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Thirty Years of Naxalbari
 
 

September 2004
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Editorial

Rejoinder

Cover Feature/Human Rights

Commentary

Special Reports

Reports

All India Cadre Convention

Immortal Glory to Paliganj Martyrs

 

All India Cadre Convention at Bhubneshwar

The New Situation and our Urgent Tasks

Let us Renew our Communist Pledges!
Let us Rise to the Occasion!

 

 
  Editorial
 

PWG's War against People's Leaders

It was around midnight of 18 August. Lights had just been switched off at the Paliganj subdivisional office of the CPI(ML). Five comrades, all members of the Paliganj Dulhinbazar Area Committee (the two adjacent blocks that make up the Paliganj Assembly segment of Patna district in Bihar ), were present at the office. They included Comrade Rajeshwar Mochi, pramukh of Dulhinbazar block panchayat and president of the Patna district unit of All India Agricultural Labour Association, Comrade Jagdev Ram, local Party organiser, Mandeep Goswami, mukhiya of Jarkha panchayat of Paliganj block, Comrade Shivdaani Yadav, office secretary and Comrade Baleshwar Manjhi, secretary of the Paliganj Block Committee of AIALA.
Full text

  REJOINDER
 

The Emerging Politics of the People's War Group

Negotiating with the State and Waging War on Revolution

The air is thick with reports of negotiations between the Congress government of Andhra Pradesh and the People's War Group. While elections are still an official anathema to the boycottist PWG, negotiations with the state are turning out to be quite a standard fare in its repertoire. This is the third time the group is traversing the negotiation road in Andhra Pradesh. It had its first foray into the world of parleys with the state at the time of Chenna Reddy government in the early 1990s and then it had another go more recently with the now routed Chandrababu Naidu government.
Full text

  Cover Feature / Human Rights
 

Draconian Laws, Including Ghosts of Lapsed Laws Haunt Our Democracy

Citizens Speak Out Against TADA, POTA and AFSPA

It came as a shock to the citizens of the country that in spite of the tall claims of not having implemented the draconian POTA in Bihar , the government, administration and police in the state have been using the lapsed law TADA, to imprison and victimise political activists and agrarian poor. These violations could be carried out because the government did not withdraw the TADA cases after it lapsed but instead allowed the states to apply their own discretion. This left ample scope for the rich and the powerful to escape while allowing the police and administration to crackdown upon the asserting poor and those organising them.
Full text

 

Jan Sunwai in Patna

On Cases of TADA Against Agrarian Labourers in Bihar

The Akhil Bhartiya Khet Mazdoor Sabha initiated a Jan Sunwai on the TADA cases imposed on landless and poor agrarian labourers and peasants in Bihar . This ‘People's Tribunal' was held at Ravindra Bhawan, Patna on 12 August 2004 . In a hall packed with renowned citizens, political and social activists, jurists and intellectuals, the proceedings went on for four hours, at the end of which the Jury held these TADA cases to be completely fake, driven by the intent of crushing the awakening and political assertion of agrarian labourers and poor peasants. Full text

 

Manipur Burning

Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act and Centre's Apathy

The people of Manipur are on the streets against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (1958), a draconian Law that has spelt repression in Kashmir and several areas of the North East for almost 50 years. The current wave of protest was sparked off by the gruesome custodial rape and killing of Manorama Devi. Now a student leader Pebam Chittaranjan, who immolated himself, is another martyr of this movement, whose death only fanned the flames of protest higher. Full text

 

Floods in Bihar

Fury of Floods, Farce of Relief

Bihar is one of the most flood-affected states of India . According to the report of the National Commission on Floods (1980), 16.5% of the total flood-affected area of the country is located in Bihar . According to recent estimates (i.e., after the heavy floods of 1987), 56.5% of the flood-affected people in the country belong to Bihar . Of this, 76% reside in North Bihar , which has a population of about 40.6 million (1991 census) with a population density of 745 per sq. km. Full text

Fact Finding team's Report

Darbhanga Firing on Flood Victims

A CPI(ML) investigation team went to Darbhanga on 17 August to enquire into an incident of police firing the previous day on people protesting against scams in flood relief distribution at Manigacchi village in Darbhanga. The team was led by Leader of the CPIML) Legislative Party and PB Member Comrade Ramnaresh Ram.

Manigacchi is part of the Ujan Panchayat, which has a population of about 30,000. The team found that when the first lot of relief supplies (polythene, candles, matches, grains) reached, no one got any of it because a member of the Ujan Panchayat, RJD leader Ramsharan Lal, along with RJD strongmen Pushkar Jha, Mohd. Ashfaq and others, had appropriated all of it. Full text

  Commentary
 

Success or Surrender?

Contrary to all the hype in the official press regarding the so-called “success” achieved at the WTO meet by our Commerce Minister Kamal Nath who claimed that “India has gained very significantly in this framework”, the fact is that the recently concluded agreement in Geneva in July has come up with a package of ‘framework' which removes with one go all the gains accrued to the poor and developing countries at Seattle and Cancun. Full text

  Special Reports
 

Rural Starvation, Suicides Scripted by Liberalization

Farmers' Suicides In Kerala

Starvation Deaths in Melghat of Maharashtra

Starvation in West Bengal

  Reports
 

New Land Struggles in Andhra Pradesh

Agrarian Labour Leaders Booked Under Gangster Act in Lakhimpur

Brutal lathicharge over AICCTU and RYA activists at Mughalsarai

Bhagat Singh Brigade Launched in Pune

Land Struggles in Orissa

Students and Youth March to Parliament during Budget Session

AIPWA State Conference, Bihar

  All India Cadre Convention
 

All India Cadre Convention at Bhuvaneshwar

Commemorating 30 th Anniversary of Party Reorganisation, an All India Cadre Convention was held at Nagbhushan Bhawan, Bhuvaneshwar on 28 and 29 July 2004 . Participants in the Convention included more than 250 comrades including members of the Party's Central Committee, State Committees and State Leading Teams. At this occasion the Party General Secretary Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya presented a keynote address on behalf of the Central Committee under the title “The New Situation and Our Urgent Tasks”. The text of the keynote address is being reproduced here. A lively discussion followed, in which several representatives from all the States/UTs took part. Earlier, a 7 member presidium comprising Comrades Ram Naresh Ram, Kartik Pal, Kshitish Biswal, Kumudini Pati, N. Murthy, Jayanta Rongpi and Saroj Chaube conducted the proceedings, assisted by a minutes taking team. The Conference was inaugurated by senior Polit Bureau member Comrade Swadesh Bhattacharya (also reproduced here in a slightly abridged version).

The New Situation and our Urgent Tasks

Let us Renew our Communist Pledges!
Let us Rise to the Occasion!