A word of caution for Indian Revolutionary cadres In the end of 2006 Math Rothwell Soon as we entered my room he to track him and alert our comrades. (a former RCP-USA) from Chicago, relaxed on my bed saying I am rather He sent a note praising my jail US E-Mailed me about one Harsh very tired. A little later he attended a struggle for freedom to be published Takor from India met him and few calls on his mobile. Then he went in People’s March. Again I kept it cautioned me in dealing with him. I down to STD booth and made a call aside. Again he sent a DD for Rs enquired with many of our comrades and returned. He said he is going back 50,000=00 He promptly asked for a and the response was that he has a lot to Trivandrum. He never discussed receipt. In August 2011 he E-Mailed of money to move around. politics. me enquiring about the print version In the first week of June 2007 this He took some books worth Rs and said was there any financial Harsh Takor E-Mailed me that he 600=00 and said he don’t have cash problems. wished to meet me at my place in and send Money Order. Sende During my recent stay in Sept 2011 Ernakulam in the early second week Rajamouli was abducted from Kollam for collecting subscription dues and of June. Then I got a call on my mobile and killed in Anantapur in AP in June fund raising some of our comrades in stating that he had reached Trivandrum 2007. Delhi referred his name. I shot back and asked me to meet him at He did send three money orders and told them he is a spy. If he gives Trivandrum. I told him that I do not for Rs 14,000=00 I was surprised. money take it. Don’t trust him. know who you are and told him that if Many Professors of Delhi University Of late an article appeared in he wished to meet me he can very well used to say “I can’t send money order Frontier Sept – Oct 2011 Mao Thought meet me at Ernakulam. He agreed for or cheque to you. Take cash when and International Communist the next day and when I first received you meet me”. Dr Binayak Sen told Movement by him. Then came Com him his first uttering was “I am a the same thing. I told Binayak “You Kishenji’s killing November 2011. sportsman, I swam the English are the national Vice President of Dear Comrades Indian Channel”. While traveling in the bus he PUCL. Take my complementary Revolutionary Movement is passing slowly started enquiring about student copy”. The whole world knows that through a very critical stage. Organizations. I told him my only job one of the exhibits produced by the More than half of Central is Editing, Printing & Publishing police in Binayak’s case was a copy Committee & Politburo Members have People’s March and nothing else and of People’s March to prove that he is fallen Martyrs or captured and have no knowledge of anything else. a Maoist. I wondered “Is he a brave- languishing in jails during the past Then I asked him who he is and what heart or a spy?” A few months later decade. For a revolutionary a single are all his works. As no direct replies he sent a DD for Rs 50,000=00. He mistake is an end of him/her. The were forthcoming I bluntly told him on wanted a receipt. I wondered. Sent him enemy assisted by MOSSAD/FBI is my way to my room “You are a globe a cash receipt. Then he wrote an article using most advanced modern trotter. Isn’t it? Where from you get to be published in People’s March. I technology to track down and eliminate money to move around? You have no kept aside his article. Then my arrest the top leadership. other job. What for you are moving in December 2007 and my struggle around? Tell me what all you have and release in February 2008. The People’s March calls upon the contributed for the revolution”. We as police interrogation was only linked revolutionary cadres to maximise their revolutionaries spend every pie with source of funds for People’s vigil to defend and protect the lives of carefully. He was walking 10 paces March. leaders. behind me. I told him you are 20 years During my stay in Delhi in August Editor younger to me. I really doubt whether 2009 I informed our comrades all this PM you swam the English Channel. PEOPLE’S MARCH Oct-Nov-Dec 2011 3 1995-2010, more than a quarter of a million Indian farmers have committed suicide. P.Sainath Five States did manage a significant decline in the average has happened in that region is best understood by still number of farm suicides between 2003 and 2010. However, treating them as one unit in terms of data. They show a rise more States have reported increases over the same period. of 525 in the second eight years. The television story was genuine and sensitive. At least But comparing the two eight-year periods doesn’t work 90 farmers, it said, had committed suicide in two months in for the smallest States with very few farm suicides. For Andhra Pradesh. These were cotton growers. Actually, last instance, Manipur’s average for 1995-2002 was one farm year, Andhra farmers killed themselves at the rate of 210 suicide. It was two during 2003-10, a massive ‘increase’ each month on average, according to the National Crime in percentage terms — and quite meaningless. However, Records Bureau. But it is heartening that somebody took among small States that have seen farm suicides, Tripura note of what’s going on. The more so when dishonest brought down its annual average by 90 in the second half, bureaucrats feed gullible sections of the press awful crud a drop of 78 per cent. on farm suicides being at ‘a 15-year low.’ NCRB data show The decline Kerala has managed (-221) is in many ways Andhra Pradesh has seen the second worst increase in farm the most significant one. Kerala is perhaps India’s most suicides among all States (after Maharashtra) over the last globalize economy. Its agriculture is hugely cash crop-based eight years for which data exist. and fragile at the best of times. Cash crop prices are highly However, five States did manage a significant decline in volatile, and often rigged by powerful corporations at the the average number of farm suicides each year between global level. This makes Kerala more vulnerable to price 2003 and 2010. Andhra Pradesh was not amongst them. shocks than any other State in India. In the early years of Of those who did, only Karnataka is amongst the worst the last decade, for instance, vanilla fetched Kerala farmers five States which account for nearly two-thirds of farm prices of up to Rs. 4,000 a kilogram. It then crashed to suicides in the country. On average, 2,259 farmers killed under Rs. 80 a kg or less (where it remains), wrecking themselves each year in Karnataka between 1995 and 2002. farmers who had invested huge amounts of (borrowed) In the next eight-year period, that figure was 2,123 — a fall money in its cultivation. Most plunged into debt, several of 136 in yearly average. But the fall is fragile, and the last committed suicide in despair. two years 2009 and 2010 have seen the State’s numbers Price shocks have also hit Kerala in coffee, pepper, and rising again. And Karnataka remains the second worst State other cash crops into which the State is deeply locked. for farm suicides (in absolute numbers) after Maharashtra. The price of coffee, for instance, is controlled by about It has seen 35,053 farmers kill themselves since 1995, four major global corporations. These companies always according to the NCRB. The NCRB data on farm suicides now cover 16 years. Let’s divide that into two halves of eight years each. By comparing the first half (1995-2002) with the second (2003- State Farm suicides Difference 10), we can figure out whether things are getting better or Annual Average (2nd Avg- worse in the major States. Ist Avg) What qualifies as a significant decline? That’s when a Andhra Pradesh15902301+711 State’s yearly average in the second eight years is at least Assam155291+135 100 farm suicides less than in the first eight-year period. Karnataka22592123-136 Tamil Nadu (-126) and Uttar Pradesh (-109) are two others Kerala12921071-221 in this bracket. But there’s better. Kerala managed a drop MP +Chhattisgarh23042829+525 of 221. And West Bengal pulled off the biggest decline among all States. Its 2003-10 average is 436 lower than its Maharashtra25083802+1294 figure for 1995-2002. Tamil Nadu992866-126 Except Karnataka, all the Big 5 States show terrible Uttar Pradesh640531-109 upward spikes in their 2003-10 annual averages. The yearly West Bengal1426990-436 average of farm suicides in Andhra Pradesh in this period The table only includes States whose annual averages have risen or fallen was 711 higher than it was in 1995-02. In Maharashtra, the by over 100 farm suicides between the two periods. It also treats Madhya figure was 1,294 higher. Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh Pradesh and Chattisgarh as one unit for data purposes.