comprador capitalists and MNCs. Bharat Aluminium Company (BALCO) one of the vital public sector industries said to be Indian Navaratnas costing Rs.5000 crores had been handed over to Sterlite company with 50 percent partnership by the then BJP government in the centre in 2003. In addition to it, the mine pot bauxite mines in Ambikapur also were given to Anil Agarwal of Sterlite company. There are lot of such examples from each and every state all over the country.
The exploitation of these resources that began during the rule of Congress party intensified further during the BJP rule. Since 1991 when LPG policies came to be implemented in a full fledged manner, the central and the state governments are making hundreds and thousands of MoUs with comprador bureaucratic capitalists and imperialist MNCs for the export of minerals, for the construction of heavy industries, for mining of various kinds of minerals and construction of big dams. The central and the various state governments are holding summits with imperialist, comprador capitalist corporate companies and are opening the doors wide for exploitation of resources. Forums are held in various imperialist countries to make such agreements. Since Modi came to power he is further speeding and intensifying the exploitation of these resources in the name of ‘Make in India’, ‘Make in Maharashtra’ and ‘Make in Gujarat’ and such others. These ‘Make in’ festivals are being held frequently in all the states. Let us see some instances to understand how this game takes place.
According to an estimate, since the transfer of power the central and the state governments displaced 5 crore people in the name of ‘development’ schemes. In Jharkhand 15 lakh tribal people have been displaced in the past three decades for the construction of industries, mines, dams, roads and railway lines. While 40 percent of them are tribal people, 25 percent are Dalit people. 75 percent of the displaced are not rehabilitated. The rest of the 25 percent have been provided nominal rehabilitation. Similarly, 40 percent of the land acquired from the displaced is of the tribal people. since 2005, we see that Arcelor Mittal, POSCO, Vedanta, Sterlite industries (Vedanta resources), Phelps Dodge, ACC Riotento, CRA, De Beers, Anglo-American exploration, BHP Minerals, Proem Alcon, Norse Hydro, Aston mining, Lloyd company and other such imperialist Steel and Mining corporate companies have been given permission in a big way to take up survey of minerals such as iron, coal, gold, diamonds, bauxite, mica and silver in Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. In addition to these, Indian comprador bureaucratic capitalists and mining corporates such as TATA, Jindal, Birla, ESSAR, Adani, Nouka and other such companies also issued permissions for mining.
This alone gives us the understanding as to how and how much the corporate companies gain super profits. Utkal Alumina Company is going tomint Rs.2,80,000 crores in the coming 25 years at a cost of Rs.4500 crores through mining in 8000 acres.
The governments gave permission to 760 Special Economic Zones (SEZ) all over the country by 30th November 2007. The number must have increased by now. Para-military, police forces, goonda gangs and brokers have been deployed to forcibly seize 2 lakh hectares of land from the farmers and tribal people of 20 states for this. Mukesh Ambani displaced 2 lakh 50 thousand people of 35 villages in Navi Mumbai for Reliance SEZ and seized 35 thousand acres of land.
Agricultural lands and forest lands of the farmers and the tribal people of various states of the country are being utmost bureaucratically seized for the sake of industrial corridors, coastal corridors, export zones, ports and other such things and Express highways, Super highways, Airports, Sagarmala, bullet trains-speed trains and entertainment parks necessary for those are being laid as a part of infrastructure.
Modi government gave permission to comprador capitalist Gautam Adani to construct ports, Airports, 900 cold storages and 900 multiplex cinema halls. It gave heavy subsidies to take up mining. The central and the state governments leased two deposits spread over lakhs of acres in Hasdeo Aranda coal mines in Hasdeo forest in Korba, Sarguja and Surajpur districts. People are making intense struggles against the cutting of forest by Adani under the banner of ‘Hasdeo Jungle Bachao’ committee. Valuable teak and other trees, animals and floral species are on the verge of extinction.
In Odisha, the central and the state governments together issued 97 thousand hectares of lands on 600 mining leases. But the fact that 46 percent of families in Odisha are living below the poverty line tells us that the profits out of mining are going to corporate companies, political leaders and higher officials and no one else.
The farmers of Jagatsingpur have been putting down the attempts of the government to displace 22 thousand farmers to acquire 4 thousand acres of land for the Steel Plant of a MNC POSCO of South Korea. Vedanta Sterlite Company is making severe attempts to explore bauxite from Niyamgiri hills costing the identity of the Kuvvi tribal people. for the purpose it deployed Para-military forces in the area and expanded carpet security. The tribal peasantry is daringly facing this. Bauxite mining and industries of domestic and foreign corporate companies such as Vedanta Resources, Vedanta Aluminium, Sterlite India, Odisha Mining Corporation, South-West Odisha Mining Corporation, Hindalco, Birla group, Utkal Aluminimum Industry Limited (UAIL), ALCAN of Canada and NALCO in Koraput, Bolangir, Kalahandi and Raigarh districts. Thousands of tribal people of primitive tribes of Kasipur, Gopalpur, Gandamardhan, Jajpur, Kalinganagar, Jagatsingpur, Keonjhar and Serengdaga were displaced. The process is still going on.
In the name of nuclear electric industries, thermal electric industries, bauxite mining, industrial, coastal and oil corridors that are utmost dangerous to the survival of the people, natural wealth and the wealth on sea coast is being handed over to the MNCs and comprador capitalists like Adani. Several projects such as Polavaram and Kavvala Tiger zone, Singareni Open cast coal mines and other such several projects are laid in Telangana displacing the tribal people.
Attempts are going on to seize Lakhs of acres of crop lands and forest lands of the tribal people by the Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra governments with the support of the armed forces to implement the agreements with MNCs and comprador capitalists. There are iron ore, quartz, quarries, Silica cell, China clay, Limestone, White clay and Uranium are abundant in the forests and hills on the border of Rajnandgaon, Kanker and Balod districts. Although the people have been firmly facing these mining activities under the leadership of the party, ITBP, BSF camps have been set up in scores of numbers and few of these projects are being run under constant attacks on the people. with the weakening of the people’s movements, mining is going on in Ahladi, Barbaspur, Ari Dongri, Mahamaya, Pallemadi, Chargaon and other mines.
While the various mines in Chhattisgarh have been given to TATA, Jindal, ESSAR, Adani and NECCO Companies on lease the mines in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra have been given for lease to TATA, ESSAR, Arcelor Mittal, Jindal Steel, Vedanta, Lloyd, Riotento, De Beers, BHP Bili tin and other corporate companies.
As we see the exploitive governments are handing over the natural wealth and mineral resources of the country to imperialist MNCs and domestic comprador bureaucratic capitalist companies. Thus lakhs of hectares of crop lands and forest lands are going into the hands of the domestic and foreign corporate companies. Tribal communities such as the Mariah, Koya, Halba, Dhurva, Batra, Koyatur, Koyagal, Korga, Rajgond, Gond, Lohar, Kotadval, Koyyal, Kolam, Pradha, Thoti, Nayakpod, Kondareddy, Kondadora, Bhagatu, Savara, Jatabu, Kuvvi, Kotwal, Koliya, Koyamali, Chenchu, Korval, Korna, Kolha, Kol, Dharu, Kondi, Kondh, Dongaria, Sabara, Komundal, Keriya, Hora, Hokya, Koltal, Kotia, Bil, Bilal, Juvang, Santhal, Munda, Uraov and Ho and non-tribal communities such as Gando, Gasiya, Harara, Marr, Panara, Panka, Pradha, Yadav living in the forests traditionally are going to lose their survival, identity and self-respect. Their language, culture and life style are going to become extinct.
One important aspect needs to be brought to your notice. On one hand agreements are being made to hand over the wealth and natural resources of the country to the imperialists and comprador capitalists and on the other several draconian new Acts have been being made to suppress the movements that arose and are going on against the implementation of these agreements. ‘UAPA’ and NIA have been provided with more powers and the old draconian Acts have been amended. The Chhattisgarh state government brought forth the Chhattisgarh Special People’s Security Act in 2005 itself. Since then thousands were arrested under the Act.
People, especially tribal people of all the states and these areas of the revolutionary movement are fighting relentlessly against the exploitation of these resources. Tribal people are fighting daringly for their right to ‘jal-jungle-zameen’ (water-forest-land) for their right to live, for their existence, identity and self-respect. Party, PLGA and RPCs are standing in support of the struggling people. party is directly and indirectly leading these people’s struggles. It is guiding those struggles. In some places, people themselves are getting down to struggles inspired by the party, PLGA and RPCs and under the influence of the class struggle and people’s war under the leadership of those. Lakhs of people of the country are participating in these people’s struggles. Earlier Salva Judum, Sendra and other repressive campaigns and later Operation Green Hunt in order to eliminate the leadership of these struggles and suppress them, thus facilitate the way for the exploitation of resources and labour, market control and political hegemony. Moreover the campaigns are also intended to total elimination of the RPCs that are the organs of people’s state power that emerged as the ray of hope for the Party, PLGA and the oppressed people of India and the revolutionary movement on the whole. Presently ‘SAMADHAN’ strategic multipronged offensive is going on in the utmost intensive level. As a part of it carpet security is strengthened and expanded. Corporatisation-Militarisation is going on in an intense and speedy manner in Chhattisgarh-Maharashtra (Dandakaranya), Bihar-Jharkhand, Odisha, Telangana, AOB, Maharashtra-Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh (MMC), Western Ghats. The exploitive ruling classes are laying roads, bridges, pipelines, railway lines on war footing to facilitate the movement of armed forces and to exploit the resources at dead cheap rates, in the name of infrastructure.
People understood that these police camps, roads, bridges and railway lines are only to displace them from their water-forest-land, to eliminate their survival, to loot their resources and to eliminate the RPCs that they fought for a long time and established and are fighting with dare and determination against those. The struggle of the Silinger tribal people of Bastar that is going on militantly for the past 15 months stands in the forefront as an icon of these struggles. Tribal people have been holding indefinite dharna against the new police camps being set up in Parasnadh hill area of Jharkhand, in cut off area of Andhra Odisha border area, in Vechaghat, Gompad, Singaram, Burji, Pusnar, Vechapal, Poosuguppa, Gondod, Gornam and other places of Dandakaranya. State is making brutal attacks on them. Lathi-charge, tear gas, illegal arrests, firing, sabotage and mortar shelling have become an ordinary feature. People are continuing their struggles denying government repression and encountering the government Para-military and police forces. They are obstructing mining. PLGA retaliation is adding to these struggles. The support of the students-youth, tribal and non-tribal people, intellectuals, prominent democrats at various levels is instilling self-confidence and firm determination in these struggles. Thus these people’s struggles, people’s retaliation and people’s war are taken up in coordination and to stop the implementation of the agreements of the governments with corporate companies.
Party and the people stopped the mining in Raoghat that was initiated in the 1990s. TATA had to withdraw its plan to set up a Steel Plant in ten thousand acres of tribal land in Lohandiguda due to the 10 year long people’s resistance. ESSAR Steel plant planned in 4 thousand acres of land of Dhurli, Bhansi and Kamalur villages also had to be withdrawn due to people’s resistance. The construction of Bodhghat mega dam planned on River Indravati is yet pending. People and PLGA under the leadership of the party are coming in the way of many such mining projects.
Heroic people of Singur of West Bung fought back the plan to construct a Nano car industry by TATA through their struggle. The people of Nandigram of the same state chased away a MNC Salem group of Indonesia through their struggle. People of Salbani of West Bung stopped the expansion of Jindal industries through the historic Lalgarh struggle.
Kuvvi tribal people chased Anil Agarwal the owner of Sterlite Vedanta industries from Niyamgiri of Odisha. Comprador rulers indulged in police firing on 2nd January 2006 on the militant demonstration of 15 thousand people of 15 villages against the construction of TATA Steel plant of Kalinganagar and helped for its construction. However the Odiya people are against POSCO in Jagatsingpur. People, intellectuals and artists of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are together fighting against bauxite mining in Visakha, Mali and Devamali hills and Uranium mining in Nallamala mountains.
13 people were murdered and above 100 were injured in brutal firing to suppress the people’s struggle going on in a militant manner against the proposed Sterlite Company in Toothukudi of Tamilnadu. People of Western Ghats are against mining of iron ore mining. The people of Gadchiroli are fighting against mining in Surjagarh, Damkodivahi and Korchi in Maharashtra.
Tribal people of Amdai, Tulad, Taralmetta, Pittodmetta/Nandaraj hill of Bastar are making a relentless struggle against mining.
The central government decided to establish a military base in the name of training centre of the Military in Maad area that happens to be the residence of Mariah tribe one of the ancient tribe in a place called ‘Abuzmaarh’ of Narayanpur district in Bastar division. The earlier BJP government of Chhattisgarh made an agreement to hand over one-fourth of Marh to Indian Army. There are several mineral resources in Marh. This is one of the big strategic areas of the country. The Indian government deployed thousands of Indian Army forces from 2011 to 2013 in Marh and trained them in jungle warfare. The Indian government temporarily stopped the deployment of the Army with the severe protest movement of the people of Dandakaranya, democratic intellectuals, human rights and social organisations of the country.
Large amount of forest land of the states of revolutionary movement is transferred for National Parks, centres for conservation of wild animals, tigers, leopards, reserves of bison, tourist centers and field firing ranges for which hundreds of villages are turned into a graveyard. Thousands of families and lakhs of people are being displaced. People are opposing all these attempts.
Tribal people achieved certain rights in the form of Acts through struggles going on for decades. Few rights have been given to the tribal people in the Indian Constitution. In fact these Acts, rights are never totally implemented. But they have been a base to formulate demands for struggle. Few of the Acts possessing such pro-people aspects are the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution, the 1996 PESA, the rights of Gram Sabhas, Forest Lands Identity Act 2006, Forest Conservation Act 2013. Various state governments formulated various Acts in the respective times banning the purchase or seizure of tribal lands in areas of Fifth Schedule. PESA, Forest Lands Identity Act 2006, Forest Conservation Act 2013 clearly mentioned that the lands of tribal people must not be seized by the central and the state governments for the sake of any kind of development plan, industries, mines and dams without the permission of Gram Sabhas.
India signed the paper of statement of rights of tribal people issued by the UNO General Assembly on 13th September 2007. Section 30 of the paper clearly said that no military actions should be taken up on the lands of the tribal people without their consent and permission.
However, until date, none of the lands allotted and leased to the comprador capitalists and imperialist MNCs and also the lands allotted for the central and state government projects had been given the permission of the Gram Sabhas. All those have been issued by the governments in the name of permission of fake Gram Sabhas without the knowledge of the concerned people. permission of Gram Sabhas was not asked for the camps of the police, Para-military and Army forces set up in our struggle areas. People are fighting to implement these rights, to lift all the camps established without the permission of the Gram Sabhas and to not construct any projects without the permission of the Gram Sabhas. The ‘Pathalgarhi’ struggle that started in Jharkhand and North Chhattisgarh with the slogan ‘our village our government’ spread to Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and South Chhattisgarh on the borders.
Now the fascist Modi government trampled the rights of the tribal people through issuing Forest Conservation Ordinance on 24th June 2022. This is a gross violation of tribal people’s rights, the Constitution and tramples the same. Through the ordinance the central government can allot the lands of tribal farmers and the forest lands to the domestic and foreign corporate companies and for public-private projects without the permission of the Gram Sabhas and the land owners. The party has the important task to expand, unite, consolidate these people’s struggles against the anti-people, anti-tribal fascist policies and Acts of the government and take them forward towards the direction of forming an anti-imperialist, anti-comprador bureaucratic capitalist, anti-feudal people’s struggle front all over the country and to mould them in the direction of intensifying and expanding people’s war.
In fact, the struggles against displacement, the Para-military and Special police camps are entwined with the problem of land and existence. All these are anti-imperialist, anti-comprador bureaucratic, anti-feudal struggles. These struggles have to be linked with People’s War-Guerrilla War and intensified and expanded.
All what the exploitive ruling classes are doing in the name of development is nothing but their intense exploitation and not the development of the people. It is nothing but an anti-development and traitorous model to indiscriminately loot the resources of the people that devastates them, destructs the environment and puts the country in debt. It is the model that utilises the natural wealth and resources not for the entire people and the country but for the imperialists and comprador exploitive ruling classes. We need to oppose and fight back this model of development. The genuine model of development shall be to conserve the resources, develop them, protect environment, utilise them in a discriminate manner for the needs of all the people and the country and for the future generations. The New Democratic state power that is built by destroying the state power of imperialism and comprador exploitive ruling classes through Protracted People’s War in the leadership of the proletarian party alone shall implement the genuine model of development. Only then we can achieve genuine all round development of the people. Only thus we can control the indiscriminate exploitation of the resources and preserve them. These attempts began and are continuing in the leadership of the organs of people’s state power under the leadership of the party in the areas of struggle in a primary level.
Q — One major problem facing the International Communist Movement is the problem of revisionism. Revisionism comes in many forms: Trotskyism, Khrushchevism, Electoralism and Dengism are just a few. How large of a problem is revisionism in India, which parties would you judge to be revisionist in nature, and how does the CPI (Maoist) combat revisionism in India?
A — Yes. As you said revisionism is one big problem that the International Communist Movement is facing. Since Marxism came into being as the theoretical weapon of the proletariat, it came forth in various forms in the name of Marxism itself. It is still coming forth and shall do so in future also. The danger of revisionism shall arise until the success of the World Socialist Revolution and also until Communism is established. Whichever form it arises, its theoretical origins lie in bourgeois/petty bourgeois ideology. The interests of the revisionists harm the interests of the proletariat and the toilers and help those of the bourgeoisie. Thus revisionist practice does not help to destroy the capitalist-anti-development classes and to prepare for armed revolution or lead it but to the existence and status quo of the present society. As long as these exist between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie during revolution and after it, it is manifests in various forms in the proletarian party also as a conflict. We must enlighten the Party ranks politically and develop the political consciousness of the people that as long as communists are needed for the society the danger of revisionism exists in various forms. We have to unite and strengthen the party fighting against revisionism. We need to take up several cultural revolutions to transform Socialist democracy into a great force under the proletarian dictatorship in the country/countries where political power is seized, with appropriate line and policies.
Marx-Engels formulated the proletarian revolutionary theory of Marxism. Since then while on one hand the bourgeois theories attack Marxism, on the other hand, there are many in history who claimed themselves to be Marxists and distorted it in various forms and opposed its essence.
By the end of the last decade of the 19th century, Marxism defeated all the bourgeois, petty bourgeois opportunist trends in the International Communist Movement and achieved a stable place as the scientific theory of the international proletariat. Marx-Engels made a fierce struggle against these trends for nearly half a century and defeated them.
After capitalism transformed into monopoly capitalism-imperialism, in the process of creative application of the fundamental principles of Marxism to the concrete practice of Russian revolution and world proletarian revolution, in the process of making a theoretical, political struggle against the various kinds of revisionists such as Bernstein, Narodniks, Economists, Mensheviks, legal Marxists, liquidators, Kautsky, Trotsky and dogmatic Marxists such as Plekhanov, Lenin preserved the proletarian science of Marxism, enriched it and enriched it to a new and higher stage. Thus it developed into Marxism-Leninism. Lenin considered revisionists as the agents of imperialism hidden in the ranks of proletarian movement. He criticised and fought against them.
Comrade Stalin preserved and developed Marxism-Leninism through the struggle against the Trotskyites, Zinovinists, Bukharinists, bourgeois agents and various kinds of opportunism hidden in the Soviet Communist party.
The Communist Party of China under the leadership of Comrade Mao made ten internal struggles against left, right and opportunist trends in the process of Chinese Revolution and defeated them. It accomplished New Democratic Revolution and built Socialism. Thus it showed a path for a change in the semi-colonial, semi-feudal systems in Asia, Africa and Latin America and to the New Democratic Revolutions and Socialist Revolutions in those countries. It developed the path of Protracted People’s War. In the process, as a part of the struggle in the international plane against international revisionism, it fought against imperialist agent Tito and revisionists such as Togliatti and Thorez and preserved Marxism-Leninism and developed it.
It led the international theoretical struggle against Khrushchev’s modern revisionism through the Great Debate in the leadership of Comrade Mao. Great Debate helped the genuine proletarian revolutionary forces fighting against revisionism to form new Marxist-Leninist parties on the basis of Marxist-Leninist principles all over the world and facilitated the path to advance. During this period, Comrade Mao led a two line struggle against the main centre of the modern revisionists of the capitalist roaders in the leadership of the diehard revisionist Li Shao-chi. Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was taken up in the leadership of Comrade Mao in the CPC against modern revisionism. GPCR helped as a catalyst to sensitise the theoretical, political struggle against revisionism in various Communist Parties in the international plane. Lin Piao who stood in the forefront together with Mao in GPCR spoke leftist jargon in the veil of Mao Thought and brought forth the revisionist line in no time and tried to seize power in a traitorous manner. He proved to be a conspirator. After the demise of Comrade Mao, the Hua-Deng modern revisionist clique led a counter revolutionary conspiracy, seized power and restored Chinese capitalism in the place of Socialism and bureaucratic capitalism in the place of Socialist state. After Russia, revisionism gained hegemony in China in the condition of which the Communist Parties of several countries of the world degenerated into right opportunist parties and revisionist parties. Revolutionary movements of few countries also came to an end.
The modern revisionist line of Deng caused extreme harm to the revolutionary communist movement in our country also. Especially the CPI (ML) Liberation in the leadership of Vinod Misra turned Dengist anddegenerated into a revisionist party. The DV group (one of the groups in the earlier UCCRI ML) is a Dengist revisionist splinter group. Our party and several Maoist parties and forces of the world took up the historic lessons of GPCR, and condemned the modern revisionism of Deng with the utmost powerful weapon of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. These parties are also fighting back the various forms of revision that came forth due to the influence of Deng including the revisionism in the veil of Maoism and all shades of revisionism. CPI (ML) People’s War, one of the two revolutionary streams of the united CPI (Maoist) commented wrongly about the second world in regard to the three world theory for some time. Anyhow it soon rectified its mistake.
Later the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) brought forth ‘Prachanda path’ in the leadership of Prachanda-Bhattarai traitorous clique. The Revolutionary Communist Party USA in the leadership of Bob Avakian brought forth another modern revisionist theory, Avakianism. Several Maoist parties and forces including our party opposed and theoretically exposed these two trends.
We need to specially expose the China Social-imperialism that is the China revisionism and fake Socialism that came forth with the fake slogan of ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’. Modern revisionist parties in power in the name of Communist parties in Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea and the modern revisionist parties that do not hold high the proletarian international flag in their country and internationally, that do not implement Socialism, that do not strive for the success of World Socialist Revolution shall not be genuine Communist parties. They help to continue the capitalist systems as opportunist parties. We must expose the opportunism of these parties. Thus we must develop the revolutionary consciousness and alertness of the people of the world. Our party program declared the correct Marxist position about proletarian internationalism and the relations between the countries.
Coming to our country, our party was formed from amidst the theoretical, political struggle against revisionism and neo-revisionism. Later it countered right-opportunist, left adventurist and many kinds of opportunism and revisionism that arise inside and outside the party, fought against those trends inside and outside the party and reached the present state.
After the success of Great October Revolution in Russia in the leadership of the great Marxist teacher Lenin in 1917, Marxist-Leninist theory became popular in our country. Communist Party of India (CPI) was formed in 1925 under the influence of the theory-revolution and as a result of the heroic militant class struggles of the proletariat against British imperialism. Although there were numerous opportunities, due to the wrong line followed by the party leadership at the time, it could not play the leading role in the national liberation-democratic movement. Communist party always denied to recognise the actual class nature of the Gandhian, bourgeois, feudal leadership. Therefore it failed in adopting the genuine path of revolution, in bearing revolutionary initiative and in fighting with the leadership. Therefore it wrongly understood the comprador bourgeois class as national bourgeois class, tailed Gandhian leadership and were unwilling to adopt genuine strategy-tactics to combine the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism to the concrete practice of Indian Revolution. The leadership made grave mistakes in analysing the classes in Indian society. It failed severely in identifying with the heroic broad masses, especially the peasantry. It rejected to learn from the successfully advancing China Revolution in the leadership of Comrade Mao Tse-tung and the CPC and to creatively apply the path of PPW that it adopted and its great experiences to the concrete conditions of our country.It did not take up the path of armed struggle for seizure of political power in national liberation movement. By the time the objective revolutionary situation in India is very favourable. But the right opportunist leadership of the Communist Party was always unwilling to take up the correct path of PPW for armed national liberation and democracy. In fact the leadership of the Communist Party helped the bourgeois class to divert the anti-imperialist militant movement of the people. It entered into an opportunist alliance with the Congress, was not independent in the United Front, felt that everything is possible through unity and took the revolutionary people as a tail to the Gandhian leadership. Moreover, the Communist party leadership betrayed the great Telangana peasant armed struggle and fell neck deep into the mire of parliamentarism and revisionism in the deceptive name of utilising parliament. In fact the objective condition was unprecedentedly favourable to advance Agrarian Revolution and it had the path of great PPW and the success of China revolution showed by Comrade Mao. But they acted otherwise. However, heroic ranks of the communist party joined hands with the struggling people and led several revolutionary struggles. Thousands of comrades laid down their valuable lives to achieve the great cause of accomplishing New Democratic Revolution in India as a part of the World Socialist Revolution.
Genuine revolutionary forces representing the revolutionary ranks in India fought against the wrong right opportunist, revisionist lines of the leadership that was leading CPI, against its backstabs and later on with the modern revisionist CPI (M). this struggle attained total new dimensions in the end of 1950s and in the 60s. The Great Debate taken up under the leadership of the CPC in the leadership of Comrade Mao Tse-tung against the Soviet modern revisionism of the leadership of Khrushchev stood as the symbol of this new beginning. Just like how the Great Debate intensified and led to the GPCR that shook the earth, the struggle against the modern revisionist CPI (M) leadership further intensified and reached the state of divorcing the party. The beginning of GPCR stood as a milestone for this process. In the direct influence of this process, the forces that represented the struggle against initially the CPI revisionism and later the modern revisionism of CPI (M) leadership supported Marxism-Leninism-Mao Thought (now Maoism) theoretically and more importantly in their revolutionary practice and internalised it. Thus Comrade CM, Comrade KC and the great leaders of the first rank and Maoist forces came on to the stage in a large number to condemn the program of the 7th Congress of CPI (M) as revisionism. The great Naxalbari rebellion that took place in 1967 May under the leadership of Comrade Charu Mazumdar became the opening for ‘Spring Thunder in India’. Since then, the history of Communist movement in our country took a new qualitative turn. It not only greatly exposed revisionism and permanently divorced from it but, for the first time, stood as the symbol for conscious application of the bright path of seizure of political power through PPW, the path of MLM and that Comrade Mao already put forth.
Thus Marxism-Leninism-Maoism stood as a line of theoretical political demarcation between the revisionists and genuine revolutionaries of India. Naxalbari inspired armed peasant struggles at various levels in nearly ten states of the country. In the process genuine revolutionaries organised as two main revolutionary streams in 1969 — the CPI (ML) and the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC). The 8th Congress of CPI (ML) was held in 1970. However, due to the left tactics that the party followed at that time, the right and left alien trends internally and due to the brutal offensive of the enemy all over the country, the movement temporarily setback. Within a short while after the the Congress revolutionary disrupter Satyanarayana Singh attacked Comrade Charu Mazumdar with his right opportunist line in 1971 and split the party. West Bengal police arrested Comrade CM on 28th July 1972 and murdered him in police custody. Most of the leadership in the Central Committee and the various State Committees of the CPI (ML) and ranks of the party either became martyrs, were arrested or scattered. With lack of a centre of the party it became organisationally very weak. There was theoretical confusion. CPI (ML) split several times. Many parties/groups were formed. The central level leaders and the respective state leadership left without being arrested worked with the theory and politics as per their understanding. During this time several strong trends of right and left adventurism came forth. In the later period on one hand there were attempts of unity of genuine communist revolutionaries and on the other once again splits and formation of new groups.
Although the movement temporarily setback, the revolutionary movement gradually gained strength and advanced amidst several ups and downs, learning lessons from earlier experiences and daringly facing enemy repression making enormous sacrifices in the leadership of the CPI (ML) and MCC. Both theseMaoist revolutionary streams made determined fight against the various kinds of opportunism inside and outside the revolutionary all over the country, based on the correct path of revolution and continued the legacy of all the revolutionary aspects of the Indian Communist movement.
On the other hand the two main revolutionary streams united the genuine revolutionaries working as separate parties/groups, sections and as individuals and ultimately merged into the CPI (Maoist) on 21st September 2004 as a single centre of Indian proletarian vanguard. This attained utmost importance in the history of Indian Revolution. With the merger of CPI (ML) Naxalbari with the CPI (Maoist) on 1st of May 2014, the unity of various revolutionaries of India as revolutionary parties and groups is complete.
Now let me tell you the stand of our Party towards the various left parties in India in the present conditions.
The main theoretical task of the party today is to theoretically face and defeat the post-modern trends, especially the revisionist trends. If our party does not fight against revisionism theoretically and politically, it would be impossible to accomplish NDR in the country. Various revisionists are trying to divert the advanced sections from the path of revolution. They are trying to divert the revolutionary people into parliamentary, legal and peaceful paths, with their post-modernist revisionist ideologies.
When the “left alliance” of the CPI and the CPI (M) has been in power in Kerala and West Bengal, the ruling class parties in the centre and the states that formed the government with their support followed imperialist dictated, pro-comprador ruling class policies. Especially when the CPI (M) was in power in West Bengal, TATA, Birla, Ambani, Jindal and other comprador bureaucratic capitalists of the country and MNCs like Salem were given the lands of the farmers at dead cheap prices by forcibly acquiring them. These social fascists deployed police and Para-military forces on the people’s struggles and unleashed severe repression. They indulged in fake encounters and massacres. Murders, atrocities, loot, house burning, arrests, tortures and corruption were normal. In Kerala where it is presently in power also, the government is implementing pro-imperialist policies and handing over the natural resources at dead cheap price. It is suppressing our party, people and workers opposing their policies under iron heel. They prove through their anti-people suppressive policies that they are nothing less than the BJP and Congress in serving imperialism.
Presently CPI and CPM and the ruling class (including the regional ruling class) parties have a considerable influence on large sections of the Indian organised working class. Especially the majority of workers and employee organisations of public sector industries, banks, insurance companies, coal and iron mines and other such sectors are under the leadership or influence of these parties. They are in the way of building a militant working class movement in India. The Trade Unions of these two parties are confined to give call for General strike one or two times a year. In the present conditions where the onslaught of international Finance Capital is intensifying day by day and the central and the state governments are trampling the rights that the workers achieved through struggle for decades, conditions are favourable to build a strong workers’ movement. But the two parties are a hurdle for the same. At times they murmur about privatisation of public sector enterprises, Foreign Direct Investment in the retail sector, retrenchment of workers and casual-contract labour system, in practice they act as agents supporting these polices. Our party exposes their class collaborationist politics. Our weakness in urban-working class sectors is confining the development of People’s War. Our Party needs to advance in the direction of building a strong revolutionary Trade Union movement.
The Central Committee of our party called upon all the left parties and forces for united struggles against the state repression unleashed by the exploitive rulers on the oppressed people, the attacks of the Brahmanic Hindutva Fascist forces, against displacement and other such people’s problems. In some states our Mass Organisations are taking part together with the Mass Organisations of CPI.
Now I wish to tell you about the various opportunist parties in the veil of MLM.
CPI (ML) Liberation and CPI (ML) Red Star follow right opportunist path in the veil of MLM. These parties left armed struggle, uphold parliamentarism and help the bourgeois parties and revisionist parties such as the CPI, CPM and SUCI. CPI (ML) Liberation took up the revisionist path of Deng in early 1980s and left armed revolution. These parties make heinous, cruel ill propaganda that our party is violent. We need to expose the real character of these two parties much more among the people.
Some Trotskyites working in the working class make ill propaganda that India turned to be a capitalist country, that PPW is outdated and that CPI (Maoist) is a terrorist organisation. They are not at all concerned with rural India and are not even taking up the working class struggles in a militant manner. They allege the PPW and the CPI (Maoist) that is leading it and join the ruling classes in propaganda.
Apart from these there are few more ML parties that follow right opportunist line. All these parties propagate MLM theoretically and politically. They mobilise the people in their areas of work on economic problems and political problems in legal methods. Their people’s struggles are never militant. These parties are open organisations. They show reasons like revolutionary conditions is yet not matured, that the people are not yet ready for armed struggle, that there is no spate of revolution in the country or that they are making preparations for revolution and confine themselves to legal, partial struggles and postpone People’s war indefinitely. CP Reddy, Satyanarayana Singh led two or three groups (New Democracy, Janashakti and others) have armed squads in undivided Andhra Pradesh. Anyway, they utilised the squads only to collect funds from the contractors, for votes andto maintain the hegemony of their groups but not to make armed struggle. As per their understanding taking up military formations to make people’s war is left adventurism. Almost all these parties got into the mire of elections in the name of tactics. Forces of the erstwhile UCCRI-ML factions are seen here and there in the country but they are not building class struggle anywhere in the country. They do not exist anywhere except in Punjab.
Our party had been making a severe theoretical, political struggle with CPI, CPM, and also Liberation, Red Star, New Democracy, Janashakti, Lin Piao group and other ML groups. At times we even had physical conflicts with New Democracy, Janashakti and Liberation groups. Subsequently we overcame this physical confrontation through mutual discussion and at times through unilateral ceasefire from our side. We are making political, theoretical struggle against the right opportunist line of these parties and making efforts to form broad United Forums together with their Mass Organisations and other organisations on the economic and political problems of the broad oppressed people, especially of the farmers, workers, middle classes, against the Brahmanic Hindutva Fascist forces, against the repression of the exploitive governments, against displacement and for civil rights. We are working together in such forms. We are ready to work together in future. We need to make more initiative to work together with all the forces that are ready to fight against the Indian exploitive ruling classes, against theiranti-people, traitorous fascist policies and in the interests of National Democratic Revolution and for building United forums.
We are aware that there are activists in the lower level in the various right ML parties who work with an aspiration for revolution and dedicated to the people. Depending on the development of People’s War in the countrythey might think of the genuine path of revolution. We hope they would break the chains of revisionist, post-modernist, right opportunist and left adventurist ideologies and unite with genuine revolutionary communists. We also wish they would travel in this direction.
On the whole, we can advance the revolutionary movement towards success only by making a theoretical fight against revisionism in various forms, exposing the real nature of the bankrupt leadership and defeating it. Our party developed only by exposing and defeating the right and left opportunism through theoretical, political struggle inside and outside the party since the Naxalbari Spring Thunder until date. Our party could sustain amidst the ebb and flows and develop only through making efforts to the best of its strength with a proper Marxist stand in the theoretical struggle in the International Communist camp. Therefore the Program and Constitution and the Political Resolution of our party wrote clearly about the importance of the struggle against revisionism. Although we faced betrayal, blows and temporary defeats from the revisionists in the veil of the Communist Party who represented the bourgeois class even in the theoretical sector not only in practice but until establishing Communism through the process of Socialism by destroying world capitalist system, ultimately we shall defeat them in the theoretical sector and all the sectors and definitely achieve success. This is what we tell always not only in our party but also in the revolutionary camp and to the people. This is what we tell even at the international plane.
Q — There are some, including some who view themselves as “communists”, who hold a defeatist attitude towards the people’s war in India, and some proclaim it has no hope of victory. Could you explain to our readers why we should be hopeful and optimistic in our view of the people’s war in India, and, despite setbacks, what advances and gains the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and PLGA have made in recent times?
A — Yes. You are correct. Some individuals including those who claim themselves to be ‘Communists’ have a defeatist attitude towards People War in India. Some else lack confidence in its victory. They lack the primary Marxist understanding that imperialism and the semi-colonial, semi-feudal system of India that slaves it is in decline and the People’s War going on in India as a part of Socialism and World Socialist Revolution is the sprouts. It is because they lack dialectical historical materialist perspective towards the rules of social development. They did not understand the rules of social development. They analyse and understand the conditions in metaphysical manner. They see only the problems, difficult conditions and losses of the revolutionary movement in the present conditions. They thing that the present situation of balance of forces between the enemies and the people as permanent and unchangeable. They do not consider the opportunities to strengthen leaning valuable lessons from the objective revolutionary condition, the weaknesses of the enemy, the contradictions between the enemy classes and the practice of revolutionary forces. They lack confidence in the nature of the present imperialist-revolutionary era and the revolutionary nature of people. They do not understand or deny to understand the ongoing and future changes in the balance of forces with the enemy through conscious revolutionary efforts of the revolutionary forces and revolutionary party, through taking up tactics in a planned manner according to conditions and by overcoming the blows and setbacks. They do not confide in the people the genuine makers of history, on the utmost progressive, scientific theory of MLM (the present Marxism) and even on themselves. They thing the enemies of the broad masses and their strength invincible. Such persons bring forth defeatism. You clearly know that defeatist attitudes are seen not only in our country and party but in several countries and parties of the world.
We are totally confident in the success of People’s War in India. MLM is our guiding theory. It is the utmost progressive, revolutionary, dynamic and scientific theory among all the theories existing until date. It is the theory of the utmost advanced class, the proletariat. It is the utmost magnificent
theoretical weapon in the hands of the oppressed people of the society. People’s War shall definitely achieve success through organising the oppressed classes, sections and nationalities in the light of this theory, through leading them and continuing class struggle-people war. We absolutely believe that people are the makers of history and they shall attain the final victory. We are making class struggle-people’s war with total confidence on our theory, people and future. We thoroughly know our friends and foes. We see the enemy strategically as a paper tiger and tactically as a real tiger and are making PPW.
Marxism says that the contradiction between the forces of production and relations of production is the origin of social change. Indian socio-economic system is presently semi-colonial, semi-feudal. The comprador bureaucratic capitalist class and feudal class collaborated with the imperialists and are continuing as the exploitive ruling classes. The imperialist has indirect rule, exploitation and control on our country. The Indian state that represents the exploitive ruling classes is unleashing exploitation, oppression and repression on the workers, farmers, petty bourgeois, national bourgeois classes, special social sections such as Dalits, tribal people, religious minorities, women, LGBT, the oppressed nationalities of Kashmir and the North East and others. All the policies of these governments in political, economic, industrial, agricultural, service, defence cultural and environment sectors are anti-people and traitorous. Those are in the interests of a few comprador bureaucratic capitalists, landlords and imperialists. therefore the broad oppressed masses shall definitely fight and are fighting against these exploitive ruling classes. This is the basis, the source and also the guarantee of the success of People’s War.
Ours is a broad country where there is economic, social and cultural unequal development. We are relatively weak. Our enemy is strong. The revolutionary movement is at present in the stage of strategic self-defence. It is also going on with unequal development. It is yet to spread to all the areas and sectors. Enemy is trying his best to eliminate us before we strengthen. Our enemy is not only the old Indian state. The world capitalist imperialism in support to it too. We face the challenges that the Russian revolution faced at the time when there was no Socialist camp anywhere in the world. However, there are Maoist parties and forces fighting for the success of revolutions in several countries all over the world. We have their support. When we fight with a strong enemy we have ups and downs and advance and retreat. We take up the challenges, spread to all the areas and sectors of the country, enhance the mass base and shall fight courageously and with dare. We shall achieve success. People are invincible. They are the decisive factor. If we organise the oppressed people the majority people shall definitely bring down the few exploiters. We are absolutely confident in the historic truth that there is defeat-success-defeat and ultimately success. Capitalist imperialism is not permanent on this earth. In the process of development of human society, ultimately a society without exploitation and oppression, Communism shall be established.
The present international and domestic conditions are very favourable to advance the revolutionary movement. The three fundamental contradictions are sharpening day by day. The four fundamental contradiction in the country are also intensifying. These are creating favourable objective conditions for revolutions. In the recent times and especially since the Hindutva Fascist forces in the leadership of Modi came to power at the centre and in the majority states, they have been implementing LPG policies that fulfil the interests of imperialists and Indian comprador ruling classes very aggressively. The farmers of the country made a prolonged, historic, militant struggle for one year in Delhi against the anti-farmer, traitorous three agrarian acts that forced Modi to withdraw those Acts temporarily. These Acts were brought forth in the name of ‘Atmanirbhar’ as a part of the conspiracy to transform the country dependent on imperialists for food material. Apart from the Shaheenbagh struggle of Delhi against CAA, the ongoing people’s struggles against police camps, roads, displacement, construction of devastating mega projects and state fascist repression in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Jharkhand, Bihar, Kerala, Punjab and Maharashtra, workers, teachers, employees, students, unemployed, oppressed social sections and others are making struggles all over the country. These reveal favourable conditions for revolution in the country.
The central and the state governments are trying to suppress the movements in fascist methods. Especially as a part of building Brahmanic Hindutva Fascist neo-colonial India in the name of New India the Modi government is making constant attacks on religious minorities, especially the Muslims, Dalits, tribal people and democrats. It is making many kinds of attacks on their religious customs and food habits and are trying to make draconian Acts to justify their acts. It lifted Article 370 and Section 35A and dissolved autonomy to Kashmir. It made an Act annulling triple talaq, building Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, suppressing the questioning voices, foisting conspiracy cases and putting in jails and unleashing the ‘SAMADHAN’ multipronged offensive to suppress the revolutionary movement in the utmost fascist methods are all part of it. But the vast oppressed people and democrats understand the conspiracies of the RSS and the BJP at the centre and are raising their voices and are organising against it.
Now, let us briefly see the condition of the ongoing People’s War in the leadership of our Party, the Party, PLGA and Revolutionary people’s organs.
After Naxalbari our movement setback in a short time. There was despair and disappointment. But we reviewed the movement, learnt lessons from the mistakes and weaknesses, overcame and gradually stepped forward. Since the end of 1970s, two revolutionary streams, the CPI (ML) and MCC started work in small areas of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and other states, gradually learnt and developed. In the process we faced left, right and various kinds of revisionism inside and outside the party. We strengthened and expanded into all sectors. We formed PLGA, organs of state power and various forums of United Front under the leadership of the Party. The process of unity of genuine revolutionaries took place during this time. The two main revolutionary streams of India, the CPI (ML)(People’s War) and the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI) merged on 21st September 2004 and the CPI (Maoist) emerged. Thus we developed into a detachment of international proletariat and as a vanguard from a single centre that leads New Democratic Revolution in India. Subsequently we successfully held the Unity Congress Ninth Congress of the party in 2007 January. The Congress adopted the enriched basic documents and few policy papers. We formulated the central, main tasks and other important tasks. We consolidated the leadership through election.
After the Congress our practice continued in the direction of achieving other tasks including the central main task of seizure of state power through armed struggle. In 2005, various state governments unleashed Salwa Judum, Sendra and other such repressive campaigns with the support and in the guidance of the centre in a bid to suppress our movement. We defeated Salwa Judum and other campaigns by the end of 2008 through the heroic political and military struggles of the three forces of PLGA namely the main, secondary and base forces, Revolutionary people’s organs, revolutionary people, progressive and democratic intellectuals and social activists in the leadership of our party. Later the central and the state governments together started the countrywide strategic multipronged offensive Operation Green Hunt since 2009. We faced this offensive making enormous sacrifices until 2017. We did not allow the objective of Operation Green Hunt to be fulfilled. Then the enemy is unleashing another multipronged strategic ‘SAMADHAN’ offensive since 2017 May. PLGA, Revolutionary Mass Organisations and revolutionary people are making heroic guerrilla war against the Special Police, the Para-military, Commando forces possessing the support of power, economic wealth, modern weapons and heavy training and the Indian Army forces being secretly deployed in the veil of these forces. On the whole, to put it briefly, the revolutionary movement that went on in the leadership of our party in India from the end of 1970s to 2011 was in the stage of advancement. Thousands of martyrs shed their blood for this advancement. During this time the party stepped forward to a little extent in the direction of achieving the other tasks including the central task. It gained several utmost valuable and new experiences in political, military, United Front and Cultural sectors.
Our party had been making efforts to enlighten the people with the politics of New Democratic Revolution as the alternative to the fake parliamentary system and the state of the exploitive classes, organising them, taking up class struggles, developing its subjective strength and build People’s Army. By taking up People’s War-Guerilla War in a planned manner, it destroyed the state power of the comprador exploitive ruling classes and built, developed and expanded the guerrilla bases. These guerrilla bases contributed to further consolidate and expand the movement and to advance the People’s War. We built these guerrilla bases in Dandakaranya (DK), BiharJharkhand (BJ), Andhra-Odisha Border (AOB), Telangana, West Bengal and some parts of Odisha state. We established RPC as the organ of state power at the village, area and division levels depending on the balance of forces of the movement. These are holding the New Democratic state power. These people’s governments are exploring the abundant initiative hidden in the people and are making efforts to develop agricultural production through collective labour; to advance toward achieving economic development and self-sufficiency; to develop New Democratic culture; and to support the Party, PLGA, Revolutionary people’s organs, people’s struggles and People’s War.
However, certain severe shortcomings, weaknesses and limitations came up in the process of development of the Party, People’s Army and United Forums that are the three magnificent weapons that guarantee the success of revolution since 2012. Due to the shortcomings and limitations in adopting and implementing tactics according to the changes in the relations of production owing to imperialist globalisation policies and in the conditions of war, due to the lack of enough bolshevisation of the party, PLGA and people’s organs and due to the constant counter-revolutionary offensive on the party and the revolutionary movement, of the Indian comprador ruling classes in the dictates of the imperialists, there were big losses in this period. Various bureaus, sub-committees and departments were affected. Scores of central and state leaders were arrested since 2005 and the party faced a severe loss. 21 members of the CC were arrested after the Congress. Seven became martyrs in fake encounters, encounter and 13 CCMs out of ill health. The losses were mainly in the urban and plain areas. In this condition the party is not able to utilise the favourable atmosphere all over the country. We have to view the difficult conditions, problems and challenges of the party in this background. However, when compared with the time of Naxalbari, although there is improvement in the party and revolutionary movement in all the sectors, we could not protect the revolutionary leadership and the subjective forces in the severe enemy offensive and thus this situation arose. The 6th (contd.) meeting of the CC adopted tactics, direction of general practice and strategic plan. It made the necessary changes in the immediate, main and central tasks basing on the facts in the light of MLM. The party needs to make efforts with a firm determination accordingly.
In the recent times, we have been achieving certain successes in theoretical, political, organisational, military and cultural sectors. Let us look into them in brief.
The CC took up certain concrete and important tasks in theoretical and political sectors in its 6th and the 6th (contd.) meetings. It adopted a document ‘Changes in Relations of Production in India-Our Political Program’. It ‘answered’ the unreal, immature discussion that the relations of production in India turned to be capitalist and affirmed that the Indian social, economic system is yet semi-colonial, semi-feudal. However, it also said, that as a result of the policies of the imperialists, comprador bureaucratic capitalists and feudal classes there are considerable distorted capitalist changes and formulated the Political program and tactics.
It formulated and released a document ‘Nationality Question in IndiaOur Party’s stand’. It made the necessary changes and additions in the documents on Caste Question in India-our perspective and China-a new social-imperialist country and re-released those. It prepared and released the Central Political and Organisational Review from the Unity-Ninth Congress of the party held in 2007 until 2020. In the changed conditions and the present background of the movement it changed the central task thus — ‘Let us work with the objective to develop Dandakaranya and Bihar-Jharkhand, East Bihar-North East Jharkhand into base areas. Let us intensify anti-imperialist, anticomprador bureaucratic capitalist, anti-feudal class struggles in all the areas of the movement in the country’. It made the necessary changes in the immediate tasks in the political, organisational, military, United Front and urban sectors in accordance to the main central task.
The CC released a document on the understanding of the party on the formation of an International organisation in its meeting in 2017. It released circulars and letters on the political conditions and enemy offensive on various occasions. It could thus take the perspective and understanding on various aspects up to the cadres. It became easy to adopt the necessary tactics to take up people’s struggles on people’s problems in the light of these documents.
As a part of consolidation campaign of the party we held plenums of various Special Areas/Special Zones/States. We adopted Political and Organisational Reviews of the movements in the respective places. We assessed the conditions of the movement and adopted tasks. We elected new members into the leadership committees and consolidated them. We also successfully took up a campaign of party membership in some states and developed the primary membership of the party. We consolidated party cells and GPC.
We held four revolutionary days of international prominence in 2017- 18 such as the — Anniversaries of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Naxalbari Armed Peasant struggle, the Centenary of Russian October Revolution and the 200th Birth Anniversary of the great Marxist teacher Karl Marx, all with revolutionary enthusiasm. In certain areas, basing on the syllabus released by the CC for political education of the party cadres in 2019, subjects for study were selected in view of the concrete conditions in the respective areas and political training imparted at all level. Apart from study we also took up bolshevisation and field training in certain areas. In some other areas we took up struggle against non-proletarian trends in the party and PLGA.
In the military sector, depending on the mass base in the various guerrilla zones and red resistance areas, PLGA forces took up Tactical Counter Offensive Campaigns and retaliation programs in the leadership of the party and countered the ‘SAMADHAN’-Prahar offensive. In the Eastern region, resistance was taken up under the name ‘GHAMASAN’. The TCOC and retaliation campaigns were successful in a few places and partially successful in some others. In some places they failed.
In 2020, PLGA made 99 guerrilla actions on the whole. The ambush in Vimpa was a big one. PLGA eliminated four soldiers of the Indian Army secretly deployed in the cover of Police, Para-military and Commando forces apart from a few of these forces in this ambush. This is a new and higher experience. PLGA made 350 guerrilla actions all over the country from 2020 December to 2021 September. It wiped out 66 personnel and injured 85 of the police, Para-military and Commando forces. It seized 15 modern weapons, thousands of ammunition and other war equipment from the enemy forces. The ambush in Jeeragudem and Kadiyanar are the big actions and the rest were of small and medium kind. The PLGA forces retaliated the police, Paramilitary and Commando forces in more than 65 encounters in this period.
We need to make a special mention of the political and military importance of Jeeragudem ambush. PLGA divided the enemy forces that were in Battalion number (above 750 in number) and eliminated a platoon number (28) forces, eliminated them and injured another 31 in another platoon. The ambush gave a stiff resistance to the Prahar decisive attack that went on from 2020 October to 2021 June. It could temporarily stop the enemy plan. It instilled confidence among the revolutionary people, party and PLGA that we could defeat the ‘SAMADHAN’-Prahar offensive. If such Maoist style of struggle is implemented in all the guerrilla bases and red resistance areas, we can defeat ‘SAMADHAN’ offensive.
PLGA forces implemented defence tactics and escaped safely from the heavy drone attacks made by the police, Para-military, Commando and Army and Airforce on the camps of PLGA in the area of struggle in Dandakaranya in the midnight of 14th and 15th of April 2022. There was large-scale protest to the drone attacks in the country and the world.
In 2022, PLGA forces eliminated four Jharkhand Jaguar policemen in TCOC and retaliatory actions in Bihar-Jharkhand, East Bihar-North East Jharkhand Special Areas and injured some more in retaliation to the ‘SAMADHAN’-Prahar offensive of the enemy.
In Andhra-Odisha Border area PLGA injured four policemen amidst persistent combing and attacks by the enemy.
In the past one year PLGA forces eliminated 14 Para-military, Commando and Special police in guerrilla actions of the PLGA forces in various guerrilla areas. It injured 54 Para-military, Commando and Special police, seized 7 AK-47 Rifles and ammunition from them.
In some areas of struggle people’s militia took up guerrilla actions independently and seized weapons from the enemy.
PLGA forces made deliberate ambushes, opportunity ambushes, sniper actions, booby traps, remote actions, sabotage actions, seizure of enemy supplies, elimination of informers, elimination of counter revolutionaries, elimination of people’s enemies, attacked the police camps with shelling/grenades and other tactics in TCOC and retaliatory actions in order to defeat the counter-revolutionary ‘SAMADHAN’-Prahar offensive. The guerrilla war of PLGA played an important role in protecting the guerrilla bases and RPCs.
We imparted political and military training to the PLGA forces. We
celebrated the 20th Anniversary of PLGA year-long from 2nd December 2020 to 2nd December 2021.
By taking up people’s struggles and people’s wars with coordination we could [and were able to] temporarily stop mining, industrial projects, mega dams and tourist centers.
In some areas of struggle we recruited youth into PLGA in the recruitment campaign. We have been taking up these campaigns every year. Coming to United Front, as a part of consolidation of Mass Organisations and RPCs representative election meetings and Conferences of Revolutionary mass organisations were held at various levels. New leadership committees were elected. People celebrate revolutionary days and protest days every year in the leadership of the Party, PLGA and the Mass Organisations on 26th January, 15th August, the great Bhoomkal struggle day on 10th February, International Working women’s day on 8th March, Anti-Imperialist Day on 23rd March, May Day, martyrs’ week from 28th July to 3rd August, foundation day anniversary week from 21st September to 27th, Russian October Revolution Day on 7th November, PLGA foundation day from 2nd to 8th December and other such. On this 23rd March, the anti-imperialistday we held meetings and programs upholding the martyrdom of Comrades Bhagatsingh, Rajguru and Sukhdev, opposing the aggression of Russia on Ukraine and the war frenzy US, EU and NATO and greeting New People’s Army of Philippines on its 53rd Anniversary. We are opposing the Brahmanic Hindutva Fascist forces penetrating into the struggle areas through people’s struggles, retaliation and guerrilla actions. We are taking up propaganda and retaliatory programs against the attacks and massacres of Dalit and tribal people. several anti-Brahmanic Hindutva Fascist struggles are going on in various forms all over the country from the local to the central level.
Anti-imperialist, anti-comprador bureaucratic capitalist, anti-feudal class struggles are expanding and intensifying all over the areas of the movement. People are making militant fight against new police camps in Bijapur, Dantewada, Sukma, Narayanpur and Kanker districts of Dandakaranya for the past years. Especially the struggle against the Silinger police camp in Bijapur district going on for the past 15 months is attracting the people, especially the indigenous people of the country and the world. In Andhra-Odisha Border Special Zonal Area, people are occupying coffee plantations and subsequently cultivating them in the leadership of the village committees. In Telangana people are fighting against the ‘Haritaharam’ scheme of the government that displaces the tribal people from Telangana, against the anti-people policies that chase away the tribal people from the podu lands and against Government Order (GO) Number-3 that reduces the importance to tribal people in jobs in the tribal areas. PLGA forces mobilised the people widely and destroyed the properties of comprador bureaucratic capitalists and the government worth crores of rupees as a part of coming in the way of mining and infrastructure projects necessary for mining in Surjagarh and Amdai and other hills.
Thousands of people held militant movements carrying their traditional weapons such as axes, knifes, sickles and bow and arrows against the proposed police camps in Tesaphooli, Parvatpur, Dholkatta, Banpura, Pandedih in the Tarayi area of Parasnath mountain range in Jharkhand. They destroyed the police vehicles. They burnt them. Tribal peasant struggles are going on in Dandakaranya, Jharkhand, AOB and Odisha against the camps of police, Para-military and Commando forces, against roads and culverts, police atrocities, fake encounter, massacres, atrocities on women and displacement. Lakhs of people are participating in these struggles. We called for a campaign to preserve peoples’ health against Corona pandemic and combined it with anti-imperialist, anti-comprador bureaucratic capitalist, anti-feudal class struggle. Our doctor teams served the people with treatment. We took up people’s struggles with demands such as free vaccination, treatment, free rations to those who lost livelihood and to provide job facilities.
On the occasion we convey revolutionary greetings and revolutionary thanks to the ICSPWI and various revolutionary parties who have been taking up solidarity movements in support to the People’s War in India at the international plane for the past one and a half decades. You are aware that the International Action Day against the counter-revolutionary, strategic ‘SAMADHAN’ offensive and Prahar offensive as per the call of ICSPWI. The propaganda and agitation activities that took place in a wide level regarding 10th February, 23rd March and 13th September were because of the initiative in the International Communist Movement.
One of the successes the Party achieved was to enlighten women, half of the sky, developing their efficiencies in political, organisational, military, cultural and other sectors. Presently there are nearly 50 percent women in PLGA in almost all the areas.
The Party paid much attention to develop the revolutionary, democratic cultural sector. This sector helped to develop revolutionary, democratic values among the oppressed classes, oppressed social sections and oppressed nationalities.
One more important issue is the struggles of political prisoners in jails and the development of struggles of ordinary prisoners with their support.
On the whole, we see that efforts are going on to expand-intensify class struggle-guerrilla war (People’s War) all over the country. efforts are going on to organise the Party, PLGA and United Front. We are gaining new experiences politically, organisationally, militarily and technically. The combination of positive experiences in this effort shall undoubtedly help to defeat the counter-revolutionary ‘SAMADHAN’-Prahar offensive and to advance the Indian Revolutionary movement.
However, we have the unfavourable factors and challenges created by the enemy. Protecting successes is one important factor. We are aware that there shall be more difficulties, tests and losses in future. However, we will learn from mistakes, develop our subjective strength and efficiency, win most of the people, friendly forces and organisations on to our side, adopt tactics to educate the party and the people, develop the understanding and culture not to be depressed with losses and feel great of successes, utilise these experiences on the basis of successes and victories achieved until now, utilise the present revolutionary conditions and shall definitely advance from the present state of the movement. Therefore optimistic perspective and confidence are necessary towards the success of Indian People’s War.
Q — One group of people who have been persecuted by the old Indian state are the queer community, such as lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders. What is the stance of the CPI (Maoist) on the movement for LGBT rights in India, and on the persecution of LGBT people by the Indian fascist state?
A — Our Party understands and analyses the LGBT issue also with Marxist (MLM) understanding. True liberation of the LGBT community from gender oppression and discrimination is obtained only through eradicating class oppression and constant theoretical, political, social, economic, cultural and medical efforts to bring about a change in the perspective of the people, only then they can have a condition to live equal to others and gain respect.
Our Party recognises the special problems and rights of the LGBT just as it does of the human, civil rights and all the rights of the oppressed classes, special social sections and all the oppressed nationalities, like it supports their struggles for rights and like it supports the struggles of those being exploited and oppressed by the old (reactionary) Indian state. They are born with certain physical characteristics and physically and mentally special (genetic) characteristics. But they ae part of the humankind. We oppose the oppression and discrimination of the Indian state that represents the capitalists and landlords and acts as comprador to the imperialists. it respects their right to life as Indian citizens, their primary rights equal to all the citizens and the right to have all rights including particular/special rights concerning concrete problem.
The party provides them partnership in education, medicine, residence, employment, administration and political sectors in the future Indian New Democratic state. It will provide economic and social security, anda healthy social and cultural atmosphere. It guarantees free medicine and introduces pro-people medical system that can provide good health. Thus they can live with the recognition they need or wish, confirm their gender and have the opportunity to have physical and mental treatments, free medicine and a healthy, respectful, scientific life. It also trains the society so that they have an equal and respectful attitude towards them.
It supports the movements going on for their rights in the presentstage. It opposes the sexual violence, exploitation, oppression, discrimination and sexual opportunism towards the LGBT community. The LGBT community must not lose any opportunities. They must be provided all the opportunities so as they can utilise all their strength and efficiencies for the society.
In the present stage, the movement going on for the rights of LGBT in India segregated from the social reality of class struggle and is under the influence of individual centered, bourgeois, post-modernist ideology. The movement must overcome it. This movement must become part of all the movements that are working to destroy the Indian state that represents the semi-colonial, semi-feudal socio-economic system and is unleashing fascist repression and cruel exploitation on all the oppressed classes of the country, apart from the LGBT community. The LGBT community also must unite with all the oppressed classes against the three enemy classes namely imperialists, Indian comprador bureaucratic capitalist and feudal classes that are unleashing exploitation, oppression, suppression and discrimination.
Imperialism, ruling classes and their Indian state are indiscriminately utilising the LGBT community to make the society inactive. They are encouraging the porn industry as a part of cashing on the discrimination towards the LGBT community, their poverty and unemployment. It is encouraging sexual anarchy among the people, especially the youth. Our party opposes it severely. The Indian New Democratic state will ban the porn industry.
In one aspect regarding LGBT — the Party opposes and discourages the attitude if a person living a normal life with the recognition of a woman or a man or anything else (third gender) and on the other continues an unnatural relation and enters into physical relations with many persons in an anarchic manner.
When the concerned individuals lack scientific understanding towards the genetic related extremities by nature and the causative physical particularities related to gender, the attitude towards such issues and individuals will become unnatural doubtful, disrespectful and shameful. In such conditions the concerned persons face discrimination not only from the society but also from the families and relatives. Then they will be pushed to the situation of living as a separate community. Socialist state provides scientific understanding to all the people of the society. It develops an ordinary understanding so as to accept it as a natural thing.
One section is being attracted towards unnatural physical relations under the influence of distorted culture, sexual anarchy, porn literature and cinema and other such things that imperialism is supporting. The Socialist state works to establish healthy, mutual respectful human relations in the society through destroying capitalist imperialism, outdated rotten culture and through spreading democratic, socialist culture.
Q — Lastly, I would like to ask you about the situation of revolutionary political prisoners in India. Can you tell our readers more about this situation?
A — The methods and ways that the state adopts to suppress the people’s movements, the ongoing revolutionary movement, antidisplacement movements, workers’ and farmers’ movement, those of the students and youth, government employees, oppressed social sections, fisherfolk, unemployed, tribal and religious minority peoples, struggles for human rights, women, handicapped, pensioners and prisoners are multipronged. Two of them are important. One is to eliminate the people’s leadership and activists fighting in brutal and fascist methods utilising armed forces. The second is to illegally arrest and imprison them. Armed forces,
courts, jails and the Constitution that provides the base for these are the important and vital ones in stabilising and protecting the authority of outdated exploitive ruling classes, unleashing persistent exploitation, oppression and anti-people policies. It is an ordinary feature of class societyin class society to eliminate those who counter the state through armed forces, arrest and imprison them, punish them through courts, isolate them from people’s life and destroy their strength and efficiency.
The condition of revolutionary political prisoners in India is becoming miserable day by day. The Indian state had been very inhuman and brutal since a long time, especially since the beginning of the rule of Brahmanic Hindutva Fascist BJP towards all the democratic movements, struggling organisations and also towards the revolutionary political prisoners. Apart from them it is antagonistic towards the religious minorities, activists of Dalit movements, human rights activists, revolutionary, progressive, democratic, secular student-youth, teachers, patriots, intellectuals, poets, artists, writers, lawyers, journalists, scientists, various social activists, activists of worker and farmer’s organisations, activists of anti-displacement movements and the activists of movements of nationalities such as Kashmir, Naga, Manipur, Asom and Bodo. State follows several illegal methods to suppress anyone who question the anti-people, anti-country, traitorous policies of the governments that represent the reactionary exploitive ruling classes and when not possible to do so, put them behind the bars. It is grossly violating, fascising and saffronizing its own Constitution.it is foisting cases, conspiracy cases indiscriminately and is making arrests. Maoist prisoners in West Bengal and Kerala prisons fought for the right to be recognised as political prisoners and achieved it. But, the Indian comprador ruling class did not recognise the political prisoners languishing in jail all over the country. It is because of its repressive policies.
It is nothing new for the old Indian state to imprison the questioning voices and those who oppose behind bars. It inherited this legacy from the British. Indian state is not only discriminate socially, economically and politically but also constitutionally also towards caste, class and gender. This is continuing in the central and all the state governments. It is implemented towards the political prisoners also.
The world is aware that the Modi government in the centre stuffed the leaders and activists of political parties of the main stream and the local parties in Kashmir in jail and then annulled the special autonomy to Kashmir. Modi had been unleashing fascism and emergency for the past 9 years more than that during the rule of Indira Gandhi. Thousands of Muslims and Dalit people are behind the bars.
It had become a normal feature to make constant check-ups utilising cruel intelligence agencies such as the NIA with fascist UAPA in its hands; placing illegal equipment in the houses and creating fake documents that they seized them; inducing convenient software such as Pegasus into computers from outside to foist conspiracy cases; and amending UAPA with further cruel regulations. You are aware that a team of IT experts of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US) revealed this in the foisted case of Bhima-Koregaon.
This is the state that pushed 85 year old Father Stan Swamy, a tribal rights activist in the Bhima-Koregaon case by denying him a straw in a condition where he cannot drink water and disallowing the minimum medical facilities. Except for revolutionary poet Varvara Rao who is severely ill and in old age and social activist Sudha Bharadwaj given conditional bail or almost house arrest kind of stringent conditions, the rest are languishing in the prison for more than four years. 90 percent disabled Comrade Saibaba who was a lecturer in English in the Ramlal Anand College of Delhi University is denied minimum facilities such as a wheelchair.
61 year old Comrade Narmada, member of the Secretariat of the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee of our Party and leader of Dandakaranya women’s movement was arrested in 2019 when she was undergoing treatment for higher stages of cancer. She was put in Bombay prison and denied treatment. Finally she had to wait for her death in a hospice. Her partner Comrade Kiran was also in prison in the city but was not allowed to meet her in her last minutes. Although the court permitted, the jail authorities deliberately let him see only after her death.
Senior members of the CC Comrade Barun, Comrade Tapas, Comrade Vijay, Comrade Chintan became martyrs within a short time of their release since they were denied of proper conveniences during their prolonged imprisonment. Comrades Sumit (Amitab Bagchi) and Asutosh, members of CC are in the jail for the past more than a decade. Polit Bureau member, 76 year old Comrade Kishanda of Naxalbari generation is suffering from 5 kinds of chronic diseases. He is being denied proper treatment and they want to murder him inside the jail. Comrade Sheela arrested along with him as she was going for treatment for four kinds of chronic diseases was also foisted with wrong cases and imprisoned. Comrade Vijay (BG Krishnamurty), the Secretary of Western Ghats Special Zonal Committee, senior citizen, CCM Comrade Kanchan (Arun Kumar Bhattacharya), CCM Comrade Jaspal (Vijay Kumar Arya) are facing imprisonments and tortures. 71 year old Comrade Kanchanda is suffering from several chronic diseases but denied of treatment. All the comrades are holding aloft the Red Flag in prisons.
Thousands of party leaders, cadres and comrades of local organisations of various levels are in jail under trial for a long time. Fake evidences were created on them are they are imposed prolonged punishments, life and hanging. 10 comrades were imposed hanging and three with life imprisonment by the Jehanabad district court in Sinari case in Bihar. Mercy petition in hanging for four comrades in the Bara case is pending in the President’s office for the past 2 years. Finally the President issued orders that they have to stay in jail as long as they live. Munger district court imposed death sentence to five tribal farmer activists. In Jharkhand, a member of the East Bihar-North East Jharkhand Special Area Committee Comrade Praveer was imposed death sentence by the Dumka district court. All this is the continuation of the illegal and conspiratorial hanging of revolutionary peasant guerrilla activists Bhoomayya and Kishtagoud during the criminal period of emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi. This is the continuation of hanging warriors like Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev by the British colonialists a few decades after this.
The police are indiscriminately arresting children, old people, women, pregnants and patients of our areas of struggle and show to have surrendered. Those who do not surrender are being murdered in fake encounters. Many are foisted with false cases and imprisoned. They are in jail for years together without trial and are living in a pathetic condition. They are deprived of any kind of medical help in jails. The conditions are inhuman. The inhuman conditions create trauma. All these are leading to the death of a few. Such incidents are not being informed to their families. The courts are forced to release many persons because they could not obtain fake evidences after investigation of years together. The families of those languishing in jail for a long time are suffering from economic problems. Family members are mentally depressed and some are suffering from mental ill health. Children’s lives are disturbed. Some families are scattered.
This is a fresh example. Police and Para-military forces went on combing to Burkapal village of South Bastar division of Dandakaranya when PLGA ambushed them. 25 CRPF personnel lost their lives and 31 were injured. PLGA seized 24 automatic weapons from them. Later police and Para-military forces made attacks on the villages surrounding Burkapal and arrested 122 tribal farmers. They were foisted with false cases and sent to jail. One of them fell severely ill and breathed his last in prison. After 5 years and 3 months 121 people including a woman were recently found not guilty and released by the local court. The extent of foisting wrong cases indiscriminately is clear from the fact that even wrong evidences were not available. TV channels showed the pathetic condition of the 122 families. The Central and the state governments arrested hundreds of farmers during the year long historic peasant struggle. Although the governments agreed to release them with the agreement with Samyukta Kisan Morcha, many of them are still in jail.
The condition of Indian jails is very pathetic. Prisoners and under trial prisoners are suffering from many difficulties. The jail manual is very old. This is a duplicate of the jail manual prepared by the British in 1894. The Hindutva fascist Modi government is involved in transforming it much bureaucratically in legal forms. Meanwhile the prisoners and under trail prisoners are not provided the facilities even as per the jail manual. The jails are stuffed with prisoners more in numbers than during the British period. For example, while the capacity of Chhattisgarh jails is 6070, there are more than 16,000. They are given low quality of rice, oil, pulses and vegetables and that too not as per the quota. The eatables are normally rotten. Soaps, pastes, clothes and under clothes are inadequate. Many prisoners do not have a chance to obtain them from their families. The lives of poor prisoners are much more miserable. They are made to work hard with nominal daily wages. The women prisoners are in a much more miserable condition. There is patriarchal suppression. CC TV cameras have become a normal feature in all the jails in the name of protection. Women prisoners lack privacy. Since the rule of BJP and Sangh Parivar, non-vegetarian food, eggs and other nutritious food is not being given. Jail authorities indulge in limitless corruption and atrocities. Coupon system is going on in the jails in Bihar, Jharkhand and others. In tribal areas, prisoners are given soup without tea of breakfast. Body trade is also going on in jail with the help of the officers. The rich, political leaders and mafias obtain all kinds of facilities and luxury in jails.
Trials are prolonged for years and at times even for decades without taking them to courts in the name of lack of escort. The police machinery arrests people, activists of the movement, leaders and activists of people’s movement and leaders and activists of our party and foist scores of fake cases. The trial is prolonged. Although there are few cases on a few persons, those who are released not guilty are re-arrested near the jail gate, foisted with some more new cases and imprisoned. Comrade Madkam Gopanna, a member of the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee had been in jail for the past 15 years. He was arrested two times near the jail gate and sent to jail once again. Bails are normally not granted in the courts of many states such as Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, West Bung and Asom. They need to complete the trial and be released not guilty. There is no other way. When there are many cases under many sections, all the punishments are not carried at a time (in concurrency). The punishments are taken up one by one. This situation is beyond that of the British colonialists. A strong movement is needed so as to achieve the right to register all the cases on the accused within four months of arrest and to implement concurrence.
At present the judiciary is being fascised day by day under the rule of Brahmanic Hindutva BJP government. Supreme Court gave a clean chit to Modi and Amit Shah passing judgment on the Zakia Jafri petition related to the massacre of Muslims by Hindutva forces in Gujarat. Social activists Teesta Seetalvad was arrested the same day. Gandhian social activist Himanshu Kumar petitioned for justice to the family members of 16 tribal people massacred in Gompad-Singaram by the armed police forces in 2009 in Dandakaranya. He was found fault for wasting the time of the court and was imposed Rs.5 lakhs or rigorous punishment for two years. The whole world was shocked and raised voice against this attitude. The supreme court indirectly told not to approach the courts and that if approached they will be sued.
Deputy jailor of Central Jail in Raipur (the capital of Chhattisgarh) Varsha Dongre was suspended from duty for a facebook post exposing the inhuman behaviour of the police toward tribal prisoners. Sukma district additional magistrate Prabhakar Gwal was suspended in 2016 and later removed from job when he did not agree to send hundreds of tribal people to jail. He said that it is not possible unless identity papers such as Aadhar card are presented.
One important thing needs to be brought to your notice in this regard. Jail comrades have been constantly making struggles against the inhuman conditions and for their just demands. They are obtaining better results to an extent temporarily. Leaders and activists of our party are organising the ordinary prisoners in the prison and taking up struggles for their rights. They are observing revolutionary days and protest days in the prison. They are moulding prisons into centers of class struggle, study and education. They are facing intense repression, tortures, atrocities firmly and with dare and continuing their political efforts.
Women political prisoners are in the forefront in the struggles of the jail comrades. We bring a small example to your notice. The struggle of women prisoners in the leadership of women activists of our party in Jagadalpur Central jail in Chhattisgarh in 2013 gained magnificent victory. The struggle achieved rights such as taking the undertrials to each and every adjournment to the court, providing immediate medical treatment to the ill, joining them in hospital, issuing separate independent kitchen to women prisoners and giving daily wage to women prisoners on kitchen duty.
On the other hand, it is organising different democratic forces in support of the struggles of jail comrades, so that they take up solidarity struggles outside the jail and arranging legal aid (judicial help) for their release. They are working to the best of their strength for this purpose. Anyway, we need to organise advocates, democrats and rights activists in the necessary extent to work in this direction.
Party is mobilising revolutionary people in support to the struggles of the jail comrades on 13th September on the occasion of martyrdom of Comrade Jatin Das, the revolutionary hero who made indefinite hunger strike for 64 days for the rights of prisoners against British imperialism. Intellectuals and democrats are observing the day. They are organising interviews in large numbers, to meet families of jail comrades, extending support to the possible extent and holding rallies, meetings and seminars. They are making efforts to provide legal aid through advocates. They are forming committees for the release of political prisoners, organisations and legal aid committees and to extend them.
On the other hand jail comrades are making attempts to the best of their strength to break from jail. The Jehanabad jail break, Dantewada jail break, guerrilla action on Lakhisarai court, Chaibasa jail break-1, 2, the escape of 6 revolutionary children from the Rourkela juvenile home, guerrilla action on the escort vehicle of Giridih prisoners, the escape of 9 members of revolutionary children’s organisation from Dantewada juvenile home are few examples. Jehanabad jail break and attack on Giridih escort vehicle stand as examples to incidents that took place with the support of the party from outside. Another example is to get a PBM released from the escort police when he was brought to the Lakhisarai court. However, the various kinds of attempts going on for the release of the comrades and their rights are going on to a little extent due to the intense enemy offensive, the limitations and weaknesses of urban movement and democratic movements. Our party, the movement and the people have the heroic revolutionary tradition of escaping from jail. There were jail breaks during Naxalbari in the process of which comrades were martyred. When the secretary of AP SC Kondapalli was brought to hospital when in Visakha jail, he and another SCM were released from the police. Four comrades including the AP SC secretary Shyam broke from Adilabad jail in 1987 along with three Rifles. However, in the present condition of severe repression and bureaucratic rule in the country and jails, we need to intensify attempts from the inside and also outside.
This year due to the initiative and special effort of ICSPWI, action week is going to be observed for the release of Indian political prisoners from 13th to 19th September 2022, in support of them and to stop the heavy drone attacks made jointly by the BJP government in the leadership of Modi and the Bhupesh Baghel led Congress government in Chhattisgarh on our areas of movement. The CC of our party appreciated the call of the ICSPWI and appealed to make it a success.
There is a strong need to build, strengthen worldwide militant, organised solidarity movement for the political prisoners with the demands Political prisoners of all the countries such as Philippines, Turkey, Peru, Galicia, Afghanistan and all the countries of revolutionary movement including India must be unconditionally released; all those arrested as a part of social, political struggles and are in jail must be provided the status of political prisoners; there must be a stop to the violating of rights of prisoners, especially political prisoners and women prisoners and the atrocities and suppression on them; jail manuals must be reformed; conditions in jail must be improved according to them. Our Party hopes that the efforts of ICSPWI goes in this direction. It declares that it would make the efforts in India in this regard and firmly believes that the movement shall gradually develop.
The phenomenal worldwide spurt in prostitution, sex trafficking and sex tourism particularly in the third world countries in the wake of globalisation and economic liberalisation has generated increasing interest and international debate on the question in the past two decades or so. While some organisations activists and feminist groups are demanding the abolition of prostitution and sex trade, some others are aggressively campaigning for the legalisation and recognition of prostitution as a profession. The advocates for legalisation demand that it be give the status of an industry and the sex must be considered similar to the any type of work and prostitutes be considered as sex workers.
The issue has assumed importance in the context with even the ILO calling for economic recognition of prostitution as legitimate work.
In India too, several NGOs had taken up the issue; some have held a conference of sex workers as in Kolkata in 1997, ‘98 and again 2001 and put forth arguments demanding legalisation. A few have opposed the demand for legalisation as they felt it would only legitimise the violence on women and the sale of human bodies.
What should be the standpoint of the proletariat with regard to the question of legalisation of prostitution? Would legalisation of the profession improve the position of the prostitutes? What are the root causes behind the phenomena of prostitution? And why has it taken a phenomenal leap in recent years? What is the correct solution to the problem? Let us deal these questions.
Historically, the origins of prostitution can be traced to the emergence of the class society and the so-called civilisation when, for the first time, woman become subordinated to man. Lack of property rights, segregation from social production and division of labour along gender lines have made the woman powerless and totally dependent on men from childhood to old age. In a class-divided society, economic and social power was naturally in the hands of the class that owned the chief means of production.
The vast majority of the non-propertied classes had to live by selling their labour. Their body has been the only asset these non-owning classes possessed and it is only by pressing their body into service in exchange for a wage or remuneration in kind that their very physical survival could be ensured. Prostitution too arises from the compulsions in a class divided society to sell one’s body for the sake of one’s subsistence. Unlike men of the labouring classes women do not have the opportunities to take part in similar productive activities due to relations of patriarchy enforced by society. Thus, since each class is internally divided along gender lines, and the power accrues to the man of each class due to relations of patriarchy, women are rendered powerless and socially and economically vulnerable.
Thus even when women enjoy the benefits and privileges, of the class they belong to, they do not have an independent status of their own. Their class status is accrued only by virtue of their attachments to the men of that class, either as daughters, wives, sisters or mothers. Once the support of the men of her family is withdrawn, she becomes propertyless even if she belongs to the middle class, thereby leading to a life of insecurity and even poverty. This social and economic vulnerability of women arising out of gender inequalities in class societies plays a significant role in sustaining prostitution.
Women with no assets and few options have to rely on the sale of their bodies to maintain themselves and their dependents. Those who have been forced into prostitution are generally the destitute, the deprived sections of the society, belonging to the lower castes, and the tribals. The simple fact that hardly 1%of the property in the world is owned by women today shows the acute vulnerability and powerlessness of women.
Prostitution is created and sustained by the male dominated society where male sexuality and masculinity are socially constructed by patriarchy and female sexuality is controlled and denigrated. Masculinity is proved by man’s ability to access several women. Within feudal society, prostitution was restricted, to be found for example around temples, institutionalised in the form of the devadasi system. The development of market forces transformed prostitution into a trade. Prostitution centres grew in port cities; around the colonies of migrant male workers; and around cantonment and military barracks.
Natural calamities such as famines, floods, earthquakes and epidemics or social and political upheavals such as wars led to large-scale displacement of populations and to a phenomenal increase in the number of prostitutes as more and more uprooted, hapless women were left with no other options of livelihood.
Thus the colonial era gave an impetus to the sex trade by pushing millions of women to sell their bodies in the areas where migrant male work force or military troops were located. But it is the development strategies pursued by the various governments of the Third World countries in the neo-colonial phase that has seen it grow by heaps and bounds. Big dams and mining and industrial projects, break up of subsistence economies by modern technology leading to pauperisation of entire communities, cyclones, floods and families resulting from indiscriminate deforestation and so on, has uprooted millions of people from their homes and a large number of women have been forced to seek a refuge in prostitution to eke out a living.
For instance, there are 2-3 million prostitutes in 400 red light areas in India (Indian Express 6/10/2000). 30% of prostitutes in the country are children whose numbers are increasing by 8 to 10% annually. Almost 80% of the prostitutes belong to the lower castes and tribals who are forced into the profession for sheer survival. Among others a considerable section of women are forced into prostitution due to patriarchal oppression in the family and society victims of rape by the male chauvinists, deception by lovers, victims of rape in communal riots and atrocities by the police and the state’s armed forces and so on. It is estimated that every year the sex traffickers in connivance with the police bring around 100,000 poverty stricken Nepalese women and children to Indian brothels from Nepalese villages.
Globalisation and Sex Tourism
The single most important factor, however, is the promotion of the sex-tourism in Third World countries. Tourism in Third World countries, particularly in Asia, become a growth industry in the 1970s and in vigorously promoted as a development strategy by international aid agents like the World Bank, IMF and USAID. Between 1960 and 1979, tourist arrivals in South East Asia increased 25-fold. The revenues accrued to these countries on account of tourism was $4 billion in 1979. Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore of South East Asia and Kenya, Tunisia, Mexico, Srilanka, Peru, countries of the Caribbean etc., have made tourism one of their main areas of production. Asian, African and Latin American women are the main export product who attract male tourists from Japan, the US and Europe. For instance, as many as 50,000 women and children from Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe are brought to the US under false pretexts and are forced to work as prostitutes or abused labourers or servants, according to a CIA report.
According to a report about 2 to 3 lakh women are working in the sex trade in Bangkok, camouflaged as massage parlours and hotels. Another estimate puts the figure even higher – about 10% of Bangkok’s women are believed to be engaged in sex trade despite the official ban on prostitution. In Manila, the capital city of the Philippines, the number of prostitutes is estimated to be around 1,00,000.
Burgeoning flesh trade leading to a veritable explosion in numbers worldwide in the past two decades is the fall out of the policies of globalisation and economic liberalisation adopted by most countries of the world. The development strategies pursued by the South East Asian countries during the 1970s have been repeated in India during the 1990s. Three major reasons can be cited for the quantitative and qualitative jump in the sex trade.
Firstly, the sex trade is now organised on a global basis just as any other multinational enterprise. It has become a transnational industry. It is one of the most developed and specialised industries that offers a wide range of services to the customers, and has most innovative market strategies to attract clients all over the world. The principal players and beneficiaries of the sex industry are cohesive and organised. The intricate web of actors involved in the sex trade today includes nor just the prostitutes and the client, but an entire syndicate consisting of the pimps, the brothel owners, the police, the politicians and the local doctors. The principal actors connected to the sex trade are not confined by narrow national or territorial boundaries in the context of a globalised world. They operate both legally as well as clandestinely and it is believed that the profits according to the organisations of sex-industry currently equal those flowing out of the global illegal trade in arms and narcotics.Moreover like any other multinational enterprises, such as the tourism industry, entertainment industry, travel and transportation industry, international media industry, under ground narcotics and crime industry and so on.
Thus the magnitude, expanse, organisation, role of capital accumulation and range of market strategies employed to sell sexual services make the contemporary global sex industry qualitatively different from the old practice of prostitution and sex trade.
The second factor, which makes sex trade qualitatively different today, is that it has become a chosen development strategy by several Third World countries. The World Bank, the IMF, the Asian Development Bank and several other imperialist aid agencies have encouraged the development of tourism and entertainment industry in Third World countries with the aim of meeting their balance of payments and debit deficits. As a result, sex tourism and sex entertainment have developed at an amazing speed and have acquired national and international legitimacy under globalisation as never before.
The third factor that has led to the burgeoning of the flesh trade is the neo-colonial exploitation of the cheap raw materials and resources of Third World by imperialist capital. The countries, which have undergone structural adjustments under the dictates of World Bank and the IMF, are forced to export their raw materials and cheap resources. Women and children constitute an important component of the resources of Third World countries and hence are considered a prime export item for the “development” of these countries. Women and children, whose labour is exploited beyond acceptable human rights standards, have become one of the prime tools for capitalist accumulation. The migration and traffic in women from areas of low concentration of capital to high concentration areas i.e., from rural to urban and from the less developed areas of Asia, Africa and Latin America (and now Eastern Europe in) to the industrial countries.
This has become possible due to massive population and development of large sections of the population in the Third World countries who are left with no other options than to sell their bodies and labour in order to eke out a living. And it is the women and children who form the principal composite of these newly deprived and dispossessed sections due to globalisation. International capital through the vast media network at its disposal – the print and electronic media, the internet etc – is able to mould the minds of the people living in an already patriarchal, male-dominated world in favour of commodification of the female body from the crudest to the most sophisticated of ways. Capitalism had transformed relations between human beings into callous cash relationships; it had commodified every aspect of human life including human body parts, female reproductive work and virtually every thing on the earth. Capitalism has no ethics other than amassing profits. It had converted woman into a sex object and placed her in the market for sale. Under globalisation, this had reached levels unknown in human history due to the sheer magnitude and power of the principal players and wrought havoc on the lives of the vast majority of the wretched of the earth.
We thus find from the foregoing that today prostitution has been transformed into global flesh trade – a multinational or transnational enterprise that fetches enormous profits to the governments of several countries, to the multinational syndicate of capitalists, pimps, mafia gangsters, politicians and the police while the women are helpless victims in this bizarre drama. The annual turnover of prostitution business worldwide runs to billions of dollars. No wonder, the imperialist agencies, the NGOs funded by these agencies, the governments of some of the countries, and the media controlled by the imperialist sharks, have begun canvassing for legalisation of prostitution. Of course, all in the name of the welfare of the prostitutes. Quite a few progressive and liberal democratic organisations and individuals also sincerely endorse the stand for legalisation from a humanitarian standpoint. . Seeing the way the existing laws in India, the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, 1986 and provisions of the IPC (1860) are framed and utilised they argue that the oppression of prostitutes can be done away with. They think that by legalising prostitution, women professing the trade will have all the legal rights like any other industrial workers and will be free from the harassment of the pimps, police and the clients.
Let us now analyse the arguments put forth for the legalisation of prostitution and whose interests these actually serve.
Arguments in favour of legalisation
Vesya Anyay Mukti Parishad (Kolkata) which is an association of prostitutes that had come into existence during the latter half of the 90s, is among the most vocal proponents of legalisation. The following are a few of its arguments. “Prostitution is a way of life like any other. It is not created for the benefit of the men rather it is primarily for the women who live off it. Women in prostitution make money out of the sex and are the breadwinners of their families.
“We believe that we are more empowered than most women within male-dominated patriarchal structure. The relationships we share with the men from our families are more honest and equal because the purdah of double standards is not necessary.
“Economic independence from men is a reality that we enjoy with pride and dignity. Brothel owners, goons, the police and the self-appointed crusaders of morality in society harass us, try to curb our independence and are forever trying to douse our spirit.
“We demand the eradication of all laws concerning prostitution which are oppressive and help in further criminalizing the trade.
“We believe that we challenge and undermine structures of power by using a part of our womanhood – our sexuality as a source of our power and income.
It wants to distinguish between “trafficking, which is criminal issue and adult prostitution.”
“We believe that making money from sex is not selling a part of our body which is in no way different from selling our brains or physical labour.
“We protest against a society that deems our work contribution as less prestigious than other traditional forms of work.
“We believe that despite living within a capitalist patriarchal society and having the experienced the freedom of living outside the patriarchal system, it is almost impossible for us to contemplate enterin such a system with its inherent double standard, lopsided value system and inequalities.”
One would be surprised to see the above statements coming from an organisation of the prostitutes themselves. It appears as if the prostitutes have chosen to be what they are by free choice, that choosing is a form of rebellion against the patriarchal system and oppression in the family and society at large. Through these arguments not only are they juxtaposing the individual right with the structural circumstances but they are also reducing human rights to the rights of the individual. The arguments not only justify the profession but also try to lure more and more women into the flesh trade in the name of women’s liberation. These so-called associations of sex-workers are obviously organised by NGOs or individuals with imperative trends and seek to give the sex trade a further boost in the name of voluntary choice.
The stark reality is that the overwhelming majority of the prostitutes are there not by choice but due to destitution, deprivation, displacement ostracisation and deception; that many have been victims of sexual assault either at home or work place or in the street;that quite a few of them have been bought from starving parents by unscrupulous pimps even before they reach their puberty, administered steroids like Benetradin to make malnourished children artificially plumpy just as they fatten cattle and chicken to yield more meat; that some of them are made into ‘servants of god’ (devadasi) against the law and the will of the young girls and packed off to brothels to serve as slaves to sex-starved, sadistic clients; that given an alternative option for decent livelihood there would be hardly any one left in the profession. The question for free choice does not arise. Here it is to be noted that the emphasis is being given to free choice because they want to make a distinction between becoming a prostitute willingly and trafficking. The main campaign against trafficking is being led by the needs of the imperialist western countries where there is a shortage of white prostitutes. In the US for example too, over 70 % of the prostitutes are non-white.
In fact this argument is being promoted to make it easy to legalise the import of prostitutes to the imperialist countries and other centres of tourism.
Sangram (Sangli-Maharashtra), a voluntary organisation working among prostitutes, is even more aggressive in championing the cause of the profession.
“In the work place, she is more than equal to the male client and very often controls the conditions of the transaction. Women ‘keep’ many malaks and refuse to be treated as the exclusive property of the man. Here, women in prostitution are shown to “liberated” and as working independently on her own terms. It is shown as an alternative for women to free themselves from patriarchal stranglehold.
Citing the powerlessness of women to even retain their names after marriage, Sangram glorifies the ‘Freedom’ that is supposed to be inherent in prostitution.
“In class based and male dominated society, women are forced to occupy a secondary status that is totally male-centred, even the power to name herself is denied to her as, in several parts of the country, she is even given a new first name of her marriage, forcing her to discard her old identity and adopt a new one.
“Women in prostitution are in different position. Even if a woman in prostitution opts to stay with one man and conduct her ‘dhandha’ (profession) she does not change her name. She continues to occupy her own residence and in fact, it is the man who comes to stay with her. In this case, the tables are reversed: it is done on her terms. “Women in prostitution pose tremendous challenge to the family structure, system and its values. They actually challenge patriarchal ‘values’ that govern sexuality
The perverted logic of these opologists for sex trade sees the prostitute as a free and independent agent who controls her body and sexuality and challenges the family and patriarchal values. Contrary to their argument the institution of prostitution is as much a creation of patriarchy as the present-day family and co-exists with it. It is based on the freedom socially available to men but denied to women.
As Engels succinctly put it, it is “the absolute domination of the male over the female sex as the fundamental law of society”. She is a victim of patriarchal oppression within the profession. Once a woman enters the trade, there is no way out. She is completely at the mercy of the sex-starved customer, the pimp and the police. Physical assaults and rapes are a daily occurrence. More than half of the prostituted women in the Third World countries had contracted HIV/AIDs. A 1985 Canadian report on the sex industry reported that the women in prostitution in that country suffer mortality rate 40 times the national average. It could be even worse in countries like India. All this proves that the argument that once prostitution is legalized it can be more effectively regulated making it safe for all those involved, that the spread of HIV can be slowed, that sex workers can have access to health and so on, are sheer fraud. The fact is that all forms of sexual commodification, whether legalised or not, lead to an increase in the level of abusive and exploitative activity.
The interest of the State in permitting legalisation is not the prostitute and her rights but to check the spread of sexually transmitted deceases. It involves heavy regulation of prostitution through a whole host of zoning and licensing laws. Zoning segregates the prostitutes into a separate locality and their civil liberties are restricted outside the specified zone. Licensing means issue of licenses, registration and the disbursement of health cards to the women. Legalisation makes it mandatory for the women to undergo medical check-ups regularly or face imprisonment.
Legalising prostitution is legalising violence:To describe prostitution as sex work and a prostitute as a sex worker means to give legitimacy to sexual exploitation of helpless women and children. It means ignoring the basic factors, which push women and children into prostitution such as poverty, violence and inequalities. It tries to make the profession look dignified and as a ‘job like any other job’.
It is the organised commercial sex industry that is the staunchest advocate for legalisation of prostitution on the plea that ‘sex work’ is viable work – a job like any other job. Creating the nation that sexual exploitation and abuse are ‘work’ createsa shield to the industry from the critics and will multiply their profits by boosting the sex trade through legalisation.
By considering women in prostitution as workers, pimps as businessmen, and the buyers as customers and thereby giving the entire sex industry recognition as an economic sector, the governments are planning to abdicate all responsibilities for providing decent employment to women. They are thus pushing more and more women into sex trade by creating the notion that sex work is like any other work.
Legalisation of prostitution is not a solution because legalisation implies men’s self evident right to be customers. Accepting services offered through a normal job is neither violent nor abusive. Legalising it as a normal occupation would be an acceptance of the division of labour, which men have created. A division, where women’s real occupational choices are far narrower than men’s. Legalisation will not remove the harmful effects suffered by the women. Women will still be forced to protect themselves against a massive invasion of strange men, as well as the physical violence.
Legalisation means position of regulation by the State to ensure the continuation and perpetuation of prostitution. It implies that they have to pay taxes, i.e., the prostitute needs to serve more customers to get the money needed. Legalisation means that more men will become customers, and more women are needed as prostitutes, and more women, especially women in poverty, will be forced into prostitution. Legalising prostitution will only increase the chances of exploitation. The experiences of the countries where prostitution was legalised also show how this had given big boost to the trade and had increased sexual abuse. For instance, in Australia and in some states in the US where legalisation was implemented, it was found that there was an alarming increase in the number of illegal brothels too along with an increase in the legal trade.
Commercial sexual exploitation devalues the lives of all women and girls by promoting misogynistic beliefs and attitudes among the males. It teaches the males that female bodies are sexual merchandise to be traded, used and discarded, and consequently, it aggravates gender inequality in all areas of society. It leads to a spurt in acts of sexual violence and harassment against women in the work place and in the domestic life. It violates human rights of all women and children whose bodies are reduced to sexual commodities to be bought and sold in the market.
The so-called safe sex that is said to emanate from legalisation and guaranteeing the rights of the prostitutes is a myth. It ignores the inherent power dynamics of sexual exploitation and that the sexually exploited women or child has no other option than to acquiese to the customer’s demands since she is not in a position to demand the usage of condoms by the customer. Any resistance means more violence.
Trying to make a distinction between prostitutions by choice or consent and forced prostitution or trafficking which all the champions of porstitutes’ cause have been trying to do, is an exercise in futility since in practice it is extremely difficult to prove cases of forced prostitution. The traffickers and pimps can easily conceal evidence of coercion and manufacture evidence of consent from the prostitutes themselves.There are two important international human rights conventions that address the question of prostitutes and trafficking in women: the convention on the Traffic in persons and the exploitation of the prostitution and of others, and the Convention for the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, 1949. But these conventions, despite the stringent clauses against pimps, procurers and traffickers, have no enforcement mechanisms and have not been ratified by many countries. And as we have seen, it is almost impossible to get evidence from the sexually abused women and children given the power of the sex industry managers.
And now, burying these conventions, the ILO has called for the economic recognition of prostitutes as legitimate work in its controversial report of 1998.
We must reject all arguments for legalisation of prostitution and the notion that engaging in sex trade and selling town’s body for the sexual gratification of others in exchange for money is work.
Legalisation of the sex trade is vigorously advocated by the imperialists, by imperialist sponsored NGOs and individuals and by the Third World governments, only in order to preserve the institutions of prostitution and thereby serve the imperialist interests in commodification of women.
Prostitution is violence against women. It is an insult to the self-respect of women, violation of their basic human rights. It is criminal to call violence and sexual abuse against women as work. It is criminal to call the sale of one’s body for the sexual gratification of others as work. It is criminal and callous on the part of governments to abdicate responsibility of providing decent employment to women and children and pushing them into the sex trade in the name of legalisation of prostitution.
Our demands should be to abolish prostitution and trafficking in women and children, provide gainful employment to all those engaged in the sex trade and punish those responsible for encouraging the sex trade and indulging in any form of discrimination against women.
We must mobilise the women who are engaged in Prostitution against the State demanding employment while fighting against all forms of oppression and harassment by pimps, traffickers and the police.
We must educate the women caught in the vicious web of Prostitution that it is only by dismantling this exploitative system based on class and gender inequalities and the worst form of patriarchal control that they can be free, independent and in a position to determine their destiny.
Visakhapatnam District, October 3, 2022: The Communist Party of India (Maoist) has alleged that ever since the Yuvajana Shramika Rythu Congress Party has come to power, the leaders and members of the party have been indulging in rampant grabbing of land belonging to the government and private parties.
In a letter released by CPI (Maoist) Andhra Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee (AOBSZC) secretary, Comrade Ganesh, the Maoist party claimed that land grabbing has become part of the functioning and system of the YSRCP government.
In the name of three capitals, the party leaders have grabbed thousands of acres of land and they had also done so after the bifurcation of the districts, the Maoists alleged.
Comrade Ganesh alleged that in Ramakrishnapuram of Srikakulam district, the YSRCP leaders had grabbed 30 acres of land, that was taken by the farmers after a strong fight with the landowners, and also a huge quantity of neighboring land to give them away to a corporate company. Maoists alleged one D. Sridhar, Fisheries Minister Seediri Appalaraju and MP Vijaya Sai Reddy were involved in the deal.
The Maoists also alleged that YSRCP leaders were foisting false cases against all those who were objecting to the deal.
They alleged that two hills in Srikakulam district have been grabbed and unauthorized quarrying is in progress, which is degrading the environment and the water levels in the region.
The Maoists alleged that the YSRCP was trying to grab prime land in Andhra University and the party leaders have already degraded the Rushikonda Hill.
Comrade Ganesh also alleged that in Araku region, agricultural land belonging to the tribals was being grabbed in the guise of tourism projects and blamed Araku MLA Chetti Phalguna for it.
They also took exception to the laterite mining and said that thousands of acres of forest land was being degraded in the name of mining.
They urged the people to raise their voice and threatened action against the YSRCP leaders.
LONDRA|27.09.2022| Londra Hindistan konsolosluğu önünde, 26 Eylül tarih’de saat 15’de Hindistan’lı tutsaklarla destek eylemi gerçekleştirildi. ATİK Londra komitesi olarak Hindistan’daki politik tutsaklara yönelik baskı ve şiddet protesto edildi. Yapılan eylemde, Hindistan’da politik tutsaklar üzerindeki şiddete son! Politik tutsaklara özgürlük! Hindistan’daki faşist saldırılara son! sloganlarının atıldı. UPOTUDAK açıklaması okundu. Ayrıca eylem boyunca bildiri dağıtımı yapıldı.
The week of global action launched by the International Committee in Support of the People’s War in India, on the recommendation and in close connection with the Communist Party of India (Maoist), was in Italy an important qualitative leap in anti-imperialist and internationalist proletarian support in our country.
All activities were concentrated on a strong day in Rome.
In the morning there was a demonstration at the Indian embassy. The Italian imperialist state and the police headquarters in Rome had banned the demonstration in front of the embassy and, taking as a pretext the use of Roman squares for the electoral campaign, had also denied the nearby squares, granting only a square far enough from the embassy.
All the operating structures of the Committee have organized, therefore, in legal and illegal forms the initiative. First we concentrated in a denied square, Piazza della Repubblica and the demonstration began by displaying the banner “Basta bombe e droni sulle popolazioni – Basta massacri e repressione – Libertà per tutti i prigionieri politici.”[Stop bombs and drones on populations – Stop massacres and repression – Freedom for all political prisoners] supported by representatives of the various mass organizations. Meanwhile, the notes of “Bella ciao” of a supportive Bar resounded in the air.
Then the comrades without flags and symbols moved compactly in the direction of the embassy and reached it counting on the “surprise” effect. Clearly the forces of repression expected a blitz and when the strong delegation appeared they lined up in front of the embassy.
The protesters did not stop, they raised the banner in front of the entrance of the embassy and shouted slogans.
The police did not intervene but pressed for the action to end.
As planned, the demonstrators put the banner back and went to the square that had been granted and occupied it in the side facing the passage of people.
The police again intervened demanding that the demonstration take place in restricted forms and less visible to the masses. The firm resistance of the women comrades, who were still the majority of the demonstrators, rejected this attempt; and a long second part of the demonstration took place.
A massive mass leaflet of the communiqué of the Support Committee and of the appeal of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) was made and dossiers and materials of the Revolutionary Proletarian Feminist Movement on Indian political prisoners were spread.
In addition to the banners for political prisoners and against drones and massacres of indian populations, a large banner was placed in support of the people’s war and also was re-proposed the exhibition that is circulating throughout Italy of the Revolutionary Proletarian Feminist Movement.
All the representatives of the adhering bodies took the floor, with strong and blunt interventions, appreciated by the demonstrators and the masses who passed, stopped, talked, asked. The voice of the workers of the Slai cobas, of the women of the RPFM, was particularly heard.
The demonstration was joined by the International Red Rescue, the main organization in our country in defense of political prisoners of the Red Brigades and an integral part of the international network present in several countries. These comrades had brought a large panel for the political prisoners of Turkey and northern Kurdistan, and a militant former political prisoner took the floor in the square, and this had not happened for some time.
The other big aspect of quality was the presence of six representatives of the several hundred Indian workers working in factories and workplaces in northern Italy, who defied blackmail and repression – these are workers who identified in front of the embassy and in the square risked dismissals and expulsions, taking into account the strong pressures of the Indian embassy, inspired by the Foreign Minister of the Modi regime, towards the European governments, and Italian in particular, so that the prolonged and incisive campaign may come to an end.
A campaign that also saw on this day the presentation of a dossier to the national and international press on the conditions of Saibaba and Varavara Rao and on the list of prisoners of the various associations operating in India, sent by the Indian comrades, and whose liberation and defense of health conditions in prisons are claimed.
Numerous passers-by stopped in the square, including some citizens of Indian origin and a large group of girls, some working in solidarity associations, who were interested in the campaign and forged ties in particular with comrades of the RPFM.
During the demonstration, slogans were shouted: “Freedom for political prisoners!”, “Long live the people’s war!”, “Long live proletarian internationalism!”, “The imperialist war can only be stopped if the people’s war advances!”.
It was the first and important event in Rome, where the Committee was not present and had no active solidarity structures.
But the day is not over.
In the afternoon in the important structure of Metropoliz, a factory occupied and transformed into an imposing cultural and artistic museum by hundreds of migrants and Roma people who occupied it, led by the movement of struggle for housing – ‘Metropolitan Blocs’ – an anti-capitalist proletarian assembly was held, organized essentially by communist proletarians, which saw the participation of 70 representatives of trade union bodies, association of struggle, committees against repression, movements of various Italian cities, Marxist intellectuals engaged in the main Italian universities, on the themes of the struggle against imperialist war and the social struggle of proletarians, migrants and popular masses.
In this assembly, the voice of solidarity with the Indian political prisoners and the people’s war, was clearly expressed. All participants received the information and complaint material, distributed during the day and some of the participants in the demonstration for India took the floor in the assembly and in particular the representative of the Indian workers of Bergamo.
An endless day, probably the strongest and most articulated that there has been in Europe and in the imperialist countries in recent years; a point of arrival of the prolonged action of the Committee in Italy led by the PCm; but above all a new starting point for the development of a real mass movement in support of the people’s war in India.
September 24, 2022
Wayanad District, September 24, 2022: Several CPI (Maoist) banners were found in the village of Kunhome in Kerala’s Wayanad district on Saturday morning.
The banners, calling on the Paniya tribe to take up arms against the government, were found on the wall of the Thondernad panchayat bus stop and several shops in the vicinity.
“Despite a history of fighting the fire-breathing guns of the British with bow and arrows, members of the Paniya tribe still lack land in their name. Long years of pleading with the government have yielded little result. We urge the tribals to take bow and arrows as well as guns to challenge the government,” the banners read.
The banners also exhort the CPM government not to delay disbursing compensation for the victims of monsoon calamities.
The police have begun a probe into the incident. This is the second time this year that Maoist posters have been discovered in the northern districts of Kerala state.
In April, a poster was found in Kozhikode’s Mattikunnu area near Thamarassery criticizing the ruling CPM government’s SilverLine rail corridor project.
In it, the Maoists labelled the project as “anti-people” and expressed their solidarity with the section of the masses who are opposing it.
The Maoists have also equated the policies of the CPM government to that of the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre.
in Human Rights— by Harsh Thakor—
The democratic community of Europe expressed its heartfelt condolences to the fascist repression unleashed on the Indian people, particularly on the untimely demise of Comrade Pandu Naroti, an Adivasi who stood by the working class, peasants and all oppressed and exploited people of India. It expressed its condolences to his family and friends in Mureweda village, a poor Adivasi community in Gadchiroli district, Maharashtra. The activists represented the Worldwide Action Week, called by the ICSPWI (International Committee to Support the People’s War in India), from September 13 to 19 for the release of political prisoners and demanding a stop to drone attacks in India. Comrade Naroti died in prison last August 25, at the age of 33, after being denied his rights to proper medical treatment. The Modi regime was directly responsible for his murder by violating his rights while in prison.
Although sparse in numbers, qualitatively impactful protests were staged in Hamburg, Holland, Austria London and Rome on 17th September calling the international call for the release of all political prisoners of the fascist Hindutva government. We must congratulate activists in Italy who defied ban imposed on staging the protest. It is most timely an imperative with fascism accentuating and sprouting in another form even in Europe, amidst the worst economic crises. A protest was also staged in Bogota in Colombia..Posters were sprung up on walls, illustrating the merciless oppression of the drones attacks.
Comrade Naroti was arrested in 2013 on accusations of violating India’s Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act after being maliciously associated with the CPI (Maoist). Naroti was sentenced by the Modi regime in 2017 with life imprisonment, along with former Delhi University professor and Revolutionary Democratic Front leader G.N. Saibaba ,Vernon Gonsalves,Sudha Bhardawaj , Anand Teltumbde , Gautam Navlakha ,Rona Wilson,Arun Ferreira , Varavara Rao and now Rupesh Kumar..Thousands of Maoist, Muslim and dalit activists are languishing in prisons, being framed without any proper trial. We must remember how during the Bhima-Koregaon protest in the name of Maoist terrorism genuine democrats like Anand Teltumbde were framed who are openly critical of the Maoist movement. Such arrests are a manifestation of the ascendancy or penetration of proto-fascism, of the Brahmanical Hindutva variety. They are not meant to crush the Maoist movement but to deliver a crippling blow to all democratic dissent and constitutional democracy, in the name of Urban naxalism. Liberals should study the manner the state has left no stone unturned in distorting the facts, fabricating false evidence. The arrests llustrated how the current BJP regime wishes to champion the hegemony of the Brahaminical caste system and wipe out all assertion of dalits for rights. Similarly democratic activists of Kashmir have been victimised.
His murder is not the first in the hands of the fascist Modi regime. A year ago, 82-year old Adivasi rights advocate Fr. Stan Swamy perished health in prison. More deaths are the order of the day as India’s activists, progressives and advocates continue languish within prison walls.
The Maoist political prisoners and the democratic Indian revolutionaries have been incriminated for rendering their lives to confront a destructive and reactionary system which enslaves millions of unfortunate people of the earth. They have dedicated their lives to waging a battle against a system that is directly responsible for the deaths of 6,000 children every day and that has displaced tens of millions of Indian people from their habitats and destroyed their means of livelihood in order to pave the path for the plundering of profits for multinational companies.
India’s reactionary government, hypocritically projects itself as the world’s “largest democracy.” The truth is that this largest democracy acts as an instrument of violence and repression to patronise the monopoly of the comprador and feudal bourgeoisie in India.
In recent years notable protests were conducted by the Committee for release of political prisoners all over the country as well as civil liberties groups like Association for Protection of Democratic Rights of West Bengal, Peoples Union for Democratic Rights of Delhi and Civil Liberties Commitee of Telenagana and Andhra Pradesh. Notable voice has been raised by stalwarts like Arundhati Roy and Himanshu Kumar as well the democratic movement of Punjab. The civil rights movement needs to encompass wider sections, incorporating the workers and peasantry and not be confined to intellectuals.
It is important that even those who oppose the Maoist movement comprehend the roots of what let it sprout, which lay in the barbaric oppression of the Adivasis by the corporate and ruling classes. Such protests should be seen in light of the broader framework of violation of rights and against fascism as a whole.. The real enemy is the corporates who tooth and nail loot the Adivasi community. It is important that the worldwide movement for civil liberties is not converted into a Maoist front but a broad based platform, to challenge rise of neo-fascism. The targeting of Palestinian activists and Muslims is regular feature in Europe .It is imperative that the European working class and youth can identify and co-relate their crisis with the corporate exploitation in the third world, with the goal of extinguishing the neo-fascist resurgence.
Harsh Thakor is freelance Journalist who has covered mass movements around India and been in touch with International revolutionary struggles.
Visakhapatnam District, September 20, 2022: Secretary of the CPI (Maoist) Andhra-Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee (AOBSZC), Comrade Ganesh, has appealed to the people across the tribal areas and also in the urban pockets to celebrate the 18 anniversary of the party’s formation.
The CPI (Maoist) was founded on September 21, 2004, with the merger of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) People’s War (People’s War Group) and the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI).
In a letter released late on Monday night, Comrade Ganesh said in this year alone about 124 comrades were “martyred” and it includes a few key members such as Central Committee and Political Bureau member Akkiraju Haragopal alias Ramakrishna alias RK, and senior leader Dappu Ramesh.
He pointed out that a number of their comrades were languishing in various jails across the country, and efforts were being made to get them released.
The Maoist spokesperson also alleged that the security forces, both from the State and the Union governments, were filing false cases against innocent tribal people and putting them in jails.
Comrade Ganesh claimed that innocent tribal people were being projected as militia members and Maoists and shown as surrenders only to boost the image of the security forces and create a wrong narrative that the people were rejecting the Maoist movement.
Message of solidarity to the Communist Party of
India (Maoist) on its 18th anniversary
September 21, 2022
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New
People’s Army extends its fraternal greetings of revolutionary solidarity to the
Communist Party of India (Maoist) on the occasion of its 18th anniversary.
The CPP honors the 124 heroes and martyrs who died in the past year while serving
the cause of new democratic revolution in India, including members of the Central
Committee of CPI (Maoist) and warriors of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army. We
grieve over their deaths, but more importantly, we draw inspiration from their
example of selfless dedication to the liberation of all the oppressed and exploited
classes and people.
The CPP deeply appreciates the gesture of international solidarity of the CPI (Maoist)
in paying tribute to Ka Oris, former NPA spokesperson, as well as other communist
and revolutionary leaders across the world.
The CPP supports the CPI (Maoist) in leading the resistance against the fascist and
reactionary Brahmanic Hindutva Narendra Modi regime, particularly in fighting to
overcome and frustrate the all-out military offensives against the revolutionary
forces and people under the so-called “SAMADHAN”-Prahar strategic offensive. We
are inspired by the determination of the CPI (Maoist) and the PLGA to resist the
relentless fascist onslaught that vainly seeks to crush the people’s democraticrevolution and pave the way for greater imperialist plunder of India’s resources and
exploitation of its workers and peasants.
We are gratified by the persevering efforts of the CPI (Maoist) to consolidate, expand
its membership, and strengthen democratic centralism from the level of its leadership
to its branches. Every communist around the world must commend your efforts to
study and apply Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to your short-term and long-term
goals. Indeed, the unity of will of the CPI (Maoist) is the key to the unifying the
proletariat and people of India as it overcomes the violent attacks of the fascist
regime.
The CPP and the NPA salute the fierce determination of the PLGA to fight back against
the enemy’s offensives. We are deeply elated by the PLGA’s victories in the field of
armed struggle, despite experiencing temporary setbacks. These victories raise the
revolutionary enthusiasm of the Filipino people and revolutionaries as much as it
intensifies the determination of the Indian masses to rise up against their oppressors
and exploiters.
We are also elated by the efforts of the CPI (Maoist) to build, broaden and strengthen
the united front and mass movement of the Indian people against the anti-people,
anti-worker and anti-peasant policies of the Modi regime. Through the Party’s
leadership and efforts to arouse, organize and mobilize, the broad masses of the
Indian people are sure to rise up in greater numbers in broad democratic resistance
similar to the recent peasant uprising and broad workers strike movement.
The international capitalist system and its insoluble crisis of overproduction continue
to subject peoples and entire countries to grave economic crisis. In a vain effort to
further expand its profits, the imperialists are waging wars and causing widespread
destruction of productive forces. In collusion with the local reactionary classes, they
are intensifying the plunder of resources of its semicolonies and the exploitation of workers and peasants around the world. The entire world presently face threats of
recession and depression, with hundreds of millions of people suffering from rising
inflation, especially in terms of food and fuel prices, widespread unemployment and
overall economic slowdown.
The crisis is engendering conditions of widespread resistance. All over the world,
people are rising up spontaneously to demand higher wages, lower prices and greater
social protection. Amid these conditions, communists in all countries must work
doubly hard to make the proletariat perform its leadership role in order to guide and
direct the broad masses of the people to the path of revolutionary resistance. It is the
duty of communists to link up the daily struggles of the people with the long-term
goal of ending imperialist oppression in order to attain the people’s aspiration for
national freedom, democracy and socialism.
The CPP and the all revolutionary forces in the Philippines stand with the CPI (Maoist)
and its revolutionary forces in advancing the revolutionary cause against imperialism
and all reaction. Together, let us accumulate more and more achievements and
celebrate each other’s victories.
Long live the Communist Party of India (Maoist)!
Long live the Communist Party of the Philippines!
Long live the revolutionary guerrilla fighters of India and the Philippines!
Long live the workers and peasants of India and the Philippines!
Uphold Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!
Carry forward the natiworkers and peasants around the world
Hace unos días se conformó la sección colombiana del Comité de Internacional Apoyo a la Guerra Popular en la India. Varios comunistas, revolucionarios y luchadores populares de siete ciudades del país se encontraron en una reunión virtual, convocada a través del portal Revolución Obrera, para darle concreción a esta sección. Días previos, desde el mismo portal se había realizado acciones de propaganda sobre el deber internacionalista de la clase obrera y el pueblo oprimido en Colombia para organizar el apoyo al proceso revolucionario en curso en la India, liderado por los camaradas del Partido Comunista de la India (Maoísta).
La reunión de conformación inició con la sustentación del camarada León, vocero de este portal, sobre los inicios del Comité Internacional de Apoyo a la Guerra Popular en la India, seguido de una ilustración sobre el carácter de la sección colombiana del Comité, de los criterios para la participación y lo que va ser su estructura organizativa. A lo largo de la exposición los demás participantes fueron exponiendo sus dudas y haciendo comentarios para enriquecer la reunión. Al finalizar, se establecieron los contactos entre cada uno de los participantes y se decidió organizar las primeras reuniones por ciudades para que los activistas se agrupen en Comités Locales y se pueda emprender el trabajo acordado.
La conformación de la sección colombiana del Comité de Apoyo a la Guerra Popular en la India es una buena noticia para el avance de la línea revolucionaria en el movimiento obrero y de masas, y una muestra del internacionalismo proletario y la solidaridad de los pueblos. Además, vale resaltar que su conformación se hizo en el marco de la Semana de Acción Mundial por la liberación de los presos políticos en la India y contra los ataques con drones.
En las próximas semanas por las redes sociales se estará brindando más información sobre la sección colombiana del Comité de Apoyo a la Guerra Popular en la India. Aquellos compañeros y compañeras que decidan sumarse a esta iniciativa podrán contactarse enviando un mensaje al siguiente correo electrónico: comiteciagpicolombia@tutanota.com
El 15 de septiembre de 2022 se llevó a cabo un mitin frente a la embajada de India en Berlín como parte de la semana de acción internacional en apoyo a la guerra popular en India.
Documentamos un informe que nos fue enviado.
Como parte de la semana de acción internacional del 13 al 19 de septiembre, se llevó a cabo una manifestación frente a la embajada india en Berlín.
El llamado a la acción fue leído en voz alta en el mitin . También se tradujeron al alemán pasajes del llamamiento del Partido Comunista de la India (maoísta) publicado el 5 de junio.fueron leídos. En particular, se destacaron las 11 demandas que plantearon los compañeros: Estaban en los escudos que portaban los manifestantes y leían varias veces a la embajada. Los transeúntes dieron su aprobación tocando la bocina y levantando los puños por las ventanillas de los autos, y los transeúntes mostraron repetidamente su solidaridad con la manifestación. Las consignas han dejado en claro en repetidas ocasiones que la guerra popular en la India, librada por el Partido Comunista de la India (Maoísta), es la única forma de acabar con la explotación y la opresión del imperialismo.
Bremen
Se realizó un evento informativo en Bremen durante la semana de acción internacional en apoyo a la guerra popular en la India. La conferencia fue recibida positivamente y se hicieron muchas preguntas. Los camaradas quedaron impresionados por el trabajo revolucionario que estaban haciendo los camaradas indios.
Se ha denunciado al antiguo estado indio y sus operaciones militares ‘Green Hunt’ – ‘Samadhan – Samadhan-Prahar-3’ y especialmente los ataques con drones. Al final de la conferencia, los participantes gritaron las consignas: ‘Viva la guerra popular en India’ y ‘Viva el PCI (maoísta)’.
Als Beitrag zur internationalen Aktionswoche zur Unterstützung des Volkskrieges in Indien hielt das Bündnis gegen imperialistische Aggression am 17. September 2022 eine Kundgebung vor dem indischen Generalkonsulat in Hamburg ab. Mit Transparenten, Schildern, Flugblättern und Redebeiträgen wurde zur Solidarität mit dem Volkskrieg in Indien aufgerufen, die Freilassung der revolutionären Gefangenen und revolutionären Kriegsgefangenen gefordert, sowie der Terror des alten indischen Staates gegen das Volk verurteilt. Außerdem wurden die elf Forderungen verlesen, die von der Kommunistischen Partei Indiens (Maoistisch) kürzlich aufgestellt wurden. Parolen wurden auf Deutsch, Englisch und auf Hindi gerufen.
Die Bediensteten des Konsulats fotografierten die Kundgebung eifrig aus den Fenstern heraus, versteckten sich aber in ihren Räumlichkeiten. Als die Kundgebungsteilnehmer entschieden, sich direkt vor den Eingang zu stellen und über das Schild des Konsulats ein Bild von Genosse Saibaba zu kleben, riefen die Bediensteten sofort die Polizei zur Hilfe. Diese forderte die Kundgebung dann dazu auf, sich vom Eingang des Konsulats zu entfernen. Statt dem aber nachzukommen, riefen die Teilnehmer ihre Parolen noch lauter und kraftvoller.
Mit der Kundgebung in Hamburg wurde einmal mehr deutlich, dass der Volkskrieg in Indien auch hier am anderen Ende der Welt seine Freunde und Unterstützer hat. So gibt es auch in Hamburg, in vielen anderen Städten der BRD und überall sonst auf der Welt, diejenigen, die den Kampf der Genossen in Indien als ihren Kampf sehen und so ihre Aufgabe annehmen, den Volkskrieg mit aller Kraft zu unterstützen.
Über die Dauer der Kundgebung wurden durchgehend Parolen auf deutsch und Hindi gerufen, sowie Flugblätter und die Rote Post an Passanten verteilt. Auch einige Autofahrer teilten begrüßten die Kundgebung, machten Fotos, hupten um ihre Unterstützung zum Ausdruck zu bringen oder riefen den Demonstranten im Vorbeifahren Worte der Unterstützung zu.
In zwei Reden wurde der Volkskrieg in Indien als einer der größten und entscheidendsten Kämpfe für die Befreiung von Ausbeutung und Unterdrückung hochgehalten und die völkermörderische Politik des indischen Staats verurteilt.
Auch aus dem Konsulat wurde die Kundgebung mit regem Interesse verfolgt, was die Aussagen der Polizei Lügen strafte, die im Voraus behauptete, es sei gar niemand da. Aus Fenstern und unter teilweise heruntergelassenen Rolläden hervor beobachteten die Konsulatsangestellten die Kundgebung, machten Fotos und Videos. Dabei blieben sie aber stets hinter ihren vier Wänden versteckt und hielten sich sonst sehr bedec
LetusenhanceMassBaseandadvance
People’sWar!
Letusdefeatthestrategic
‘SAMADHAN’-PraharoffensiveoftheEnemy!
AnniversaryoftheParty
Central CommitteeCommunistPartyofIndia(Maoist)
Letusenhancemassbaseand advancePeople’sWar!
DearComradesandPeople!
It is 18 years for our Party, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) by 21st September 2022 since its formation. Our party is the vanguard leading the revolutionary movement in the country. On the occasion, the Central Committee of the party calls upon the entire ranks of the party, revolutionary people’s organs and revolutionary people to celebrate the 18th Anniversary in the rural and urban areas all over the country with revolutionary enthusiasm and firm will. It calls upon to enhance mass base in all corners of the country, strengthen the party and to advance People’s War in India and to defeat the counter-revolutionary strategic ‘SAMADHAN’-Prahar offensive.
One hundred and twenty-four comrades have become martyrs in the past one year courageously encountering the ‘SAMADHAN’-Prahar attacks unleashed by the enemy in a bid to eliminate our party and the revolutionary movement, that is making determined efforts to achieve the great objectives of destroying the rotten semi-colonial, semi-feudal system in the country and accomplish New Democratic Revolution and to establish Socialism- Communism all over the world. Thirty of them are woman warriors. The martyrs include member of the CC and Polit Bureau Comrade Akkiraju Haragopal (Ramakrishna, Saket), member of the CC and Secretary to Special Zonal Committee of Maharashtra-Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh, Comrade Milind Teltumbde (Deepak, Jeeva), member of DKSZC Secretariat Comrade Uppuganti Nirmala (Narmada), member of BJSAC Secretariat Comrade Sandeep Yadav (Rupesh), 13 members of ZC/DvC/DC, 30 AC/PPC and 27 activists of people’s organs. We are yet to receive the details of 25 comrades.
In addition to them, we lost several leaders, activists of revolutionary, progressive, democratic Mass Organisations, intellectuals, sympathisers and friends of revolution. On the occasion of the 18th Anniversary of our Party, the CC pays humble revolutionary homage to all the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the liberation of people including the beloved founder leaders of our Party Comrade Charu Mazumdar and Comrade Kanhai Chatterjee.
The martyrdom of several leadership comrades such as the leader of Peru Communist Party Comrade Gonzalo, the spokesperson of NPA of Philippines Comrade Ka Oris and founder leader of Galicia Maoist Communist Party Comrade Martin Naya is a severe loss to the International Communist movement. Comrade Gonzalo correctly applied the theory of MLM and PPW to the social conditions in Peru and emerged a great leader in advancing People’s War in the country. He did great service to advance the World Communist movement against imperialism. Comrade Ka Oris played an important role as a Senior Commander and Spokesperson of NPA in fighting back the intensive counter-revolutionary offensive taken up by the comprador rulers in the dictates of US imperialists in a bid to absolutely eliminate the Revolutionary movement in Philippines. Sixty-two year old Comrade Martin Naya well known as Miguel Alonso in the International proletarian movement lost his life out of severe ill health on 3rd September 2021. As a Trade Union leader and a leader of the MLM Party of Galicia he had been holding high the Red Flag for the past four decades and working untiringly to develop the International Communist movement. The CC pays Red homage to all these great working class leaders and all the fighters who sacrificed their lives in the ongoing New Democratic, Socialist revolutions, the various anti-imperialist, national liberation struggles and democratic, progressive, patriotic movements of various countries as a part of World Socialist Revolution. Let us pledge to fight until our last breath with firm determination in the path of revolution that the martyrs showed, in the spirit of their proletarian ideals, highlighting their self-less sacrifices and advancing towards achieving the ultimate victory.
The CC expresses deep condolences for all the heroic fighters injured in the process of foiling the enemy’s plans in their brave counter to the
‘SAMADHAN’-Prahar attacks in the past one year. It strongly believes that they would recover soon and jump into the arena of People’s War. During this time, veteran comrade of our party, member of Polit Bureau, Secretary to the Eastern Regional Bureau, Comrade Kishanda, members of the CC Comrades Sheeladi, Kanchanda, Krishnamurthy and Vijay Kumar Arya were arrested. The arrest of these comrades makes a negative impact on the advancement of New Democratic Revolution in the country. Many comrades were caught by the enemy, tortured, foisted with false cases and imprisoned. Fascist judges of Bihar and Jharkhand imposed death sentence to few comrades. Hundreds of comrades, revolutionary peasant activists are facing punishment. All of these comrades are transforming the prisons into struggle centres and are holding aloft the banner of revolution. The CC conveys revolutionary greetings to all the comrades. It assures that it would make all attempts for their release in the earliest.
The CC adopted tasks on the occasion of the 17th Anniversary of the party to fight back the enemy’s ‘SAMADHAN’-Prahar offensive and advance the revolutionary movement according to the specific conditions of various areas. Let us look into the development and the results we achieved in various sectors in the past one year in achieving these tasks.
Party, PLGA and Revolutionary people’s organs from the top to the bottom levels worked for the past one year to implement the decisions of the CC meeting in 2021 January. There was relative improvement in the team work of the committees. However we need to concentrate on individual and collective study. We need to attain much more improvement in the functioning and to develop unity of thought of the committees. We achieved a little improvement in creatively applying democratic centralism to the conditions in the light of MLM with the real spirit corresponding to the conditions so as to develop genuine ideas and in utilising the method of self- criticism-criticism as a sharp instrument. We made certain effort to unite all the ranks of the Party, PLGA and Revolutionary people’s organs, to take them among the broad masses and to transform them into a strong, organised force. However, there is yet a lot to do to mould the Party with unity of
thought and practice, with discipline, to control escapism and to develop communist values.
During this period, party took up a campaign to consolidate the party. The party committees issued circulars according to specific conditions and are implementing the program of consolidation. Efforts are going on to strengthen the three revolutionary magic weapons to the best of the capacity to achieve the central task. Importance was given to the protection of the party, especially the leadership. Membership increased to a certain extent in few areas during the consolidation campaign. New party cells were formed and the affected party cells were reorganised. Efforts were made to impart training so that these cells lead the People’s War in the local level. Education was taken up for the cadres basing on the reviews and tasks of Plenums of various Special Areas/Special Zones/States. Individual study, study camps and training classes are going on to educate cadres on the party documents namely ‘Changes in Relations of Production in India – Our Political Program’ (MOP), ‘Nationality Question – The stand of our Party’ and ‘Political and Organisational Review of the Central Committee’ (CC POR) up to the lower levels. These are to be taken up to the Mass Organisations and the people. Party has to adopt tactics, that is the program of class struggle corresponding to the objective situation basing on the MOP document and work to implement it with undeterred determination.
Incidents like Pareva hold up a great value of sacrifice in the heroic retaliation to the counter-revolutionary, strategic ‘SAMADHAN-Prahar’ offensive of the comprador ruling classes. However, there is no change in the method of work as per the changing conditions that led to very severe loss to the party. In view of these losses, the Polit Bureau (PB) issued a circular in 2022 January explaining the need to prevent such losses. The circular appealed to realise and rectify the weaknesses and shortcomings in studying and understanding the strategic tactical plan of the enemy and in practice, to review each and every incident and take lessons and to implement them firmly. Correspondingly, concrete effort is to be developed in the entire party. Member of the Polit Bureau of the party Kobad Ghandy betrayed the revolutionary theory of MLM and the revolutionary movement and released
a book ‘Fractured Freedom-a prison memoir’ to which the Central Committee wrote a reply in a theoretical booklet. It stated that Kobad’s book was a confession of a betrayer. It expelled him from the party. The CC gave a call to view Kobad who was a member of the CC and turned a betrayer to revolution after his arrest, as a negative teacher.
Party published the History of JanaNatyaMandali, the Cultural organisation that played a revolutionary role in its own style in the cultural sphere in the history of revolutionary movement of Andhra Pradesh and attained a prestigious place. The invaluable experiences that JNM handed over to the cultural sphere contribute to the development of the sphere and to overcome the challenges being faced in this work.
During this period, our party intervened at various levels exposing several Acts and policies that the central and the state governments brought forth in the interests of the imperialists and the comprador ruling classes. There is a gradual change in agitation and propaganda activity of the party. It is utilising social media to an extent. The publication of magazines of the central and the state committees is relatively better. The CC released a Souvenir on the occasion of the culmination of the 20th Anniversary of PLGA apart from the special issues of Awami-Jung and of magazines of various states. The CC released an abridged life history of Comrade Kanhai Chatterjee, a founder leader and teacher of our party. It also released the first volume of compilation of the life histories of members of the CC since the emergence of the united party until 2014 in Hindi.
The CC expanded its efforts in the sphere of international working class movement in various ways in this period. It worked to muster international support to the call of the ICSPWI for ‘Action Day on 24th November’, the International Women’s Day on 8th March and other such Revolutionary Days. It took up a program in solidarity to the revolutionary movement in Philippines on the occasion of 53rd foundation day celebrations of the NPA on 29th March. It placed before the people the stand of our party on the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine. Thirteen MLM parties of various countries approved and jointly issued the statement given by our CC on the occasion of May Day, the international working class day of struggle. The CC
sent a message to the meeting of ICSPWI on 1st July and the international meeting of the MLM parties held on 2nd and 3rd of July. It presented the party document ‘The stand of the party on the formation of International organisation of the proletariat’. Our party highlighted the resolutions of the meeting that the MLM parties must take up united practice against imperialism and in support to the People’s War in India and must work in the direction of formulating a joint understanding on the formation of international organisation and other such aspects. The solidarity work taken up by ICSPWI in the international plane is commendable. This effort of the various MLM parties in the world shall certainly contribute to the remobilisation and consolidation of Socialist revolutionary forces and to develop revolutionary movements.
PLGA forces made guerrilla war at various levels to daringly fight back the fierce Prahar offensive of the enemy in the leadership of our party. They relatively enhanced people’s efforts so as to help overcome the temporary setback and advance the revolutionary movement. They had an active role in mobilising and organising the people in anti-imperialist, anti-comprador bureaucratic capitalist, anti-feudal class struggles and build militant people’s struggles. They stood in support to building and rebuilding various revolutionary Mass Organisations and organs of Revolutionary people’s state power. They took up Tactical Counter Offensive Campaigns (TCOC) and guerrilla actions in few areas in the leadership of Party Committees, Military Commissions and Commands and gained certain victories. Few important guerrilla actions such as the attack on security guards of Manoharpur MLA in Jharkhand in which two body guards were eliminated and 3 AK Rifles were seized, the Naupada-Patadhara surprise ambush in Odisha in which two ASIs and three CRPF men were eliminated and 7 were injured and 3 AK Rifles were seized. In Dandakaranya 9 Para-Military and Special police men were wiped out, 34 Para-military and Special police were injured in different guerrilla actions. In the guerrilla actions of PLGA in various guerrilla areas in the past one year, 13 Para-Military, Commando and Special police were eliminated and 54 of them were injured. 5 anti-people political leaders, 34 police informers,
two betrayers of revolution and one people’s enemy were eliminated. These successes in guerrilla war helped to inculcate revolutionary enthusiasm and to contain the enemy offensive to an extent.
The Party committees held several political classes and military training camps to strengthen the PLGA forces. Efforts were made to provide primary understanding to them on the basic documents. Training is being imparted to the main, secondary and base forces of PLGA on various kinds of combat skills, technical skills and improvised weapons. Efforts are made to arm PLGA forces basing on local resources. Party committees, Military Commissions, Commands, Military Instructor Teams and Departments are playing the main role in this work. Party is making planned efforts to preserve PLGA forces and ancillary departments, to strengthen the weak units, to rebuild the affected units, build the necessary new units and to sustain and expand the movement. It is containing the disruptive actions of betrayers of the party and PLGA and is preserving the party, people and the movement.
The CC assessed in 2021 January that the several people’s movements going on in the country for the past five years shall develop into a countrywide ‘spate of people’s movement’. The rising people’s movements prove the assessment correct. Party daringly made constant efforts amidst fascist repression of the enemy to build agitation and propaganda of the oppressed classes and oppressed sections, to build the various Mass Organisations and to develop them through adopting plans in the respective areas. We attained certain level of relative development in building anti-imperialist, anti- comprador bureaucratic capitalist, anti-feudal class struggles. People are mobilising in thousands of numbers all over the country and in the revolutionary areas against corporatisation-militarisation (expansion of carpet security) and displacement. Our party has to take initiative to develop the political consciousness of the struggling people in all the areas.
Our party became part of the peasant struggle against the three Agrarian laws and corporatisation of agriculture that was centered in the capital city of the country for more than a year, to the extent possible. The militant struggle of the farmers with the help of workers, students, democratic
forces, the entire oppressed classes, sections and nationalities forced the Modi government to withdraw the three Agrarian laws. The success of the struggle provided a good experience for our party in the sphere of United Front.
There were several struggles against the acquisition of farmers’ lands, government lands and forest lands such as in Hasdeo, forcible displacement and devastation of environment for the proposed mines, projects and pro- corporate, anti-people infrastructure and National Parks of foreign Multi- National Companies, domestic comprador bureaucratic capitalist companies such as TATA, Adani, Ambani, Vedanta, Jindal, Mittal, ESSAR and various governments. There were protest demonstrations all over the country against state violence, for the withdrawal of lakhs of police forces and camps deployed for the protection of corporate companies, for the release of political prisoners imprisoned in jails in several conspiracy cases such as Bhima Koregaon and demanding the annulment of draconian laws such as the UAPA. Militant struggles took place for prolonged periods in the areas of revolutionary movement. Especially people are fighting for power of the tribal and oppressed people on ‘water-forest-land’, to implement the 5th and 6th schedules in the tribal areas, to implement the power of Gram Sabha, to demand autonomy for the indigenous-tribal areas, against the proposed amendments to the Forest Conservation Act-1980 that liquidate it, against indiscriminate drone attacks in tribal areas in the name of ‘elimination of Maoists’ and demanding ‘stop massacres in Bastar’, ‘punish the responsible police officers’. Especially the tribal people of Dandakaranya formed a United forum in the leadership of which militant struggle is going on for the past one year against police camps, the atrocities and massacres on the tribal people that started in Silinger on the border of South Bastar’s Sukma-Bijapur districts and extended to over 15 other places all over the Special Zone. The movement in solidarity to this struggle expanded all over Chhattisgarh and also in the country and in the world and this stands as a model. Tribal people of Telangana are fighting for preserving their podu lands for a long time. People of forest areas fought against the attacks of the forest officers. Party led struggles to seize forest lands and waste lands in certain areas. It mobilised
people on farmers’ problems. In the process it made efforts to propagate the politics of seizure of political power through armed struggle among the people.
Party extended support to the strikes and bandhs of organised and unorganised workers, employees, teachers, Anganvadi employees, migrant- displaced workers and youth and others against the four anti-working class codes that the Modi government brought forth and the privatisation of banks, Railways, LIC, mines, steel plants and the entire public sector enterprises and companies. It declared its support to the struggle going on in the leadership of United Action forum against the proposed Silver line semi-High speed Railway corridor in Kozhikode district of Kerala. People are preparing for struggle against the proposed hydro-electric project in Navarangpur district of Odisha on River Tel. Women are not only taking part in all these struggles but are militant in all the struggles against the brutal atrocities on them. They came on to the roads and took up militant struggle in protest to the incident in which a school teacher Mamita Mehar of Raigarh district of Odisha was killed and her dead body buried. In another case a bishop was found not guilty by the court in a rape case on a nun in Kerala and other such issues. People held demonstrations in many areas against the problems of daily life, especially against the Russian aggression on Ukraine and against the sky rocketing prices.
There are several struggles against the atrocities and massacres of the Brahmanic Hindutva forces on religious minorities, especially Muslims, Christians, tribal and Dalit people, women, students and intellectuals. Poor people living below the poverty line in the country are fighting for their right to food. Human rights organisations, social activists, prominent Professors, historians, experts of various sectors and social researchers in several towns are expressing protest with the demand for ‘preservation of democracy’. They are protesting the cruel repression unleashed by the state in the name of ‘urban Naxal’ on the voices that question its misdeeds. Students-youth- teachers are mobilising in several struggles against the new National Education Policy that saffronises and corporatises the education sector, demanding right to universal education, against online education and
demanding solution to the rising problem of unemployment. The unemployed youth of the country rebelled against the ‘Agnipath’ scheme of the Hindutva Modi government to saffronise and casualise the Indian Army.
Party not only extended support to several such struggles but also made efforts to participate in and lead them. In the process several Mass Organisations working in the leadership of the party held Conferences in many states and adopted the future tasks. They consolidated politically and organisationally. Various open and secret Mass Organisations and United Action forums are increasingly formed and are working. Party is making efforts to develop the necessary study and the specialisation to lead the oppressed classes, sections and nationalities according to their aspirations. Constructive effort is going on regarding farmers’ problems.
Organs of revolutionary people’s state power are working at the village, area and district levels in places of intensive guerrilla war in the leadership of the party and are taking up people’s state power in the primary level. Revolutionary people are preserving these people’s governments and are formulating their future. Those are placing alternate model of development in the embryonic stage. People of several villages acted on the call of the party to boycott the panchayat elections in Jharkhand and Odisha and did not vote demanding a solution to people’s problems. They are getting organised towards the alternative revolutionary state power.
Although there is little relaxation in the economic depression that is going on since 2008 in the international plane, imperialist financial and economic crisis is going on intensifying. Imperialists are implementing globalisation policies in order to overcome the crisis and to divide and exploit the world as per their balance of forces. There is an unprecedented rise in the differences between the rich and the poor. The backward Asian, African and Latin American countries became absolutely dependent countries.
In addition to the external and internal conflicts environment also fell in crisis leading to natural calamities and deadly diseases like COVID in several backward countries such as Somalia, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan. Prices doubled. Due to these reasons, 34.5 crores of poor people
in the world are suffering from hunger and diseases. Due to imperialist sponsored globalisation policies, comprador exploitive rulers are destroying the few welfare systems that are left over. A large number of poor people are committing suicides in desperate condition. Around 8,500 children are dying every day due to lack of nutritional diet. According to an assessment, starvation deaths shall be unprecedentedly high since 1960s in 2022-23. While the income of the poor is receding, the prices of essential commodities are steeply rising.
The Ukraine war intensified these crises. It is pushing the economies of several countries into further crisis. Economic crisis is intensifying all over the world with the thousands of sanctions of the US and European countries on Russia in their imperialist interests and due to the disruption of supply chain of several important products, raw material and food material. Russia already fell in inflation. In US too, inflation was record high in the past 41 years. The world is going further into the mire of food crisis. Unemployment is on the rise. While the imperialists and comprador exploiters are minting profits from the war in Ukraine, crores of oppressed people are dying due to food crisis, lakhs due to displacement and lakhs due to starvation deaths. Twenty lakh people of all oppressed classes, all religions and nationalities, especially women came on to the streets and fought for months against the comprador rulers in Sri Lanka that fell in economic crisis. Workers made two General strikes. The Army, police and the judiciary came to a standstill. None of these was ready to apply force on the agitating people. Imperialist countries talked the least towards the economic and social crisis in the meetings of BRICS, G7 and NATO held in 2022 June. This further intensified the contradiction between imperialism and oppressed nationalities and people. People’s struggles are mounting against imperialists and comprador ruling classes in the backward countries. This is showing a large impact on the working class, migrant people, non-white people and also on the middle classes in the imperialist-capitalist countries. Various oppressed sections including workers of these countries are taking up militant strikes.
The true character of the fascist policies of the President of the US, Biden to regain its lost hegemony on the world came to light in the past two
years. There is severe protest from the people of the US against the policies. Of late, women came out in severe protest to the annulment of right to abortion by the Supreme Court of the country. The US murdered the leader of Al Qaeda Ayman al-Zawahiri through drone missiles in Afghanistan. The US is continuing its war economy as a part of its world hegemonic geographical political strategy and is coordinating those with NATO centring in Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. The US played an important role in intensifying the war in Ukraine. Cold war started once again between the imperialists with the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine. As a part of its Indo-Pacific strategy, the US sent its spokesperson and woman speaker of people’s representative assembly Nancy Pelosi on a tour to Switzerland, Taiwan, Japan and other countries. It thus instigated China. It did not heed to the strong opposition of China to her tour. As a result the situation around Taiwan island became tense with war manoeuvres of the US and Chinese armies. There is a worldwide war atmosphere with the US trying to reorganise basing on alliances such as NATO, QUAD and AUKUS and Russia and China contending in every sector.
Due to the globalisation polices taken up by Hindutva fascist Modi government, the agent of the imperialists in our country, the value of rupee fell to 79.65 per dollar. The country is tumbling deep into the mire of loans. While the total loan of the country was Rs.55 lakh crores in 2014, it reached Rs. 135 lakh crores in the eight year bankrupt rule of Modi. It means they have been making loans of Rs. 83,000 crores every month. The government is going to take a loan of another Rs.16.61 lakh crores this year. The fall of rupee is going to lead to further loans. One third of the loans are to be repaid in the coming 9 months. Foreign exchange of our country decreased to a minimum in a period of 15 months by 2022 July to 571.56 billion dollars. Therefore new loans have to be borrowed to repay the loans or else the government properties have to be sold. 8.2 percent funds of the budget are already being spent on payment of interests on loans now. We see that the Modi government opened up a ‘loan burdened India’ and ‘dependent India’ while reciting about ‘Atmanirbhar (self-reliant) India’. Modi government paid Rs.2.02 lakh crore rupees to the big capitalists and Rs.10.75 lakh crore rupees
in lieu of the loans that they did not repay, in 2021 alone. This makes clear as to whose pockets the Modi government is filling.
In Modi’s governance trade deficit rose to a worrisome level due to more expenditure on imports than the income from exports. With this, the burden of taxes rose on ordinary people. The international market is witnessing a bizarre rise in prices of crude oil with the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine. The prices of essential commodities are going sky high. Prices of fertilisers, pesticides and agriculture machinery rose thus increasing the cost of agriculture. Inflation is beyond 15 percent. India is in low level in all the vital economic indices. There is no rise in the growth rate of retail for the past eight years. Unemployment rose considerably. The central banks of the US and European countries recently increased interest rates. Foreign investments are going out of our country due to distrust in the growth of Indian economy. Demand for goods must rise in the market if the growth rate has to increase. Demand would rise only with a rise in the purchasing power of the people. For this purpose the problem of unemployment has to be solved. Wages must be increased. Taxes must be reduced. This is lacking in our country at present.
According to the Centre for Science and Environment Report-2022, 71 percent of the Indian people are not able to have minimum nutrition (such as food grains, proteins, vegetables and fruits). As a result 17 lakh people are dying every year. There are cuts in welfare schemes. With the governments stepping out of its responsibility of health and education and corporate enterprises gaining hold on them, both the sectors are at loss. These are exploiting people’s money to the corporate hospitals in the name of treatment. Nearly 7.8 crores of houses of the country lack electricity. 33 percent of the population do not have an income of at least 80 rupees. India is in the lower most 150th place of hunger index in the world. It is in the 142nd place in human development index and in the 139th place in happiness index. The Universities of our country are in the lower ranks among those of the world. Indian Constitution states that no citizen of the country must suffer from poverty and hunger and that everyone must have equal opportunities. Directive principles state that it is the responsibility of the government to see
that wealth does not accumulate at one point. But the reality is totally on the contrary.
Due to the globalisation policies adopted by the exploitive governments for the past three decades, the rich are becoming richer and the poor poorer. 77 percent of the wealth of the country is with 10 percent rich people. A recent report from OXFAM revealed that two persons of the country are going below the poverty line per second in the country. This amounts to
6.3 crores per year. Nearly 18 to 20 crore people of the country fell below the poverty line with loss of employment during the Corona crisis created by the imperialists, due to bankruptcy in trade, intensification of Agrarian crisis and other such reasons. At the same time, the richest person of the country Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani and many industrialists minted money. This is the actual picture of our country said to be the biggest democracy in the world.
The fascist policies of the Modi government are giving further hold to the domestic and foreign corporate companies in all sectors. The eight year rule of Modi either annulled 1800 Acts that are in the way of the corporate companies or amended the Acts in favour of the capitalists. Steel, electricity, coal, digital contracts, High Ways, Railways, Airports, Ports, Public sector enterprises, natural resources, lakhs of crores of subsidies, waiver of bank loans and all such are given to the Multi-National Companies and comprador capitalist giants such as Adani and Ambani in the country. It either shrunk or withdrew the organised sector in all the sectors and casualisation became the ordinary policy.
Socio-economic conditions are degenerating due to intensified economic crisis in the international and domestic planes. People are highly discontent of which the comprador Hindutva rulers are well aware. Therefore their leader Modi is applying all kinds of tricks to deceive the people. He is making false promises about ‘development’. He is playing magic about the ‘prosperity of the country’ in order to drip them in illusions, to instigate Hindutva fascism and national chauvinism and make them socially useless. In fact the policies of Modi government are absolutely against the people and the country and in favour of the imperialist banks, Multi-National
Corporations, big comprador bureaucratic capitalists and big landlords. These policies further degenerated the conditions of workers, farmers, middle classes and oppressed social sections.
Utmost bureaucratic, fascist Acts are being brought forth in the rule of Brahmanic Hindutva forces in the leadership of Modi. Cruel repression is unleashed on various toiling masses and democratic and human rights movements. There are constant arrests and false encounters. Suppression of democratic rights has become an ordinary feature in the country. In addition to our party, the Revolutionary Mass Organisations, oppressed classes, people’s communities, oppressed nationalities and parliamentary opposition parties are also targeted. 118 activists were brutally murdered in Kashmir alone in 2022. Apart from the central and the state governments of BJP rule, Congress, Trinamool Congress, BJP, Janatadal (U), TRS, Y. Raja Shekhara Reddy Congress, DMK, JMM and the state governments where revisionist alliance is in power in the leadership of CPM are also competing to implement fascism. So, 76 percent of the prisoners in the country are languishing in jails for years together. In Jharkhand, SAC member Comrade Praveer was pronounced death by hanging. In Bihar five tribal and farmer comrades were given the same which the High Court later turned into life imprisonment. The Supreme Court fined a Gandhian social worker Himanshu Kumar who fought for justice for tribal people in a case where 10 people were killed by the armed forces in Gompad of Dandakaranya with Rs. 5 lakhs. The court released 121 tribal people in jail for the past five years in Burkapal case but did not pay compensation for imprisoning them. The court also did not impose fine on the police officers responsible for their imprisonment on false case. This is the class justice that the courts of exploitive classes implement.
Hindutva rulers have been holding grand propaganda campaigns, meetings and seminars for the past one year spending thousands of crores of rupees in the name of ‘Azadi Ka Amrut Mahotsav’ on the occasion of 75th ‘Independence’ Anniversary of the country. In fact it is 75 years for the transfer of power from the British to the comprador capitalists and landlords on 15th August 1947. But none of the fundamental problems of the people was solved until now. There is no big change in the lives of the people. The number
of poor people suffering from poverty, hunger deaths and those below the poverty line is increasing. As a result of imperialist corporatisation, imperialist sponsored manipulative industrial and agrarian polices, the country became totally dependent. The governments are trying to keep the people in illusions showing the bubble of development taking place through imperialist corporatisation. In fact, the counter-revolutionary alliance of imperialism, comprador bureaucratic capitalist and big landlord classes is in the way of development of forces of production in the country. It is a big hurdle for stable development of the country. This led the industrial and agriculture sectors into the mire of crisis. Farmers are selling away their lands and turning into tenant farmers or farm labourers. They are migrating to other places when no daily labour is available. Multi-National Companies and comprador capitalists are introducing technologies that deprive employment in different industries and shrinking the organised sector. This deprived the workers and employees of security of employment. The rights that the workers achieved through struggle were trampled. Fascist offensive of the government armed forces is on the rise on people in struggle. The country is being militarised. There is no fundamental freedom and independence in this country said to be the biggest democracy in the world. Right to speak, right to meet, to form an organisation, to protest, to education, to food, to employment, to residence and even right to live do not exist. The Acts and directive principles of Constitution are not bothered. Goebbels Modi untiringly propagates showing the 3 trillion dollars of Gross National Product gained basing on technologies that increase unemployment and poverty as the development of the country. If the development was true, why do the people’s lives turn terrible with lack of food, shelter, clothing, drinking water, education, health, land, irrigation and employment? Why are crores of people deprived of food even once a day? Why are there no kind of political rights including the right to protest in this ‘democratic’ country?
In Modi’s view, development is nothing but to increase imperialist neo-colonial exploitation and comprador capitalist, feudal exploitation. Therefore, inviting ‘new India’ that the Hindutva rulers in the leadership of Modi are speaking of as a part of ‘Azadi Ka Amrut Mahotsav’ is to hand over
the country to imperialist Multi-National Companies. It means to find the big murderers and corrupt officials not guilty and protect them. It means to crush the voice of prominent people’s leaders and indefinitely imprison them. The innocent shall be found guilty. It will be a crime to take up social activities, to fight for human rights and to speak truth. The lives of Muslims, tribal, Dalit people and women shall have no value. Suffocating the tribal people’s lives who cannot live without hills and forests to hand over the necessary land, electricity, valuable metallic elements, water and timber to the imperialist and comprador corporate masters will be justified. Attacks, harassment, tortures and taking the lives of the innocent shall continue. This is the actual character of ‘new India’. ‘Agnipath’ scheme that saffronises and fascises Indian Armies had been adopted to achieve new India. The four lions cruelly stretching its fangs being fixed on the top of the new Parliament building built by TATA Company as a part of the Central Vista project of the government shall become an indication of this fascist offensive. Its mouths reveal the idea to turn the country into a land of war mongers. Oppressed people, sections and nationalities can breathe freely through emancipating the semi-colonial, semi- feudal India from the Hindutva comprador ruling classes that are enslaved to the imperialist neo-colonialists. Only then genuine new India, the people’s democratic India, the New Democratic India shall come into being.
The various oppressed classes, sections and nationalities shall continue to make class struggle, democratic struggles, nationality liberation struggles and revolutions as long as exploitation, oppression, suppression and discrimination continue. The ruling classes and their state instigate the people to rebel by making massacres, atrocities and insulting them. Therefore the ruling classes or their state can never permanently stop revolutions. Our party must have the initiative to search for paths to overcome the unfavourable aspects by totally utilising the present favourable objective conditions with a Marxist understanding and unwavering confidence in social revolutions. We must realise the particular favourable aspect in each place. In order to withstand the enemy offensive, we have to efficiently utilise the favourable conditions, rectify the weaknesses and mistakes and have the initiative. We
must enlighten the people politically and develop class struggles and people’s struggles. Marx and Engels handed over the revolutionary theory of ‘Marxism’ to the world proletariat and the toiling masses of all the countries. Lenin and Stalin built the Bolshevik party invincible and steeled, accomplished Socialist revolution and established Socialist state. Mao proved how to serve the people, how to establish the New Democratic State-Socialism and how to make Cultural Revolution to preserve it. Communist party leadership must make large scale mass work in order to establish close relations with the people and create flames of class struggle. Without enlightening the people of oppressed classes, sections and nationalities politically and without igniting the flames of class struggle, the Party-PLGA-United Front shall not strengthen. Revolution shall not be successful. International proletarian tasks shall not be fulfilled militantly. Without people’s retaliation-armed retaliation and People’s War according to the aspirations of the people, people’s mobilisation and struggles and against the enemy offensive, we cannot preserve any of the people’s victories. We can accomplish New Democratic Revolution with the axle of Armed Agrarian Revolution only by destructing the semi-colonial, semi- feudal society through Protracted People’s War. Only thus we can establish New Democratic India without exploitation, oppression, suppression and discrimination. Let us step forth firmly with this understanding and self- confidence!
Revolutionary GreetingsCentralCommittee
Writers, Artists, Human Rights Activists and Well-known Personalities. Demand Protection of Human Rights and Livelihood of the Local Villagers of Dhinkia, Odisha
Press Release 16 Sep 2022
The South Korean Company POSCO backed out from Odisha due to a long struggle of the local communities. However, the Odisha state Government is allowing Jindal to take over the lands and livelihood of the same local villagers. The struggle for the protection of local resources, livelihood, human rights and environment is going on.
The state Government has unleashed severe repressive methods on the activists and local villagers, instead of solving the problems of people. The Jindal-POSCO Pratirodh Committee, which is spearheading the struggle of the local communities against such severe repression has demanded to release all prisoners immediately and withdrawal of Jindhal, the company which is taking over their lands.
In this context, many writers, artists, human rights activists, academicians, organisations and many well known personalities have demanded withdrawal of Jindhal, protection of the lands and environment of the local villagers and release of the activist prisoners from jail, through a petition to the President of India. They have appealed to the civil society to widen this campaign by circulating the petition and endorsing the same.
The petition can be endorsed through the following link: https://www.change.org/IStandWithDhinkia
We also appeal to you to forward this petition to your contacts and networks in social media requesting for further endorsements.
Petition:
To,
Hon’ble Draupadi Murmu,
President of India.
Respected Madam,
We, the following human rights activists, artists, writers, people’s movements, academicians, cultural personalities, and social organizations, would like to bring to your kind notice the oppression let loose by the Government of Odisha on the people of Dhinkia of Odisha since the last 17 years. This is by holding the sword of displacement almost continually over their heads, by harassing them for protesting, by denying them right to peaceful existence and untroubled perusal of their lives which any govt. is duty bound to ensure to citizens. The Odisha Govt. is blatantly violating their democratic and human rights, including making large scale arrests. There is incarceration of local activists in jail on trumped up charges, restrictions on the right of village people to peacefully protest against their threatened displacement while allowing free movement of and threats to local people by goons of companies. The following are a few key points which are elaborated with the facts.
In 2005, the South Korean steel-making company POSCO was allowed by the State Govt. (BJD) & Central Government (UPA) – despite the unwillingness of the villagers of Dhinkia and nearby locality – to establish its project by taking over their lands. The local cultivation is betel vines, which ensured prosperity and contentment to the local peasantry and big revenue to the Govt. by export of the leaves.The State Government is still run by Mr. Naveen Pattnaik, leader of the ruling party the BJD, which was ruling the state at that time also. The Odisha state Government deployed its state agencies to grab the land forcefully from the native villagers.To safeguard their ages long possession (of more than 100 years) over the lands and traditional livelihood, the villagers started protesting against the proposed project in masses under the banner of POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS).
The State Government being intolerant & furious due to the peaceful yet strong protest against the proposed project, misused its law enforcement agencies against its own people by framing false charges and thus registering more than 200 FIRs which are still pending against hundreds of villagers of Dhinkia for the anti POSCO movement. The conspiracy of the administration, Company & its goons and police brutality then, resulted in the loss of 5 precious lives from Dhinkia Panchayat. Even in the aftermath, the local people remained deeply traumatized, leading even to suicides.
Meanwhile, in the forcibly acquired areas, betel vines, fish ponds, paddy fields were destroyed and other traditional livelihoods were lost. However the protest lasted more than 8 years and ultimately POSCO backed out. People hoped this would bring back long awaited harmony in that area.
But again the State Government (BJD) allowed another project from a company named Jindal Steel Works (JSW). This time, in 2019, there was even more aggression against the unwillingness of the local people. With the same approach by the state Government led by the same Chief Minister Mr. Naveen Pattnaik, there was forceful acquisition of land using state agencies. However this time the approach of the police was very rough and they didn’t spare even women, children and the elderly. The worst police action, which the entire world witnessed, was on 14th January 2022. It was broadcast and published in all forms of news all over the world. The visuals were so disturbing that it baffled the entire country.
Moreover the Governments, both the State (BJD) and the Central (BJP/NDA), ignored the anomalies in the Report provided by JSW to the Environmental Ministry and the Ministry approved the Environmental Clearance ignoring those anomalies. In the process of acquiring the land, so far almost 100 police cases have been registered since 2020, 50-60 people arrested and few released later on bail, though the leader of the Jindal-POSCO Pratirodh Committee (JPPC) Mr. Debendra Swain has been kept in prison since Jan. 14th 2022 along with some other protestors. The protest and its movement have been subjected to police brutality and inhuman torture by Government agencies. Dhinkia village and other nearby villages have already been severely affected due to effects of rapid industrialization in Paradip by either establishment of new industries or upgradation of the existing industries. These effects have already caused loss of lives and livelihoods of people of nearby villages due to exposure to natural disasters caused by environmental & climate degradation and injustice.
Needless to say that the present invasion of Jindal on the resources of the local communities is also a blatant violation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), since this law recognizes the rights of the local communities and other forest dwellers.
In this context, we appeal to you to intervene so that the protests of Dhinkia villagers to save their Land, Lives & Livelihoods are considered legitimate and to ensure that the Governments (both Union & State) act immediately. We therefore request you to take the following steps immediately for the welfare of the local people, environment and precious human rights of the local villagers.
With Regards,
List of Initial Signatories:
13, Sunlam, President, Madhya Pradesh Kisan Sangarsh Samiti (MPKSS)
15, Maj Gen Dr. Sudhir Vombadkare, (Retd)
17, N.D.Pancholi