Maoist Information Bulletin - 38

January - June 2019

Editorial ..... 2 Homage to Martyrs ..... 4 CC Message on the 14th Party Formation Day ..... 6 CMC Message on the 18th Anniversary of the PLGA ..... 15 News from the Battlefield ..... 22 Voices against War on People ..... 25 People’s Struggles ..... 34 News from Behind the Bars ..... 42 News from the Counter-revolutionary Camp ..... 49 Pages from International Communist Movement ..... 55 Statements of CPI(Maoist) ..... 59

Central Committee Communist Party of (Maoist) Editorial

Unite to beat back and defeat the fresh wave of Brahmanical Hindu-fascist offensive

The intensity of the Brahmanical Hindu- middle bourgeoisie – who are being squeezed fascist offensive against the people and their more and more with every passing day through democratic movements has grown in the anti-people legislations and government second half of 2018. -led NDA decisions in the interest of imperialists, government at the centre and the BJP-ruled comprador bureaucratic capitalists and feudal state governments are unleashing a fresh wave forces. of state and saffron terror throughout the A glimpse of this fascist onslaught on the length and breadth of the country. This is an masses in the last six months could be seen in all-round attack of - the form of attempted dilution of the SC/ST encompassing the political, economic, social (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the persecution and cultural spheres with Modi-Shah-Bhagwat of Adivasis involved in Patthalgarhi ruling clique as its spearhead. Particularly with movement, the ruthless suppression of the an eye on the parliamentary elections that are Kashmir national liberation movement under due in mid-2019 and the assembly elections by ‘Operation All Out’, and last but not the least, the end of 2018, BJP and other RSS-affiliates the growing attacks on the countrywide are making all efforts to further polarise the revolutionary movement led by CPI(Maoist) country on communal lines by targeting mainly as per the reactionary ‘Samadhan’ strategic the Muslims and drumming up national- offensive with the aim of wiping it out by 2022. chauvinist sentiments by threatening Pakistan. The large-scale massacre of revolutionary Every step and every measure taken by Modi leaders, activists and villagers in encounters government under the diktats of the Sangh and false encounters in places like Timnar, Parivar is aimed at strengthening the Hindutva Nulkatong and Sakiler of Bastar during the last forces, and through it, the stranglehold of six months are a vivid testimony to this. imperialism and domestic ruling classes over the people. It is under the urban version of this terror called ‘Samadhan’ that five more well-known Thus, Hindutva forces wielding state social activists of the country were booked and power have emerged as the immediate danger four of them arrested under the draconian for the vast masses of the country today. Apart UAPA and other repressive laws. BJP from Muslims and Christians, other oppressed governments in collusion with Sangh Privar social sections such as Adivasis, Dalits, women outfits have continued their dastardly and oppressed nationalities too are reeling campaign of framing and persecuting the under this assault. Same is the case with the country’s democratic voices by branding them people belonging to the labouring classes – as ‘urban Naxals’ for their alleged involvement workers, peasants, urban petty bourgeoisie and

2 January - June 2019 MIB-38 in Bhima-Koregaon violence and for courageous resistance against the Hindutva conspiring to assassinate Modi. People like Dr onslaught in the Guerrilla Bases, Guerrilla Saibaba with over 90 percent disability Zones and Red Resistance Areas. This has been continue to be in incarcerated in terrible done by connecting the anti Hindu-fascist conditions serving life imprisonment as the resistance with the ongoing Protracted People’s country’s jails are being filled with more and War in the rural and forested hinterland, while more political prisoners from urban and rural making efforts to mobilise and bring together areas for opposing the combined onslaught of the democratic forces in the urban areas in a state and Hindutva terror on the people. single platform. The new phase Brahmanical Hindu-fascist In this way, the country’s Maoist attack that was initiated in the country four movement has come to occupy a place of years back with the advent of Modi honour in the frontline of battle against the government has not gone unchallenged. In fact, Hindutva-fascist forces. Through this the resistance against it has only intensified in resistance, the movement has sent out a strong the last six months. Many saw the defeat of message to the people of the country that the BJP in the just-concluded assembly elections fascist forces cannot be rooted out or defeated of Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan through bourgeois elections but primarily as a rejection of its Hindutva-fascist through the use of revolutionary force as a part rather than an endorsement of the victorious of the class struggle. This is a valuable lesson Congress. of the history of our country and of world But the real challenge to the Hindutva history. forces came from the people’s movements Therefore, the need of the hour is to across the country. The last six months saw the consolidate the unity of the oppressed classes, militant countrywide protest of the Dalits and communities and social sections that has been other progressive sections against the dilution achieved in the last four years of resistance to of the SC/ST Act, Patthalgarhi movement state and Hindutva terror, and to make it more and other movements of the Adivasis for jal- widespread and broad-based. The vast masses jangal-zameen, Izzat and Adhikar have of rural and urban India must be mobilised in continued. The countrywide protest against ever larger numbers to join this extra- the arrest of five activists once again galvanised parliamentary resistance movement against the this resistance. So is the case with the country’s common enemy as well as its three main pillars women’s movement, which won a significant of support – imperialists, comprador big victory by wresting the democratic right to capitalists and big landlords. enter the Sabarimala temple in Kerala in spite Only in this way can the design for a of staunch opposition by the reactionary Brahmanical, fascist and expansionist ‘New Brahmanical-feudal forces led by the BJP-RSS. India’ envisioned by Modi & co. be defeated Workers and peasants, government employees, and the struggle for a genuinely democratic, students, journalists, small traders have secular and sovereign New Democratic India continued their agitations against the anti- be advanced. There is no doubt that under the people and treacherous policies of the BJP guiding light of the correct ideological, governments. The people’s struggle for political, organisational and military Kashmir’s independence has marched ahead leadership of the country’s proletariat in both in armed and unarmed forms by making alliance with the peasantry and other immense sacrifices, while the liberation democratic classes, the people of India will struggles of the oppressed nationalities of the certainly play its historic role in smashing Northeast too have sustained themselves by Brahmanical Hindu-fascism through a fighting the Indian occupation forces. protracted and bitter struggle, proving once As a part of this overall resistance again that it is the masses, and the masses alone, movement, the revolutionary movement led by who are the real heroes and the real makers of our Party has been putting up a strong and history.

MIB-38 January - June 2019 3 Homage

Homage to the Martyrs (July-December 2018)

A large number of leaders and members Rukni (ACM, CNM AC President, WBT, of our Party, PLGA, revolutionary mass DK), Comrade Gagru Salam (Hidma, ACM, organisations as well as Revolutionary People’s EBT, DK), Comrade Poyami Ratti (ACM, Committees (RPCs) and the revolutionary Akudnar People’s Militia Commander, EBT, masses sacrificed their lives on the path of the DK), Comrade Kovasi Sukhram (ACM, New Democratic Revolution of the country DAKMS Division President, DK), Comrade during the last six months (July-December Ranadev (ACM, Malkangiri, AOB), Comrade 2018). Among them are DVC-level comrades Kirti (ACM, Malkangiri, AOB), PLGA like senior woman leader Comrade Valigonda commanders like Comrade Pujari Chandru Pramila (Meena, Sharada, Zeelani Begum) (PL-13 Section Deputy Commander, WBT, (Malkangiri DVC Secretariat member, AOB) DK), Comrade Miccha Suguna (PL-13 Deputy and Comrade Bhimal (Suryam)(DK Zone Commander, WBT, DK), and so on. A Military Instructor), AC/PPC-level comrades number of people’s militia commanders and including Comrade Sunkari Rajkumar (Arun) members too are among these martyrs. Many (Khammam ACM, Telangana), Comrade villagers were massacred by the mercenary Rakesh (PL-26 In-charge, WBT, DK), government forces like at Nulkatong in Sukma Comrade Karram Jarina (Mohla ACM, RKB, district of Chhattisgarh where 14 villagers DK), Comrade Ursa Jenny (ACM, KAMS including several minors were mowed down President, WBT, DK), Comrade Karram this August.

4 January - June 2019 MIB-38 Com. Valigonda Pramila Com. Gagru Salam Com. Soma (Narsingh) Com. Uike Madal (Meena) (DVCM, AOB) (Hidma) (ACM, EBT, DK) (GPCM, EBT, DK) (BN-1 Member, SBT, DK)

Some democrats sympathetic to the Bastar of DK where 11 comrades were Indian revolution too passed away in this massacred including a DVC-level comrade. period. They include Comrade Kondpalli Some were killed by the cruel enemy in fake Koteswarama of Vijaywada in Andhra encounters after catching them alive and Pradesh due to old age and Adivasi leader torturing them, a few passed away due to illness Comrade Seedam Shambhu of Adilabad in and a few others due to old age. Telangana due to illness. The legacy of the martyrs is immortal. In this way, 1 comrade was martyred in Though they have parted from us physically, Andhra Pradesh (AP), 6 in Andhra-Odisha they will forever remain alive in the memory Border (AOB), 2 comrades got martyred in of the fighting masses and itched in the annals Bihar-Jharkhand (BJ), 67 in Dandakaranya of the revolutionary people’s struggles in the (DK), 3 in Telangana (TG), and 1 in Odisha country. MIB pays its humble red homage to (OS). Thus, more than 80 comrades and all the martyrs of the Indian revolution and friends including over 18 women have become expresses its deepest respect to all the martyrs martyrs in the countrywide revolutionary of various democratic movements against the movement during this period. oppressors of the people in the subcontinent and across the world in the last six months. Many of the comrades laid down their Let us imbibe the ideals of the martyrs! Let us lives fighting heroically in battles against the advance on the path made crimson by the enemy. Some were killed in large-scale blood spilled by them till their aspirations for encirclement-and-annihilation campaigns like a new society are fulfilled! that at Timmenar in West Bastar of DK where we lost 8 comrades and at Sakiler in South

Wherever there is struggle there is sacrifice, and death is a common occurrence. But we have the interests of the people and the sufferings of the great majority at heart, and when we die for the people it is a worthy death. – Mao Tse-tung, ‘Serve the People’

MIB-38 January - June 2019 5 Message of the Central Committee on the 14th Anniversary of the Formation of CPI(Maoist)

 (MAOIST) CENTRAL COMMITTEE

People’s War is the answer to the ‘SAMADHAN’ strategy of the Indian exploitative ruling classes with the aim of wiping out the revolutionary movement! Let us defeat ‘SAMADHAN’ and advance the New Democratic Revolution by developing countrywide mass base and intensifying-expanding the People’s War! Celebrate the Fourteenth anniversary of the Party from 21st to 27th of September all over the country with revolutionary enthusiasm and spirit!

(Call of the Central Committee, Communist Party of India (Maoist) to the Party Committees and members, commanders and fighters of the People’s Liberation Guerilla Army, Party sympathisers, the leadership and members of the Revolutionary People’s Committees, Revolutionary Mass Organisations and the Revolutionary Masses)

17 August 2018

Our Party, CPI(Maoist) completes Committees, revolutionary mass fourteen years by the 21st September, 2018. On organisations, People’s Militia, revolutionary this occasion the Central Committee of our sympathisers and the revolutionary people. It Party extends hearty revolutionary greetings to conveys revolutionary greetings to the various the Party Committees of various levels, Maoist parties and organisations all over the members, People’s Liberation Guerilla Army world involved in the movement to support the Commanders and fighters, the leadership and People’s War in the leadership of our Party. members of the Revolutionary People’s

6 January - June 2019 MIB-38 Dear comrades and people! zonal, Area/Platoon Party Committees, September 21st is the day of utmost members of the Party/PLGA and many importance to our Party, the Indian comrades of the village level Party, RPC, revolutionary movement and the revolutionary People’s Militia and the people became martyrs people. On 21st September 2004 two main during this period. Seventy-seven out of them revolutionary streams of the country merged are woman comrades and eleven children. All and our Party, the CPI (Maoist) emerged. The of the martyrs made a heroic fight against the CC calls upon the Party Committees, ‘SAMADHAN’ fascist offensive of the enemy. Members, PLGA Commanders, warriors, the One of them was a member of the PB, ten were leadership and the members of the RPC, the working for CRB, 177 in DK, 18 in BJ, 6 in Revolutionary Mass Organisations, People’s AOB, 4 in Telangana, 11 in Odisha and 9 in Militia, Revolutionary sympathisers and the Maharashtra-Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh Revolutionary people to celebrate the (MMC). fourteenth anniversary of the Party from 21st On the occasion of the 14th anniversary to 27th September all over the country in the of the Party let us pay humble revolutionary areas of our movement and in the towns and homage to the great leaders of the Indian cities with revolutionary enthusiasm and revolution, the founders and teachers of our revolutionary spirit, with the objective to Party Comrade Charu Mazumdar and develop the mass base and intensify and Comrade Kanhai Chatterjee and each and expand the People’s War as an answer to the every one of all the heroic fighters martyred in ‘SAMADHAN’ offensive. It appeals to the past one year. The CC conveys its deep propagate the achievements of the condolences to the friends and relatives of the revolutionary movement of the past one year martyrs and assures support to them. through pamphlets, posters, banners, The CC pays revolutionary homage to the brochures and cultural programs and hold heroic fighters martyred in the various rallies, meetings, seminars, photo and art movements in the leadership of the Maoist exhibitions in a big way from the village level Parties, organisations and groups in various to all over the country and proclaim that countries with the aim of making the World Communism is invincible. Socialist Revolution successful and to the Two hundred and thirty three (233) of our fighters martyred in the liberation struggles of beloved comrades and revolutionary people various nationalities, in the democratic, have been martyred in the past one year in progressive and patriotic movements. combat with the mercenary forces of the Our beloved martyrs fought the fierce exploitative ruling classes in the ongoing enemy offensive considering the interests of the Protracted People’s War in the leadership of oppressed people as theirs and laid down their our Party with the aim of making the Indian lives in the People’s War. We have to highlight New Democratic Revolution successful. A the great sacrifices of the martyrs. Let us on leader of the Indian revolution and member this occasion pledge to follow their ideals and of the Polit Bureau of our Party Comrade Dev fight with courage and daring, with a strong Kumar Singh (Arvind, Sujit, Nishant) will and sacrificing nature to achieve their aims undergoing prolonged illness became a martyr and objectives. on 21st March due to heart attack. He was a leader of the Bihar-Jharkhand revolutionary Comrades! movement and thus the Indian revolutionary Since the setback of the Naxalbari Armed movement for nearly four decades. He played Peasant upsurge, the Indian revolutionary an important role in fighting against movement advanced in waves facing many ebbs feudalism that was deep-rooted in Bihar- and flows and ups and downs. The Party was Jharkhand and in advancing the armed tempered in this process. The unified agrarian revolutionary movement and the CPI(Maoist) party was formed. This Party had People’s War-Guerilla war. Many comrades of the political understanding of the proletarian the Regional, Zonal/District/Divisional, Sub- theory of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and

MIB-38 January - June 2019 7 could see the friends and foes. It advanced the part of the LIC strategy, we faced severe losses movement by uniting the workers, peasants, in Tadpala (Telangana), Kasanur students, youth, intellectuals, women, Dalits, (Dandakaranya), Badagaon (Bihar- adivasis, religious minorities and other social Jharkhand) and other such places. The Party, sections with armed agrarian revolution as the PLGA and the revolutionary people’s axis, against the three great mountains – organizations took lessons from these and are imperialism, comprador bureaucratic striving to overcome the difficult situation by bourgeoisie and big feudal classes – the targets relying on the people. of New Democratic Revolution. It made The state is many times stronger than us. efforts to coordinate with the liberation It is in the stage of strategic offense and we in struggles of the nationalities. Our Party the phase of strategic defensive. So we will have formulated counter-offensive tactics on par to face more unfavorable conditions in the with the tactics of the enemy in each and every revolutionary guerilla war. Communist twist and turn and implemented them with revolutionaries can overcome unfavorable daring, courage, strong will and sacrifice. It conditions and create favorable conditions by thus withstood the enemy offensive, re- making efforts by relying on the mass base. mustered strength and stepped ahead. It changed the tactics according to the change in Now on the occasion of the 14th the conditions and advanced the movement by anniversary of the Party, let us see the giving a blow to the enemy. The movement achievements of our Party with the sacrifice developed step by step expanding from the of the martyrs in the past one year facing many towns to the plains and forests and from the enemy operations. Let us also see our mistakes forests to the plains and towns. People’s War- and weaknesses that we have to overcome. Let Guerilla war advanced and as a result new us place them before the Party ranks, PLGA forces developed. New forms of struggle came forces, revolutionary people’s organisations forth. The ideological understanding of the and the broad masses and strive to enhance Party enhanced through the Party Congresses their active and militant role in the People’s and the various levels of Conferences. It faces War. the strong enemy by making People’s War and Achievements through the activities of the United Front. With the increasing influence of the We intensified and expanded the guerilla war revolutionary movement, a rise in the PLGA, the revolutionary people’s militancy of the people can be seen in the organization and the revolutionary people in various people’s movements across the country the leadership of our Party took up Tactical and especially in the movements against the Counter-Offensive Campaigns (TCOC) Hindu fascist forces that seized power in the depending on the broad mass base and leadership of the BJP in the centre for the past intensified and expanded the Guerilla war four years. All these people’s movements amidst the fierce ‘SAMADHAN’ offensive- contribute to the People’s War. suppression, elimination operations and in The exploitative ruling classes mainly spite of the encirclement of our areas of target our Party saying it to be ‘the biggest movement to stop military supplies necessary threat to the internal security of the country’ for the guerilla war. The past one year and are implementing repressive strategies one witnessed guerilla operations like Irpanar, after another. Presently they deployed nearly 6 Tuladametta, Kasaram, Eladamadugu, lakh special police, paramilitary and Maspur-Kotkod, Thumla, Mahadevghat, commando forces in our areas of the Maspur, Cholnar in Dandakaranya movement and are trying to wipe out the Party (Chhattisgarh) and Buda pahad in Bihar- and the movement. The level of war is Jharkhand in which 92 policemen were wiped intensifying day by day. As a result of the cruel out, 228 were injured and nearly 30 weapons ‘SAMADHAN’ offensive that has been taken and more than thousand rounds of up by the ruling classes since May 2017 as a ammunition were seized. Reactionary, anti- people political leaders and compradors acting

8 January - June 2019 MIB-38 as a hurdle to the revolutionary movement Military Leadership Training Program were punished. The Party Committees of all (MLTP) held in certain areas are a good levels stood firm and strived to make the experience in training new leadership forces. TCOC successful in many Special Areas/ At the same time, the Party forces sustained Special Zones/States. In Dandakaranya we themselves by fighting back the severe enemy prepared primary level Improvised Artillery offensive and strived to re-consolidate the Party with the local resources, utilized all kinds of units in the respective places. weapons against the enemy forces efficiently A campaign for rectification of patriarchal and there is a rise in retaliation. Our forces and trends in the Party is going on in a few states. the people are confident about the improvised In this campaign the Party committees from weapons. Sniper teams are achieving good the top to the bottom are educated and rectified results in the attacks. The police forces are thus helping the bolshevization of the Party. injured in the spike-hole traps the people dug This campaign must be taken up all over the as a part of self-defense. In Bihar-Jharkhand country, especially in our areas of the Improvised Explosives and Devices are movement. prepared and successfully launched on the enemy forces in mine warfare. Both in BJ and The centenary celebrations of the Great DK, the heavy repressive operations of the Socialist October Revolution and the 200th enemy are heroically fought back and the birth anniversary of the great Marxist teacher enemy forces given a blow by the PLGA forces. Karl Marx were taken up as revolutionary In the rest of the guerilla zones and red political campaigns in the forest, rural and resistance areas many small guerilla actions are urban areas that enhanced strong will and taken up and the enemy forces given a blow. confidence in the MLM ideology and World Campaigns to enhance the consciousness of Socialist Revolution among the Party ranks the people are taken up in all the areas of the and the revolutionary masses. movement to increase the participation of the We developed people’s struggles and people in the people’s war-guerilla war. All consolidated-reconsolidated and activated these guerilla actions are giving a blow to the the people’s organization aggressive ‘SAMADHAN’ offensive of the enemy and contributing to sustain the We took up activities of consolidation revolutionary people’s political power in the and reconsolidation of the Revolutionary guerilla bases. Mass Organisations and the RPCs in various Special Areas/Special Zones/States. In Efforts to strengthen the Party ideologically particular, the mass organisations and the and politically RPCs were made to function regularly and the The CC of the Party prepared three membership was enhanced. The mass documents on - ‘The Understanding of the organisations and the RPCs tried to mobilise Party on International Organisation’, ‘Our the people in various struggles. The active Perspective towards Caste Question in India’ elements of these struggles were consolidated. And ‘China is a New Social-Imperialist Power Conferences of the RPC were held from the - It is Part of the World Capitalist-Imperialist village level to the District/Division level and System’. The cadres upto the lower level Party new forces were elected into the leadership. Committees were educated on these We mobilized thousands of people in the documents. The campaign taken up to areas of the movement on the economic, bolshevise the Party as per the call of the CC social, political, environmental and problems in 2013 was successfully completed in a few of daily life of the people and took up struggles. Special Zones and is going on in a few other Peasants fought for electricity, irrigation, areas. In the areas where the campaign ended, remunerative prices for crops, just prices for the respective Party Committees enhanced the forest produce, for a total ban on liquor, for mass base depending upon the experiences and measures to contain famine and the students made efforts to advance the movement. The for reimbursement. There were dharnas and Leadership Training Program (LTP) and the militant demonstrations demanding the

MIB-38 January - June 2019 9 formation of Gramsabhas (Pathalgarhi-village that filled revolutionary spirit among the councils) as a part of implementing the Fifth revolutionary forces. In the rural plain areas Schedule in the adivasi areas, especially for the too wherever our forces existed they worked Jal-Jungle-Zameen-Ijjat-Adhikar (Water- among the peasantry in various forms, Forest-Land-Dignity-Rights) for the adivasis organised peasant struggles and gained in the forest areas. The people, especially positive experiences. In this process the mass women rallied in a big way and fought against organisations in the rural plain areas too were state violence unleashed in the form of fake consolidated and new forces came forth. encounters, arrests, tortures, atrocities on We intensified class struggle in the rural area women, destruction of people’s properties and with agrarian revolutionary program as the other such things. The people fought against nucleus the fake reforms of the central and the state governments and the NGOs. In Jharkhand we In the rural areas we mobilized the poor took an active part in the surge of people’s peasantry for the lands under the occupation agitations against the amendments in CNT, of the landlords and the tribal heads and for SPT Acts and the Land Acquisition Act-2013. the coffee plantations under the occupation of People put up a militant fight against the the Forest Development Corporation and attempts of the governments, the mining mafia intensified class struggle. We implemented and the multinational companies to open revolutionary land reforms by distributing Adani power plant in Godda district of lands to the landless and the poor peasantry Jharkhand, mines in Raoghat, Amdai, for the cultivation of which the PLGA forces Surjagarh, Bodhghat, Dilmili, expansion of and the People’s Militia provided protection mines in Bailadilla of Dandakaranya and cooperation. The people in the leadership (Chhattisgarh), in Deomali, bauxite mining in of our Party are making People’s War amidst Khandwalmali, Kudrumali and Seejumali of severe repression and are sustaining those Odisha that would displace the local people. lands. Programs for leveling of land and to They fought for ‘right to the local people on enhance production have been taken up to raise land’. The people of Niyamgiri area of Odisha the living standards of the people, thus boycotted the Panchayat elections in protest developing the cooperative movement and against displacement. People of Odisha fought participation of the people in it. against the national parks in Simlipal, We made efforts to build an organised Satkosiya, Sonabeda, Baropahad and the movement against Brahmanical Hindu construction of dams in Badamul, Lower fascism Suktel, Pujaripalli and Lower Indra. There were struggles against the national parks in In the past one year, we made efforts to Udanti and Seetanadi of Chhattisgarh. People form united people’s fronts on a broad basis were mobilized with the demand of democratic in various places against the various forms of Telangana and struggles took up against attacks of the Brahmanical Hindu fascist opencast mines, dams like Polavaram and other forces on the religious minorities, Dalits, such issues. In the Tri-junction area the people adivasis, women, oppressed nationalities, took up political, economic and day-to-day revolutionary, democratic, progressive and problems and mobilized the people, thereby patriotic forces with the aim to establish a strengthening the movement. ‘Hindu rashtra’. People took part in seminars, rallies and demonstrations held jointly with Our forces in the urban areas mobilized various forces. People are taking up struggles students, workers, intellectuals, women, Dalits against the ban on ‘cow slaughter’ all over the and religious minorities and organized country and in our areas of the movement. movements. There were movements for the protection of civil rights against the state Due to our achievements in the past one violence on revolutionary, democratic, year we could contain the ‘SAMADHAN’ progressive and patriotic forces. Meetings and strategy of the exploitative ruling classes and seminars were conducted on various political sustain the countrywide revolutionary issues as a part of revolutionary propaganda movement. However, on this occasion we must 10 January - June 2019 MIB-38 remember that we have to overcome the not to join the mercenary forces. We have to mistakes and weaknesses in our movement. We identify and wipe out the enemy network by can thus defeat the ‘SAMADHAN’ offensive following class line-mass line and basing on the and advance the countrywide revolutionary people’s vigilance. We can overcome this movement. situation by making efforts even amidst the severe pressure from the state. Mistakes and weaknesses We faced many losses due to our Comrades! subjectivity and in the PLGA, in The attempts of imperialism to solve its making guerilla war as an offensive against the long drawn crisis are not successful. Ultimately heavy military operations of the state and in the imperialists, especially the US imperialists implementing fundamental rules of guerilla are leaving aside the globalization policies that war such as secrecy, speed, strong will and they themselves brought forth and are taking change of place. We gained certain knowledge up ‘protectionist’ policies. This intensified the in the People’s War-Guerilla War for the past contradictions among the imperialist countries four decades but weaknesses continue in and trade wars are on the rise. Many backward implementing them in a conscious manner countries fell into much more severe crisis due and with class hatred. Though there is a rise to the ‘protectionist’ policies of the in the recruitment due to our efforts for the imperialists. The Turkish currency Lira fell to past four years, on the whole our subjective such an extent that the country is caught in a forces have come down. Quality of our forces severe financial crisis. The reduction of growth is not to the extent necessary. The new cadres rate in the imperialist countries, the crisis of are unable to immediately rise to the present over-production in the industries, situation. They lack experience and unemployment and other such age-old consciousness. The leadership and the fighters problems are leading to the intensification of are relatively backward in understanding and the contradiction between capital and labour. implementing the common and the specific This is giving way to many militant struggles. characteristics of revolutionary guerilla war. Millions of people in Asian, African and Latin Our weapons are limited. American countries are dying and many more The intense offensive of the state led to are being wounded due to the occupational many changes in the areas of the movements. wars of the imperialists or those sponsored by It is making information-based attacks and is them and also due to their indirect support/ giving blows to our forces. Though we are intervention. Property worth lakhs of rupees making certain efforts to weaken one of its is being destroyed. The lives of the people are important tactics of intelligence network, there turning miserable. Lakhs of people are is a lack of concentration that is giving away attempting to migrate from the war torn our information to the state from the majority countries to take shelter in various countries of the villages. A few from among us in Europe but the imperialist countries are degenerated and became traitors. A small absolutely inhuman. They treat those people section among the people has got lumpenised like animals. They indiscriminately fire at and is in the hands of the state. The enemy is them. They imprison them in concentration utilizing the backwardness among the people camps. The oppressed nationalities and the for developing their network. The local adivasi people are taking up struggles against these youth are being recruited into the paramilitary, imperialist-sponsored wars. Thus, we see that adivasi battalions, army, DRG, SPO and the fundamental contradictions in the world counter-revolutionary forces like the recently are intensifying. Imperialists over the world are proposed Black Panthers in Bastar. We need resorting to fascism to suppress the people’s to work for enhancing class consciousness and struggles and their resistance. People across the class hatred among the people by taking up world are fighting against these fascist trends. constant revolutionary political campaigns The BJP-RSS Hindu-fascist ruling clique and develop the consciousness among them not in the leadership of Modi-Shah-Bhagawat in to become pawns in the enemy’s attempts and power in the centre has been following

MIB-38 January - June 2019 11 imperialist-sponsored, anti-people, anti- especially the adivasi and non-adivasi peasants national neo-liberal policies for the past four all over the country. The exploitative ruling years, as a result of which the attack of the classes have increased ‘carpet security’ in order imperialist financial capital has reached a to wipe out our movement and launch various severe stage. This clique facilitates the domestic projects and mines. and the foreign companies to exploit the public Thus, we see the sharpening of all the sector properties and resources cheaply. It fundamental contradictions in the country. unleashes fascist repression in an The militant struggles of all the oppressed unprecedented manner on the people’s classes, sections and nationalities are on the rise resistance against this. This makes the life of against the attacks of Hindu fascism. The all the oppressed classes and sections more and Kashmiri people’s resistance to state violence more wretched. Many industries have been that is going on for the past two years and the closed and lakhs of workers are left without recent Bhima-Koregaon Dalit resistance are job. The organized sector is shrinking day by great models in this regard. day and the unorganized sector is expanding, leaving the employees of many sectors The BJP-RSS clique in the leadership of insecure. Unemployment has reached its peak. Modi for the past one year has been talking Many small-scale and medium-scale industries about building a ‘New India’, eradicating faced severe loss due to GST. The imperialist- corruption, ‘leftwing ’, ‘’ sponsored policies of -fascist clique and casteism and communalism. It is took the agrarian crisis to a serious level. With implementing the ‘SAMADHAN’ strategy to this, there are unending suicides of farmers. suppress ‘leftwing extremism’. In fact, the The farmers are themselves burning the crops actual objective of the ‘SAMADHAN’ is to that they sowed; they are throwing their suppress any kind of protest and resistance to produce away on the streets or leaving them in the policies of the Hindu-fascist ruling clique the market. They are fighting for waiver of and serve the interests of its imperialist masters loans, remunerative prices for crops, free and comprador ruling classes. They are mainly electricity and other such demands. With the targeting the organized armed force of the devaluation of the rupee to more than 70 Maoist movement that is coming in the way rupees per dollar, there is a constant rise in the of building ‘New India’ and therefore they prices of daily necessities. The lives of the poor want to do it by suppressing the oppressed and the middle classes are turning pathetic. classes, oppressed communities, oppressed nationalities and the religious minorities. As On the other hand, there are increasing a part of this, the central and the state attacks of the in the leadership governments in the leadership of Modi are of BJP-RSS on all the oppressed classes, trying to create white terror among the forces oppressed sections and oppressed nationalities of the revolutionary, democratic, progressive, with the direct and indirect help and patriotic and national liberation struggles encouragement of the government and the through the ‘SAMADHAN’ offensive. In police forces, with their agenda to make the order to defeat this ‘SAMADHAN’ offensive, country a Hindu rashtra in the name of ‘Naya all these forces need to be united on a common Bharat’ (New India). Muslims, Christians, platform, broad-based people’s movements Dalits, Adivasis, students, intellectuals, need to be built and they need to be combined women, the people of nationalities such as with the People’s War. Kashmir, Manipur and Nagalim are facing humiliation and atrocities. Their properties are Comrades! destroyed, they are chased away from their People’s War means – establishing the homes or killed in ‘mob lynching’. They are power of the people of all the oppressed classes branded as anti-national and traitors, false and sections over the industries of the cases are foisted on them and are put in jail. imperialists and the comprador bureaucratic The problem of displacement has become bourgeoisie, over their banks, over their a life and death problem for the people, movable and immovable properties, over the

12 January - June 2019 MIB-38 land in the hands of the big landlords and over resistance, increase their participation and the natural resources of the country; militancy and develop the People’s War. We organizing the people for solving the problems have to constantly attract new forces, organize of education, medicine and employment in and train them to become part of the People’s the rural plain and urban areas in secret, war. We can overcome the present difficult armed, unarmed and various other forms; situation and advance the People’s War if we building people’s struggles; developing these enhance our strength manifold and one person people’s struggles as people’s resistance works equal to ten persons. We can thus defeat struggles; combining these struggles with the the ‘SAMADHAN’ offensive. armed struggle going on for state power of the The BJP-RSS clique in the leadership of oppressed people in the vast rural and forest Modi-Shah-Bhagawat is trying to create illusion areas, especially in the strategic areas, as a part among the people with attractive schemes to of New Democratic Revolution with Agrarian come to power once more. It is instigating Revolution as the axis; establishing Hindu communalism and is strategically trying revolutionary people’s political power in the to polarize in terms of religion and caste with leadership of the Party by destroying state the aim of establishing ‘Hindu rashtra’ under power area-wise and developing the unity of the veil of establishing ‘New India’. It withdrew the four revolutionary classes; utilizing this support to the PDP government in Kashmir and power and developing people’s movements in is instigating national chauvinism against the the economic, political, social, military and Kashmir national liberation struggle and cultural fields and the people’s cooperative against Pakistan. It released the NRC under the movement, increase the living standards of the cover of solving the decades-old problem of people; enhance the confidence among the illegal migration in Asom with the evil intention broad masses that ‘a weak power can defeat a of turning the Hindus as their vote bank. strong power’. So we have to intensify and Declaring that it shall not tolerate the attacks expand the People’s War according to the on Muslims, Dalits and the adivasis in the specific conditions in various red resistance Parliament, this clique is in fact instigating areas, guerilla zones and guerilla bases. The Hindu communalism and is making appropriate answer to the enemy’s indiscriminate attacks. On the one hand, it ‘SAMADHAN’ offensive is nothing but pretends to contain sexual violence and murder People’s War. of women and ensure death penalty to the On the occasion of the 14th anniversary accused and on the other hand it openly indulges of the Party, it is our immediate task to in violence and murders. We have to expose the intensify and expand the People’s War all over Brahmanical Hindu-fascist policies of this the country utilizing the favorable conditions clique and unite all the oppressed classes and for revolution in the country and all over the sections of the country in a broad-based people’s world. In order to intensify and expand the movement. People’s war with the aim of defeating the There shall be not much difference whether ‘SAMADHAN’ offensive, we have to the Hindu-fascist clique succeeds in its strengthen the Party from the top to the conspiracies and comes to power again or the bottom. We have to give importance to Congress ‘succeeds’ in the grand alliance and building a secret Party and collective forms a coalition government. Any government functioning to transform our present small shall implement the imperialist-sponsored LIC Party into a big Party. We need to take up social strategy to wipe out the countrywide analysis and class analysis from time to time, revolutionary movement. So we have to take identify friends and foes and adopt appropriate up the following tasks all over the country to tactics. We have to enhance mass base by defeat the present ‘SAMADHAN’ or any adopting proper tactics, work in an active and offensive with another name. In view of these dynamic manner, directly lead the movement general tasks, the SACs/SZCs/SCs have to with courage, daring and work efficiently. We adopt a plan with specific tactics as per the have to mobilise the people in struggle and specific conditions in the guidance of the

MIB-38 January - June 2019 13 Regional Bureaus. We have to keep in mind that to the specific conditions and advance the it is vital for the whole Party, especially the People’s War! higher level leadership committees to • Concentrate on revolutionary land reforms that understand the conditions; formulate tasks; are the main essence of New Democratic adopt appropriate tactics speedily according to Revolution! the changing conditions; work in an active and dynamic manner efficiently to achieve victories; • Mobilise in a big way the oppressed masses and play the leadership role in a Bolshevik manner the peasantry seriously dissatisfied with the to overcome the difficult situation. History has agrarian crisis against the imperialist neoliberal repeatedly proved that if we are mentally policies on displacement, social, political, prepared to patiently face the difficulties, losses economic, environmental and other such and hurdles that temporarily come in the way problems, build agitations and combine them in a difficult situation, the revolutionary forces with the People’s war! Mobilise the revolutionary, can defeat the enemy and definitely achieve democratic organisations, forces, individuals and success. So let us enhance our strength manifold the broad masses and build a strong people’s and march forward in the path shown by the movement on a broad basis! martyrs who laid their lives for the sake of • Build and intensify a strong militant movement revolution from Naxalbari to this day. against Brahmanical Hindu fascism together Tasks with revolutionary forces, democrats, progressive forces, organisations, minorities and secularists! • Defeat the ‘SAMADHAN’ offensive. Enhance our ideological, political and military • Build a broad people’s movement by organizing understanding to understand the drastic changes the people on common platforms concentrating in the enemy offensive! Let us mobilise the broad on the problems of the adivasis, dalits, women masses in the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal class and religious minorities! struggle basing on the positive experiences in the • Expose bourgeois theories like many shades of political and organizational field! Conduct the revisionism, , legalism, reformism, guerilla war in an offensive way basing on the economism, parliamentarism and post- experiences in the military field! Rectify the modernism! State firmly that Marxism- mistakes in implementing the rules and methods Leninism-Maoism is the only ideology that can of self-defense! Achieve many more victories by bury imperialism and liberate the oppressed intensifying and expanding the People’s War- nationalities, workers-peasants and other people Guerilla War as a part of implementing the of the world! central task given by the Unity Congress-Ninth Congress to overcome the difficult situation of • Mobilise the people and the democratic forces the revolutionary movement! against the violence of the government mercenary police, commando, paramilitary • Bolshevise the leadership forces in our Party, forces, state-sponsored counter revolutionary PLGA and the United Front with the aim of organisations and gangs that are violating human defeating the ‘SAMADHAN’ offensive! Rectify rights in the areas of revolutionary movement! the alien class tendencies! Train the new Build a strong movement of people’s resistance! leadership forces in the urban, rural plain and the forest areas! Organise and train the new • Mobilise the people in a big way in support of forces! the nationality liberation struggles of Kashmir, Nagaland, Asom, Manipur and others fighting • Take up continuous consolidation program in for the right to self-determination and a separate places where our organization has been damaged country and in support of the movements like due to the enemy offensive! the Bodoland and Gorkhaland fighting for a • Take up social and class investigation in all the separate state. Special Areas/Special Guerilla Zones/States • Bring together the people in support of the anti- with the aim of developing the tactics of people’s imperialist movements all over the world! Muster war according to the changing social conditions! support from them to the Indian Revolution! Formulate proper tactics, creatively apply them

14 January - June 2019 MIB-38 Message of the Central Military Commission on the 18th Anniversary of the Formation of PLGA

 COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST) CENTRAL MILITARY COMMISSION

Intensify the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal class struggle throughout the country! Expand and intensify the guerrilla war by strengthening the Party and the PLGA and by widening the mass base! Defeat the counter-revolutionary ‘Samadhan’ strategic plan carried out by the central and state governments to wipe out the revolutionary movement in India!

Message of the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the CPI(Maoist) to the oppressed people on the occasion of the 18th anniversary of the formation of PLGA

Dear comrades and friends! formed in the spirit of the immortal martyrs The people of our country know that the Comrades Shyam, Mahesh and Murali and by PLGA was formed under the leadership of our taking inspiration from thousands of immortal Party on 2 December 2000 in order to liberate martyrs of India’s New Democratic the country from the clutches of imperialism, Revolution. Our heroic PLGA is going to comprador bureaucratic capitalism and complete 18 years of its formation on the feudalism. On this day, our PLGA was formed coming 2 December. On this occasion, the according to the guidance of the founders, Central Military Commission (CMC) of teachers, builders of the Indian revolution and CPI(Maoist) conveys its revolutionary immortal martyrs Comrades Charu greetings to all Party committees, Party Majumdar and Kanhai Chatterjee. It was members, PLGA commissions and

MIB-38 January - June 2019 15 commands, its commanders and fighters, Tumirgunda, Aipeta and Timmem of revolutionary people’s committees, leaders and Dandakaranya (DK) and Dokrighati of members of mass organisations, all people’s Andhra-Odisha Border (AOB). 13 comrades militia members and the revolutionary masses. of different Party and PLGA units working It also extends revolutionary greetings to all under Central Regional Bureau (CRB), 168 comrades who have taken part in the political, comrades of DK, 18 comrades of Bihar- military and organisational efforts to defeat the Jharkhand (BJ), 12 comrades of AOB, 10 counter-revolutionary ‘Samadhan’ offensive comrades of Odisha, four comrades of in the last one year. It expresses humble red Telangana, nine comrades of Maharashtra- homage to the heroic fighters of the PLGA Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh (MMC) and who were martyred in the valiant attacks to one comrade of Tamil Nadu were martyred defeat the ‘Samadhan’ offensive as well as to during this period. The martyrs include 75 those comrades who have laid down their lives women comrades. in encounters, fake encounters, deceptive During this period, we lost the Party’s enemy attacks and in accidents, due to illness Politburo member Comrade Dev Kumar Singh or any other reason. Let us imbibe as our ideals (Arvind, Sujit), CRB staff Comrade and implement them in practice their Dandboyina Swamy (Prabhakar, CRB press, communist values, their courage and defiance Divisional Committee/DVC-level), DK’s towards the enemy, their unshakable South Gadchiroli DVC Secretary Comrade conviction in the victory of the revolution, Vijender (Srinu), DVC members Comrades their relentless militant efforts and dedication Vasudev Atram (Nandu, Vikas), Dolesh Atram to the people. Let us take pledge to fight until (Sainath), Odisha’s Kalahandi-Kandhamal- our last breath to achieve their aspirations and Boudh-Nayagarh (KKBN) DVC members realise their dreams. Shankar Manjhi (David, Vinay), Lakku The CMC hopes that all the comrades who Korram (Madan), AOB’s Malkangiri DVC have been injured in guerrilla actions secretariat member Comrade Valigonda conducted in different parts of the country will Pramila (Sharada, Jeelani Begum, Meena), soon recover and once again jump into the two Sub-zonal commanders Comrades Shivlal battlefield with militant enthusiasm. On the and Shravan Kumar of BJ’s Latehar district, occasion of the 18th formation day of the one AC secretary in DK’s Gadchiroli, PLGA, the CMC calls upon the entire rank Darrekasa AC secretary in MMC, Gobra AC and file of the Party, PLGA units, secretary, 33 AC/PPC comrades in DK, two revolutionary people’s governments, mass comrades in AOB, two comrades in MMC, organisations and the revolutionary masses to one comrade in Odisha, two comrades in observe this anniversary with revolutionary Telangana; 56 Party and PLGA members in spirit and determination. It gives a call to DK, 16 in BJ, 8 in AOB, 4 in MMC, 4 in Odisha, conduct recruitment drives in December 3 comrades in Telangana, 9 RPC leaders in throughout the country to consolidate the DK, 7 mass organisation leaders and activists, PLGA with the aim of defeating the counter- 35 militia commanders and members, 8 revolutionary ‘Samadhan’ strategic offensive. belonging to the revolutionary masses, one Nearly 235 sons and daughters of the militia comrade in AOB, Odisha’s mass leader proletariat were martyred throughout the Comrades Sanni Sikaka, Bari Pidika, country this year (December 2017 to Telangana’s mass leaders Comrades Shidam November 2018) while fighting with dedication Sambhu and Batala Raju, Party sympathisers and perseverance to defeat the ‘Samadhan’ of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana Gajjela attack, to make the New Democratic Laxmi and Kondapalli Koteswarama, and Revolution in India successful and to achieve others. the tasks given by the Unity Congress-9th Our political, military and organisational Congress. We have suffered big losses in enemy efforts throughout the country to defeat the attacks conducted under ‘Samadhan’ offensive counter-revolutionary ‘Samadhan’ offensive such as Pujari Kanker of Telangana, Halbi- and their results:

16 January - June 2019 MIB-38 The PLGA led by our Party carried out TDP legislator Kidari Sarveswara Rao and nearly 300 guerrilla actions in various Guerrilla former TDP legislator Siveri Soma – were Zones and Red Resistance Areas between wiped out by our PLGA in AOB’s December 2017 and November 2018. PLGA Visakhapatnam district. PLGA eliminated forces conducted around 180 actions directly several anti-people elements in Single Target against the enemy forces. Seven big actions Actions like wiping out BJP youth leader were carried out in Burha Pahad (Garhwa, BJ), Kondaru Jagdish (Bijapur, DK), BJP leader Irpanar (Narayanpur, DK), Elarmadugu and contractor Jaidev Nag (Dantewada, DK) ambush (Sukma, DK), Kasaram-Paled ambush and contractor cum engineer Bala Nageswar (Sukma, DK), Tumla ambush (Bijapur, DK), Rao (Sukma, DK), contractors engaged in Cholnar ambush (Dantewada, DK) and construction work such as Bapparao Sitaram, blasting of a Mine-Proof Vehicle (MPV) in Vishal Sarvaiya, Kapur Chand Thakur Murdonda (Bijapur, DK). In the same way, 21 (Dantewada, DK), renegades (former Maoists) medium-level actions were carried out. Around Madkam Hunga, Kamlesh, Munna, Budhram 90 policemen were wiped out and 190 were Tanti and Satish (DK) and Uike Jnaneswar injured in these attacks on the enemy forces. (Ganesh alias Ravi, MMC). A few hardened Among them, around 100 policemen were police informers and traitors, counter- injured by the spike-holes prepared in DK by revolutionary political leaders and contractors the People’s Militia this year. In these attacks, were wiped out in BJ and Eastern Bihar- PLGA seized 25-30 weapons of various kinds North-eastern Jharkhand as well. and thousands of bullets and other war The PLGA forces, revolutionary material. organisational formations and the masses led A series of ambushes were carried out by our Party are continuing guerrilla war- during the political-military campaign in the people’s war at different levels in various last one month as a part of implementing the Special Area/Special Zone/States to boycott call of the assembly elections in overcome the difficult situation faced by the Chhattisgarh. The political message of revolutionary movement throughout the building organs of people’s democratic power country. The Party is expanding the in opposition to the parliamentary system was revolutionary movement to new areas in a conveyed not only to the masses of planned manner. The PLGA and the masses Chhattisgarh to the people of the entire are eliminating enemy forces, their agents and country through political propaganda work informer-covert networks by fighting bravely and guerrilla actions conducted during this amidst enemy’s intense attacks and blockades campaign. These actions, carried out amidst depending on the mass base. Apart from the enemy’s ‘carpet security’ shows the strength intensifying the class struggle in rural areas by of our Party and PLGA’s mass base on the one keeping the land problem at the centre, we are hand and exposed the weaknesses of the putting efforts to expand the mass base. These enemy’s ‘carpet security’ on the other. It also efforts include building and developing the gave an appropriate retort to the foul organs of revolutionary people’s power, propaganda of the government and its top carrying out land-levelling campaigns in order bureaucrats that the Maoists have been almost to raise the people’s standard of living, taking crushed in the Bastar region. up campaigns to increase agricultural output 106 anti-people elements such as police with the participation of the masses, taking up informers, exploitative politicians and issues and building movements on the reactionaries were eliminated in around 85 economic, political and day-to-day problems actions by the Main, Secondary and Base force of the people – particularly the problems of of the PLGA and the masses in the last one jal-jangal-zameen-izzat-adhikar and against year. The ruling classes were particularly put displacement and state violence. Many in a quandary and the revolutionary masses people’s movements were conducted against had a wave of happiness running through them amendments to CNT and SPT Acts as well as after two mining-mafia ringleaders – ruling Land Acquisition Act-2013. In spite of the

MIB-38 January - June 2019 17 formation of a separate Telangana state, the sacrifice displayed by our Party committees people’s basic problems and day-to-day and PLGA forces in today’s conditions is problems have not been resolved there. After paving the way for mobilising the vast masses this has become apparent to the people, a in class struggle, expanding the mass base and people’s movement is being conducted for a overcoming the difficult situation to defeat the democratic Telangana by mobilising the enemy. people. The movement is taking root in the tri- The political, military and organisational junction area due to the mobilisation of the effort we have made throughout the country people on the political, economic and day-to- in the last one year to defeat the counter- day problems. In some areas, education and revolutionary ‘Samadhan’ offensive is of great rectification campaigns were conducted in significance. We are keeping up this effort at a order to Bolshevise and consolidate the Party time when the countrywide revolutionary and the PLGA. It is still continuing in some movement is going through a difficult period. areas. Leadership Training Programme (LTP) As a result of this effort, different kinds of and Military Leadership Training Programme positive results have been achieved in different (MLTP) have been conducted in the CRB States/Areas. We can take the positive results region in the last four-five years. They are as the principal aspect while the negative results bringing new experience in training up the as secondary and apply the former throughout leadership forces. Efforts are being made to the the country. These positive results will be extent possible in some places to strengthen the helpful in defeating the ‘Samadhan’ offensive. leadership of the mass organisations and ensure their regular functioning by conducting Intensify the anti-imperialist, anti-comprador conferences of the revolutionary mass bureaucratic capitalist and anti-feudal class organisations and the organs of state power struggle to defeat the counter-revolutionary (RPCs) from top to bottom. Widespread ‘Samadhan’ offensive. Intensify the guerrilla students’, workers’ and women’s movements war by expanding the mass base and are being built in the urban areas where our consolidating the Party and the PLGA forces are present. Civil rights movements are being built against the violence of the After the central government announced exploitative government’s mercenary forces the plan for the ‘Samadhan’ offensive in May and their secret murderous gangs aiming at 2017, it is implementing this plan in an completely wiping out the revolutionary aggressive manner during the last one and a movement. Broad-based people’s movements half years. are being built against the attacks of the Hindu- Reviewing the results of the ‘Samadhan’ fascists on religious minorities, Dalits, plan in the ten months between May 2017 and Adivasis, women, oppressed nationalities, March 2018, the central government claimed progressive and democratic forces who are that 44 out of 126 ‘Naxal-affected’ districts being targeted with the aim of establishing a have been transformed into ‘Naxal-free’ ‘Hindu Rashtra’ under the garb of a ‘New districts while 4 out of 35 have been removed India’. Efforts are being made to instil from the category of ‘the most-Naxal affected’ revolutionary fervour in the revolutionary districts. The central government has also forces by conducting revolutionary claimed that the Maoists now have a strong propaganda campaigns on various political presence only in 12 to 13 districts and all the issues. remaining ‘Maoist-affected’ districts of the All Special Areas/Special Zones/State, country will also be transformed into ‘Naxal Zonal/Divisional/District Committees are free’ districts. militantly and patiently giving leadership to The central government identifies a district people’s movements by taking up programmes as ‘most Maoist-affected’ if PLGA conducts in the present political situation which are ambush or raid there targeting the police and helpful for the widespread mobilisation of the paramilitary forces, while it is categorising masses. The prepared courage and self- those districts as ‘Maoist-affected’ where anti-

18 January - June 2019 MIB-38 people elements have been wiped out or social and cultural repression and humiliation. government property has been destroyed in By keeping the problem of land at the centre PLGA’s actions. To attract investment from in particular, we should expand the agrarian domestic and foreign corporate houses, it has revolutionary struggle as a part of the anti- become a necessity for the central and state feudal struggle. We should develop the anti- governments today to assert that the influence displacement struggles as anti-imperialist and of the Maoist movement is on the decline. On anti-comprador bureaucratic capitalist the other hand, as per their psychological struggles. We should intensify the movements warfare to get the weaker elements in our Party on all other demands brought to the fore by and the PLGA to surrender, the central and the peasants. state governments are propagating that the Based on the preparedness of the Maoist movement has become weak. The oppressed masses in different areas to struggle, central and state governments’ propaganda they should be mobilised and organised that the number of districts ‘affected’ by the through legal/extra-legal, open/secret forms Maoist movement has declined has to be of struggle and forms of organisation. We analysed from a Marxist viewpoint. Till the should apply the United Front tactics from the time classes and class exploitation remains, no village/local to the central level where we isolate government can wipe out the Maoist Party the enemy and use the contradictions among leading the class struggle. Even now, our Party them. We should also unite with the friendly is continuing the class struggle in almost 20 forces. states of the country through its political and organisational efforts. Our PLGA units are Bolstered by the central and state carrying on guerrilla war at one level or the governments, the atrocities on Dalits, Adivasis other in nearly 10 states. That is why, we should and religious minorities by Brahmanical analyse these claims made by the central and Hindu-fascism are continuing unabated during state governments and mobilise the masses in the last four years. The social sections suffering the class struggle widely and militantly. No Hindu-fascist attacks are ready to struggle matter what the central and state governments militantly. We should mobilise and organise claim, we can defeat the ‘Samadhan’ plan only all such forces against Brahmanical Hindu- by increasing the mass base, strengthening the fascism. Party and the PLGA, and expanding and Liquor mafia, real-estate mafia, forest intensifying the guerrilla war. In doing so, we mafia, sand mafia, mafia in the education and should keep in mind the outcome of the health sectors, chit-fund companies, insurance ‘Samadhan’ offensive due to the intensity of companies, share-market speculators and which our revolutionary movement has many other exploitative forces are subjecting weakened. For this, we will have to put efforts the people to exploitation and oppression in to fulfil the following political, military and many forms on a daily basis all over the country organisational tasks: by depending on state power. After the entry In all our movement areas (urban, rural of domestic and foreign corporations in retail and forest) in the country where our Party is trade, small and retail traders are facing acute present, we should mobilise all the oppressed problems economically. The people, classes in class struggle on the basis of social particularly the youth, are very agitated and investigation. It should be done by studying are ready to fight against these measures. We the forms of exploitation of labour power in should mobilise the masses against these different areas and the forms of extracting exploitative forces. surplus value adopted by the exploitative Similarly, we should mobilise the vast classes. Apart from this economic struggle, we masses in anti-imperialist, anti-comprador should mobilise in the class struggle all the bureaucratic capitalist and anti-feudal social sections (Dalits, Adivasis and women as struggles. The active and militant forces that well as religious minorities and oppressed come to the fore in these struggles should be nationalities) undergoing political oppression, organised in our mass organisations and other

MIB-38 January - June 2019 19 structures and thereby consolidate the mass are instigating Hindu religious frenzy base. Depending on this mass base, we should throughout the country. The inauguration of consolidate the Party and the PLGA. Sardar Patel’s statue in Gujarat, change of the names of Ahmadabad and Allahabad and of Faizabad district, intensification of Call of the Central Military Commission: propaganda for building Ram temple – all Favourable conditions for the revolution these activities are being carried out to win the are increasing due to the intensification of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections by polarising fundamental contradictions at the the society on communal lines. All the international and domestic level. The economic and political policies adopted by economic, trade-related, political, diplomatic Narendra Modi are only helping in the and military policies adopted by the systematisation of exploitation and oppression economically declining US are having an by the imperialist, comprador bureaucratic unfavourable impact on all the countries of the bourgeois and feudal classes. That is why, the world including the European counties. As a country’s workers, peasants, students, youth, result of the hike in the tariff duties on the women, small traders, national bourgeoisie imports from China and Europe, these and all other oppressed classes are naturally countries too have increased duties on imports suffering extensive losses due to the negative from the US. This has led to the beginning and outcome of these policies. The devaluation of intensification of a trade war between the US the Rupee and sky-rocketing prices of daily and China. Apart from the trade war, a necessities and essential items like diesel and currency war is also going on between the two petrol this year have made the lives of the countries. This is negatively affecting the world country’s people including its middle classes economic system. As a result of its economic very difficult. Brahmanical Hindu-fascism has weakness, the US is becoming unable to allocate subjected Dalits, Adivasis and religious money to the NATO alliance for the security minorities to intense attack in the last four of Europe as before. Therefore, it is increasing years. It has intensified attacks on mass pressure on the European countries to organisation activists this June and August by contribute more money for this. Due to this, terming them as ‘Urban Naxals’ and Europe is coming out of its dependency on presenting them as dangerous forces. the US for security and getting prepared to Assembly elections are being held in the adopt independent policies and an five states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, independent system. Rajasthan, Telangana and Mizoram. Lok Russia is gradually becoming more Sabha elections are due in April 2019. No powerful, and joining hands with China, it is matter which side wins the assembly or competing with the US for the re-division of parliamentary elections (be it BJP-led NDA or the world. As a result of the policies Congress-led Grand Alliance), they will only implemented by China to compete with the US implement the traitorous and anti-people for a re-division of the world, political economic and political policies which instability is growing in African and Asian systematises imperialist, comprador countries in recent times (Zimbabwe, Maldives bureaucratic capitalist and feudal exploitation and Sri Lanka).This kind of a situation may and oppression. That is why, no matter which emerge in a few other countries in the coming Party comes to power, neither the day-to-day days. nor basic problems of the masses will be resolved – this is what is shown by the last 71 Due to all this, anti-imperialist struggles years of rule by the exploitative classes. may further intensify in the Asian, African and Therefore: Latin American countries. The CMC calls upon the country’s After four years of Narendra Modi’s rule, oppressed classes, oppressed social sections and the illusion that the masses had about him is oppressed nationalities to come out of the declining. That is why, BJP and Sangh Parivar illusions of parliamentary parties and the

20 January - June 2019 MIB-38 parliamentary system. It calls upon them to join the PLGA in thousands and lakhs to uproot this exploitative system and build a New Democratic India where their day-to-day and basic problems will be resolved. It calls upon the Party committees and PLGA commands to extensively propagate among the masses, Party cadres and PLGA fighters the achievements of the guerrilla war conducted by our heroic PLGA during the last one year to defeat the counter-revolutionary ‘Samadhan’ offensive as well as to make successful the recruitment drive this December.

Defeat the counter-revolutionary ‘Samadhan’ offensive! Wipe out the enemy forces and seize their weapons! Surrendering to the enemy is equivalent to slavery! Consolidate the Party, PLGA and the United Front! Strengthen and expand the Revolutionary People’s Committees (RPCs)! Recruit youths into the PLGA in large numbers! Intensify the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal class struggle! Build a strong and militant movement against Brahmanical Hindu-fascism! Long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism! Long live PLGA! Long live CPI(Maoist)! With revolutionary greetings, Central Military Commission CPI(Maoist)

11 November 2018

MIB-38 January - June 2019 21 News from the Battlefield July - December 2018

AOB - Telangana - bauxite mining. These henchmen of the corporations carried on with their activities in Andhra Pradesh spite of several prior warnings from the A sitting MLA of Andhra Pradesh people’s organisations including CPI(Maoist) legislative assembly Kidari Someswar Rao of to cease and desist. But as they refused to TDP and a former MLA of the same party comply with the people’s wishes, they were Seeveri Soma were annihilated by PLGA finally wiped out. guerrillas in Liviriputtu in Dumbriguda A 12-hour dawn-to-dusk called by Mandal of Vishakhapatnam district on 24 CPI(Maoist) in Koraput and Malkangiri September as per the people’s verdict after districts of Andhra-Odisha Border on 27 trying them in an open people’s court. The November in response to the recent killing of Personal Security Officers of the two were three Party members in fake encounters allowed to leave unharmed after their weapons affected normal life in the region. Road were seized. communication was hit as government buses These two ruling-Party politicians have remained off the roads and shops and other been involved for a long time in illegal business establishments remained closed due quarrying in Manyam area of Visakha Agency to the shutdown. and were also acting as the main middlemen and agents of the big mining corporations seeking to initiate mining operations in the Bihar - Jharkhand region. Their actions went directly against the Jharkhand bandh called by the interests of the Adivasi inhabitant of the CPI(Maoist) was successfully observed on 6 region and threatened to devastate the July against the proposed anti-people ecologically fragile Eastern Ghats. In this way, amendments to the land acquisition act of they became prime targets of the ongoing 2013. people’s movement in the Agency Area against

22 January - June 2019 MIB-38 Dandakaranya area in Sukma district when a police patrol was targeted by the PLGA with an IED on 1 One DRG jawan was injured in an encounter September. in a forest adjoining Dabba village in Katekalyan One policeman was injured in a booby-trap area of Dantewada district on 7 July, while three explosion in Bijapur district on 27 September. PLGA fighters too were martyred. One CRPF jawan was seriously injured in Two BSF jawans were annihilated in a a booby-trap explosion in Sukma district on PLGA ambush near Tadgaon under Chote 25 October. Betia Police Station, Pakhanjur block, Kanker district on 9 July. Five jawans of CRPF’s Battalion travelling in a mine-proof vehicle (MPV) was hit by a One DRG personnel was seriously injured mine planted by the PLGA between while two PLGA cadres were martyred in an Murdonda and Tarrem villages under encounter near Minpa village under Basaguda Police Station of Bijapur district on Chintaguppa Police Station of Sukma on 10 July. 27 October. Five jawans were killed while On 15 July, PLGA ambushed a unit of another was grievously injured. BSF in Pratappur area of Kanker district, in PLGA attacked a police vehicle engaged which two BSF personnel were wiped out while in polling duty for the Chhattisgarh assembly another was injured. elections between Samel and Nangelguda PLGA seized a supply vehicle of the (Nilavaya) under Aranpur Police Station in enemy forces between Chintaguppa and Dantewada district on 30 October. Three Burkapal in Dantewada district on 25 July. policemen including an SI and an SPO were annihilated in the attack, while another was A pick-up vehicle of the NMDC was burnt injured. Doordarshan cameraperson down on Baildila mines of Dantewada district Achyutanand Sahu who was travelling with the on 27 July. police to cover the elections inadvertently lost Two policemen were injured in an attack his life as he too got caught up in the ambush by red guerrillas at Basaguda weekly market along with the policemen. The CPI(Maoist) on 3 August. said in a statement that the killing of the A Deputy Commandant of the CRPF’s journalist was circumstantial and not Cobra Battalion was injured in an attack by the intentional. PLGA near Kottaguda village under Chintalnar A police Patel was wiped out in Naranur Police Station of Sukma district on 7 August. village of Etapalli tehsil in Gadchiroli district A truck was burnt down and fishplates on 1 November 2018. were removed on the Koraput-Kirandul (KK) One BSF jawan was killed in an IED railway line near Kamalur in Dantewada explosion carried out by the PLGA in district on 9 August against the Nulkatong Markagaon of Kanker district on 2 November. massacre in which 15 villagers were gunned On 5 November, a CRPF personnel was down by the enemy’s armed forces. seriously injured in a pressure bomb explosion Two jawans of ITBP were injured in an in Gangalur of Bijapur district. IED blast carried out by the PLGA targeting a One CISF jawan was killed and two were joint patrol of ITBP and District Police near seriously injured in PLGA’s IED explosion Hidmatola-Misli in Mohla area of near Bacheli town of Dantewada district on 8 Rajnandgaon district on 15 August. November. CISF’s 502nd Battalion to which The KK line from Kirandul to Koraput in the killed jawan belonged was recently Dantewada was damaged and blocked by felling transferred to Bastar from Kolkata for the trees, disrupting railway traffic on the line. upcoming assembly elections. One DRG jawan was killed and three injured near Raddipara village of Dornapal

MIB-38 January - June 2019 23 An SI of BSF was killed in a series of six Nilamadugu and Koronjed villages of Bijapur IEDs exploded by the PLGA near Gattakal district on 25 November. village of Koelibeda in Kanker district on 11 Two DRG jawans were killed and seven November. were injured in a fierce encounter with PLGA Five commandos of the Cobra battalion guerrillas near Sakiler village in Kistaram Area were injured in an attack by the red fighters on of Sukma district on 26 November, while ten the paramilitary forces attempting to forcibly guerrillas attained martyrdom fighting the conduct assembly elections in Pamed area of enemy. Bijapur district on 12 November. 16 vehicles including ten earthmovers Two policemen were injured when the were set ablaze between Halewada and PLGA blasted a series of low-intensity IEDs near Gatepalli in Etapalli block of Gadchiroli Gummalwada village of Bastar on 13 November. district on 1 December. Four BSF jawans, a DRG jawan and the Three policemen were injured when the driver was injured when the red fighters blasted red guerrillas conducted an IED blast in Bodili a mine targeting a police party returning from forest of Bhairamgarh Area, Bijapur district election duty on NH-16 near Modugupal on 15 December. village of Bijapur district on 15 November. An earthmover working on a road Two vehicles returning from supplying construction site near Gattaguda village on construction material to CRPF camps at Gatta-Gardewada road at Etapalli tehsil in Gorkha were burnt down by Maoist guerrillas Gadchiroli district was burnt down by red on Injaram-Bhejji road in Sukma district on fighters on 21 December. 16 November. PLGA guerrillas consigned to flames PLGA exploded an IED targeting a police many vehicles including earthmovers, trucks patrol party in which one DRG jawan was and tractors engaged in road building work by killed and another was injured near a private contractor between Sitagaon and Eladmadugu village under Bhejji Police Station Tatekasa in Mohla-Manpur area of of Sukma district on 18 November. Rajnandgaon district on 24 December, leading One DRG jawan was injured in an to a stoppage of the road project. encounter with the people’s guerrillas near

24 January - June 2019 MIB-38 Voices against War on People

Countrywide protest against Displaying their reactionary Brahmanical attitude, the police taunted her asking why did second wave of arrests in she marry a Dalit while being a Brahmin, why Bhima-Koregaon case did she not follow the rituals of a Hindu married woman like wearing vermillion or On 28 August, Police arrested five jewellery, etc. prominent social activists of the country – revolutionary poet Varavara Rao, advocates While the local courts did not allow the Sudha Bharadwaj and Arun Ferreira, Vernon transit remand of Sudha Bharadwaj and Gonzalves and Gautam Navlakha with charges Gautam Navlakha as requested by Pune Police, under the draconian UAPA after carrying out the other three were produced in a Pune court. simultaneous raids in six cities targeting their But due to the widespread public outcry by the houses. In addition, the residences of Father democratic forces across the country against Stan Swamy of Ranchi, Prof. Anand Teltumbde the arrests, the Supreme Court headed by the of , Advocate Susan Abraham of , Chief Justice of India gave an urgent hearing Prof K Satyanarayana and N Venugopal of to a petition filed by a the few renowned Hyderabad and a few others were also searched. intellectuals the very next day. Holding that the A number of personal electronic gadgets arrests were uncalled for and not backed by belonging to the social activists including substantive evidence, they ordered their personal computers, hard disks, etc. were seized immediate release and asked the police to keep violating proper legal procedure. While raiding them under house arrest if required. Rejecting their residence in the EFLU campus in the government’s contention for their arrest, Hyderabad, Pune Police personnel made highly the SC warned that dissent was the ‘safety- objectionable casteist remarks against valve’ of any democracy, and if it was not revolutionary poet Varavara Rao’s daughter tolerated but stifled, there would be an Pavana and son-in-law Prof. K Satyanarayana. explosion of the ‘pressure-cooker’ that would smash the very edifice of the existing system.

MIB-38 January - June 2019 25 Protest against the latest arrest of four more social activists in the Bhima-Koregaon case

On 31 August ADG of Maharashtra five other social activists arrested in June under Police held a press conference in Mumbai, similar fabricated charges. Protests have been where the police displayed a ‘letter’ which it organised in different forms throughout the claimed to have recovered from one of the country and also some foreign countries accused, which allegedly contained against this latest round of persecution of well- communication about a conspiracy to known social activists by making the Bhima- assassinate PM Modi! This patently illegal Koregaon case a pretext. Hundreds of people method adopted by the Maharashtra Police of assembled in a protest meeting against the BJP conducting a media trial of the accused based government in New Delhi on 30 August on ‘evidence’ yet to be produced in the court responding to the call of nearly half a dozen is a clear sign that it has no firm ground democratic organisations against the arrest whatsoever to implicate the activists and is and persecution of the country’s prominent therefore trying to prejudice the courts and the social activists. Speakers addressing the public through such Goebbelsian tricks as meeting said that the Hindu-fascist media trial and fabricated ‘evidence’. Even government is fast losing its support among admonished the police the electorate due to its anti-people policies and for resorting to such underhand methods to is now resorting to bogeys like ‘Urban Naxal’ frame the accused and opposition to silence its critics and brush up its image. parliamentary parties too have questioned the They termed it as a period of undeclared veracity of the so-called letter. emergency which is even more dangerous for In spite of this, the police arrested the country since it has been imposed in a Sudha Bharadwaj, Arun Ferreira and Vernon clandestine manner. Some also saw it as an Gonzalves followed by Varavara Rao after the attempt by the Modi government to crush the period of house arrest was over in November new upsurge of Dalit assertion in the country and were sent to jail. The four now join the by using the Maoist tag against it.

26 January - June 2019 MIB-38 Seeing it as an attempt to silence the committees, People’s Liberation Guerrilla critical voices against Brahmanical Hindu- Army and the Revolutionary People’s fascism and state terror, the revolutionary, Committees to fight on the basis of the class progressive and democratic forces of the struggle and the right to self-determination of country are expressing their united opposition the people. It called upon the broad masses, to the arrest of the nine social activists including the workers, peasants, students, implicated in Bhima-Koregaon violence and youths, intellectuals, journalists, cultural the so-called conspiracy to assassinate Modi. activists and women to strengthen the fight They are holding press conferences, protest against Hindutva fascism and on all people’s rallies, demonstrations, public talks, etc. against issues including displacement so as to make this assault on the democratic rights of the Operation Ghamasan successful and defeat the people. This struggle must be kept up and ‘Samadhan’ plan. intensified in the coming days as a part of the people’s united movement against Hindutva- fascism and Indian state’s war on people. Only Masses of South Bastar protest through the pressure of mass mobilisation and against Nulkatong massacre public opinion that the nine activists can be released from prison, all the false cases against STF and DRG forces of Chhattisgarh them quashed and persecution of other Police encircled and shot dead 15 villagers in a political dissidents can be prevented. cold-blooded manner in Nulkatong village under Konta Police Station of Sukma district in Chhattisgarh in the morning of 6 August. Operation Ghamasan to fight Around 200 jawans of the state forces forcibly back the counter-revolutionary took away nearly sixty villagers from ‘Samadhan’ plan Nulkatong, Belpossa, Gompad, Kindempad and Kanaipad villages the previous day and Eastern Regional Bureau (ERB) of selected executed fifteen of them near CPI(Maoist) has recently launched Operation Nulkatong hills the next day.. Following this, Ghamasan as a response to the ongoing the government claimed that the deceased were countrywide ‘Samadhan’ strategic plan of the all Maoist guerrillas including wanted PLGA Indian ruling classes that was initiated in May commanders who were gunned down in a last year with the aim of wiping out the fierce encounter, and boasted of a major revolutionary movement by the year 2022. success in the ongoing anti-Maoist operation ‘Ghamasan’, which means ‘fierce’ in , in South Bastar termed ‘Operation Monsoon’. has been formulated by the ERB after To make this make-belief story palatable, the thoroughly studying the ‘Samadhan’ plan of government also claimed to have recovered 16 the enemy forces and is meant to be a political weapons from the site of the encounter. But and military response plan. Ghamasan is the this blatant lie was betrayed by the fact that as answer to Samadhan, which involves, among many as six of those killed were minors of the other things, the combining of armed struggle age between 13 and 15, while the rest were poor with mass mobilisation, opening new fronts Adivasi peasants engaged in agricultural of struggle and emphasising on developing the activities. Moreover, none of the weapons revolutionary movement by learning from and claimed to be recovered are modern weapons rectifying past mistakes and shortcomings. To usually carried by the red fighters but are intensify the struggle against incumbent Sanghi muzzle-loading guns (bharmars) used by the forces led by Modi-Shah-Bhagwat clique villagers for hunting. Nevertheless, top through a front against Brahmanical Hindu- functionaries of the government including fascism involving the widest possible Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and democratic forces of the country is also an Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh important part of the Ghamasan plan. The congratulated their ‘valiant’ forces for carrying ERB has appealed to the members of all Party out this dastardly massacre. Bastar IG

MIB-38 January - June 2019 27 Vivekanand Sinha announced that the individuals took part in the march under the involved jawans would be duly awarded. banner of ‘Vikalp Sangam Manch’. But due Significantly, this killing has been carried to the appeal of the Party, the people’s response out just two days after Raman Singh’s to it was lukewarm, leading to the failure of statement addressing the Maoists that either the purpose of the march. The purported aim they surrender or get ready to be eliminated by of the march was to impress upon the the government forces. This was nothing but CPI(Maoist) to come to the negotiating table a thinly-veiled go-ahead given to the anti- with the Indian government to initiate a peace Maoist forces to perpetrate such atrocities process in Bastar. against the people. The white forces did not In a press release issued on 20 September, take much time in taking the cue from the DKSZC said that the ‘peace march’ initiated fascist CM and executing this massacre as a and led by Shubhranshu Chaudhury is in fact message for the Maoist movement. This is the sponsored by the Indian ruling classes who are latest of the series of massacres carried out by desperate to see the end of the organs of the anti-Maoist forces targeting the masses of people’s democratic power sprouting in Dandakaranya. Dandakaranya that have emerged as a South Bastar Divisional Committee of the challenge to their oppressive rule in the course CPI(Maoist) termed the Nulkatong massacre of struggle and are becoming a beacon light a fake encounter and released to the media the for the country’s masses. That is why they have names of the villagers killed, called a bandh of launched the ‘Samadhan’ strategic offensive last Sukma district on 13 August and appealed to year to wipe out the Maoist movement. The the people to strongly protest against it. Adivasi ‘peace march’ is an integral part of this multi- people of Bastar in large numbers raised their pronged strategy. As a more immediate vocal protest against the massacre. That objective, the rulers believe that if successful, a evening, the people of the area blockaded the march of this kind would render the boycott Konta Block office and police station. Women call issued by the Maoist Party for the in large number protested at several places upcoming assembly elections in Chhattisgarh including Kistaram Block headquarters and less effective and allow it to be conducted Konta. Except BJP, all parliamentary parties ‘peacefully’. Likewise, multinational and including AAP and its leader Soni Sodi and domestic big corporations that wish to create all social organisations active in Bastar has a conducive atmosphere for their operations termed this a fake encounter and demanded such as the plunder of Bastar’s rich natural an enquiry to identify and punish the guilty. A resources too are interested that a ‘peace PIL has also been filed in the Supreme Court march’ of the kind organised by Chaudhury with the plea for a judicial enquiry into the become successful. But none of these designs massacre. can be achieved without dealing with the ongoing revolutionary struggle of the masses led by the CPI(Maoist). Hence is this farce of DKSZC calls for the boycott of a ‘peace march’. Shubhranshu Chaudhury’s But it is not unknown to Shubhranshu ‘peace march’ in Bastar Chaudhury and his ilk that the Indian ruling classes and their reactionary governments are Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee squarely responsible for the ongoing violence (DKSZC) of the CPI(Maoist) called upon the in Bastar. As a part of their war on people, masses and the democratic forces of Bastar to they have converted the region into a killing boycott the ‘Vikalp Peace March’ led by former zone, deploying lakhs of police and journalist Shubhranshu Chaudhury from paramilitary forces, soaking the land with the Konta to Jagdalpur across four districts of blood of hundreds of revolutionary cadres and Bastar Division beginning on 2 October – the the fighting masses every year. In spite of this, birth anniversary of M K Gandhi. A number while appealing to the CPI(Maoist) for peace, of Gandhians, NGOs, Left parties and some Chaudhury and his co-marchers failed to ask

28 January - June 2019 MIB-38 the Indian government to stop its military People protest against the operations, withdraw its troops or release the thousands of political prisoners languishing in brutal murder of mass leader jails so that an atmosphere for peace can The police forces chased down and caught actually be created. Their refusal to make this a mass leader of Chinari area in East Bastar demand and one-sidedly asking the Maoists and a member of Chinari Village Party to respond to their peace overture shows that Committee member Comrade Narsingh on 26 the peace marchers are not really interested in August when he along with another Maoist peace or the welfare of the people but are activist was conducting a people’s court in working as willing tools of the ruling classes Kallepad village. The cruel DRG forces got to divert the masses from the path of struggle. information of the assembly through an It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the informer, surrounded the village and caught march utterly failed to make any impact on him unarmed from a nearby field after giving the people. him a chase. They tore down Comrade Narsingh’s clothes and beat him up till he became unconscious. The people and Opposition to the arrest particularly the women tried hard to get him of Murthy in the name of released from the clutches of the police. They curbing ‘urban Naxals’ fought with the police and even engaged in fisticuffs demanding his release, following On 23 December, Chhattisgarh Police which the police beat the women too and even arrested Murthy Venkatrao, a senior fired in the air to disperse the crowd. technical officer of the National Geophysical Witnessing that the people were still not ready Institute and a resident of Telangana from to give up, one batch of policemen kept the Rajnandgaon district. The police have villagers engaged while another batch took levelled the usual charge of being a ‘co- away Comrade Narsingh, tied him to a tree ordinator’ and lynchpin of the Maoist urban and brutally shot him dead. Later the story of network, i.e., an ‘urban Naxal’. Before a Maoist leader’s death in an encounter was arrest, he was subjected to prolonged released to the media. The people of Chinari interrogation and mental torture. This is area followed the policemen to the police another condemnable act of the government station demanding the dead body of their to implicate and persecute democrats and beloved leader, but the police conducted the individuals by raising the spectre of Maoism post-mortem surreptitiously at a different in the country’s urban areas under fabricated place without taking the body to the police charges. Though in most cases the police fail station. The next day too the villagers once to substantiate their charges in the court of again reached the police station asking for the law and the accused is often acquitted, they body but the police brought it to the village on succeed in keeping him or her behind bars a tractor through a different route to avoid the for a prolonged period of the trial – a agitated villagers. Hundreds of people devious way of ‘punishing’ innocent persons conducted Comrade Narsingh’s last rites in or political dissidents. One of the reasons Chinari village in revolutionary tradition. why Murthy has been framed is that his brother is the General Secretary of the Civil Liberties Committee (CLC), Telangana – an Voices of protest against the organisation which has been vocal against illegal detention of 40 Adivasi the violation of democratic rights of the people by the Indian state. The democratic men at Burkapal organisations of Telangana and On 22nd September, 13 young men who Chhattisgarh have demanded the release of are the residents of Patelpara – a cluster of Murthy and withdrawal of the false charges Burkapal village in Sukma district were picked against him. up by the CRPF and taken to the Burkapal

MIB-38 January - June 2019 29 CRPF camp. They were illegally kept in the police. Under pressure from the enraged camp. Similarly, the government forces people, the police have initiated an surrounded Tadmetla village of the same investigation into the complaint. district at around 7 in the morning on 30 September and forcibly took away 27 men to Burkapal camp. After a few days they released People teach the notorious four of the older men but the remaining 23 DRG goons a lesson were continued to be held in illegal confinement in the camp. All the villagers were DRG jawans all of a sudden landed up in subjected to brutal physical torture as has been Barsur weekly market in Dantewada district revealed by the villagers who have been on 13 July, beat up the villagers and picked up released. They have narrated horrific stories of four of them including two Adivasi peasants beatings and torture of these 40 Adivasi men Lakhsman Kashyap and Masu. They released – most of them in their youth. two of them after the people fought with them, The Police have been claiming that these while they took the other two to a nearby forest villagers have been taken in for questioning for and beat them up till they became unconscious. their alleged involvement in the Maoist They also looted 850 rupees belonging to the movement and particularly in two recent IED two villagers. In the afternoon they were left blasts in the area and they would be released in Barsur market, but the police goon caught soon. This lie went on for days even as villagers Madda – a peasant of Bodel village – and tried were deeply concerned for the life and liberty to take him away in a four-wheeler. At that time of their kith and kin. They have been around 25-30 villagers gathered there, protesting and enquiring regularly with the surrounded the police vehicle, started to argue police and paramilitary forces demanding the with the policemen and smash the windshield, release of the detained villagers but were etc. in an effort to set Madda free. The police invariably rebuffed. The people have expressed were forced to release the villager and leave the their strong opposition to such acts of white market. terror which the government forces regularly Unable to take on the masses in the subject them to in the name of crushing the market, the DRG goons waited on the way to Maoist movement. the market some distance away between Satdhar and Malem. Notorious DRG jawans Hirdu, Ramsingh, Giridhar, etc. began Villagers protest against harassing the villagers coming from the market, atrocities by the govt. forces threatening and abusing them. They even caught Madda once again. Noticing this, the The people of Kadaikhodra village of people returning from the market – particularly Antagarh block in Kanker district have raised the women – surrounded the policemen and their voice against police brutalities during started questioning them. They even started search operations in the first week of beating the policemen, seized the goods kept September. The villagers submitted a written in the police vehicle and punctured its tyres. A complaint against paramilitary and police few women seized a weapon from the police forces for beating and physical assault in the and did not give it up even after a tug of war police station. They said that these forces for half an hour. Finally the policemen regularly visit their village and often beat up recovered their weapon by severely beating up the villagers on the allegation that they have the agitating women. They also resorted to been assisting the Maoists. If the villagers speak blank fire to disperse the people. Later they of filing police complaint, the government took shelter in the vehicle and remained till the forces threaten them with arrest and evening when they brought an air pump from imprisonment. As these atrocities persisted Malem and left in the dark of the night. In this even after repeated protests, the villagers way, the revolutionary masses with their bare decided to file a formal complaint with the hands taught the haughty DRG goons a lesson.

30 January - June 2019 MIB-38 Opposition to the killing of torture – his leg was half severed, the muscles of his thighs were cut, he was knifed at several Adivasi youth Janglu Mandavi places throughout the body. 24 year old Janglu Mandavi was a resident The villagers who reached Kondagaon of Musnar village in Narayanpur district of district headquarters on 24 hearing the news Chhattisgarh. He was a talented artist and refused to receive the dead body demanding a worked as a cultural activist in Chetna Natya judicial enquiry into the brutal killing and Manch (CNM) from his childhood. He joined demanding punishment for the culprits. By 10 the Maoist movement as a Professional pm the police forced some relatives to receive Revolutionary in 2016 but returned home the body and brought it to Chote Dongar under pressure from his family the next year. through a different route. The police Since then he had been leading a civilian life threatened them with dire consequences if the as a peasant in his village. The police had been body was not taken to his village Musnar and bringing all kinds of pressure on him to cremated overnight. To ensure this, hundreds surrender, to become a traitor or to cooperate of police and paramilitary force jawans with them, but Janglu refused to go against the surrounded Musnar to intimidate the masses people by helping the class enemy. This has assembling there to perform the last rites of made him a target for the fascist enemy forces. Janglu. Ignoring police intimidation and When he was sleeping in his home in the terror, the people cremated his body as per night of 20 July 2018 after returning from a revolutionary tradition. day of back-breaking work in his fields, at around 11 pm DRG jawans woke him up and forcibly took him away with them. The DRG Harassment of girl students by jawans included traitors to the revolutionary jawans opposed by the masses movement like Hirdu Kumoti, Giridhar, Onkar, Sukhder, Somnath Kumoti and At around 9 pm on 4 December 2018, a Ramsingh Korram. They beat up Janglu’s wife few young girls were strolling in their when she tried to resist this abduction. They neighbourhood near the Girls’ High School in assured the family members that he would be Vikas Nagar of Kondagaon town, when some released the next day after interrogation and jawans of ITBP’s 29th Battalion camped at the threatened that if they informed anyone else district headquarters started harassing the girls. about this, they would bump off Janglu. They They responded with a vocal protest against forced him onto a motorcycle and took him the jawans, but the harassment continued. to the nearby Kodenar camp. He was Hearing the shouts for help from the girls, a mercilessly tortured for two days there. large number of people gathered at the scene and surrounded the jawans. They interrogated The family members and villagers tried to the paramilitary personnel and four local find out the whereabouts of Janglu between 21 youths took them to their camp to lodge a and 23 July at Kodenar camp, Dongar police complaint with their superiors. At the camp, station and Narayanpur town, but the police the ITBP officers assured of prompt and administration lied to them that they had disciplinary action against the guilty, but the no information about him. On 23 July, jawans who were angered by the protest of the Kondagaon Superintendent of Police (SP) masses and the lodging of the complaint beat announced to the media that Vayanar squad up the four complainants Umang, Lucky, member Janglu Mandavi was killed in an Trilok and Harsh after closing the camp gates. encounter with the police in Chote Osri forest They also broke the glasses of the car brought in Kondagaon district, and that a 9 mm pistol, by the four and planted liquor bottles to frame detonators and wires, etc. were recovered from them for drunkenness. him. The DRG goons brought Janglu’s dead body to Kondagaon by tying it to a When this news reached the people, they motorcycle. His body bore the marks of severe blockaded the camp in the evening and also carried out a spontaneous road blockade

MIB-38 January - June 2019 31 demanding strong punishment for the ITBP killed Aiba Pradra of Bujuli village, Syamson jawans guilty of harassment and physical Majhi of Bhinguruguda village, Ghasiram assault. The masses stood firm in their Bagsingh of Mardipanka village, Sanatan agitation and road blockade till late in the night Mallik of Gaheju village and Lakshmikanta and withdrew it only after an assurance of Nayak of Tikabali village under Brahmanigam action by top police and paramilitary officials. Police Station in Kandhamal district in a pre- This was a victory for the people against planned manner in Bhaliaguda forest on the harassment by the irate paramilitary jawans borders of Kandhamal, Ganjam and Gajapati who in the past too perpetrated similar acts. districts. Later they claimed that the five were In fact, the people fought the jawans of the killed in crossfire during an encounter with same ITBP camp last year for harassment of Maoist guerrillas. women in the vicinity of Vikas Nagar and But there was no exchange of fire with the through their struggle ensured that the culprits Maoists in Bhaliaguda that day as the cock- underwent imprisonment. and-bull story of the SOG proclaimed. In fact, the five persons in their prime of youth were The masses continue their eliminated because they were politically conscious local social activists who fought struggle to punish the culprits against corruption and nepotism indulged by of Bhaliaguda fake encounter the parliamentary parties and government officials in the Panchayat Samitis and the On the sixth anniversary of Bhaliaguda Block offices. They were also actively involved fake encounter, the people of Kandhamal, in the activities related to people’s issue like Ganjam and Gajapati districts including the forest rights, NREGA, RTI, etc. As a result, family members of the five Adivasi and Dalit they had become a throne in the flesh of the villagers who were gunned down organised a local power-holders like the Sarpanch and ex- protest meeting on 14 November at Behrampur Sarpanch of Saramuli Gram Panchayat, who seeking justice which has still been denied to had already threatened them with dire them. Six years back on 12 November 2012, consequences for their daring activism. Their the SOG jawans of Odisha Police had shot and elimination through the extra-judicial killing

Widows of the villagers killed in Bhaliaguda fake encounter with their memorandum to the government 32 January - June 2019 MIB-38 was as per a conspiracy of these local Condemnation of the politicians in collusion with the administration and the police. arrest of two publishers and a printer by Tamil Nadu Police The relatives and the fellow villagers of the deceased have been relentlessly fighting for Arivoly and Suresh, two well-known justice for the last six years, but to no avail. No publishers and political activists of Tamil Nadu proper enquiry has been conducted and none who have been running Manithan Publishers for of the culprits responsible for the killing have over twenty years, have been arrested by Tamil been brought to book in spite of the strong Nadu Police along with Ravi – a printing press popular demand that had been raised since the owner under the charge of sedition (IPC Section time of the fake encounter. But refusing to 124A). They have been conveniently branded as abandon their struggle, the masses of ‘Maoists’, so that no question can be raised Kandhamal, Gajapati and Ganjam districts against their arrests. Their only ‘crime’ was to including Adivasis and Dalits assembled on the bring out a translation in Tamil of an interview 12 November this year once again at by the General Secretary of CPI(Maoist) Behrampur to commemorate the deceased and Comrade Ganapathy published in English in to demand justice. A protest march was taken several publications including out from Kamapalli Chawk and a way back in 2015! It is worth noting here that demonstration held before the RDC Office, Manithan Publishers have been publishing a Southern Zone, Berhampur. A protest meeting number of booklets and printed matter on public was also organised where speaker after speaker issues and problems from a Marxist-Leninist condemned the government’s continued effort perspective, which are often critical of the to shield the guilty policemen and thwart the government of the day and the prevailing judicial process. political and social system. But this cannot be a The widow of late Ghasiram Bagsing – cause of penal action by the state as public one of the persons killed in the fake encounter criticism of authorities is an indispensible part – also addressed the meeting, while she along of the freedom of expression which is inalienable with Laxmi Bagsingh, Mamita Pradhan, right of the people under any political Ranjita Patamajhi and Sikaalu Majhi – the dispensation that calls itself democratic. widows of other four victims – submitted a The arrest of Arivolu and Suresh for merely memorandum to the Governor and Chief publishing a political interview already available Minister asking them to expedite the legal in the public domain has once again process leading to the punishment of the demonstrated that there is no real democracy in accused. The demands of an independent and the country, particularly when the Brahmanical impartial inquiry into the incident, lodging of Hindu-fascists are the ruling power today. It is an FIR under Section 302 of the IPC against the latest in a series of assaults on the press in the the accused policemen, stop to police atrocities country and particularly in Tamil Nadu where against the villagers in the name of anti-Maoist the editor of Nakkeeran magazine Gopal was also operations, and a compensation of Rs.50 lakhs arrested recently under similar baseless charges. for the next of kin of the deceased were also The rulers of India do not want to allow any raised in the memorandum. Similarly, a literature or idea representing the interests of the petition was also sent to the Chief Justice of masses to reach the people but rather want to keep the Supreme Court asking for his intervention them inundated with ruling-class ideas round- in the matter. In this way, the struggle for the the-clock through the mass media to blunt their victims of Bhaliaguda fake encounter has been political consciousness and fighting spirit. While kept alive by the masses of Odisha against all protests have been registered against the arrest odds including government hostility. of Arivole, Suresh and Ravi and also of Gopal earlier, this needs to be intensified to send across the message of defiance that such acts of white terror will finally come to naught in front of people’s resistance.

MIB-38 January - June 2019 33 People’s Struggles

Provisions of the SC/ST Act Bank employees carry out reinstated due to militant massive countrywide strike struggle by the Dalits Officers of public sector banks carried The Supreme Court in a highly regressive out a day-long countrywide strike on their and casteist judgment in March this year had charter of demands including an upward struck down a number of crucial provisions revision of their salary on 21 December, of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, while bank employees under the banner of diluting it to the point of making it effectively United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) – a toothless. For instance, provisions of the confederation of nine bank employees’ mandatory immediate arrest of the accused unions – conducted a countrywide strike named in the FIR without the granting of bail, with their own set of demands on 26 etc. have been removed and in its place a prior December. The two strikes coming in close investigation to determine the veracity of the succession severely affected the working of allegation has been provided for, which opens public sector banks, but the Modi government up the possibility that the complaint will be refused to fulfil the demands raised by them rejected to favour the culprit. The Dalits and and instead put forward only vague the progressive forces including the assurances. It is worth noting that the central parliamentary opposition parties came out government is in the process of taking a strongly against this verdict, criticising the BJP number of anti-people and anti-employee government for not defending the Act in the decisions like the merger of public sector court and colluding with the casteist forces to banks that not only threaten to wipe out a dilute it. Due to the countrywide protests and large number of jobs but also are preliminary a call for a Bharat bandh on 9 August, the Modi to the phased privatisation of these banks. government hurriedly decided to bring a new The bank employees’ unions have declared legislation reinstating the earlier provisions of that they would further intensify the the SC/ST Act, which was unanimously agitation for their legitimate demands if the passed in the Monsoon session of the government failed to respond. Parliament. This is an important victory of the oppressed people of the country, particularly the Dalit masses.

34 January - June 2019 MIB-38 Editor’s Guild decries Commission recommends trial government’s interference of Gujarat Police personnel for in press freedom fake encounters

Taking note of the recent resignation of The Supreme Court-appointed two journalists and the repeated blacking out Commission headed by Justice H S Bedi of the signals of TV channels criticising the which was set up to enquire into 17 alleged Modi-led NDA government, the Editors’ cases of fake encounters by Gujarat Police Guild of India has condemned this and all between 2002 and 2006 in which mostly other attempts at interference in the freedom persons from the Muslim minority of the press. Two senior journalists tendered community were gunned down recently their resignation in protest against pressure submitted its final report. Substantiating the from their owners to moderate the criticism allegations of the family members of the slain of Modi government in their programs. In a persons and the democratic organisations, statement released to the press, it has demanded the Commission found the killings of Sameer proper action against those involved in Khan, Haji Haji Ismail and Kasam Jaffar to suppressing the voice of the media and called be extra-judicial and recommended upon the media houses not to buckle under any initiation of trial of the policemen including kind of pressure from the government or any three inspector-rank officers involved in the other quarter. crimes. The Commission, however, failed to Terming incidents such as the interference identify or name the top police officials and with the airwaves as an attack on the their political bosses whose orders the lower- foundations of an independent media and the ranked officials had carried out. democratic system, the Guild asked the Moreover, the Commission did not find government to investigate into the allegations anything illegal about the rest of the 14 and file cases against the guilty. The encounters, even though the victim’s families government must assure the people of the and democratic rights organisations have country that it is not involved in such been terming these too as fake encounters despicable acts directly or indirectly through and fighting for justice. It is clear that the its agencies, it said. The Guild also criticised Bedi Commission has served its purpose as the tendency to put selective restrictions on the a mere cover up to the dastardly killings by media by the government so as to promote its the fascist Gujarat Police under the then own sectarian agenda and block the opposition Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Home or critical voices. It has also criticised the new Minister . The fact that no top trend in which reporters are being deprived of police or political figures have been named the democratic right to question the people in and 14 encounters have been sought to be public life and in government authority during justified shows that Commissions of these press conferences. Protesting against the kind – even when the government or the government’s notice to a few newspapers after judiciary is forced to form them due to they published reports about the questionable public pressure – will rarely bring out the role of a particular corporate house in an truth or uphold justice unless it is forced to important defence deal, the EGI held that do so by a strong mass movement. The freedom of the press is in the interest of the religious minorities, particularly the people as well as the journalists and hence must Muslims and the democratic forces of the be upheld. This protest by Guild can be seen country must firmly unite to oppose these as one more addition to the growing voices acts of state terrorism and fight relentlessly against the of the Hindutva- to bring the culprits including the ringleaders fascist Modi government working at the behest to book. of the imperialist and feudal forces.

MIB-38 January - June 2019 35 People’s struggle to punish Maoist support for the the killers of Narendra fight against the practice Dabholkar continues of burning Ravan’s effigy

On the occasion of the fifth anniversary The age-old Hindu-Brahmanical of the killing of , his practice of burning Ravan’s effigy during family members, democratic and progressive Vijaya Dashami (Dussera) festival marking individuals and organisations took out a the victory of the mythological lord Ram protest rally in Pune on 20 August led by over the king of Lanka Ravan is considered Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti (Committee by many oppressed sections of the society to Eradicate Superstition). Dabholkar was as symbolising of the domination of the shot down on 20 August 2013 by assailants Aryans over the Adivasis, Dravidians and belonging to the Hindutva-terrorist other indigenous people of the subcontinent. organisation Sanatan Sanstha. The protestors Many Adivasi and non-Adivasi demanded the arrest and prosecution of the communities of Maharashtra, real culprits behind this dastardly murder who Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh are enjoying the protection of the BJP-led and Tamil Nadu worship Ravan as their god governments in the state and at the centre due while in Brahmanical mythology he is to their ideological affinity. In fact, though the presented as a demon, and hence is the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of Maharashtra practice of his ritualised burning. Police investigating the assassination has made Opposition to this practice has been picking a few arrests due to the ongoing agitation by up strength in the country from amongst the the progressive forces, these are seen as mere Adivasis, Dalits, the Dravidian people of foot-soldiers whereas the real culprits are still South India and the progressive forces. This roaming free. The ATS has not yet made any is an important effort by the oppressed serious headway in breaking the case or masses of the country to challenge and arresting the main criminals behind it even after rewrite the Brahmanical interpretation of five years of probe. This shows that the India’s past in which the Adivasis, Dalits, government will continue to protect and women and other oppressed social sections patronise the culprits unless and until it is are presented in a humiliating manner as forced to act by the people’s movement. This inferiors, showing their suppression and movement will be an important part of the defeat in the hands of the Brahmanical struggle for justice to other progressive public forces. figures fallen to the bullets of the Hindu- Together with some other oppressed fascists like , M M Kalburgi, communities of the country, the Adivasi and others while also will people of Gadchiroli too consider Ravan as strengthen the united struggle of the country’s their deity and worship him during every people against saffron fascism.

Adivasis protest against the burning of Ravan’s effigy during Vijaya Dashami 36 January - June 2019 MIB-38 Dussera. So, various Adivasi organisations start work on the refinery to be constructed at of Kurkhera and Korchi tehsils of the an estimated cost of 3 lakh crore rupees and district recently submitted a memorandum has overseen the signing of an agreement to the district administration demanding a between the Saudi Arabian petroleum stop to this practice and action against those company Aramco and government-owned who perform this ritual. Extending support OIL, HPCL and BPCL this April to set up the to this struggle and terming the present BJP refinery. Its construction is to be completed by governments at the centre and in 2022 with a capacity of refining 60 million tons Maharashtra to be against the Adivasis, of crude oil annually, making it the largest Dalits and Muslims, CPI(Maoist) put up single-location refinery in the world. It is banners and posters on Devsur-Kosmi road. therefore criminally ignoring the large-scale The Party appealed to the people to refrain displacement, loss of livelihood and from burning the effigy of Ravan and environmental destruction to be caused by the undermining the dignity of the Adivasi project. masses. Though it will be a long way before The intransigence of the government has such humiliating religious practices will be brought about a direct confrontation with the discontinued by the people themselves masses. While the government is claiming that through a revolutionary change in their the refinery is going to bring in development culture, a beginning has nevertheless been of the region and create jobs for the locals, these made, which must be continued and claims have been refuted by the villagers strengthened by the country’s revolutionary threatened with displacement, who consider and democratic forces. that the project will lead to the loss of many more jobs than it will actually create. They fear Construction of ‘the largest that the refinery will reduce them to homeless paupers, while the resource-rich land and sea refinery in the world’ opposed have given them a comfortable life in a region by the masses of Konkan which is yet to see a single suicide due to farmer’s distress – a phenomenon so common What has been billed as the largest refinery in other parts of the state. This region which in the world in the making, if this mega project is famous for high-quality mangoes and cashew comes up on 15,000 acres of coastal land in nuts is a source of considerable income for the the Konkan region of Maharashtra, it will landowning villagers, while a large fishing displace the people of at least 17 villages. Of community made up of landless people these coastal villages inhabited primarily by depends on the sea to earn their living – all of peasants and fisherfolk, 15 belong to Ratnagiri whom are now under threat. If the refinery district and two to the neighbouring comes up, over 14 lakh mango trees, six lakh Sindhudurg. The government is desperate to cashew trees and 500 acres of paddy land will

Masses protest against the setting up of ‘the world’s largest petroleum refinery’ MIB-38 January - June 2019 37 be destroyed. Therefore, the masses have shown National Securities Act (NSA) has been invoked their determination to fight the government to against him and some other prominent leaders the end under the banner of ‘Konkan Refinery of the organisation which has been targeted Virodhi Sangharsh Samiti’ to defend their land by the BJP government ever since it led an and water. unprecedented militant resistance of the Dalits In fact, it is quite clear to them that the in Saharanpur against attacks by the BJP governments at the centre and in dominant-caste feudal forces. While the real Maharashtra are sacrificing the interests of the culprits of the violence are enjoying the people for the benefit of foreign and protection of the government, the Dalits who comprador capitalists, and so the people have have been at the receiving end of the violence no other way but to resist using all means that have been hounded and persecuted for daring they can command. Ever since the news of the to fight back under the leadership of the Bhim project became public, they have got organised Army. In spite of this combined terror of the and are agitating through protests, rallies, etc. state and the Upper caste feudal forces, While Devendra Fadnavis government is however, the Dalits are keeping up the struggle claiming that only 10 percent villages are for the release of their leaders and punishment standing against ‘development’ by opposing of those guilty of Saharanur violence. the project, the masses say that 100 percent of the villages are together in opposing it. This is Women fight for temple entry the reason why the government has so far been able to acquire only 126 acres of land out of in Sabarimala after the court the required 14,675 acres. The villagers have clears the way foiled two attempts by revenue officials to survey the land for the refinery so far, forcing Following the Supreme Court judgment them to return without completing their work. of 28 September which held that debarring The people are confident that just as they had women of menstruating age to enter the forced Vedanta to abandon its plan for a copper Ayappa temple at Sabarimala in Kerala was smelter plant in the region in 1992 or has discriminatory, iniquitous and against the stopped the Jaitapur nuclear power plant so fundamental tenets of the Constitution far through their struggle, they will successfully including the right to religious freedom, prevent ‘the world’s largest refinery’ from women of Kerala have launched a struggle to gobbling up their land and existence. exercise this right in practice. The judgment is seen as an attack on the entrenched Brahmanical values upheld by the Brahmanical Demonstration against the ruling classes including the priestly class for continued incarceration of centuries, just as was the struggle of the Dalits for temple entry in the past. Several women Bhim Army founder have come forward to enter the Sabarimala Bhim Army – the militant organisation of temple braving the opposition of the arch- the Dalits of Uttar Pradesh – organised a reactionary and conservative sections of the protest demonstration at Parliament Street in society including the temple administration. New Delhi on 19 August with the participation They have done it not so much out of religious of other progressive and democratic belief but as a political act of defiance against organisations. The main demand raised the Brahmanical-feudal culture imposed upon through the demonstration was the immediate them by the old society. release of Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan, the The staunch opposition of the priests of founder leader of the organisation, whom the Sabaraimala backed by the upper sections of government of UP has kept the dominant castes of Kerala led by the RSS- in prison on the allegation of instigating Sangh Parivar has shown that they consider violence during the Bharat bandh of 2 April themselves to be law unto themselves and earlier this year. Provisions of the draconian openly trample upon the order of the highest

38 January - June 2019 MIB-38 court and prevented women from entering the copper mine at Thoothukudi (Tuticorin) on temple while the government looked on. In 22 May, in which at least 13 unarmed fact, while the ruling Left Democratic Front protestors were massacred. In his speech to (LDF) led by the CPI(M) has welcomed the the UNHRC later uploaded on social media, court verdict on the one hand, the party or its he had accused the government for acting as women’s organisation took no initiative to the agents of the multinational Vedanta implement it in practice on the other keeping company and crushing the people’s in mind its religious sentiments of its Hindu movement against it in a brutal manner. The constituency. It has failed so far to ensure the AIDMK government of Tamil Nadu was entry of the women who have come forward miffed by this outspoken criticism on an since 17 October after the temple was opened international stage by Thirumurugan for visitors for the first time after the verdict, Gandhi and filed a fabricated case for even though the government is duty-bound to “provoking the public against the do so. BJP and other RSS affiliates, on the government” even before he returned from other hand, are trying to make further inroads abroad. He was immediately arrested on into the Kerala society by trying to rouse the arrival and produced before a court to seek Brahmanical and patriarchal passions of the custody, but the court refused to send him to Hindus in the state by opposing the verdict and custody due to lack of any evidence to charge carrying out violent demonstrations, where a him of any crime and ordered his release. large number of women too have participated. But the police used another case of sedition Following the lead of the BJP, the pseudo- and unlawful assembly lodged against him secular Congress has also decried the verdict in 2017 to arrest him, following which he and is peddling its strategy of soft-Hindutva was sent to police custody. But aware that to appease the Hindus. Thus, the Sabarimala the case against him is entirely baseless, the issue has once against demonstrated how police kept on piling additional cases on shallow the claims of ‘Indian democracy’ in him, making it over 13 cases pending against this semi-feudal country are. It has also him. These include a case under the highlighted the need of all the oppressed draconian UAPA for speaking out in support sections including women to fight a long-drawn of the Palestinian national liberation united struggle to establish a genuinely struggle in a public meeting in 2017! This is democratic society through revolutionary nothing but a clear case of hounding of a change where all freedoms including religious social activist by the repressive government freedom and freedom from religion will be for speaking up against injustice and guaranteed to all in practice. oppression of the people including the struggling masses of Tamil Nadu. Arrest of civil rights activist in There was a strong opposition from a wide section of the democratic forces of the Tamil Nadu condemned state to this persecution of the activist, due to which the court was forced to release him Democratic organisations and on conditional bail on 2 October, after nearly individuals in large numbers have two months of imprisonment. However, condemned the arrest of Thirumurugan given the fascist approach of the AIDMK Gandhi, a civil rights activist of Tamil Nadu government towards its political opponents, and coordinator of the May 17 Movement, there is a constant fear of his re-arrest under by the police on 9 August 2018 after he any of the baseless charges. Therefore, the returned from participating in an UNHRC people have demanded that the government session in Geneva held in June this year. drop all the charges against Thirumurugan There he had forcefully raised the issue of Gandhi and stop persecuting him under any unprovoked police firing on agitators pretext. peacefully demonstrating against the Sterlite

MIB-38 January - June 2019 39 Protest continues in Assam spoke out against it, the government used the police to lodge sedition charges against them against amendments to the on the allegation that they made ‘anti- Citizenship Act national’ speeches in a public meeting. The people of Assam have strongly condemned this Ever since the BJP-led NDA government brutal method of crushing of their voices by at the centre introduced Citizenship the state and declared that they will intensify (Amendment) Bill, 2016 containing their struggle in the coming days. amendments to the existing Citizenship Act that paves the way for granting citizenship to religious minorities immigrating to India from Brahmanical Hindu-fascists neighbouring countries including Bangladeshi Hindus, the people of Assam have been up in gag the media in Manipur arms against the Modi government and the Free speech or freedom of the press has BJP. According to the amendment, non- always remained a chimera in India with its Muslims entering India illegally from fake democratic system and hollow Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan before ‘democratic’ institutions. As has been 31 December 2014 due to religious persecution witnessed by the people of the country on a will be granted Indian citizenship. Led by the number of occasions, the ruling classes and state’s students’ organisations and other mass their governments have no qualms in organisations, they have been agitating against silencing the media when it dares to raise it continuously in large numbers. As a part of critical voices or to expose its anti-people this movement, 46 organisations of Assam traitorous policies. The period of called a daylong state-wide bandh on 23 Emergency is a glaring example of it. But October, which was successfully carried out in the gagging of the media and journalists the Brahmaputra valley. Railway tracks and under the present Brahmanical Hindu-fascist highways were blockaded by demonstrators, all regime led by Narendra Modi is not falling public and private vehicles remained off the much behind on this score, who has imposed road, government offices, business an undeclared emergency throughout the establishments and educational institutions, country. If the killing of independent etc. remained closed. The bandh once again journalist Gauri Lankesh was one method showed the total opposition of the people of of suppressing free speech, the use of the Assam against the conspiracy of the Hindutva coercive apparatus of the state is another. forces to settle foreign immigrants in the state on the basis of religion against the will of the In one such recent instance of Hindutva- masses, thereby intensifying the communal fascist assault on the media, a senior polarisation. This is also an attempt to blunt journalist of Manipur Kishorechandra the national consciousness of the oppressed Wangkhem has been ordered to be detained nationalities of Assam and the Northeast for a year this December. The NSA Advisory against the oppression of the Indian state by Board in its meeting of 11 December in New propagating the Hindutva ideology. Delhi ‘enquired’ into the alleged social media post and video by the journalist in which he But ignoring the popular opposition, the called the Manipur Chief Minister as a BJP has got the bill passed in the Lok Sabha puppet of the central government and using its majority in the house, further fuelling Hindutva. No doubt that NIA headed by the the agitation. Now it is trying to get the bill arch-reactionary and Hindutva stooge Ajit passed in the , following which Doval found Wangkhem ‘guilty’ and the amendment will come into effect. Alarmed recommended punishment. Not losing any by this prospect, when the leaders of the time, three days later the Chief Judicial resistance movement like well-known social Magistrate of West Imphal district ordered activist Prof. Hiren Gohain, peasant leader the journalist’s arrest and detention for a Akhil Gogoi and journalist Manjit Mahanta year! This astounding attack on the media

40 January - June 2019 MIB-38 was promptly approved by the Governor continued from p.48 Najma Heptullah, another puppet of They raise the tricolour after garlanding the Hindutva. The journalist fraternity of portraits of important bourgeois leaders like Manipur and people’s organisations of the Gandhi, Nehru etc. During this, sweets and state have strongly condemned the detention toffees (100 grams) are distributed among the of the journalist and began an agitation for prisoners. In their speeches the speakers try to his unconditional release. establish that the governments are working solely in the interest of the poor masses. Armed liberation struggle in “Satyameva Jayate! (Victory to the Truth), Always speak the truth! Walk on the right path! Kashmir continues fighting Stop drinking and using tobacco! Ahimsa back ‘Operation All Out’ Paramo (non-violence is the ultimate righteousness)! Don’t discriminate on the basis The glorious armed national liberation of caste and religion! All men are equal” – this struggle of the Kashmiri people for secession kind of slogans can be seen on the prison walls. from India which has been going on for the But in practice, the police, jail and the last three decades continues to advance judicial system are like one another in their braving the extremely repressive fascist rule exploitative character and in suppressing the of the Indian occupation regime. In fact, the masses. But in reality sayings like “jails are for armed resistance against the Indian armed maintaining law and order”, “jails are for forces has seen a resurgence since the reform” are all hollow. I walked out of dastardly murder of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen Mahboobnagar jail on 31 July 2009 after telling commander Burhan Wani in a fake the other prison inmates that the prisoners can encounter in 2016. To counter this upsurge, get real freedom only in the jail-free New the Indian government launched a fresh Democratic society, and thereafter in socialist round of repression since early 2017 in the and communist society and calling upon them form of ‘Operation All Out’. By November to continue their fight by converting the jails 2018, the Indian army, paramilitary and into an arena of struggle. police forces killed nearly 380 freedom fighters in encounters and fake encounters in different parts of Jammu and Kashmir, of whom over 170 were killed this year alone. These are apart from the tens of demonstrators killed by the armed forces during mass protests. In spite of such a large number of killings of the Kashmiri youth, the Indian government have been forced to admit that the number of youths joining the armed struggle have not come down but have gone up. Nor have the attacks on the Indian armed forces shown any sign of abatement due to the killings. Inspired by the fallen heroes of the freedom struggle, Kashmiri youths are keeping the flames of liberation burning.

MIB-38 January - June 2019 41 News from Behind the Bars

Jharkhand govt. decides to Three Patthalgarhi leaders offer Maoists ‘open jails’ walk out of prison

The cabinet of Raghubar Das-led BJP Three prominent leaders of the government of Jharkhand has recently took the Patthalgarhi movement in Jharkhand were decision to keep those Maoists who have cases released on 4 July 2018 after 64 days of lodged against them but want to quit the incarceration in Jashpurnagar district jail, revolutionary movement and “join the Chhattisgarh. They include former IAS officer mainstream” to keep them in ‘open jails’. Herman Kindo, former ONGC officer Joseph According to the government’s logic, this new Tirkey and Peter Khesh. These leaders had measure will remove the necessity of the challenged the lower court’s order of Maoist leaders and cadres who are willing to incarceration, following which the High Court surrender to spend time in jail, but will rather directed their release. It is worth noting that be placed in open spaces where their after the Patthalgarhi movement spread to movement will not be restricted. several districts of Jharkhand and other This is another devious ploy of the neighbouring states like Odisha and government to entice Maoist activists to Chhattisgarh, the government unleashed a abandon the path of struggle and to lay down reign of state terror using the paramilitary and arms before it. Such offers of ‘open jails’ and police forces against the struggling masses. A cash rewards, etc. will fail in their purpose as large number of people demanding self-rule they have failed repeatedly in the past. None under the Fifth Schedule and PESA Act of the but only the politically weakened and Constitution including the movement’s degenerated elements of the movement can leaders and the agitating Adivasi people have take such bait by the government to “lead a been jailed by the government under fictitious comfortable life” by betraying the charges. While a few have procured their revolutionary class struggle and the oppressed release by approaching the higher courts, a masses. large section is still behind bars awaiting release.

42 January - June 2019 MIB-38 Comrade Malati released after Special jail to be constructed 11 years of imprisonment for Maoists and other ‘dangerous’ prisoners K S Priya (Malati), who has been incarcerated in prison for the last eleven BJP government of Chhattisgarh has years following her conviction in two cases, decided to build a special jail to keep Maoists, was finally released in September this year. ‘terrorists’ and other ‘dangerous’ prisoners of Malati was arrested by the police from her the state. 50 acre land has already been acquired house in Raipur in 2007 and a number of by the jail department from the revenue Maoist-related cases were registered against department for this purpose in Baima village her based on material planted by the police of Bilaspur district. This is going to be the first in her residence during raids. special jail of the state which will have special The police not only resorted to lodging security provisions to house those political false charges to implicate her but also prisoners whom the Indian ruling classes presented fabricated evidence during the consider to be most dangerous to their rule. trial, which would have not stood any proper According to government records, more than judicial scrutiny. However, the biased trial 1,000 inmates are being locked up in the five court went by the claims of the prosecution central jails of the state located at Raipur, and wrongfully convicted on two charges, Bilaspur, Ambikapur, Durg and Jagdalpur who handing down ten years of imprisonment have been implicated in Maoism or terrorism- for each. She spent much of her term in related charges. Most of them are being kept Raipur Central Jail as a political prisoner in isolation wards away from other prisoners. and later she was transferred to the Now the plan is to bring them to the Chanchalguda prison in Hyderabad on her special jail to make the segregation even more plea. She took part in several jail struggles complete. Though the government is for prison reforms during this period and maintaining a veil of secrecy about this continued her fight from behind the bars. proposed jail citing security reasons and is But even after ten years of her prison avoiding giving much detail, there is no doubt period had expired last year, the government that the idea is to prevent the political prisoners refused to release her with the excuse that the of the state from mingling with the other two sentences would not run concurrently but prisoners, from politicising them and one after another! This was a flouting of all organising them in prison struggles. This is also legal norms and conventions and a great a way of trying to weaken the political injustice to the prisoner. Malati approached convictions of the prisoners by isolating them the Chhattisgarh High Court challenging even further and depriving them of their rights this interpretation of her sentence, which in the name of security. This fascist move by was meant to keep her illegally incarcerated the state government needs to be opposed from for a period twice the length of her original both inside and outside the prison. sentence. The High Court, upholding her Saibaba’s health condition contention, ordered that the sentences must run concurrently and hence she be released critical due to denial of from prison immediately. Following this, the treatment in jail government had no other way but to allow her to walk free. Authorities of Nagpur Central Prison continue to deny the urgent medical attention required for saving the life of Dr. G N Saibaba of Delhi University serving life imprisonment since March 2017 under fabricated Maoist-related charges. Dr.

MIB-38 January - June 2019 43 wilfully denied to him. Through this, the government has clearly demonstrated its intention of allowing him to die a painful death in jail. In doing so, they have stonewalled not only the urgent calls of treatment from Saibaba and his family but also from a wide section of democratic organisations of the country and abroad. In July this year, human rights experts from the United Nations expressed their concern over the deteriorating health of Dr. Saibaba that might have fatal consequences and called upon the Indian government to release him immediately. But all these appeals have fallen on deaf ears. In fact, jail authorities are hiding behind the lie that they are providing all necessary medical attention to Saibaba and that his health is stable inside jail. In these circumstances, it is obvious that the life of Dr. Saibaba can be safeguarded only by intensifying the ongoing campaign for his treatment and release. All democratic forces need to urgently come forward to shoulder this responsibility and ensure that he is admitted to a proper hospital at the earliest.

Reliance workers implicated in Saibaba, who is 90 percent disabled and is completely wheelchair-bound, has suffered Bhima-Koregaon case released serious health problems due to prolonged Maharashtra Police had arrested eight confinement under extremely unhygienic electrical workers and trade union activists and inhuman conditions. He has not been from Mumbai just days after the Elgar provided even the basic minimum facilities Parishad meeting of 31 December 2017 in that are absolutely essential for a person with Pune and Bhima-Koregaon violence the disability, thereby flouting all constitutional following day for their alleged Maoist links rights and international conventions and involvement in these events. The workers pertaining to disabled persons. He was originally belonging to Telangana were the suffering from several serious ailments like first arrests made in the Bhima-Koregaon heart disease even before his imprisonment case. They had already spent nearly six which has further deteriorated due to the months in jail by the time nine social activists denial of medical treatment by the jail were arrested from various parts of the authorities. It has been reported that he has country on 6 June and 28 August on the same fallen unconscious eight times till June and charges. In fact, Arun Ferreira, who was one three times between July and December this the advocates representing them, was also year, showing the grave danger to his life. At among the arrested, and this adversely present, he is suffering from at least 15 affected their legal battle. They were not even different ailments and requires immediate given the opportunity to be heard when the hospitalisation. investigating officers of ATS Mumbai Even though Saibaba has appealed appealed in the court for an extension of the repeatedly through the courts for adequate time to file the charge-sheet. This is just one treatment and medicines, these have been instance of the innumerable injustices the

44 January - June 2019 MIB-38 workers have suffered in the eleven months Political prisoners in Yeravada of their imprisonment. jail commemorate Jatin Das Of the eight arrested, five, namely martyrdom day Satyanarayan Rajayya Karrela, Babu Shankar Buchayya Vanguri, Shankarayya Along with other political prisoners of the Lingayya Gunde, Ravi Rajanna country, those incarcerated in Yeravada jail in Maarampalli and Saidul Narsimha Pune commemorated 13 September as the Singapanga are active members of the Political Prisoners’ Rights Day on the occasion Mumbai Electric Employees Union of the martyrdom day of great revolutionary (MEEU), leading the fight for workers’ Jatin Das. Das had laid down his life on 13 rights. This is the reason why they faced the September 1929 in an indefinite hunger strike ire of their employers – the owners of the in Lahore jail that lasted for 63 days demanding electricity distribution companies – who political prisoners’ status from the British conspired with the police to falsely implicate rulers. Remembering this day of heroic them under the draconian UAPA in the sacrifice, the political prisoners of India – and Bhima-Koregaon case. This is clear from the particularly the Maoist political prisoners – fact that it was REIL management which have started observing this day from the last filed FIRs against the workers terming them few years as political prisoners’ rights day as ‘urban Naxals’ and insinuating their so- inside jails in various parts of the country. It is called Maoist links. This shows that it is not indeed ironical that very much like the British just the Indian state but also the big colonial rulers against whom Jatin Das had corporations who use the bogey of Maoism fought and died, the present Indian rulers too and Urban Naxal as a convenient means to have refused to recognise the status of political persecute and silence their opponents. prisoners as a legal category and extend special The workers and their families, however, rights to them, making it amply clear that have continued their struggle for release in nothing much have changed in the Indian spite of facing tremendous hardship. The penal system established by the British after other workers of the union too extended their they left the country 71 years back. support in the struggle Finally, this struggle On the occasion of Political Prisoners’ brought partial success when the Bombay Rights Day, Maoist political prisoners of High Court ordered the release of four of Yeravada jail undertook a daylong symbolic the workers on bail on 17 December 2018, hunger strike. They demanded the declaration setting aside the additional time granted by of 13 September as ‘Political Prisoners’ Rights the lower court to the ATS to file the charge- Day’, recognition of political prisoners’ status sheet by April 2019. The very fact that ATS by the government, repeal of UAPA, AFSPA had failed to file the charge-sheet in the eleven and the death penalty, humane treatment to months after their arrest shows that the prisoners irrespective of class, caste, religion, allegations levelled by it in collusion with gender, etc. Advocate Surendra Gadling, REIL are completely baseless and concocted. social activists Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson While welcoming their release, democratic and Mahesh Raut implicated in the Bhima- and civil rights organisations have demanded Koregaon case along with Maoist political the release of other Bhima-Koregaon accused prisoners K Muralitharan, Arun Bhelke and including workers still in jail and also the others took part in the token hunger strike. withdrawal of the cases against them.

MIB-38 January - June 2019 45 My Jail Experience – Namrata

Comrade Namrata (name changed), a full-time Maoist activist from Telangana, was arrested in October 2005 when she was going to a city for medical treatment. She was tortured in police custody and made to spend nearly four years in Chenchalguda Central Prison in Hyderabad. She faced a total of 55 fabricated cases but was acquitted in all cases, after which she was released in July 2009. Later she has joined her comrades in the forest in one of the guerrilla zones. Namrata recounted her experience of her arrest, torture and jail life to the MIB which we present here in her own words - MIB

My left cheek got seriously injured in aspirations of the martyrs. The police also gave accidental fire on 16 October 2005. That was me electric shock after they failed to elicit any the time not only of the end of the rainy season secret information about the Party from me and the beginning of the winter but also the even though they tried different methods for time when state repression got intensified after this. At that time my whole body almost the talks with the Andhra Pradesh government became lifeless. But even then I did not utter failed. The injury caught infection and would anything. Finally, the police accepted defeat not heal even after taking antibiotics. In order and presented us before the media on 3 to save my life, the Party leadership send me November 2005 and declared that they had to the hospital in a car with two doctor arrested the three of us and put us in comrades. As the car driver was a police Mahboobnagar jail. Then they separated me informer, he called the police and the three of and brought me to Chenchalguda prison in us were arrested from Acchampet town on 2 Hyderabad. It is a small effort on my part to November. They beat us up and took us to recount the situation that I faced there and Mahboobnagar district headquarters where we became aware of, so that the readers can also were presented before the SP Kottakota get a sense of it. Srinivas Reddy. The police separated the three The prisoners are in jail mostly under cases of us including the two doctors and subjected related to theft, loot, drunkenness, us to unspeakable torture and looted the 35,000 prostitution, dowry, suicide and murder, etc. rupees that was with the doctors. The SP told People caught for drunkenness and prostitution me with a smile, “You are in our hands. If you is most common, with tens of them being surrender we will take you to your parents. But brought in everyday. There are generally three if you don’t surrender we will do whatever we kinds of cases that the prisoners face: (1) like.” As I did not respond, he handed me over common cases, (2) Naxal cases, and (3) wealthy to some policemen and left. people’s cases. At that time different kinds of thoughts After a person is brought into prison, he came to my mind. I thought that I was a or she is frisked thoroughly and all their woman Naxalite! The violence that the police belongings like jewellery are removed, while if subjected women in order to make them reveal any money is found, it is deposited in an secret information about the Party was also account on the name of the prisoner. The gender violence. That is why I held on with a prisoner is left with only the clothes she is firm resolve thinking that there was no need wearing. When the prisoner is released, all her to be afraid of facing gender violence or even belongings are returned to her. martyrdom in the course of working for the people and the Party. I took pledge to fulfil the

46 January - June 2019 MIB-38 99 percent of the prisoners put in jail are and got him killed so that the accused get not poor people who are considered as criminals even a bit of assistance. On whose side are the by the government. But is it that only the poor jail and courts can be understood from this. commit crimes? Are the politicians, big Among the Maoist political prisoners, the landlords, big capitalists and imperialists who case of Comrade Patangibala Ganesh is a earn crores of rupees by exploiting the poor painful one. He was sentenced to 14 years of labouring masses and plunder the country not life imprisonment but he is in jail for the last guilty of any crime? The police brand whatever 24 years. There is no chance of his coming out the poor do to make a living as a crime and even now. Be it the Congress party of the past put them behind bars. Jail and court means or the present Modi-led Hindu-Brahmanical wastage of a lot of money. That is why the BJP government, they all benefit the condition of the poor prisoners is like the exploitative classes but will never ensure justice. mouse trapped in the water of the deck in a There is a need to build up a united front to boat. The parties in power are interested in the struggle for the release of Comrade Ganesh. vote of the poor but not in addressing their issues and problems. About remand prisoners: The cases of the Maoist political prisoners: The remand prisoners are counted twice in a day (morning, afternoon and evening). If If we look at it in totality, there are any unusual event takes place (if someone runs thousands of political prisoners in the jails. away, or if anything is recovered from prisoners But since I was the only political prisoner in that is not given by the jail authorities, etc.), Chenchalguda jail, I was initially kept in counting is done even four or five times. Apart isolation in a separate cell. Some days later from roll call, the jail sirens are also activated. when I talked to the Jail Superintendent on his At such times the jail, all the prisoners and their routine rounds of the jail after consulting some belongings are checked. There is jail round other prisoners, four more prisoners were every Monday. In those days, the food is transferred to my cell. In addition, the jail cooked in a better way with the consideration authorities gave me the paper, radio, etc. that that the kitchen might also be checked. But on I had demanded. I was given separate the rest of the days, insect-infested, uneatable vegetables in Chenchalguda jail after the jail and tasteless food without salt and chilly is struggle committee undertook a prison given just to keep the prisoners alive. On struggle. But not only me, but all prisoners have Sundays, meat is served where every prisoner some rights or the other. When I was in jail, gets five or six small pieces of meat with the police sent an SI to me to convince me to watery curry. Each prisoner is given a spoon. surrender. But I rejected this line of thinking. Small amounts of soap and oil (produced in I was implicated in a total of 55 cases including the jail) are also given every Sunday. But most 35 related to homicide and 20 related to assault of the prisoners use the soap and oil brought and destruction. As I was acquitted on most to them during mulaqat. Only the poorest use of the cases, the police tried to prove my guilt the soap and oil provided by the jail at least in one case so that they could prolong authorities. my incarceration. But the judge was convinced that the FIR lodged by the police and the The jails are packed to the hilt with witnesses presented by them in the case were prisoners since they are filled far beyond their not genuine and so acquitted me. This means capacity. Those remand prisoners who could that it is possible to find one or two judges out not procure bail or do not have any mulaqat, of a hundred who are conscientious and takes remain in jail in this manner for months or the side of justice. But the exploitative even years. Remand prisoners are not provided government was very angry with Comrade with clothes. They ask for and use the clothes Purushottam (state-level leader of civil rights of the prisoners who were to be released. organisation) who used to inspire such judges Things bought in the market are brought to the prisoners when someone comes to meet

MIB-38 January - June 2019 47 them during mulaqat. But food cooked by the to do something or the other of these tasks relatives of the prisoners is not allowed inside every day. Rs.13 is deposited in their account the jail. Whether it is the letters written by the for their labour during each day’s work. Lifers prisoners or received by them, all are subjected normally have to serve 14 years of sentence. to ‘censorship’ (checking by jail authorities), According to jail rules, the prisoners are following which they are either delivered or counted twice each day – once in the morning made to ‘disappear’ as per the whims of the and once in the evening. The prisoners serving authorities. life term are entitled to be released on According to the Constitution of the important government functions (15 August – exploitative government, the prisoners should fake Independence Day, 26 January – fake not be ill-treated, abused or beaten up. Women Republic Day). But rarely anyone gets released prisoners can to be interrogated only in the in this way. Of all the prisoners the condition presence of women police officers. But these of the lifers is the most excruciating. It is very rules are never applied anywhere. Since all painful to think that they have to stay proceedings in the courts, jail and the imprisoned for years on end without any constitution are in the English language, the prospect of release and isolated from their prisoners do not get a chance to know or family and property. They spend days and understand them. nights, months and years in this way. A few of On cases related to alcohol, this is a trade the prisoners who have been falsely sentenced, which is injurious to people. This harms the who are serving life term, or who have spent people. Some people are producing and selling many years in jail are becoming mad out of it in order to make a living. Tens of them are frustration. This shows how difficult the brought to the jail every day and they are soon conditions in prison are. released on bail. But even though the politicians and goons associated with them Wealthy people’s cases: produce and sell all kinds of foreign liquor, they are hardly ever arrested or brought to jail. In the third category of cases, even though They have the support of the government. This very small in numbers, a few wealthy persons also brings in tax revenue to the government. involved in looting or defrauding people’s That is why they need to imprison the poor property (economic offenses) are being people who produce and sell country liquor imprisoned. At that time the proprietor of without knowing the law. In the same way, they Satyam Computers Ramalinga Raju and are trying to break the unity of the masses by Nagam Janardhan Reddy were put in jail. injecting the poison of superstition and When corrupt politicians are brought to jail, imperialist culture in the minds of the masses. they are immediately given bail or their cases But the masses are fighting for their livelihood are resolved promptly and released. The police, and existence through different forms of courts and jails are like slippers of their feet. struggle. They are allowed to use mobile phones from inside jail, eat whatever pleases them, indirectly guide their political parties or associates from Prisoners serving life term: jail, participate in elections and carry out The prisoners undergoing jail term after economic activities just like they did when they conviction are not only treated as ‘servants’ in were outside. the jails but also as domestic helps doing all During the important occasions of the kinds of work in the house of jail officials. They exploitative government like the fake have to wear the uniform given by the jail Independence Day and fake Republic Day, the administration (cotton shirt, saree, lahanga, jail authorities prepare the jail and the prisoners etc.). Lifers have to do all kinds of work in jail and organise big meetings for which top (cultivation, kitchen duty, tailoring, cleaning, officials like the Collector, SP etc. are invited. producing household things like soap and continued on p.41 candle, muffler, sweater, bags, etc.). They have

48 January - June 2019 MIB-38 News from the Counter-revolutionary Camp

Naxalites are revolutionaries, It is a testimony to the organised strength and the force of collective opinion of the admits Congress Party leader people that compels leaders of feudal- It is not unusual to find leaders of comprador parties like Congress to speak out parliamentary parties occasionally making the truth about the Maoists, striking a positive and favourable statements about the discordant note amidst the cacophony of Maoist revolutionaries, particularly if the ruling-class false propaganda and occasion is the eve of elections. Former AP misinformation campaign against the Chief Minister N T Ramarao too once revolutionaries. Not for nothing that famously termed the Naxalites as patriots Hindutva-fascist BJP whose government is during a pre-election rally. They make such oppressing the people of Chhattisgarh for the statements even while the Indian state last 15 years lost no time in accusing Raj Babbar continues to carry out annihilation campaign and Congress of supporting the Maoists and against the Maoists and the revolutionary encouraging anti-national forces. masses. These statements are made not out of any sincerity but with an eye to winning the votes of the masses of the movement areas Modi resorts to white lies having a deep empathy for the Maoists. to paint the Maoists black In one such recent instance, UP Pradesh Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened a Congress president and former Bollywood star barrage of white lies against the Maoist Raj Babbar spoke highly of the Maoists, calling movement while addressing an election rally them revolutionaries. Addressing a press meet in Jagdalpur town of Bastar on 9 November in Raipur on 2 November during his visit to in the run up to the assembly elections of Chhattisgarh to campaign for the upcoming Chhattisgarh. In an effort to present himself assembly elections, he said that the Maoists and his government at the centre as well as the have embarked on the path of revolution and Raman Singh-led government in the state as are sacrificing their lives to establish the rights the real friends of the people, he tried to tarnish of the dispossessed people and that they cannot the image of the Maoists by parroting some be stopped by terrorising them or offering them of the hackneyed ruling-class lies. He allurements. He said that the questions raised insinuated the so-called urban Maoists by by the Maoists will have to be addressed.

MIB-38 January - June 2019 49 saying that they send their children to study territory under its influence and will not be abroad, stay in AC houses, travel in modern deterred by the government’s boastful claims cars and lead a comfortable life while putting about the loss of territory, martyrdom of a large guns in the hands of “our” children through number of comrades or surrender of a few remote control from there. These are the kinds politically degenerated elements in the course of lies and deceit the agents of the Indian of the ongoing protracted people’s war. So no ruling classes and imperialists like Modi resort matter how many times the ruling classes to cast aspersions against the movement. They announce the end of the revolutionary make such outlandish accusations against movement, their pronouncements would revolutionaries in spite of the fact that it is they prove to be empty words as the movement who are guilty of enriching themselves and the would surmount every obstacle and go through classes they represent while keeping a vast many twists and turns, ups and downs to carry section of the country’s people under perpetual on its onwards march. poverty, unemployment, malnourishment, ill health and want. Using the wide range of mass media at its disposal to vilify the Maoists, Chhattisgarh CM gives Modi & co. are trying to dissuade the Maoists the choice between oppressed people from taking the path of surrender and death revolutionary struggle led by the CPI(Maoist). But such ploys cannot be successful in the long Proving once more that the Indian run as the politically conscious masses can see government does not consider the country’s through the lies of the ruling classes and discern Maoist movement as a political movement but the truth about the revolutionary movement. is intent on its design to crush it militarily, Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh Raman Singh has offered the Maoist cadres the ‘choice’ Home Minister predicts between surrender and death. Making this the end of the Maoist fascist declaration in a passing out parade of movement in 3 years women constables in Raipur this August, he boasted that Maoism would be wiped out from ajnath Singh, Union Home Minister and Bastar just as it had been done in Sarguja senior member of Modi government, declared Division. Saying that no ‘third way’ is left, the in the raising day programme of the Rapid Maoists should either surrender or be prepared Action Force (RAF) of the CRPF in Lucknow to die as the government forces are getting that Maoism would be wiped out from the ready to finish off the Maoists. The armed country in about three years. To substantiate offensive would not seize before the last Maoist his boast, the minister claimed that the surrenders or is gunned down, Singh barked. movement which was once active in 126 This is but a threat to the Maoists to lay down districts of the country are now reduced to arms and save their lives. But the mere 10-12 districts. He also complimented the revolutionaries dedicate their entire lives for CRPF for killing 131 ‘Maoists’ and the oppressed people. They consider death on apprehending 1,278 in 2018, while forcing 58 the path of struggle against the oppressors to surrender. whom Raman Singh and his like represent as There is nothing new in the doomsday a great honour, while surrender to the enemy proclamations made by the political agents of as even worse than mortal death. Tens of the Indian ruling classes like Rajnath Singh. thousands of revolutionaries have already The revolutionary movement of India, which sacrificed their lives fighting the enemy with is continuing for over five decades since the complete dedication to the proletariat and the glorious Naxalbari, has seen several ups and oppressed masses. So neither the call to downs and traversed many difficulties to place surrender nor the threat of death will deter the its foothold over half of the states of India. It Maoist revolutionaries and the masses from has seen expansion and contraction of the the path of the just class war.

50 January - June 2019 MIB-38 The CM also appealed to the Adivasis to fugitive persons and families, to make them come forward to end the Maoist movement, integrate with the ‘mainstream’, to rehabilitate unmindful of the fact that it is largely the them in their village as per government’s Adivasi masses of Bastar who have kept alive schemes, to provide them employment and the revolutionary movement in central India bring them in touch with skill-development over the years with tremendous sacrifice. programmes of the government according to Ruling-class lackeys like Raman Singh are their educational qualification, to provide unable to understand that the revolutionary security to their lives as prime witnesses to movement cannot be wiped out by any amount many Maoist actions, etc. of military force so long as the objective The real aim of the Brahmanical Hindu- conditions for the movement are in existence, fascist organisations like BMP with the the revolutionary Party follows the correct support of the government in organising the political line and relies on the masses, as has so-called Naxal-affected people, however, is to been done by India’s Maoist movement over use them as cannon fodder in the brutal war the last several decades. It is therefore nothing against the revolutionary movement. The but a daydream of the ruling classes to imaging purpose is to portray the Maoists as violators the end of Maoism in the country. of human rights and perpetrators of wanton violence, whereas the reality is that by Pseudo human rights punishing a few anti-people elements the revolutionary movement defends itself and the organisation comes in support rights and the lives of the struggling masses. of ‘Naxal-affected’ people Individuals like police informers, intelligence officers, ‘Gopaniya Sainiks’, etc. along with A state-sponsored pseudo human rights incorrigible bad elements like reactionary organisation affiliated to the Sangh Parivar village elders, cruel landlords and usurers, anti- called Bharatiya Manavadhikar Parishad people politicians, Hindu-fascist ringleaders, (BMP) has started to organise the family etc. are punished by the revolutionary members of the persons punished by the movement as per the wishes of the masses after revolutionary movement in Gadchiroli district adequate warning. Only those who have of Maharashtra for their counter- abandoned the standpoint of the oppressed revolutionary activities as per the wishes of the masses and adopted that of the reactionary masses. It has taken up the task of identifying ruling classes can call such unavoidable and such individuals and families who are living inevitable acts of punishment in the people’s in place other than their native village – war as violation of human rights while primarily in the towns and cities – after they remaining oblivious to the real suppressors the were chased out by the masses or have left on rights of the masses – the Indian ruling classes, their own after the punishment of their kin their governments and their armed forces. fearing more reprisal from the masses. BMP The Maoist movement is not against the has taken upon itself to identify and organise family members of the punished persons if them under the banner of the counter- they do not willingly side with the enemy revolutionary organisation called ‘Naxal-Pidit classes and are ready to live their lives without Punarvasan Samiti’ (Rehabilitation harming the interests of the masses. The Committee for the Naxal-Affected) led by a revolutionary organisations including body of seven members. It recently registered CPI(Maoist) routinely appeals to such persons 51 such families in a programme at Gadchiroli to come back to their native village and resume town, while it estimates the existence of over their lives under the guidance of the masses. 500 such families in Gadchiroli district alone. The government and state-sponsored The stated aim of the Samiti is to register organisations like BMP do not want such a the ‘Naxal-affected’ families at the all-India rapprochement to take place and want to make level, to help them avail the schemes run by use of them politically by propping up the the central and state governments for such category of ‘Naxal-affected’ people. They

MIB-38 January - June 2019 51 should realise this truth and break away from Seven more CRPF battalions to the trap set up by the likes of BMP to return to their native places and join the real mainstream be deployed in South Bastar of people’s struggles. Modi government has decided to intensify its counter-revolutionary war on people under ‘Samadhan’ plan by deploying nearly seven DRG emerges as one of thousand additional jawans of the CRPF in the most notorious counter- South Bastar – one of the areas where the revolutionary forces in Bastar revolutionary movement led by CPI(Maoist) is at its strongest. Of these battalions, three are District Reserve Group (DRG) – a special going to be redeployed from the anti-Naxal force of Chhattisgarh Police – was first formed front in West Bengal, two from Bihar and one in Kanker and Narayanpur districts in 2008 as from Jharkhand as well as another from internal an anti-Maoist force with a large number of security duty in Uttar Pradesh. The recruits from the Adivasis. DRG also included government’s plan is to set up several new a number of former Maoists who had paramilitary camps in South Bastar with these surrendered to the enemy. In 2013-14, units of forces to strengthen the carpet security grid. DRG were set up in Dantewada and Sukma, The redeployment is to be started by the and later they were set up in other districts of end of August and completed by the year’s end. Bastar as well. In the years since its By throwing in tens of thousands of establishment, DRG along with STF (State paramilitary and police forces virtually every Task Force) has been at the forefront of the year, the government of the reactionary ruling state police forces in carrying out counter- classes are stepping up the war on the people of revolutionary armed operations in Bastar and Bastar to break their resilience and wipe out the has earned notoriety among the people for its revolutionary movement in a fascist manner. brutality. According to government claims, 294 The addition of seven new battalions to the Maoists have been gunned down in Bastar in already existing 41 CRPF battalions in Bastar the last three years, of whom around 95 have is a part of this onslaught. been killed by DRG and STF. A majority of the killed are in fact unarmed villagers killed Particularly in the last few years, the in encounters and fake encounters and later government is concentrating its counter- labelled as Maoists. Apart from brutal killings revolutionary efforts in South Bastar, be it and fake encounters, the DRG is also involved through ‘Operation Monsoon’, ‘Operatin in rape, arson and other forms of heinous war Prahar’ and other tactical offensives. But each crimes and crimes against the people. of these have been thwarted by the people’s Therefore, while the government are heaping guerrilla forces and the people under the praise and rewarding the goons of DRG, the leadership of CPI(Maoist). The recent scaling people are demanding that they be punished up of government forces too will certainly prove from their crimes through the people’s war. to be ineffective in containing the advancement Many notorious DRG officers and jawans have of the Maoist movement of Bastar. died a dog’s death in retaliatory actions by the PLGA forces, while many have been punished as per the verdict of people’s courts. There is Bastariya Battalion fails to take hardly any doubt that the DRG personnel off as Adivasis refuse to join would not escape the punishment that the people have in store for them. The central government had announced the formation of Bastariya Battalion of CRPF to be constituted mainly out of Adivasi youths of Bastar to take on the red guerrillas. But even after months of its official formation, the government have not yet been able to field it in

52 January - June 2019 MIB-38 counter-guerrilla operations. The reason is that Evidently, the Indian government is 139 out of nearly a thousand posts for men depending more and more upon foreign and women jawans are yet to be filled due to weaponry and technology in its counter- the refusal of the Adivasi youths to take up revolutionary war on people, spending crores the job of government mercenaries against of taxpayers’ money to suppress the their own people. In fact, CPI(Maoist) and democratic struggles of the country’s masses various revolutionary mass organisations had including the Maoist movement. This is in issued an appeal to the Adivasis not to join addition to the training and military ‘advice’ the paramilitary forces – particularly the provided by imperialist countries to the Indian Bastariya Battalion – and take up gun against armed and intelligence wings in carrying out their own kith and kin fighting a just war ‘counter-insurgency’ operations, particularly against the reactionary government. targeting the Maoist movement and the Most of the Adivasis have responded national liberation wars of Kashmir and the positively to the call and only 743 posts of Northeast. But the ruling classes cannot Bastariya Battalion have been filled so far after comprehend the truth that it is the people, and all efforts by the government. This is even after not the superiority of armies, armaments or the CRPF relaxed the required qualifications equipment that are decisive in war, and that and offered free training to help the prospective the people are decidedly against the unjust wars candidates clear the recruitment test. So CRPF presently waged by the Indian government in is again opening up training centres in Bijapur, different parts of the country. Dantewada, Narayanpur and Sukma district headquarters for local Adivasi youths. Government forces found This is yet another testimony of the involved in illegal logging undeniable truth that the politically conscious masses are ready to withstand the hardships and timber trade of poverty and unemployment rather than The government armed forces deployed in becoming the willing accomplices of the the forested interiors of the country to suppress Indian government’s fascist war on the people. the Maoist movement often indulge in illegal logging and sale of timber using their armed Foreign wireless sets to be might. This has become a lucrative side business for the paramilitary and police units procured for anti-Maoist forces located in the Adivasi areas of the country, the high profits accruing from which are pocketed The Chhattisgarh government has decided by the officers of these units and various to equip the state’s police stations in the Maoist government departments. One such incident movement areas with imported wireless sets of smuggling out furniture made of illegal to improve the communication among the timber by the government forces came to light anti-Maoist forces. It has made a plan to in Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh. procure 200 different such communication equipment worth 6 crore rupees, which include Two vehicles of CAF (Chhattisgarh latest digital wireless sets and towers. The Armed Force) were intercepted by the forest efficiency of these new foreign sets are said to department officials in the last week of June be four times more than the analog sets made this year when they were coming to by Indian companies which are in use for the Narayanpur district headquarters from the last 15 years and which are now going to be camp of CAF’s 11th unit located at Amdai replaced. Among the police stations to be Ghati. The vehicles were loaded with furniture equipped in this way, two each are in worth over six lakh rupees made of illegal Rajnandgaon, Kanker and Jashpur districts, timber logged near the camp in the Amdai Hills one each in Kabirdham, Balodabazar, area. The forest department seized the material Kondagaon, Sukma, Gariaband, Bilaspur, and booked cases of illegal smuggling against Surajpur, Korea and Janjgir districts. the drivers. But it is unlikely that the real

MIB-38 January - June 2019 53 culprits behind the illegal felling and sale of continued from p.68 timber like the CAF officers will ever be national-democratic revolution. Only this can identified or punished, making lower-level open the path to genuine democracy for the employees such as drivers, etc. the scapegoats. vast majority of the people by shaking off the burden of feudalism and imperialism. Only in Gadchiroli Police continues to this way can the Indian people establish their democratic dictatorship over the miniscule send Adivasi children to minority of their tormentors, conduct Maharashtra tour genuinely free and fair elections for the people’s democratic government and take the first step As a part of its counter-revolutionary LIC towards liberation by building socialism and policy, Gadchiroli Police have been organising communism. ‘Maharashtra Darshan’ of mostly Adivasi children from the Maoist movement areas of This is the glorious struggle our Party the district, in which selected boys and girls CPI(Maoist) is leading in the country by are chosen to tour some famous spots of the rejecting the parliamentary path. The Indian state under the guidance and accompaniment parliamentary elections – whether conducted of police officials. The 21st batch of 81 children simultaneously or separately – cannot resolve was sent off by top police officials of the district the burning problems facing the country and from the police headquarters at Gadchiroli on its people. While uniting in a mighty 27 September. They children were selected by countrywide movement against every move of the police during its regular mass contact the Hindutva-fascist forces and their programmes in the villages. The main purpose governments against the people, we must not of such tours is to wean away the children and reduce this struggle to mere parliamentary or youth of the oppressed masses from the electoral opposition but oppose the revolutionary movement and make them parliamentary system in its totality. Let us adjuncts of the oppressive system. declare our opposition to the rotten Indian parliamentary system by refusing to participate The programme was started in 2013 and in its elections in any form! Let us expose, 1,626 children in 20 batches have so far been oppose and boycott these farcical elections! Let taken on the tour of Maharashtra. They us strengthen the struggle to establish, defend include several children of the underground and expand the organs of people’s democratic leaders and cadres of the CPI(Maoist) and power sprouting in the areas of Maoist various mass organisations led by Party. The revolutionary struggle which are conducting police have even forced such children during genuinely free, fair and democratic elections! the tour to make emotional appeals to their Let us intensify the Protracted People’s War parents to leave the revolutionary movement to end the fake democracy of the Indian and surrender before the police to lead a parliamentary system and to establish real ‘normal’ civilian life. The police thus do not democracy throughout the country! refrain from using even children for its counter- revolutionary activities with the aim of weakening the revolutionaries and the Maoist movement. The use of coercion, threats and pressure by the police and the government administration are common in compelling the (Abhay) children to participate in these tours. But many Spokesperson villages are refusing to send their children for these tours by firmly withstanding police Central Committee coercion and showing strong commitment to CPI(Maoist) the revolutionary movement, thereby frustrating the designs of the police.

54 January - June 2019 MIB-38 Proletarians of all countries, unite!

Pages from International Communist Movement

Demonstration in Greece Meeting in Italy demanding against arrest of social the release of political activists in India prisoners in India

A protest demonstration was held on 6 A meeting was organised by the October in front of Indian embassy in Athens International Committee to Support People’s on the call of Communist Party of Greece (ML) War in India (ICSWPI) in Italy on 8 December against the arrest of nine social activists by the to demand the release of political prisoners Maharashtra Police in India recently. The incarcerated in various jails of India. The demonstrators demanded the immediate release speakers talked about the harrowing condition of all nine political prisoners falsely implicated in which they were kept in prison, denying in the Bhima-Koregaon case and withdrawal of adequate and timely medical treatment to even all charges against them. They also raised the disabled persons like Dr Saibaba and aged issue of continued incarceration of Dr G N prisoners like Ajith. Saibaba by the Indian state, highlighting his The meeting reiterated the demands of the failing health and demanded his release and legal recognition of the status of political other co-accused serving life imprisonment. prisoners by the Indian government, guarantee Expressing internationalist solidarity with of their political rights and their immediate the people’s struggles in India including the and unconditional release. Slogans like revolutionary movement led by CPI(Maoist) “Freedom for all political prisoners in India”, and the struggle of the Dalits and Adivasis, the “Stop Green Hunt”, “Support people’s struggle protestors condemned the ongoing fascist in India”, “Support people’s war in India”, repression by the Indian government on these “Build an international support movement” movements under the pretext of curbing ‘urban and “Build an international solidarity Naxals’, ‘anti-nationals’, etc. They also voiced committee” were raised during the meeting. their strong opposition to the Indian state’s war on the people in which a large number of people – particularly the Adivasis – are being persecuted by the paramilitary and police forces under cover of counter-guerrilla operations.

MIB-38 January - June 2019 55 ICSPWI holds meeting ‘Green Tax’ on petroleum products. The government responded with police brutality to explain the change of against the unarmed and peaceful protestors leadership in CPI(Maoist) calling them ‘anarchic’, provoking them to give a militant turn to the protests. They The Central Committee of the resisted the police on the streets and barricades, Communist Party of India (Maoist) had burnt police vehicles, etc., during which over recently announced a change of its General 400 people got injured, many of them seriously. Secretary whereby Comrade Ganapathy The police arrested nearly 400 protestors and voluntarily withdrew from his responsibilities also threatened to impose a national due to advancing age and ill health after giving emergency if the protests continued. However, leadership to the Party and the Indian defying the persecution and threats, the communist movement for many decades as a workers continued to come out to protest in part of the collective leadership team. the next weekends too, bringing about a serious Comrade Basavaraju, a member of the crisis of the government. The popularity of Political Bureau of the Party was selected as the President has plummeted in the meanwhile the new General Secretary. The International as popular discontent against the French ruling Committee to Support People’s War in India class profiting at the expense of the working (ICSWPI) held an Internationalist Meeting on people continues to boil, taking the form of 8 December in CS Micene Mi lan to militant protests. explain the ideological, political and organisation reasons and significance of this change of guard in the leadership of the Party. Massive protest against G-20 A number of supporters and well-wishers of the Indian revolutionary movement attended summit paralyses Buenos Aires the meeting. People of Argentina came out onto the streets of capital Buenos Aires to protest against the two-day G-20 summit starting on French workers shake Macron 30 November where the leaders of the government with Yellow imperialist powers met to draw out their strategy for the joint plunder of the world. The Vest movement protests were called by a platform of 33 organisations that are against the anti-people French workers and other working people policies of the G-20 leadership. are carrying out a series of massive protests against the Immanuel Macron government Scared by the massive turnout of against growing petroleum prices due to protestors in the anti-imperialist rally, exorbitant taxes imposed by the government. Argentine President Macron called a security Over the last one year, the government has shutdown of the city for two days in which imposed 20 percent fresh taxes on petrol and the summit was to take place. He asked the 1.20 diesel in the name of ‘Green Tax’. Mostly called crore people of the capital to leave the city on during the weekends, these protests are 29 September and go on a long weekend attracting large number of militant workers vacation as the political atmosphere in the city against Macron who had come to power was expected to be ‘tense’! 22,000 police riding a wave of popular support after the personnel were deployed, most of the areas disillusionment with the previous Social around the venue of the summit were turned Democratic government. Over 2.8 lakh people into ‘No-Go Zones’, all public transport was – many of them wearing the yellow vests worn brought to a halt, trains and flights reaching by the workers – carried out the first the city were diverted and the day previous to coordinated protest at 2,034 places across the the summit was declared a public holiday to country including 87 places in Paris on 17 keep away the protestors. November demanding a withdrawal of the

56 January - June 2019 MIB-38 Massive protest in Buenos Aires, Argentina, against G-20 summit But even such heavy security arrangements While the US and its allies set up puppet by the government could not prevent governments in Afghanistan through rigged protestors in large numbers from carrying out elections, its writ of these governments did not their proposed protest rally against G-20. The run beyond Kabul and provincial capitals or people of Argentina on behalf of all the the highways connecting these cities. In fact, oppressed people of the world successfully the Afghan government even does not wholly made their voice heard to the imperialists and control the cities, let alone the vast rural areas their lackeys that no matter how strong and where runs its government as a part invincible imperialism may appear to be today, of the resistance movement. So fierce and they will always meet the resistance of the relentless has been the resistance in Afghanistan people and will have to bite the dust at the that not only the puppet Afghan troops trained hands of people’s movements. and equipped by the imperialists but the military of the imperialist countries themselves sustained serious casualties every year at the National liberation struggles hands of Taliban and other national liberation force withdrawal of US troops organisations without any decisive military from Syria and Afghanistan victory even after 17 years of brutal warfare. The resistance of the Afghan people have now When the US imperialists sent its armed forced US President Donald Trump to call forces including ground troops to Afghanistan back half of the 14,000 US ground troops from and Syria, they expected that it would be a matter the country this December in spite of strong of days and weeks, or a few months or years at opposition from his own government most before they vanquished these semi-colonial including Defence Secretary James Mattis. Asian countries using superior military force. In Same is the case with Syria, where the US so doing, they overestimated their own strength and its allies expected to win an easy victory and underestimated the people of these oppressed by overthrowing Bashar al-Assad government countries who have a long and glorious history in Damascus using mercenaries and dissident of fierce resistance to foreign occupying forces. groups. But here too the US imperialists came What they did not expect was the resolute anti- face to face with a resilient anti-imperialist imperialist national liberation struggle of the struggle of the masses and the Syrian troops masses of these countries supported by their allies too remained to loyal to the Assad government. in different parts of the world. The US was forced to deploy its own troops

MIB-38 January - June 2019 57 apart from the air force in the war that began on 2 December on the eve of the 24th United in 2011, but here too it failed to win any Nations Climate Summit starting in Poland significant victory. Bogged down in an where over 200 countries were to participate unending war with escalating casualties to discuss the threat of climate change due to without any prospect of victory, the US pollution. government has now decided to withdraw The marchers wanted to send across the troops from Syria too. This is a great victory message that the governments must arrive at for the people of Syria and their anti- an agreement to take urgent and effective steps imperialist war. to save the earth from the danger of adverse But whether or not troops are finally climate change due to human-induced causes. withdrawn from Afghanistan or West Asia, US They demanded that concrete and time-bound will certainly maintain its significant military targets are set by the summit for checking a presence in these regions to maintain its drastic change in the climate like the melting hegemony, so that the people will have to of glaciers, the rising of the sea-level, depletion continue their armed liberation struggles to of the ozone layer and growing temperature, completely free their countries from imperialist etc. Most of these are caused by the industrial domination, subjugation and interference. The activities of the ten biggest imperialist people of the world and particularly the countries which contribute to over 60 percent communist forces must extend their solidarity of the world’s greenhouse gases. with the heroic fighting masses of these Quite obviously, these are the countries countries. that are most reluctant to take concrete measures to control the emissions and effluents Tens of thousands of that cause maximum degradation of the earth’s climate. Only strong people’s struggles and in people take out march in the last instance a revolutionary change to end Brussels on climate change the world imperialist system can bring about sustainable and climate-friendly development Over 65 thousand people marched of the society that is in harmonious relation through the streets of Belgian capital Brussels with nature.

Rally in Brussels demanding measures against climate change on the eve of the 24th UN Climate Summit

58 January - June 2019 MIB-38 Statements of CPI(Maoist)

COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST) CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Press Release 22 June 2017

Oppose the fresh wave of fascist state terror in Kashmir! Unite to fight and end the reign of fascist Hindutva terror in the country!

Just days before the one-month long suppression of the national liberation Ramzan ceasefire in Kashmir was about to movement through fascist armed might. end, senior journalist and editor of the Complimenting this attack on the military newspaper Rising Kashmir Sujat Bukhari was front, leaders of feudal-comprador BJP-RSS assassinated by unidentified assailants in like Rajnath Singh, , Ram Srinagar. Citing this incident as an example Madhav, etc. are howling about taking a of the “deteriorating law and order situation” “tough approach to terrorism” in an attempt and “growing violence” in the Valley, Modi to drum up national-chauvinism and Hindu- government refused to extend the ceasefire communal frenzy against the Kashmiri beyond the day it was to be expired on 17 June. Muslims and Pakistan throughout the country. The very next day, BJP pulled out of the three- It is significant that the same excuse of year old PDP-BJP ruling alliance, resulting in “violence” and “law and order” was used by the fall of the PDP-led Mahbooba Mufti the Brahmanical Hindutva-fascists to end the government. Governor’ rule has once again ceasefire and pull down the government in been imposed, which means the direct rule of Kashmir after the killing of Sujat Bukhari, one central government instead of through its local leading to the other as if in a pre-planned way. props. Immediately after the end of the It is quite apparent that Bukhari’s killing, the ceasefire, the mercenary Indian armed forces termination of the ceasefire, BJP’s withdrawal have resumed their bloodbath by carrying out from Mahbooba government and the a number of military operations, killing several launching of another extermination campaign Kashmiri freedom fighters and civilians. against the Kashmiri people, particularly the Moreover, Modi government has sent NSG youth of Kashmir, are parts of a single strategy commando forces to Kashmir to intensify the

MIB-38 January - June 2019 59 of the Indian rulers. In fact, the timing of its Hindutva-fascist politics and state repression Bukhari’s killing and the manner in which to retain power in the general elections next Modi government and BJP have utilised it to year. With this goal, Modi-Shah-Bhagwat end the ceasefire and come out of the alliance ruling clique is taking a similar fascist approach point to the involvement of the Sangh Parivar towards all people’s movements and and the Indian state in his assassination. The organisations of the country with more Central Committee of our Party strongly aggressiveness. While trying to delude the condemns the dastardly killing of Sujat masses with fake and deceptive catch-phrases Bukhari and holds the Modi-Shah-Bhagwat like ‘development’, ‘New India’, ‘doubling the ruling clique along with the Indian state peasants’ income in five years’, etc. on the one squarely responsible for his killing, who are hand, it is refusing to concede to any of the using it as a lame excuse to step up fascist state long-standing demands raised by the people on terror through the occupying armed forces of their basic socio-economic and political India after terminating the month-long problems and are crushing their movements ceasefire. ruthlessly on the other. Similarly, it is more While PDP had demanded an extension brutally persecuting the religious minorities, of the ceasefire and suspension of military oppressed nationalities, Dalits, Adivasis and operations in order to claim credit for it and the women to further its fascist Hindutva reap electoral benefits, this was considered by politics. It has intensified state repression on the BJP-RSS for the same reason as a ‘soft’ the country’s revolutionary, democratic, approach and clamoured for a “tougher progressive, secular and patriotic forces that action” against the just movement for speak up for the people and against Hindutva. Kashmir’s Azadi. Like all fascist forces which The Hindu-fascist gangs are intimidating, depend on a display of aggressiveness, strength targeting and even assassinating democratic and power to win legitimacy, Modi journalists, social activists, lawyers, writers, government too wants to put up a tough intellectuals, students, etc. in collusion with the posture on Kashmir with an eye to the neo-fascist Hindutva elements within the state approaching assembly elections and more machinery. It is targeting the opposition importantly, the general elections of 2019. As parliamentary parties too by using its its immediate objectives, BJP wants to government power and the fascist consolidate its core right-wing social base by organisations, threatening even to ‘encounter’ intensifying the Hindu-Muslim polarisation members of the opposition as is openly throughout the country, give a free hand to the declared by BJP’s West Bengal chief recently. Indian armed forces to carry on their brutal Identifying Maoism and ‘terrorism’ as its repression in Kashmir under Governor’s rule biggest enemies, Modi-Shah-Bhagwat ruling and to escalate border clashes and war- clique at the behest of big capitalists, big mongering against Pakistan, which it hopes landlords and the imperialists has set the will help it to whip up pseudo-, deadline of 2022 to uproot our Party and the pseudo-patriotism and communal frenzy country’s revolutionary movement, the throughout the country. It is also an integral national liberation movements of Kashmir part of carrying out the Sangh Parivar’s long- and Northeast, and all the militant people’s term agenda of ‘’ and ‘Hindu movements of the country. As a part of its new Rashtra’. strategy ‘Samadhan’, it has intensified its This fascist assault of the Modi fascist ‘war on people’ in all Maoist struggle government, however, is not confined to the areas in the country. While continuing fake Kashmiri people and their national liberation encounters as before, the government and its struggle alone. Utterly failing to fulfil any of mercenary armed forces are resorting to large- its high-sounding pre-election promises and scale massacre of Maoist activists and making the lives of the vast majority of the revolutionary masses in an unprecedented way people worse in every way in the last four years, as testified by the Tadpal, Aipenta and BJP-RSS is now depending more and more on Kasanur massacres this year. It is throwing

60 January - June 2019 MIB-38 hundreds of peasants into jail and subjecting While the Brahmanical Hindu fascist the people to untold misery and white terror forces spearheaded by Modi-Shah-Bhagwat by using all forms of brutal state repression. clique are readying themselves to consolidate Similarly, it is persecuting democratic and and extend the reign of saffron and state terror, progressive mass organisations and their the time is ripe for all the democratic and leaders and activists in the name of countering revolutionary streams of people’s struggles in Maoism in the urban areas by spreading the country to come together, get more united Goebbelsian lies and implicating them in false and collectively resist their further advance. charges. A barrage of foul propaganda and Only by uniting all the revolutionary and misinformation campaign is being unleashed democratic forces and the vast masses of the using government and corporate media to country to isolate, resist and defeat the Hindu- paint the Maoists as ‘anti-development’, ‘anti- communal state and the bigots of the Adivasi’, ‘anti-people’ and even as ‘violators Hindutva-fascist Sangh Parivar can the of human rights’, etc. – epithets that most befit oppressed nationalities, religious minorities, the hypocritical and treacherous Modi oppressed social sections and the exploited government-RSS gang and the Indian ruling classes win their democratic rights and pave classes! the way for their liberation. Only by smashing The growing Hindutva-fascist terror and the Hindutva-fascist forces can imperialism state terror against the oppressed classes and and feudalism be overthrown and the semi- social sections in the last four years in colonial and semi-feudal India be transformed particular is resulting in the sprouting, growth into a genuinely democratic, independent, and expansion of various people’s movements sovereign, self-reliant and prosperous India. throughout the country. Peasants have been Our CC calls upon the country’s vast toiling continually on the path of struggle in spite of masses, oppressed classes and social sections brutal police repression to defend their land and the democratic parties and organisations from state or corporate takeover and to to strongly condemn and oppose the fresh wave demand better conditions for agriculture. of state repression in Kashmir, firmly stand in Likewise, workers, employees, students, solidarity with the just struggle of the Kashmiri intellectuals, environmentalists, Dalits, people for their democratic right to self- Adivasis, religious minorities and women have determination including secession from India, intensified their struggles to protect whatever put up united struggles against the feudal- democratic rights and freedoms they have won comprador Hindutva forces using all means through bitter struggle from the feudal- and put an end to the advance of fascism on comprador ruling classes. The national all fronts. The people of Kashmir, you are not liberation movements, and particularly that of alone! Let us all the oppressed classes, Kashmir, are also gaining strength and are on nationalities and people of the Indian the rise. The democratic organisations and subcontinent unite to fight the national individuals are getting organised and oppression and expansionism of the Indian protesting more powerfully against the ruling classes! No matter how powerful the Hindutva attacks on the basic democratic rights enemy may be at present, it cannot withstand such as right to expression, freedom of speech, such a mighty united force forever! cultural plurality, etc. The PLGA, united front organisations and the revolutionary masses led by our Party are taking on the Modi government, its mercenary forces and the Hindu-fascist vigilantes through the protracted (Abhay) people’s war supplemented by open mass movements on issues of people’s life and Spokesperson livelihood, for their jal-jangal-zameen and izzat- Central Committee adhikar. All this is proving once again that CPI(Maoist) more repression begets more resistance.

MIB-38 January - June 2019 61 COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST) CENTRAL REGIONAL BUREAU

Press Release 25 June 2018

Defeat the enemy’s vicious plan to eliminate PLGA’s Battalion No.1 and its commander Comrade Hidma!

Intensify and expand the people’s war to defeat the enemy’s fascist ‘Samadhan’ offensive to wipe out the Maoist movement!

It was reported in the media last month paramilitary forces (48 battalions) stationed in that after the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Bastar Division and Rajnandgaon district will Army (PLGA) carried out a successful ambush be mobilised for the operation along with at Cholnar of Kirandul in Dantewada district thousands of state police forces. The of Chhattisgarh, the Indian government was paramilitary forces deployed in the border planning to launch a big operation targeting states of Telangana, Maharashtra and Odisha the Maoists active in Dantewada and Sukma. too have been asked to participate as This was decided in a meeting presided over operational and backup forces. It has been by the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh stated that a “No Compromise” approach will on 21 May 2018 where top officials of the be adopted this time to ensure better field plan central and several state governments were and coordination between the central and state present. The performance of the anti-Maoist armed forces. The SPs of every district have operations was reviewed and a plan for new been instructed to involve their forces in full operations across the country was prepared. coordination with the central forces. The state One of the prime objectives of these operations and district Special Forces are to operate as was said to be to wipe out the leadership of advance parties and backup parties for the Battalion No.1 of PLGA, which is mainly paramilitary forces during operation. active in Sukma and Dantewada districts that This new operation and its scale is yet fall under the South Subzonal Bureau of another example of what disproportionate Dandakaranya (DK) Special Zone. The force the Indian ruling classes are pitting guerrilla battalion has been held responsible for against the Maoist movement in the country, a number of major armed actions in the region, particularly in DK. They are deploying tens inflicting serious fatalities to the government of thousands of central paramilitary and state forces. Modi government and the Indian police forces. In fact, this number is being ruling classes believe that without destroying increased every year in spite of the the Battalion and its leadership, it is not possible government’s repeated claims that the Maoist to achieve the goal of wiping out the Maoist movement is on the decline. Ever since the first movement by 2022 under their new counter- few battalions of CRPF were deployed in DK revolutionary ‘Samadhan’ strategy. Hence is in 2003, the government have been steadily this plan for another big operation targeting increasing its armed forces to crush the the battalion in DK. advancing people’s war and the revolutionary According to the plan of this operation, movement. Recently, the CRPF has deployed a total of nearly 50,000 armed personnel its new ‘Bastariya Battalion’ (‘Black Panthers’), including a large part of the 48,000 while the central government has declared that

62 January - June 2019 MIB-38 four more battalions of central forces will be the frontlines of this just war of the oppressed sent to Bastar soon, thereby increasing the people is the PLGA – its main, secondary and already densely-planted boots on the ground. base forces that include the people’s militia – In this way, Bastar Division (the undivided under the leadership of the Maoist Party. Tens Bastar district) has been transformed into one of thousands of people – Adivasi and non- of the most highly militarised regions of the Adivasi peasants, rural middle classes and country, close to superseding even Kashmir women, etc., are participating in this war to and the Northeast in people-to-armed destroy the old political power of the exploiters personnel ratio. Such a ‘peacetime’ and establish the new – people’s political power concentration of force is rare not only in – in its place. In this way, the people of Bastar contemporary India but in the entire world. along with the people of our county are This immense force is hurled against the proving the Maoist dictum that war is the revolutionary movement of the predominantly highest form of struggle and army is the highest Adivasi peasant masses of DK who are form of organisation to fight the oppressive heroically defending themselves, their just ruling classes in a semi-colonial and semi- rights and their very existence. Using such a feudal country like India. massive force, the country’s ruling classes and In South Bastar where this class struggle their imperialist backers aim to win their is among the fiercest in entire DK and the unjust counter-revolutionary war and wipe out country, the PLGA battalion is playing a vitally the Party, the guerrilla forces, revolutionary important role. It is spearheading the people’s mass organisations and the people’s war in Bastar ever since it was formed nearly a government of DK existing in an embryonic decade back. By engaging in tactical counter- form. They want to snatch away the social, offensive campaigns and heroic actions against economic, political and cultural victories that a ruthless enemy with vastly superior strength Bastar’s heroic people have won in the last and keeping it at bay, it is protecting the people, thirty-seven years’ of bitter class struggle. By their revolutionary organisations and the fruits attacking and crushing the Maoist Party and of the revolutionary movement through the people’s liberation guerrilla forces which enormous sacrifices. Integrated with the people are leading the masses in defending these deeply and mobilising them politically, the victories, the reactionary Indian state aims to battalion is helping them to enjoy a modicum restore the old rule of the landlords, usurers, of freedom, democracy and political power for big traders, corrupt bureaucrats, the police and the first time even amidst the intense civil war. forest officials and the bad gentry. This will Following its manifesto, it is doing political make way for the further intrusion of foreign and organisational work among the masses, and domestic big capitalists including the participating in production, serving the people mining giants, forest mafia, etc. into DK and by providing healthcare and education, etc., the inroad of big infrastructural base needed and preparing the people for a protracted self- for them such as roads, railways, big dams, and defensive war under the guidance of the Maoist so on. This will be nothing short of a planned Party. With its diverse roles and activities in genocide of the indigenous people – both by establishing a close relation with the people and waging a war on them and by depriving them developing the people’s war, it has become one of the land, forests, water, air and everything of the effective key units of the Maoist guerrilla else so precious to their lives. forces in the country. The Bastar people do not want to lose this Realising the significance, role and selfless war at any cost; they do not want these old service of the PLGA battalion in the people’s and new bloodsuckers to come back under any war, the masses too are protecting the leaders, condition. So they are fighting a bitter people’s cadres and the guerrilla fighters of the battalion war by staking their lives and with tremendous like the pupil of their eyes even at the risk of sacrifice. They are joining the Party, PLGA and their lives. It is with the help of the masses that united front organisations in large numbers to the Party leaders and cadres, guerrilla defend, sustain and advance this struggle. At commanders and fighters and the mass

MIB-38 January - June 2019 63 organisation activists are functioning even and eliminate our movement’s leadership from amidst heavy concentration and attacks of the the village-level to the Central Committee level enemy forces. It is not surprising, therefore, by carrying out special military and intelligence that the enemy has been trying desperately for operations. It is offering crores of rupees in long to nip this higher level of guerrilla unit at rewards on their heads, persecuting their family the bud. The desperation of the enemy is clear members and conducting all kinds of foul from the fact that it is throwing a force at least propaganda against them under its counter- a hundred times bigger than the PLGA revolutionary psychological war. All these battalion in this latest offensive. forms of attack on individual leaders are One of the factors behind the nothing but an assault on the entire Party, achievements and effectiveness of PLGA’s revolutionary movement and the struggling Battalion No.1 is its political and military people. leadership. The enemy is well aware of it, and The people’s human, material and is therefore specifically focussing on targeting technical resources are limitless. The people are and eliminating this leadership. DK Special the real heroes and the actual makers of history. Zonal Committee member Comrade Hidma, They are the decisive factor in any war. But who is also the Secretary of Battalion Party oblivious to these irrefutable truths, the Committee and the Battalion Commander, reactionary enemy is day-dreaming of has become one of the main targets of the crushing the revolutionary movement by enemy along with its entire leadership. Like destroying a few people’s liberation guerrilla so many leaders of the revolutionary units and eliminating a few people’s leaders like movements in DK, Comrade Hidma grew up Comrade Hidma. But its vile designs have not along with the movement’s development, been successful in the past, nor will it be starting his political life at a very early age in successful in the future. It is certain that guided the Balal Sangham (children’s organisation), by the Party and with the support of the working through the ranks of the people’s revolutionary masses, the PLGA forces will do militia, peasant association (Dandakaranya everything to protect its leadership and defeat Adivasi Kishan Mazdoor Sangh or DAKMS), the latest enemy offensive as they have done PLGA and the Party, becoming a part of the on so many occasions in the past. We call upon highest political and military leadership of the the PLGA and the people to protect the DK Special Zone. His development from an leadership of the Party, PLGA and mass ‘ordinary’ Adivasi village youngster to one of organisation by resolutely fighting back the the Party leaders and PLGA commanders of enemy. We appeal to the workers, peasants, DK is emblematic of the immeasurable intellectuals, students, youth and all other transformative power of the revolutionary sections of the people of the Central Regional movement. Imbued with revolutionary Bureau area (Chhattisgarh, Telangana, ideology and guided by the correct Party line, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and the people themselves have built up the Madhya Pradesh) to oppose the latest unjust revolutionary movement and created their and cruel offensive of the ruling classes and leaders. firmly stand in solidarity with the fighting In the history of the new democratic people. revolutionary movement of our country since Naxalbari, hundreds of political, military and mass leaders like Comrade Hidma have  emerged from the ranks of the people in the process of class struggle and gave leadership (Pratap) to it. In any proletarian revolution, it is the toiling people who create their leaders, who in Spokesperson turn serve the cause of the people and the Central Regional Bureau proletarian revolution. Considering its crucial CPI(Maoist) role, the enemy has been conspiring to target

64 January - June 2019 MIB-38 COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST) CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Press Release 14 July 2018

Expose Modi govt.’s fascist design behind “One Nation, One Election”! Reject the rotten Indian parliamentary system and its farcical elections! Strengthen the democratic movement for a people’s democratic state!

Ever since the present NDA and panchayats throughout the country) if it government came to power four years back, came to power. BJP President Amit Shah has the BJP-RSS leaders including Prime Minister clarified only yesterday that it considers the Narendra Modi have been vocally canvassing holding of simultaneous elections during the for holding simultaneous parliamentary and next general elections as impracticable. It is assembly elections in the country. Following obvious that while BJP and the Sangh Parivar this, the Election Commission has carried out were keen to put it in place before the general consultations with all parliamentary parties on elections of 2019, they were sure about their the same issue, while other government bodies own strength to carry it successfully through like Joint Parliamentary Committee, Niti the legislature and the amount of opposition Ayog, etc. too have been discussing this issue. it will evoke from other parties and the people. What has been presented as a suggestion for Therefore, they have though it better to make public debate so far has now been given an a tactical retreat for the time being. But this urgent push with Modi government’s ongoing does not mean that they have given up their consultations with the parliamentary parties strategic goal of “One Nation, One Election”; on this proposal. In the all-party meeting they will try to implement it at a more recently convened by the government to discuss opportune time in the future. Irrespective of the issue, eight parties including CPI, CPI(M), whether and when they are successful in their TMC, etc. have opposed it, five parties attempt, however, it is necessary to expose their including Akali Dal, TRS etc., have supported real motives behind this measure under the it while Congress has sought more time to garb of an innocuous-looking ‘electoral respond. Curiously, BJP too declined to make reform’. For this is nothing but a part of their its stand clear immediately and sought more veiled attempt at making the existing feudal- time even though its own leaders have been the comprador dictatorship of the Indian ruling most enthusiastic advocates of this measure! classes in a parliamentary shell even more anti- In fact, BJP was the first party to concretely people and repressive by combining the propose this measure in 2003, just one year communal-fascist Hindutva ideology with before Vajpayee government’s term was about state power. to be over. In the same way, Modi government The Modi-Shah-Bhagwat ruling clique too pushed it just a year before its term comes has put forward several arguments in favour to an end in mid-2019. In fact, BJP had of simultaneous elections for the parliament promised in its 2014 election manifesto itself and the state legislatures. The most important that it will implement the slogan of “One among them are: holding elections separately Nation, One Election” (simultaneous elections leads to an increase in election-related expenses, for Lok Sabha, Vidhan Sabhas, municipalities wastage of time and labour, creates problems

MIB-38 January - June 2019 65 for proper planning and implementation of Understandably, there is complicity of silence government welfare schemes and between both its proponents and the developmental projects, increases electoral opponents about not going into the roots and malpractices and corruption, disrupts normal exposing the real reasons behind this proposal. government functioning, etc. Conversely, if the A closer look at the claims of BJP-RSS in elections are held simultaneously, they claim, favour of simultaneous elections shows that there will be a considerable reduction in the these are completely groundless arguments, government expense in conducting elections, meant only to befuddle and mislead the masses. the time and labour of government employees For one, it is hardly credible that holding the will be saved, public welfare schemes and elections together will reduce the government’s development programmes will be planned and expenditure in any significant way, given the executed more efficiently and effectively fact that electoral expenses in India are growing through better centre-state coordination, all the time and are breaking their own records. regular government functioning will be less They are among the highest in the world at hampered, elections will be made freer, fairer present, even surpassing that of the richest and more transparent, etc. country in the world – the US. Tens of The parliamentary parties opposing thousands of crores of rupees extracted from this proposal have countered these arguments the people are wasted in holding every election, by saying that it is not possible to hold elections which is nothing but a vulgar display of luxury for the parliament and the dozens of state amidst dire poverty and misery of the vast assemblies simultaneously since their terms majority of the people. This is a criminal vary considerably and there is no guarantee wastage in the face of the government’s failure that a government will complete its full term. to provide them even the basic necessities of They point out that simultaneous elections life in the last seventy years. Indeed, the were held in the 1950s and 1960s, but have mounting public outlay for successive elections diverged more and more since then. They also in contrast to the successive reduction in argue that simultaneous elections will budgetary allocation for public welfare and strengthen the centre at the expense of the states social security schemes, public health and and further weaken the provisions of education, etc. exposes the hypocrisy in BJP- federalism. According to them, there are more RSS’s argument. Apart from the direct public effective ways to electoral reforms than expenses in conducting elections, there are no conducting simultaneous elections. In reality, less indirect expenses in mobilising the whole the parliamentary parties opposing this state machinery including the armed forces proposal hold that Modi-led BJP is pushing and the bureaucracy to conduct elections at this proposal at this time to take undue gunpoint. The loss of working days, disruption advantage in the upcoming general elections of productive activities, overburdening of and to win a continuous second term in office. government employees with mandatory They are worried that if the elections are held election duty – these and all other similar losses simultaneously, BJP-RSS with its massive and wastage will continue as usual without economic and political strength and much difference irrespective of whether organisational machinery will have a much elections are held simultaneously or separately. bigger advantage over them, thereby reducing It is equally ridiculous for BJP to talk their prospects of victory significantly. about saving money and resources of the Though many parliamentary parties parties and candidates in the electoral fray are opposing the proposal citing this kind of through “One Nation, One Election” when it arguments, they have failed to expose the real has emerged as the biggest spender in the last motive of the BJP-RSS since they too are neck- few elections, outspending all its opponents deep in the Indian parliamentary system. Any several times over. The people of the country serious challenge to the proposed simultaneous have not forgotten the unaccounted sums of elections will inevitably unmask the farcical money splashed by BJP in the last general nature of India’s parliamentary democracy. elections (over ten thousand crore rupees) to

66 January - June 2019 MIB-38 promote Modi through every mass media is a glaring truth known to each and every platform. Its earnings as well as expenses have politically-conscious person in the country. The only shot up since then, overshadowing all its Indian ruling classes have reduced the meaning parliamentary rivals put together. It is reported of democracy to the periodic ritual of casting that BJP-RSS had spent over 2,000 crore one’s vote and remaining a passive onlooker rupees in buying over a number of opposition till the next elections. They have further limited leaders to its side even before the recent Tripura the role of the masses to choosing which bunch elections. It is also common knowledge that of exploiters, bloodsuckers and cutthroats will BJP leader Yediyurappa had offered 100 crore procure the licence to loot and oppress them rupees each to a few newly-elected opposition for the next few years. It is the kind of MLAs to defect to his side before the floor test ‘democracy’ where a party rejected by the in the assembly earlier this year. majority of the voters can still win the elections Similarly, BJP has spent massive amounts of and form government (for instance, Modi-led money and used all other dirty tricks to cobble BJP won a simple majority and came to power together governments in Goa and several even when two-thirds of the electorate voted Northeastern states even while being in the against it in the last general elections). The minority. These are only a few recent examples history of parliamentary democracy the world of BJP’s unscrupulousness in using vast over has proved that even the most “free and amounts of unaccounted (‘black’) money to fair” parliamentary elections in the best of win elections and form governments. Using bourgeois republics – not to say of the elections government power at the centre and in in a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country like majority of states in the country, BJP-RSS are India – are nothing but a means to perpetuate amassing vast amounts of money from the rich the rule of the handful of parasitic exploiters and corrupt in the last four years (with measures over the vast working masses. This being the like Demonetisation) and are using it on an case, BJP’s claim that electoral expenses and ever-increasing scale to fuel its vast malpractices will be reduced and the masses organisational machine and consolidate its will be benefitted simply by holding elections hold on power. In this way, Sangh Parivar has simultaneously is nothing but pure deception. emerged as the world’s largest fascist Just like so many of its Goebbelsian schemes, organisation with the largest amount of ‘black’ BJP-RSS’s deceptive cry of “One Nation, One money at its disposal. Therefore, except some Election” or “Make the biggest democracy the diehard Hindu-fascists, nobody in their right greatest democracy of the world” too is a part mind can believe BJP when it claims that it is of its design to impose its fascist ideology using serious about cutting down wasteful expenses state power and making India a ‘Hindu through simultaneous elections. Rashtra’ by amending even the formal In fact, all parliamentary parties bourgeois-democratic framework of the without exception resort to ill-gotten money Indian Constitution. to fight elections, so much so that no “common Notwithstanding what the BJP-RSS man” can hope to get elected ‘honestly’, i.e., combine is telling publicly to drum up support without entering a contest of money and for simultaneous elections, its real intention muscle power. The complete dominance of behind it is to take another step towards money and liquor, coercion and violence, imposing its reactionary Brahmanical Hindu- manipulation and fraud, casteism and fascist worldview on the people. But to communalism, etc., in all forms of elections transform the country according to its starting from panchayat up to parliamentary worldview and establishing a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ elections have torn apart the democratic will require further centralisation, pretensions of the Indian parliamentary concentration and fascisization of state power system. Though none of the ruling-class in its hands so that it can crush the resistance parties afford to openly admit that the so-called and opposition which is sure to erupt. This biggest democracy in the world has turned out also serves the urgent needs of the Indian big to be the world’s biggest farce of democracy, it bourgeoisie, big landlords and the foreign

MIB-38 January - June 2019 67 capitalists reeling under the ongoing world benefitting various oppressed classes and economic crisis. The Modi government has sections of the people including workers, already taken a number of significant steps in peasants, Dalits, Adivasis, religious minorities, the economic sphere to serve their interests oppressed nationalities, women, the middle such as intensification of financial classes, etc. They have introduced a number ‘deregulation’ and ‘rationalisation’, of draconian, anti-people and regressive imposition of Goods and Services Tax (GST), provisions in their place in a planned manner dissolution of Planning Commission, to benefit the imperialists, domestic big Demonetisation, ‘cashless economy’, ‘Jan capitalists and big landlords. To further the Dhan’ bank accounts, ‘Aadhar’, etc. All these Hindu-fascist agenda, they are trying to change measures are a part of the imperialist-dictated even the formal democratic, secular and federal neo-liberal LPG policies, which have framework of the Indian Constitution by enormously benefitted the Indian ruling classes engineering a two-third majority in the and their imperialist masters at the expense of parliament through all kinds of manipulation. the country’s vast working masses. To take just one example, they have been Parallel to the centralisation of the already experimenting with the draconian economic might of the ruling classes through measure of compulsory voting in local body these measures, Modi government has taken elections in Gujarat and are threatening to several steps to further consolidate and withdraw social welfare benefits from the centralise their political power by people who refuse to vote. The attempt to strengthening the authority of the central introduce simultaneous elections too is one government. Towards this, it has been more step in this direction and has nothing at systematically fascisizing all organs and all to do with ‘reforming’ the system or institutions of government power including benefitting the electorate. the armed forces, bureaucracy, judiciary, This being the case, it is not enough to education system, etc. and is taking the help limit our opposition to the proposal of of numerous Hindu-fascist organisations simultaneous elections alone as the associated with Sangh Parivar for this purpose. parliamentary parties are doing, but we must All constitutional offices including that of the extend this opposition to the rejection of the President, Governor, Chief Justice, Chief Indian parliamentary system itself. This Election Commissioner, Comptroller and system – rotten to the core and a deadweight Auditor General (CAG), etc. up to the lowest on the country’s people – is a clever instrument level are being saffronised rapidly. The organs devised by the Indian ruling classes to deprive of the state are being utilised more ruthlessly the people of real democracy and to exercise to persecute, intimidate, entice or buy out all their feudal-comprador dictatorship under this opposition to Hindu-fascist organisations and mask. The last seven decades of India’s their regressive ideology. By eroding even the parliamentary democracy has proved beyond namesake provisions of constitutional doubt that it has not fulfilled – and will never democracy, federalism, democratic rights, etc., fulfil – the aspirations of the oppressed classes, BJP-RSS and their governments are attacking nationalities and social sections of the people. the people and their organisations in an No amount of ‘reform’ of this system can unprecedented manner. Let alone the leaders ‘democratise’ it in any fundamental way or and members of democratic or revolutionary change the basic class nature it has been organisations putting up genuine resistance to stamped with at its birth. There is no other Hindutva terror, even the leaders of opposition option than to overthrow root-and-branch the parties are being hounded, sent to jail or feudal-comprador dictatorship of the big threatened with criminal investigation in order landlords, comprador bureaucratic bourgeoisie to browbeat them to submission. Already, BJP and the imperialists with their mask of governments at the centre and in the states have parliamentary democracy through a mighty scrapped, made redundant or restricted a number of constitutional-legal provisions continued on p.54

68 January - June 2019 MIB-38 COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST) CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Press Release 16 August 2018

Observe 13 September 2018 as the Day of Political Prisoners’ Rights inside and outside jails! Stand in solidarity with all incarcerated political prisoners and their struggle! Fight for the rights of the political prisoners and their unconditional release!

13 September is a significant day in the prisoners to actively take part in the history of people’s movements in the country. programmes commemorating this Day. On this day 89 years back Jatin Das was Anyone who understands the nature of martyred in Lahore Jail after 63 days of India’s judicial and penal system can indefinite hunger strike demanding the understand the importance of observing the recognition of political prisoners’ status from Political Prisoners’ Day. Though the foreign the British colonial rulers. Ever since, this rulers have left the country and domestic rulers uncompromising struggle has inspired have taken over the reign of power, the generations of political prisoners to wage jail country’s jails and the condition of the struggle for their democratic rights against the prisoners have not changed in any fundamental reactionary ruling classes. From the time of way in the last seventy years. Just like the Naxalbari, Maoist revolutionaries who have exploitative colonial rulers against whom Jatin been thrown behind bars in tens of thousands Das had once struggled, the present feudal- have held high this glorious tradition comprador rulers of the country continue to established by Jatin Das and his comrades-in- put thousands of people associated with arms Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev. To political movements behind bars each year to commemorate his sacrifice and express protect their reactionary political power. The solidarity with political prisoners, the Central political prisoners in India represent a wide Committee of our Party had decided in 2010 range of oppressed classes and communities, to call for the observance of 13 September as political and social movements. They are the Day of Political Prisoners’ Rights every associated with the Maoist movement, year. This year too, our CC is issuing this national liberation movements of Kashmir, appeal to all our Party members, PLGA, Punjab, Tamil Eelam and the Northeast, revolutionary mass organisations, democratic separate statehood movements, workers, and civil rights organisations and the people peasants, Dalits and Adivasis participating in of the country to observe 13 September in militant struggles, Muslims and other religious solidarity with the incarcerated political minorities falsely implicated in communally- prisoners through various programmes. We motivated false charges, various social sections call upon all our incarcerated Party Members fighting for their democratic rights, social to take the initiative in observing this Day in activists, democrats, journalists, lawyers, prison according to the prevailing jail intellectuals and people from other professions conditions by involving as many prisoners as opposing the policies of the government, and possible. We appeal to the family members, so on. friends and well-wishers of the political

MIB-38 January - June 2019 69 A glaring example of this fascist repression recognition of the status of political prisoners, is the arrest of five well-known social activists all those who belong to the oppressed masses Rona Wilson (political prisoners’ rights face similar ill-treatment in courts and jails. activist, New Delhi), Prof. Shoma Sen They are mostly the toiling masses – Dalits, (Nagpur University), Sudhir Dhavle (editor, Adivasis, Muslims, people from the oppressed Vidrohi Magazine, Mumbai) Adv. Surendra castes, communities and classes. Though they Gadling (Nagpur) and Mahesh Raut (anti- go entirely unrepresented or hugely displacement activist, Gadchiroli) in June this underrepresented in education and jobs, their year by Maharashtra Police on fabricated ‘representation’ in jail is disproportionately charges related to Bhima-Koregaon and a so- large compared to their share in population. called conspiracy to assassinate Narendra This is a reflection of the existing social system Modi. Similarly, social activist Damodar Turi where the miniscule minority of the ruling of Jharkhand who has been fighting against classes keep mostly the people from the displacement of Adivasis was arrested in oppressed classes imprisoned to safeguard their February on fabricated charges. Hundreds of dictatorial rule. These prisoners are jailed for people associated with the ‘Patthalgarhi’ petty ‘crimes’, for ‘crimes’ which they had movement – mostly Adivasi people of never committed, for deeds which are ‘crimes’ Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh – have been put only in the eyes of the ruling classes or ‘crimes’ behind bars for demanding their constitutional for which the existing system is actually rights. Kashmiri civil rights activist Khurram responsible. They are forced to undergo years Parvez and photo journalist Yusuf Kamran of torturous incarceration due to their inability have been imprisoned for refusing to toe the to buy their way out to freedom. The right to diktats of the Indian state. Vocal opponents a fair trial, the right to legal defence, the right of the government like Prof. G N Saibaba, to bail and the right to a dignified life are all Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan, Chandmuni denied to them in jail as a rule. They are often Hansda and hundreds of dissenting voices made to undergo years of imprisonment way continue to languish in jail. They are being beyond their stipulated period of punishment, persecuted for the ‘crime’ of opposing the as is the case with hundreds of lifers who have tyrannical Indian state or for standing with the completed their term and are waiting for years people’s movements. In all, India has one of for release. The condition of these ‘ordinary’ the largest number of political prisoners in the prisoners is in complete contrast to the few world and is growing every year at an alarming ruling-class elements like politicians, high-level rate, reflecting the authoritarian nature of the state functionaries like bureaucrats, big Indian state. The state has denied them the businessmen, godmen, goons belonging to status of political prisoners and the rights RSS and other Hindutva organisations, etc. associated with it in spite of a number of when they are jailed on a few rare occasions. valiant struggles in the past. In fact, no state They are provided a royal treatment in jail and except West Bengal has ever enacted any law are released at the earliest opportunity. This is to recognise this right, and even in that state it not surprising given that jails are only a replica has been scrapped from the statute books of the society and reproduce the existing subsequently in an arbitrary manner. In this exploitative socio-economic and political condition, the Political Prisoners’ Day is an relations within it. The ‘ordinary’ prisoners are appropriate occasion to reiterate from inside the victims of this system. That is why it is an and outside the jails the demand for the important task of the political prisoners – recognition of political prisoners’ status and particularly the Maoist prisoners – to politicise their other legal rights apart from fighting for and organise them in struggles by applying the their unconditional release. class line and win them over to the side of the The condition of ‘ordinary’ prisoners revolutionary movement. who constitute the vast majority of all prisoners Indian ruling classes and their in the country is no better than the political governments have been carrying out fascist prisoners. In fact, in the absence of a legal repression on our Party and the movement

70 January - June 2019 MIB-38 since the days of Naxalbari. As a part of it, incarcerated Hindutva-fascist criminals like they have been jailing Maoist revolutionaries Aseemanand, Maya Kodnani, Col. Purohit and the masses in large numbers every year and others out of prison. with an aim to make them yield and give up The outcome of the latest ruling-class the class struggle. The jailed Maoists, on their offensive on the Maoist movement under part, make all efforts to remain firm on their ‘Samadhan’ can be perceived in a series of political convictions and turn the enemy massacres in Dandakaranya, be it in Kalleda, prisons into an arena of class struggle and Tadpal, Aipeta, Kasanur-Tumirgunda, the political education. The jail struggles of massacre of 15 Adivasi villagers including Maoist political prisoners have thereby become seven minors in Nulkatong of Sukma on the an important part of the history of the Indian 6th of this month or in Badgaon of Jharkhand revolutionary movement. These struggles have and other movement areas. This is apart from acquired even more importance after the all other forms of state terror including arrests formation of our unified Party CPI(Maoist), and imprisonment, the number of which has following which state repression on the gone up significantly in recent times. For movement has become even more severe in the instance, 1,010 alleged ‘Maoists’ were arrested last fourteen years. Identifying it as “the biggest in 2017 in Bastar region alone, according to internal security threat”, the ruling classes have government statistics. An even larger number been launching one counter-revolutionary of people are illegally detained, tortured and operation and campaign after another. Under assaulted in police stations and paramilitary Salwa Judum, Sendra, Operation Green Hunt, camps, no record of which are made available ‘Mission-2016’ and ‘Mission-2017’, to the outside world. During the revolutionary ‘Samadhan’ etc., they are killing and arresting occasions in particular, hundreds of villagers members of the Party, PLGA, revolutionary are forced every year to spend days in police mass organisations and the people of the stations and camps to prevent their struggle areas in large numbers. They are participation. New prisons are being built in directing the spearhead of their assault on our almost all the “Maoist affected” districts where Party leadership at all levels from the CC to they do not exist and the capacity of the old the Village Party Committees. Particularly ones is being expanded on a war-footing to after the Brahmanical Hindu-fascist BJP-RSS lock up more and more Maoist political came to power at the centre, the intensity of prisoners. this assault has reached an unprecedented level in the last four years. The Maoist movement As of now, 9 CCMs, around 30 SACMs/ in particular and all people’s movements in SZCMs/SCMs and around 50 ZCMs/ general have become targets of the Hindutva DCMs/DVCMs, hundreds of ACMs, PRs and forces that have combined their reactionary PMs, thousands of activists and members of ideology with state power to unleash a reign the revolutionary mass organisations and of white terror throughout the country. Now RPCs as well as people from our movement with the counter-revolutionary plan areas are languishing in the jails under ‘Samadhan’ launched in May last year, Modi fabricated charges in many states. In all, they government has set the target of wiping out are facing Maoist-related cases in 19 states. A our Party and the revolutionary movement by large number of them are in jail for over five 2022. This is a crucial part of its grand design to ten years facing trial or undergoing sentence. to establish a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ under the garb All of them are made to face inhuman of ‘New India’. With an eye on winning conditions, endless difficulties and physical another term in office in the next year’s general and mental torture. Women and differently- elections, the Hindutva forces and the state able political prisoners in particular are facing machinery at their command are becoming extremely harsh conditions and ill-treatment ever more aggressive in their fascist attacks, from the government and jail authorities. In filling the country’s jails with more and more recent years, several comrades have died in political prisoners while getting the prison due to the denial of timely medical

MIB-38 January - June 2019 71 attention. Re-arrest of political prisoners at jail legal rights and their unconditional release gates has become a common practice. Handing should be garnered through these programmes. down harsh and rigorous punishment to In the movement areas where Revolutionary Maoist undertrials including life and capital People’s Committees and mass organisations punishment has become another norm. All are active, they should make all possible effort these forms of persecution are going to grow to get their jailed members released and to in the coming days as BJP-RSS gears up to win support their families by all means. The special a fresh term by crushing its political opponents needs of the veteran, ailing, differently-able, and perceived ‘enemies’ including the tide of women and Adivasi political prisoners should people’s movements growing in the country be highlighted. Hideous practices like re-arrest, against Hindu-fascism. Most of our comrades conducting trials one after another instead of in jail are carrying out struggles and political- simultaneous trials, pronouncement of organisational work by boldly facing this consecutively-running sentences in place of situation and remaining firmly committed to concurrent ones, etc. should be strongly MLM and the Party. With their valiant opposed. This day should also be an occasion struggles they are inspiring the entire to raise our voice against the escalating state revolutionary camp and the oppressed masses. and Hindutva terror in the country, against the Their struggles inside the jails and the efforts anti-people policies of Modi government such of the people and their organisations from as ‘New India’, against the fascist attacks on outside have resulted in some significant the people’s movements including the counter- victories in the last one year such as the release revolutionary ‘Samadhan’, against the Indian of Comrade Padma from Jagdalpur jail and government’s attempts to gag the voices of seven mass organisation leaders from AP- internationalist support for the political Telangana arrested in Chhattisgarh. Likewise, prisoners of the country in league with foreign the people in the Maoist struggle areas, governments, and so on. It should be a day of particularly women, are setting a model of solidarity with all the revolutionary and valiant resistance by heroically confronting the democratic movements ongoing in different paramilitary-police forces and forcing the parts of the world against imperialism, release of detained fellow villagers on many feudalism and all reaction; a day to seek occasions. These victories are strengthening the international support for the protracted movement for the rights of the political people’s war led by our Party and other people’s prisoners. movements in India. The upcoming Day of Political Prisoners’ Rights is an occasion to express our solidarity with the political prisoners of the country and to renew our pledge to carry on the fight against the oppressors who have kept them imprisoned. On this day, programmes in various forms should be conducted in our (Abhay) struggle areas and cities by mobilising the Spokesperson masses and uniting more closely with other Central Committee people’s organisations. Wider public support for the recognition of political prisoners, their CPI(Maoist)

72 January - June 2019 MIB-38 COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST) CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Press Release 30 August 2018

Condemn the raids, arrest, attempted arrest and house-arrest of social activists on trumped-up charges! Demand withdrawal of charges and release of all social activists implicated in Bhima-Koregaon case! Unite to intensify the countrywide people’s movement against Brahmanical Hindu-fascism!

Maharashtra Police in collusion with the computers, hard-disks and other electronic central intelligence agencies and the police of devices were seized by the policemen violating five states carried out a series of coordinated all norms. Following the raids, Varavara Rao, raids on the houses of several prominent social Vernon Gonzalves, Arun Ferreira, Sudha activists on 28 August. The pretext used was Bharadwaj and Gautam Navlakha were the purported investigation into the alleged arrested under various sections of the UAPA Maoist links behind the Bhima-Koregaon event in brazen violation of the “due process of and the so-called Maoist conspiracy to law”. However, as the police failed to provide assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi. any justification for the arrests and trampled These allegations are nothing but inventions upon the legal procedure, the courts refused the of the Maharashtra Police working under the transit remand of the last two. The three others diktats of RSS and Modi-Shah-Bhagwat clique were brought to Pune and produced before a to silence the voices of dissent against local court on 29 August. Hindutva terror and the terror of Hindu- After the news of the raids and arrests majoritarian Indian state. Five well-known became public, there was an eruption of social activists Rona Wilson, Prof. Shoma indignation and protest throughout the Sen, Adv. Surendra Gadling, Sudhir Dhawale country. People’s organisations, political and Mahesh Raut have already been parties and individuals across political incarcerated in Pune jail since 6 June on these affiliations condemned this fascist crackdown very charges. in one voice and protest demonstrations were The latest crackdown of 28 August began organised in different parts of the country. with raids on the residences of revolutionary Several international human rights poet Varavara Rao, his relatives Prof. K organisations too expressed their strong Satyanarayana and journalist N Venugopal of objection to the trampling of the civil and Hyderabad, Father Stan Swamy of Ranchi, democratic rights of the political dissenters in social activist Vernon Gonzalves and Advocate this manner. Only the Sangh Parivar and its Arun Ferreira of Mumbai, Advocate Sudha lackeys were found desperately trying to defend Bharadwaj of Faridabad and civil rights this indefensible police action with their usual activist and journalist Gautam Navlakha of lies and deceit, thereby exposing themselves in New Delhi. Their houses were searched and the eyes of the country’s masses.

MIB-38 January - June 2019 73 It was under pressure of this outburst of dissenting voices. Failing on all fronts in the public indignation that the Supreme Court last four years and keeping in view the next gave an urgent hearing to the petition of five year’s general elections, Modi government is prominent public intellectuals challenging now peddling the new illusion of building a these arrests the very next day, which foiled the ‘New India’ by 2022 for the benefit of the government’s design to put the social activists feudal-comprador ruling classes and their behind bars immediately. While rejecting the masters – the imperialists. An important government’s contention for their arrest, the component of the drive towards a Hindu- SC warned that dissent is the ‘safety-valve’ of fascist ‘New India’ is the trampling of all any democracy, and if it is not tolerated but democratic rights of the people that were stifled, there will be an explosion of the achieved through united struggles and wiping ‘pressure-cooker’ that will smash the very out of all democratic movements championing edifice of the existing system. This is an the cause of the oppressed masses. The BJP- oblique reminder to the ruling classes that if RSS want to stop the people from rising up they continue to suppress the country’s people against their government as they have been in this fascist manner, the people will not doing of late in militant peasant movements, tolerate this all the time and will certainly protest of Dalits after Bhima-Koregaon overthrow their oppressors sooner or later. In violence and dilution of the SC/ST Prevention fact, the brazenness of the crackdown in the of Atrocities Act, Adivasis rising up against garb of ‘investigation’ into the Bhima- interference with CNT/SPT Acts and in the Koregaon incident has been such that organs Patthalgadhi movement, liberation of the Indian state like the SC and the NHRC movements of the Kashmiri and Northeast too had to acknowledge the violations and nationalities, etc. reprimand the government and the police. As an integral part of building this Hindu- The defeat of the heinous conspiracy to fascist ‘New India’, BJP governments and the arrest the social activist is a slap on the face of Sangh Parivar want to uproot the country’s the Hindu-fascists and a victory to the people’s Maoist movement by the year 2022. This is the united struggle against the fascist and prime target they have set in launching the reactionary forces – no matter how partial or counter-revolutionary plan ‘Samadhan’ temporary it may be. It has sent a strong (‘Solution’) in May 2017. This so-called warning to the reactionary ruling-classes and reactionary ‘solution’ involves the their most loyal servant RSS-BJP that the extermination of the people on a genocidal people of the country will not take their scale and the displacement of millions in the repeated acts of fascist terror lying down. It is Adivasi areas across the country. This most one more proof that the people will fight back cruel campaign has already resulted in a series at every step the evil design to turn the country of massacres in the Maoist movement areas into a fascist ‘Hindu Rashtra’ and foil the like Kalleda, Badgaon, Tadpal, Aipeta, Hindutva agenda by using all means. Kasanur-Tumirgunda, Timmenar and The illusions created by Modi’s pre- Nulkatong. An integral part of this election promise of ‘Acche Din’ are fading fast annihilation campaign is the attempt to and the people’s discontent against the throttle the democratic and progressive voices government is on the rise due to its fascist, in the urban areas in the name of curbing treacherous, anti-people policies. This Maoism, so that no one dares to oppose the discontent is taking the form of organised genocide in the forested hinterland of the militant struggles by workers, peasants, Dalits, country. It is beyond doubt, however, that just Adivasis, religious minorities, oppressed as the people have defeated similar fascist nationalities, women, students, youth and campaigns of the ruling classes like Janjagaran intellectuals, etc., in all parts of the country. Abhiyan, Salwa Judum and Sendra in the past This is making BJP-RSS more and more and has fought back the fascist Operation desperate to cling to power by using methods Green Hunt through a protracted resistance of fascist terror against all opposition and struggle by making huge sacrifices, they can

74 January - June 2019 MIB-38 certainly defeat this latest ‘Samadhan’ view of the possibility that the police will plant onslaught too through a united militant incriminating material in the seized electronic resistance in rural and urban areas by braving devices and come up with new ‘proofs’ to all forms of white terror and giving all sacrifice. implicate them. Similarly, the struggle for the This will go a long way in strengthening the release of the five other social activists ongoing people’s movement against the incarcerated on the same charges since June Hindu-fascist forces. must also be intensified. Moreover, getting the While condemning in the strongest words fabricated charges against all the activists the continuous persecution of social activists scrapped or withdrawn should be an important and democrats by the government under baseless aim of this struggle. Our Party appeals to all charges, the Central Committee of our Party revolutionary, democratic, progressive, secular hails the people’s resistance that foiled the fascist and patriotic organisations and individuals of police crackdown to some extent. It conveys the country, various oppressed classes, revolutionary greetings to all the democratic communities and social sections, intellectuals, organisations, political parties and individuals lawyers, journalists, writers, artists, students, of the country that have daringly stood up youth, women and the people of all walks of against the fascist Modi-Fadnavis governments, life to unite and actively participate in this RSS and their mercenary police forces to prevent struggle by using all forms of struggle. We call the imprisonment of the social activists for the upon the international friends of the Indian time being. But the struggle is far from over. All people to stand in solidarity with this struggle efforts must be made to revoke the unjust house- by taking up campaigns in favour of the arrest of the activists and prevent their further persecuted social activists. persecution under any pretext, particularly in

Down with the feudal-comprador Brahmanical Hindu-fascism! Down with Modi government and its cohorts the Devendra Fadnavis, Raman Singh, Raghubar Das and K Chandrashekhar Rao governments for persecuting the country’s social activists and democrats! Long live the countrywide united people’s movement against Hindutva-fascist BJP-Sangh Parivar! Long live the anti-feudal, anti-imperialist and anti-fascist people’s democratic revolution!

(Abhay) Spokesperson Central Committee CPI(Maoist)

MIB-38 January - June 2019 75 COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST) CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Press Release 1 July 2017

Hail the PLGA that annihilated the mining mafia and ruling party TDP MLA Kidari Sarveswara Rao and TDP ex-MLA Seeveri Soma in the Manyam area of Visakhapatnam district as per the people’s verdict! Those who become enemies of the people and the environment by working as agents of multinational corporations shall meet the same end!

The Multi-National Companies with an section of the petty bourgeoisie and turned eye on the mineral wealth of Manyam area (the them into their middlemen. They have been forest area of Visakhapatnam and East benefiting out of the governments and the Godavari districts) of Visakhapatnam district corporate organisations and are diverting the have been taking up indiscriminate mining, people through ill propaganda in the interests devastating the area and displacing the tribal of the corporate organisations. Kidari people and the oppressed people with the Sarveswara Rao and Seeveri Soma belong to support of their compradors the ruling classes such a group of middlemen. of the country. The exploitive governments in KidariSarveswara Rao belongs to the power have been making many MOU to loot middle class of the Valmiki tribe. He distanced the mineral wealth like Bauxite, Laterite and from agricultural production and gained China clay of this area for the imperialists. The reputation as a middleman. He gradually tribal people and the oppressed people have turned out to be a tribal agent for the upper been opposing and struggling for Jal-Jungle- caste non-tribal landlord, business and Zameen-Adhikar, in the leadership of our Party industrial classes,became an owner of their CPI (Maoist). They are making militant quarries and minted lakhs of money. He thus people’s movements against the entrance of attracted the ruling classes. He initially joined corporate organisations. Earlier the the Congress party and later became a MLC Chandrababu government allowed Bauxite of the YSRCP. In 2014 he was a candidate for mining in manyam area with an agreement MLA on behalf of the YSRCP from Araku with Anrak corporate organisation. The TDP constituency and won the election. Taking the government had to withdraw this agreement opportunity of power he spread his own due to the militant struggle of the people mining activities in manyan and gained crores against it in the leadership of our Party. It had of money. He then left the party and joined to also withdraw GO no.97 temporarily. the TDP to protect his illegal property. He The Chandrababu government sent a made an agreement with Chandrababuand proposal to the centre to establish 100 police was keener on the support to extend mining, outposts in Manyam to deal with our Party more than the post of a Minister. In the process and deprive the tribal people of leadership. It he became a reliable agent of Chandrababu intensified its offensive. It conspired to disrupt and supported Bauxite mining. Chandrababu the unity and organized strength of the tribal too depended on Sarveswara Rao in Manyam people’s struggle. For this purpose it lured few and conspired together with him to weaken the members of the gentry of the tribes and a organized movement of the tribal people that

76 January - June 2019 MIB-38 is turning against him and to separate the the Chandrababu government to weaken the people of the Valmiki tribe that became his revolutionary movement in Manyam they social prop, from the whole tribal community. implemented the fake reforms of the Thus Sarveswara Rao became a reliable and government in areas where the movement was efficient servant of the ruling classes, an enemy strong in the protection of armed police and of the people, spread his mining activity, paid indulged in reactionary deeds like trying to many lumpen youth, turned them into his divert the people from struggles and to private army, cruelly attacked the people who terrorize them. came in the way of his illegal mining and Our Party has been propagating against became a mining mafia with the support of their mining mafia activities for some time and the government. Our Party warned him of his had been supporting the struggle of the people mining mafia activities. But he did not control against them. In some areas it even led these but only intensified them. struggles through its mass organisations. Seeveri Soma hails from the Kondadora However their activities went on extending tribe of Dumbriguda mandal of with the support of the government armed Visakhapatnam district. He too became a forces. In such conditions our PLGA wiped middleman of the ruling class and became a off both of them for the survival and in the MLA on behalf of TDP in 2009. He contested interests of the tribal people of Manyam as per the Assembly elections in 2014 and lost against their verdict. The police guarding them Sarveswara Rao (YSRCP). However the surrendered and so our PLGA seized their Chandrababu government gave him the weapons and did not harm them. responsibility of a state leader of the TDP ST The ruling parties are propagating that the cell and as the in-charge of the party in Araku increase of the wealth of such anti-people constituency. In this process he became the compradors, landlords and big capitalists as owner of many quarries. He opposed the broad the development of the country and that of people’s struggle against Bauxite mining in the GDP. ‘Country means people’ has faded Manyam and strongly supported the Multi- out and now ‘country means landlords, National Company. When he acted as an agent comprador bureaucratic capitalists, land to the mining of ‘China clay’ in Dumbriguda mafia, liquor mafia, mining mafia, rowdies mandal the people of the area chased him away and cheaters’. These people win the elections throwing stones and slippers. With the people’s for Parliament and Assembly and become resistance the mining of China clay came to a ‘people’s representatives’ and ‘development stop. Since then he was in police protection. wishers’. In fact they are the enemies of the After Sarveswara Rao joined the TDP people and traitors of the country mortgaging from YSRCP, both of them colluded and the interests of the country to the imperialists, turned to be reliable agents to the corporate filling their treasures and coming in the way organisations and exploitative classes of the of the development of the country. They are a non-tribals. They separated a few people of hurdle for the Democratic Revolution of the their social sections and tried to disrupt the country. unity of the tribal people. They lured these They are coming into the arena of people in many ways to mold them against the elections presently in the garb of TRS in whole tribal people and in favor of the Telangana, TDP, BJP and Congress. The left exploitive ruling classes and illegal mining. parties in the arena of elections are trying to They tried to form a strong social basis of maintain status quo in the country. The people oppressed people for the exploitive classes. will certainly realize the true color of these While the whole tribal community was exploiters, traitors of the country and enemies opposing the proposal of the TDP government of the people and punish them like they did to to bring the Boya Valmiki (a BC of the plain Sarveswara Rao and Soma in Visakhapatnam areas) into STs, they supported the government district in the purview of Andhra-Odisha and stood against the whole tribal people. On Border Special Zone of the CPI (Maoist). The the other hand as a part of the conspiracies of

MIB-38 January - June 2019 77 people in the leadership of our Party shall It is known to all how the ruling classes certainly teach a lesson to the leaders of TRS have been handing over the country’s natural and BJP that are giving away all the wealth of resources and forests in states like Andhra the Telangana state to the imperialists and are Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, imposing Brahmanical Hindu fascism on the Maharashtra, Telangana, Paschim Banga, people. Tamil Nadu, Keralam, etc. in the last fifteen Elections have been scheduled in years. Anyone who takes the avatar as Telangana. On this occasion all these exploiters representatives of the Adivasi areas in the are coming in front of the people to once more Vidhan Sabhas and the Lok Sabha or who takes gain power to exploit and oppress the people. part in this race are the enemies of the people. They want the people’s verdict. We call upon The punishment given to Sarveswara Rao and the people to boycott the elections and to Soma once more bring forth that the people, become an active part of the People’s War for the People’s Army-PLGA shall never spare the success of New Democratic Revolution in such people. The parliamentary parties and the country. Chase away the leaders of TRS their leaders that represent the comprador and BJP that come to ask vote. Point out and ruling classes serving the interests of the question the anti-people character of the imperialist multinational corporations have Congress, TDP the left and other such parties. become a serious threat to the life and livelihood of the Adivasis throughout the Representatives of the evil anti-people country. Our Party CPI(Maoist) calls upon the parliamentary system like Sarveswara Rao and oppressed people of the country to chase away Soma are not only seen in AP and Telangana such comprador parties and their leaders! but all over the country. They win the Assembly Build militant mass movements against the and Lok Sabha elections by hook or crook comprador governments led by such parties! using many kinds of deceptive methods, come forth as traitorous anti-people forces in looting the resources of the country and working as compradors of the mega corporate classes and are taking the form of ‘Khaddar-Saffron’ (Abhay) leaders. The people must teach lessons to such forces. They must be rigorously punished as Spokesperson per the people’s verdict. Central Committee CPI(Maoist)

78 January - June 2019 MIB-38 COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST) CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Press Release 4 October 2018

Boycott the so-called ‘peace march’ of Shubhranshu Choudhary and other individuals! Appeals for peace must be directed towards the Indian state, not the Maoists! The ruling classes must be ready to “abjure violence” for peace to prevail in Bastar and other movement areas of the country!

A number of individuals led by former organisations, Adivasi organisations and well- journalist Shubhranshu Choudhary are on a wishers of the Adivasi people to identify the ‘Shanti Yatra’ (‘peace march’) from Satti real face of Shubhranshu Choudhary and to village of Sukma district on the Chhattisgarh- expose, oppose and boycott the so-called ‘peace Andhra Pradesh border. Beginning on the day march’ initiated by him! Individuals joining of ‘Gandhi Jayanti’ on 2 October, around 150 the march who want real peace must first take individuals from six states plan to travel 186 the side of the people and take out a ‘peace kilometres on foot in ten days, ending their march’ against the government demanding it march on 12 October at Jagdalpur – the to stop the ongoing state violence and war on headquarters of Bastar Division. The people. purported objective of the first phase of this Our Party and the broad masses of oppressed ongoing ‘peace march’ under the banner of classes and social sections of the Indian people ‘Vikalp Sangam Manch’ is to bring peace to led by it always stand for a just and stable peace. the country’s Maoist movement areas by In fact, the objective of our Party is to establish appealing to the Maoist Party to “abjure permanent peace by removing the very cause of violence” and join the ‘mainstream’. the ongoing unjust war imposed by the In reality, it is not a ‘peace march’ at all; it exploitative and oppressive Indian ruling classes is a devious way to legitimise the brutal state and the imperialists. Our Party welcomes any violence being perpetrated in the areas of sincere effort made on behalf of the people to revolutionary movement throughout the establish genuine peace in the country. But country by the mercenary government forces. Shubhranshu Choudhary and other individuals Its main objective is to oppose the people’s initiating this ‘peace march’ are mistaken in democratic movement and to support the appealing to our Party to “abjure violence” and Indian state’s fascist war on people. Their “join the mainstream” while keeping silent on ‘peace march’ in fact is another face of AGNI state violence and terror perpetrated on the Party and a part of the ‘Samadhan’ plan – the and the people. They should know that our Party intensified all-out war of the ruling classes on and the oppressed masses are in no way the country’s fighting masses. Therefore, our responsible for this civil war and the consequent Central Committee appeals to the people of violence that is going on in various parts of the Bastar, the country’s democratic country’s hinterland; it is the dictatorial Indian state representing the interests of the feudal-

MIB-38 January - June 2019 79 comprador ruling classes and the imperialists that revolutionary movement areas since May 2017. are squarely responsible for it. It has been deploying a large number of Therefore, any call for peace must first and paramilitary and police forces in addition to foremost be addressed to the Indian the already existing nearly six lakh forces government, which is waging a fascist multi- engaged in anti-Maoist operations across the pronged war on the people for several decades country. An example of this intensification is to wipe out the people’s just movement led by the government’s decision to deploy seven our Party. This ruthless war is being presently more battalions of Central Paramilitary Forces prosecuted as per the ‘Samadhan’ strategic in Sukma district of Bastar region by plan with the aim of completely uprooting the transferring them from four states. The revolutionary movement led by our Party along government is strengthening the ‘carpet with all just people’s movements of the security network’ as per the imperialist- oppressed classes, social sections and sponsored counter-revolutionary LIC policy nationalities by the year 2022. Therefore, by setting up new police stations and instead of calling upon our Party to “abjure paramilitary camps in the movement areas. violence”, the individuals on the ‘peace march’ Massacre, extra-judicial killing and arrest of a should first demand the Indian government to large number of leaders and members of the put an immediate stop to its unjust genocidal Maoist Party, people’s guerrillas, mass war on people, withdraw all its armed forces organisations and the people of the struggle from the movement areas and release all areas all over the country is continuing in an Maoist political prisoners lodged in jail in intensified form under ‘Samadhan’. Large- different parts of the country. The conditions scale massacres like Kalleda, Aipeta, Pujari for peace can be created if the Indian Kanker, Timenar, Kasanur-Tumirgunda, government takes these initial steps. Nulkatong, Gumiabeda, etc. are a direct fallout of this counter-revolutionary war But the Indian ruling classes and their waged by the Indian ruling classes. The anti- governments have never taken any initiative Maoist forces, a large number of state- for real peace unless compelled by the people. sponsored vigilante gangs and reactionary At the very moment when some people are on forces are daily perpetrating all forms of a ‘peace march’ to appeal to our Party to atrocities and violence on the people in our “abjure violence”, the Indian government is movement areas. In the name of crushing boasting of carrying out a ‘fight to the finish’ ‘urban Naxals’, they are persecuting the against the revolutionary masses. By throwing country’s social activists and intellectuals who all norms of even the so-called democratic side with the democratic movements of the society to the dogs, fascist ruling-class lackeys people. In this condition, to call upon the and notorious butchers like Union Home Maoists one-sidedly to “abjure violence” while Minister Rajnath Singh, Minister of State refusing to demand a stop to the daily violence Hansraj Ahir and Chhattisgarh CM Raman and state-terror perpetrated by the Indian state Singh are repeatedly threatening the Party in all our movement areas across the country leaders, cadres and the people to choose is to side with the unjust counter-revolutionary between surrender and death. They have war of the ruling classes and stand against the declared a ‘decisive war’ against the people’s just and genuine democratic movement of the just movement led by our Party. The latest oppressed masses led by our Party. It is to victims of this ruthless war on people are three tarnish the image of our Party and the Adivasi villagers killed by the fascist movement as violent warmongers while government forces in Sukma district on 3 whitewashing the crimes of the Indian ruling October – just a day after the ‘peace march’ classes and present them as sentinels of peace. was started in the same district. So who is against peace? Is it the Party Brahmanical Hindu-fascist clique of and the oppressed people, or the ruling classes Modi-Shah-Bhagwat that is ruling the country and their state? Shubhranshu Choudhary and has intensified the war on people in all others joining the ‘peace march’ should answer

80 January - June 2019 MIB-38 this question. Rather than appealing to the the capitalists-imperialists while hiding the ugly Maoists to abandon their just war, if face of state terror in the areas of people’s Shubhranshu Choudhary and his friends are struggle. Can any genuine democrat join a sincere in their obligation to the masse and ‘peace effort’ initiated by him with such an commitment to peace, they should demand ugly perspective and still claim to represent the that the Indian ruling classes call off all armed interests of the oppressed masses? operations, arrests, killings, beatings, looting, History tells us that the oppressed masses violence against women, etc., declare an have never achieved liberation without the use immediate ceasefire and take all other necessary of force against their tormentors, the struggle steps to create a conducive atmosphere for at times taking the form of open and violent peace. Only in such a condition will it be fair class war. With this lesson of history before on their part to call upon our Party and the us, our Party will never abandon the path of struggling people to reciprocate in an revolutionary class struggle to establish a appropriate manner. Only in this way can they genuinely democratic and federal people’s expect to achieve any success in their peace republic of India. But our Party never rejects initiative. the possibility of talks or truce with their However, Shubhranshu Choudhary has adversaries, provided it is in the interest of the so far failed to display any sincerity towards people and their movement. Our Party is ready peace by refusing to raise these demands with to play its part in establishing peace and the Indian government either before or as a part initiating talks with the government on the of the present ‘peace march’. In fact, all his most important basic problems the people and efforts in the last few years have been focussed the country is confronting, provided the on discrediting the Maoist movement – efforts government creates a conducive atmosphere which can only serve the interests of the ruling by taking the above-mentioned initial steps. classes. In his recent pronouncements, he has declared the imminent doom of the Maoist movement echoing the ruling classes and advised the Maoists to abandon the people’s war for a new society and instead fight for (Abhay) ‘tribal autonomy’ within the present “rotten Spokesperson system”. Through these efforts, he is making a Central Committee futile attempt to present himself as a well- wisher of the Adivasis to serve the interests of CPI(Maoist)

MIB-38 January - June 2019 81 COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST) CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Press Release 11 October 2018

As the General Secretary of CPI (Maoist) Comrade Ganapathy has voluntarily withdrawn from his responsibilities, the Central Committee has elected Comrade Basavaraju as the new General Secretary

In view of his growing ill-health and for the whole Party and rectified the Party’s style advancing age in the past few years and with of functioning. The ideological and political the aim of strengthening the Central Committee level of the whole Party was developed. Mainly, and with a vision of the future, Comrade collective leadership and collective team- Ganapathy voluntarily withdrew from the functioning in the Central Committee was responsibilities of General Secretary and placed developed. Comrade Ganapathy stood at the a proposal to elect another comrade as General forefront and played a vital role in this effort of Secretary in his place, following which the 5th the revolutionary leadership in the Central meeting of the Central Committee thoroughly Committee. In that process, the entire Party discussed his proposal and after accepting it, stood together, defeated the conspirators and elected Comrade Basavaraju (Namballa Kesava prepared itself to face the challenges before it Rao) as the new General Secretary. by adhering to democratic centralism. In such Comrade Ganapathy was elected as the conditions, the Central Committee that General Secretary of the CPI(ML)(People’s developed as a collective leadership elected War) in June 1992. That was a very difficult time Comrade Ganapathy as the new General for the Party. By 1991, the Andhra Pradesh Secretary. government started the second phase of In 1995, we held the All India Special repression on the Party. The Party was facing Conference and enriched the Party line. That several challenges at that time regarding the Conference elected a new Central Committee. tactics to be adopted to advance the armed The newly elected Central Committee again struggle. The then secretary of the Central elected Comrade Ganapathy as the General Committee, Kondapalli Seetharamaiah, was Secretary. In August 1998, the not in a position to overcome those challenges CPI(ML)(People’s War) and CPI(ML)(Party that the Party was facing by leading his Unity) merged and CPI(ML) [People’s War] committee. In such conditions, instead of was formed. With that development, the Party overcoming those challenges by basing on all expanded to many states and gained a more all- the Party cadres and the people, Kondapalli India character. The new Central Committee Seetharamaiah and another member of the formed on that occasion too elected Comrade Central Committee followed conspiratorial Ganapathy as the General Secretary. By 2 methods and became the cause of internal crisis December 2000, we developed the military line in the Party. Except a few opportunists, the and built the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army. whole Party stood united in the principled fight The Ninth Congress of the erstwhile against this opportunist clique which made CPI(ML)[People’s War] held in 2001 further attempts to split the Party. On that occasion, enriched the political, military and the methods that the young leadership in the organisational line of the Party. As a part of Central Committee adopted to face the internal applying the strategy of Protracted People’s War crisis helped like a good education campaign to the concrete conditions of India, that

82 January - June 2019 MIB-38 Congress made new innovations like building people to defeat the counter-revolutionary Guerrilla Bases. The Party emphasised on attack of the enemy. In this process, Comrade building the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army Ganapathy withdrew from the responsibilities and also on the relation between the People’s of General Secretary in view of his growing ill- War and State Power under the leadership of health and age and got prepared to devote his the Central Military Commission. The newly whole strength and capabilities as before with a formed Central Committee once again elected view to further strengthen the Central Comrade Ganapathy as the General Secretary. Committee and the entire Party. Due to this, On 21 September 2004, CPI(ML)[People’s the Central Committee elected Comrade War] and Maoist Communist Centre of India Basavaraju (Namballa Kesava Rao) as the merged and CPI(Maoist) emerged. With this General Secretary. Comrade Basavaraju has merger based on an enriched ideological and been in the forefront of the Party for more than political line, the Indian revolutionary three and a half decades and successfully movement achieved a great leap. This provided leadership as the secretary of various development is a milestone in the history of committees, as a member of the Central Indian revolutionary movement. This Committee for the past 27 years and as a development further strengthened as well as member of the Politburo for the past 18 years. expanded the Party. The guerrilla armies of the Mainly, he was the in-charge of the Central two parties were merged and it took the form Military Commission and played a vital role in of a strong People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army the advancement of the People’s War. To say (PLGA). By 2004 itself, many revolutionary more specifically, he developed as the General groups and individuals that were like small Secretary from being one of the main comrades streams in the country merged into the MCCI of the Central Committee that developed as the and CPI(ML)[People’s War] that were by that collective leadership after 1992. time the two main revolutionary streams. These These changes that have been made in the two main streams merged as the CPI(Maoist) Central Committee of the Party are part of the and transformed into a great stream. Leaders process of development of the entire Party. of Naxalbari generation with vast experience These changes will further strengthen the Central who served many vital responsibilities were also Committee. The Central Committee assures the there in the Party formed in this way. The entire rank and file of our Party and the Central Committee of a Party with such leaders revolutionary masses that it will be absolutely and cadres elected Comrade Ganapathy as the firm and inflexible in implementing the General Secretary. The Unity Congress-9th organizational principle of the Party – Congress held in 2007 too unanimously elected democratic centralism – and the principle of him as the General Secretary. After the Unity self-criticism-criticism, provide collective central Congress-9th Congress, the movement leadership to the entire rank and file of the Party developed to newer heights in the leadership of and the revolutionary people, defeat the ongoing the Central Committee. In this process of fascist strategic counter-revolutionary offensive development, we can say that the unification of the enemy in the name of ‘SAMADHAN’ process of the revolutionary Parties of India was based on mass line and class line, mobilise the almost completed with the merger of people in the people’s war and lead the New CPI(ML)(Naxalbari) and CPI(Maoist) at the Democratic Revolution in the country to success end of 2013. as the vanguard of the proletariat. In the period of 25 years from 1992 to 2017 during which Comrade Ganapathy performed his responsibilities as the General Secretary, the movement under the central leadership faced (Abhay) many ebb and flows and advanced. The Party Spokesperson was tempered in the intense class struggle. It provided a staunch proletarian leadership to the Central Committee revolutionary ranks and the revolutionary CPI(Maoist)

MIB-38 January - June 2019 83 COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST) CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Press Release 10 November 2018

On the occasion of the 18th Formation Day of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) on 2 December, observe PLGA Week from 2 to 8 December 2018 with revolutionary enthusiasm!

A people’s army is one of the three magic participation of the masses, in which around weapons indispensible for the success of the 90 policemen were eliminated, 190 were new democratic revolution in India. As injured and 25-30 weapons along with other Comrade Mao said, the people have nothing war material were seized. During this period, without a people’s army. It is with this nearly 235 comrades including Politburo understanding that People’s Liberation member, Central Military Commission Guerrilla Army (PLGA) was formed on 2 (CMC) member and in-charge of the Eastern December 2000 under the leadership of our Regional Command (ERC) Comrade Dev Party with the aim of liberating India from Kumar Singh (Arvindji) to Village Party the exploitation and oppression of Committee members have made the supreme imperialism, comprador bureaucratic sacrifice by laying down their precious lives on capitalism and feudalism. It was formed as per the road to make the Indian revolution the guidance of Comrade Charu Majumdar successful. This year we have lost our comrades and Comrade Kanhai Chatterjee – the in large numbers in the enemy’s dastardly founders, teachers and builders of Indian massacres like Kalleda, Pujari Kanker, Timnar, revolution – along with the inspiration of Aipeta, Kasanur-Tumirgunda, Nulkatong, immortal martyrs Comrades Shyam, Mahesh Sakiler, etc. The Central Committee of and Murali and thousands of martyred CPI(Maoist) conveys its red homage to all the comrades of the revolutionary movement. martyrs of Indian revolution including those Our PLGA is going to complete 18 years who have sacrificed their lives in the last one of its formation on the coming 2 December. year while fighting back the enemy’s fascist war On this occasion, the Central Committee (CC) on people in the name of ‘Samadhan’ strategic of our Party conveys its revolutionary greetings plan. We express our hope that the comrades to all Party committees, Party members, who have been injured in the course of the PLGA commands, red commanders and people’s war will recover at the earliest and fighters of PLGA, Revolutionary People’s once again jump into the battlefield. Committees, leaders and members of the On this occasion, let us strengthen the revolutionary mass organisations as well as the PLGA by recruiting youth from the oppressed revolutionary masses and calls upon them to classes and social sections in their thousands. commemorate PLGA Week by taking up Let us develop our guerrilla army ideologically, various programmes in all rural and urban politically and militarily in the light of areas where our Party is active. In the period Marxism-Leninism-Maoism so as to bring from 2 December 2017 till now, PLGA carried quantitative and qualitative change to its out nearly 300 small, medium and big counter- commands and detachments. Let us intensify offensive attacks on the enemy with the our efforts to realise the central task given by

84 January - June 2019 MIB-38 the Unity Congress-9th Congress to build base advance and fulfil the dreams and aspirations areas by transforming the PLGA to PLA and of the martyrs by crushing the Brahmanical guerrilla war to mobile war. Taking inspiration Hindu-fascist forces, defeating all counter- from our martyrs, let us take pledge to reduce revolutionary attacks like ‘Samadhan’ and the avoidable losses and safeguard the leaders completing the new democratic revolution for and cadres of all our organisational building socialism and communism. formations. Let us take vow to resolutely o Intensify the fight against Brahmanical Hindu-fascism using all forms of struggle! o Take forward the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal class struggle throughout the country! o Expand the guerrilla war by strengthening the Party and the PLGA and consolidating the mass base! o Defeat the ‘Samadhan’ strategic attack conducted by the central and state governments aimed at wiping out the revolutionary movement of India!

(Abhay) Spokesperson Central Committee CPI(Maoist) continued from p.86 all its past promises to the people, the Modi-Shah-Bhagwat ruling clique is now depending on this and other communally divisive issues to retain power at the centre and further the agenda of a ‘Hindu Rashtra’. This is the essence of Modi’s grand plan for a ‘New India’ by 2022. This is nothing but a part of the multipronged ideological, political, economic and cultural assault by the Hindutva forces on the country’s exploited and oppressed classes, sections, communities and people. The Central Committee of our Party calls upon its rank and file as well as the people of the country – particularly he Muslims and other religious minorities – to observe 6 December as a day of struggle against Brahmanical Hindu-fascism. All democratic, secular, progressive and patriotic forces of India must come together to resist this fascist onslaught on every front by using all forms of organisation and struggle and defeat it. We must demand that the main ringleaders responsible for the demolition of Babri Masjid must be brought to book and punished. We must declare that the site of Babri Masjid belongs to the Muslims alone and the only just and correct solution to the Babri Masjid-Ram temple dispute is the rebuilding of the Babri Masjid at the same place where the old structure stood till 6 December 1992.

(Abhay) Spokesperson Central Committee CPI(Maoist)

MIB-38 January - June 2019 85 COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST) CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Press Release 25 November 2018

Fight against the Brahmanical Hindu-fascist conspiracy to take over the site of the demolished Babri Masjid in Ayodhya! Defeat the attempts of the Hindutva forces to flare-up communal polarisation and clashes in the country in the name of Ram Temple! Fight for rebuilding Babri Masjid at the same site of the demolished mosque!

On 6 December this year, it will be twenty- wonder that they have been celebrating this day six years since the historic Babri Masjid of as a ‘Shaurya Divas’ (Victory Day) every year. Ayodhya in Faizabad district of Uttar Pradesh The upcoming assembly and parliamentary was demolished in 1992. A mob of ‘Kar elections in mind, they are today drumming Sevaks’ under the guidance of Hindutva up the Ram Temple issue with more urgency ringleaders LK Advani, , than before to further communally polarise the Uma Bharati, Kalyan Singh, etc. carried out country to reap electoral dividends. this dastardly act. The centuries-old historic As a part of this, Hindutva ideologues and monument, which was a revered place of leaders are almost daily threatening the worship for the Muslims, was destroyed within Muslims to abandon their legitimate and just a few hours by Hindutva fanatics, while the P right over the site of the Babri Masjid. They V Narasimha Rao-led Congress government are issuing ultimatums for building a Ram at the centre remained complicit through its temple at the site, ignoring the protests of the inaction. Riding on the Hindu-communal Muslims, the democratic forces and the people wave instigated by the Rath Yatra and the of the country. They are even threatening to destruction of the mosque, the Hindu-fascist disobey any Supreme Court verdict that went forces emerged as a formidable political force against their plan or allowed Muslims a share representing the most rabidly reactionary in the site. They are directing Modi faction of the Indian ruling classes that government to pass a bill in the parliament so captured government power at the centre and as to bypass a judicial settlement and to take several states within a few years. over the entire site for building the temple. In Thus, 6 December has come to stand for fact, the RSS-BJP has kept alive and repeatedly not only a day of anguish and mourning for made use of the emotive issue of Ram temple the country’s Muslim people, but it also stands in Ayodhya as one of their primary planks to as a challenge to the genuinely secular, capture government power in the country and democratic, progressive and revolutionary its various states. With the present Modi-led forces of the country. Basing themselves on the government seeking a new term in office in rubbles of the Babri Masjid and using the next year’s general elections, the issue has once building of a ‘grand’ Ram Temple in its place again been trumpeted to hoodwink the as a trump card, the RSS-led Hindutva-fascist majority of Hindu electorate and win their forces have spread their poisonous tentacles votes. After failing on all fronts and breaking around all the organs of the state and all spheres continued on p.85 of society in the last twenty-six years. No

86 January - June 2019 MIB-38 COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST) CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Press Release 30 November 2018

On the completion of one year of Bhima-Koregaon violence, observe1 January 2019 as a Day of Protest against Brahmanical Hindu-fascist forces throughout the country! Intensify the struggle for the release of the jailed social activists falsely implicated in Bhima-Koregaon violence and demand punishment for the Saffron criminals behind it!

On 1 January 2019, it will be one year centre and the Hindutva alliance of BJP-Shiv since the Brahmanical Hindu-fascist forces led Sena in Maharashtra. ‘Yalgar Parishad’ set by arch-reactionary ringleaders Sambhaji the stage for the commemoration of the Bhide and Milind Ekbote carried out a pre- bicentenary of the Bhima-Koregaon Battle. planned assault on the Dalit masses, the This assertion by the politically conscious democratic and secular forces assembling to Dalits and the democratic forces of the observe the bicentenary of the Battle of country was beyond the toleration of saffron Koregaon on the banks of Bhima River near brigands and their affiliated organisations led Pune, Maharashtra. The Hindu-fascist goons by Sambhaji Bhide and Milind Ekbote which aided by the BJP governments at the centre carried out the attack on 1 January. But and in Maharashtra launched this instead of silencing the Dalits and the unprovoked attack as per a conspiracy to democratic forces, the dastardly attack disrupt and prevent the Dalits from exercising galvanised and united them. They enforced a their democratic right to commemorate day-long Maharashtra Bandh four days later Bhima-Koregaon. Equipped with batons, and carried out other forms of struggle sticks, iron rods, swords, inflammatory demanding punishment for the Hindutva substances, etc. they barbarically attacked goons responsible for the attacks. Dalits on their way to Koregaon at several Though the government tried to shield places in a coordinated way, injuring the culprits for some time, the united protest hundreds of people. Only two-three days of the Dalits and the democratic forces led to before this attack, the same forces attacked and the arrest of Milind Ekbote. But instead of desecrated the statue of a Dalit icon near punishing him, the courts at the behest of the Bhima-Koregaon in an attempt to threaten Hindutva forces soon released him on bail, and terrorise the Dalits and the democratic while the ringleader of this attack Sambhaji forces, their organisations and leadership. Bhide is yet to be arrested. To divert attention Braving threats and intimidation, the from these real culprits behind the Bhima- Dalits and democratic forces uniting under Koregaon violence, the government, the police the banner of ‘Yalgar Parishad’ had and the saffron brigade immediately started successfully conducted a mass meeting at insinuating the so-called ‘Urban Naxals’ as Shaniwarwada in Pune which was the seat of the main force behind the Yalgar Parishad feudal-Brahmanical Peshwa rulers. It threw programme and the Bhima-Koregaon event. an open challenge to the ‘New-Peshwai’ of The Hindu-fascists in power used the police the Modi-Shah-Bhagwat ruling clique at the to frame, arrest and jail five social activists

MIB-38 January - June 2019 87 including Sudhir Dhawale, Shoma Sen, Rona disastrous measures like demonetisation, Wilson, Surendra Gadling and Mahesh Raut GST, PNB scam and other cases of defrauding and later arrested five other social activists public money. All these have made Modi Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam government highly unpopular by now. That Navlakha, Arun Ferreira and Vernon is why, the Hindutva brigands are bringing Gonzalves. All of them have been framed by to the fore sensational issues like assassination the state as well as the corporate media as plot of Modi by the Maoists, Ram temple in ‘Urban Naxals’. The police even concocted a Ayodhya, Triple Talaq Bill, Article 370, etc. ‘Maoist plot’ to assassinate Modi and At the same time, it is projecting the Maoists implicated the social activists in that case, or the Muslims as the internal enemy while since the police had no basis to criminally presenting Pakistan as the external enemy. In prosecuting them in the Bhima-Koregaon the same vein, it is ruthlessly suppressing all case. Additional cases related to illegal arms people’s movements including the Maoist procurement and Surjagarh Hills have been movement, the national liberation foisted on Varavara Rao. However, the masses movements, anti-displacement struggles, were not to be fooled by these baseless agitations by workers, peasants, students and accusations and arrests; they knew who the other social sections, etc.,using the coercive real culprits were. It was due to the widespread might of the state. protests throughout the country including a As a part of its aim to build ‘New India’ petition in the Supreme Court by five by 2022, Modi-Shah-Bhagwat ruling clique is prominent intellectuals that the police had to implementing the counter-revolutionary refrain from arresting them and instead had ‘Samadhan’ strategic plan to wipe out the to keep them in house-arrest for some time, Maoist movement in the next four years. The though four of them were arrested and sent assassination of Gauri Lankesh, M M to jail. Kalburgi, Govind Pansare and Narendra This attack on the country’s democrats Dabholkar by the Hindutva gangs is also and revolutionaries, social activists, lawyers, connected to this vision of ‘New India’, academics, journalists, and others who speak which will be nothing but a Hindutva-fascist up for the country’s toiling masses including India for the benefit of imperialist, the Dalits, Adivasis, women, religious comprador bureaucratic capitalists and feudal minorities, oppressed nationalities and other forces. They want to create such an India marginalised sections is not an isolated where the working masses, the oppressed incident. It is a part of the all-out attack by classes and social sections will not have any the Brahmanical Hindu-fascist forces under democratic rights and where they will be Modi government on all revolutionary, silenced and enslaved to the reactionary forces democratic, progressive, secular and patriotic of the country and the world. It is also aimed forces, organisations and social sections to at helping the capitalist world economy to realise the utterly reactionary Hindutva vision come out of its present crisis at the expenses of ‘New India’ put forward by Modi. This is of the country and the people. The people one of the measures through which the have realised that the ‘Pradhan Sevak’ (chief Hindutva forces want to step-by-step servant) of the country is the Pradhan Sevak transform the country into a ‘Hindu Rashtra’. of the ruling classes alone, not of the masses These attacks are also used to prop up the of India. The growing militant struggles declining graph of the Modi government against the government is a clear sign that the before the upcoming parliamentary elections people will not allow Modi clique to build in 2019. Be it the Modi government at the such a ‘New India’, no matter how much centre or the BJP governments in the states, fascist repression it unleashes on them. One they have failed to fulfil any of the pre-election example of this is the recent ‘Me too Urban promises made to the people in the last four- Naxal’ campaign with the participation of a and-half-years. Instead, they have made the large number of democratic organisations problems of the people more acute through and individuals.

88 January - June 2019 MIB-38 Comrades and friends! continued from p.91 In the context of the growing fascisation passion, the saffron-terrorists are trying to of the state and all public institutions, secure their hold over state power and crush growing penetration of the arch-reactionary all forms of opposition including Hindutva ideology into all spheres of society parliamentary opposition. In this way, they are and the intensifying physical attacks on trying to further strengthen and consolidate the people by saffron gangs under the RSS- dictatorship of the ruling classes and controlled BJP governments at the centre and imperialism over the country and its people. the states, it is of the utmost importance to build a united struggle against the menace of It is the demand of our times that all the Brahmanical Hindu-fascism. ‘Yalgar revolutionary, democratic, secular, progressive Parishad’, Bhima-Koregaon and ‘Me too and patriotic forces of the country and all Urban Naxal’ campaign this year are a few sections of the oppressed masses must come instances of such united effort. There is a need together today to squarely take on the challenge to strengthen and widen this resistance. We posed by the Brahmanical Hindu-fascist forces must build more of such struggles throughout and their governments. We must unite and the country to fight back the Hindutva assault. resolutely fight back the Hindutva offensive That is why,1 January 2019 should be observed ideologically, politically, militarily and as a day of solidarity with ‘Yalgar Parishad’ culturally and in all forms, including and a day of protest against Brahmanical ‘Samadhan’ and ‘New India’! We must resist Hindu-fascism throughout the country. The and defeat the saffron fascists on all fronts by Central Committee of our Party calls upon intensifying the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal the revolutionary, democratic, progressive, and anti-fascist people’s struggles throughout secular and patriotic forces, Dalits, Adivasis, the country. It is with this objective that our women, Muslims and other religious Party is calling upon the entire revolutionary- minorities and people from all walks of life democratic camp and the vast masses of the to come forward, unite and fight back the country to successfully observe a week of RSS-Hindutva forces and their governments. protest against ‘Samadhan’ offensive of the We must redouble our efforts to defend and ruling classes and the Hindutva ruling-clique unconditionally release the nine imprisoned from 25 to 31 January 2019 and to observe social activists and other political prisoners. Bharat Bandh on 31 January 2019. We call We must fight back the attempt to persecute upon the rank and file of the Party, PLGA, or gag other social activists like Stan Swamy, revolutionary mass organisations and organs Anand Teltumbde, Gautam Navlakha, etc. of people’s democratic power to take up who are being targeted by the Indian state and various programmes by involving the masses the Hindu-fascists. We must fight and defeat to make successful the Protest Week and the the Hindu-fascist design of ‘New India’ and day-long Bandh. Let us unite to resolutely resist one of its components – the ‘Samadhan’ plan and smash the ‘Samadhan’ assault just as the – by upholding the vision of a New united people had done with Jan Jagaran, Democratic India where feudal-comprador Salwa Judum, Sendra, OGH and other fascist fascist forces like RSS and their Hindutva ruling-class offensives in the past! ideology will have no place other than in the dustbin of history.

(Abhay) (Abhay) Spokesperson Spokesperson Central Committee Central Committee CPI(Maoist) CPI(Maoist)

MIB-38 January - June 2019 89 COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST) CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Press Release 2 December 2018

Observe Protest Week between 25 and 31 January 2019 against the ‘Samadhan’ counter-revolutionary offensive! Make successful the daylong Bharat Bandh on 31 January 2019! Unite to fight and defeat the Brahmanical Hindu-fascist forces by using all means and forms of struggle!

Modi government had announced the CPI(Maoist) with the support of the country’s launching of ‘Samadhan’ counter- democratic forces and the solidarity of the revolutionary plan in a meeting chaired by international proletarian, democratic and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on 8 people’s forces. The failure of OGH is a great May last year in the presence of Chief victory for the united people’s resistance Ministers, top bureaucrats, police, paramilitary against the reactionary ruling classes. and intelligence officers of the ‘Maoist- Failing to uproot the Maoist movement affected’ states of the country. This plan was through OGH even after more than eight years launched in the wake of a number of counter- of cruel war on people, the Brahmanical offensive actions carried out by the PLGA with Hindu-fascist forces led by Modi-Shah- the participation of the masses, particularly Bhagwat ruling clique has been running after the Burkapal attack of 24 April in Sukma ‘Samadhan’ campaign for the last one and a district of Chhattisgarh that year against half years in a fascist manner. It is being Operation Green Hunt (OGH). conducted not only in the rural areas under our The announcement of ‘Samadhan’ Guerrilla Zones and Red Resistance Areas but marked the ignominious end of OGH that was also in the urban areas under the garb of launched in the August 2009 by the Congress- crushing ‘urban Naxals’. While OGH was an led UPA government and the beginning of a undeclared war on people, ‘Samadhan’ is a new and more aggressive counter- declared war not only against the Maoist revolutionary campaign under the present revolutionary movement but also against all dispensation of BJP-led NDA government. Be the democratic, progressive and patriotic it the failed OGH or the ongoing ‘Samadhan’ movements, organisations and individuals plan, both are conducted by India’s feudal- representing the exploited and oppressed comprador ruling classes under the guidance people of the country. of the imperialists – particularly US ‘Samadhan’ offensive is in continuation imperialism – with the aim of completely of the campaigns and operations that have wiping out the revolutionary movement in the been launched by the Indian ruling classes on country. OGH, which was conducted in three the country’s revolutionary movement, be it phases, failed due to the united resistance of Operation Manthan in the 1980, Jan Jagran the guerrilla army, revolutionary people’s Abhiyan 1 (1991-92) and 2 (1997-98), Salwa committees, revolutionary mass organisations Judum (2005-2009), Sendra, etc. The and the revolutionary masses led by revolutionary camp also had to confront and

90 January - June 2019 MIB-38 defeat state-sponsored terrorist gangs like launching an offensive targeting the Ranveer Sena, Shanti Committee, Harmad revolutionary and democratic forces in urban Bahini, Bhairab Bahini, TPC, JPC, PLFI, etc. areas in the name of curbing ‘urban Naxals’, in the course of sustaining and advancing the and have already arrested or sentenced several revolutionary movement. Among the past well-known social activists, public intellectuals, counter-revolutionary operations, OGH and academics, lawyers, journalists, students and ‘Samadhan’ have been long-term campaigns others criticising the government’s war on with the direct participation of the state, while people. Even unarmed, peaceful and legal others were short-term state-sponsored struggles of the masses like peasants’ struggles, operations in which ruling-class elements such Patthalgadi, anti-displacement struggles, anti- as feudal forces, reactionaries, bad gentry, etc. mining movements, struggles for the were kept at the forefront. If we look at the implementation of the Fifth Schedule, etc. are history of these counter-revolutionary not being tolerated and persecuted with armed campaigns, it becomes apparent that their might of the state. duration is becoming more prolonged and the We must locate the latest ruling-class method of their execution more aggressive, offensive on the people’s movements in the cruel and fascist. name of ‘Samadhan’ as an integral part of the The last one and a half year of ‘Samadhan’ all-round Brahmanical Hindu-fascist assault on offensive has shown that it is the most far- all classes, sections and people of the country reaching, cruellest and most aggressive of all and in pursuance of the Hindutva agenda of campaigns which aims at eliminating the transforming the country into a ‘Hindu Maoist and all militant people’s movements Rashtra’ by 2022 under the signboard of ‘New by the year 2022. Within the overall rubric of India’. Fascisation of the state and the society ‘Samadhan’, the central and state governments is the method the Indian ruling classes backed are conducting fascist counter-guerrilla by the imperialists have chosen to overcome operations like ‘Prahar’-1, 2, 3 and 4, the grave economic and political crises ‘Operation Monsoon’, etc. targeting the besetting them as well as the capitalist world revolutionary forces. As a part of ‘Samadhan’, system at present. the mercenary government forces are carrying The ruling classes throughout the world out genocide through massacres like Kalleda, are resorting to fascism and depending on the Pujari Kanker, Aipeta, Kasanur-Tumirgunda, fascist forces to crush the growing disaffection Timmem, Nulkatong up to the recent Sakiler and resistance among the masses against their killings. All kinds of fascist attacks including anti-people policies. The regressive Hindutva fake encounters, large-scale arrests, forcible forces led by Modi-Shah-Bhagawat clique detention, razing down of houses, mass rape, ruling the country too are a part of this. To destruction and loot of people’s property are divert the attention of the masses from the real being carried out in an aggressive manner. and burning issues faced by the vast majority With this, they are spreading a reign of white of the people like poverty, hunger, terror in large swathes of the country where unemployment, lack of basic facilities like the Maoist and other militant people’s medicines, education, drinking and irrigation movements are active. water, shelter, skyrocketing price rise, agrarian To aid this campaign, the government is crisis, atrocities on Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims increasing the deployment of its armed forces and women, etc., these forces are bringing to including the air force for anti-Maoist the fore irrelevant and contentious issues like operations, upgrading weapons and other war Ram temple, triple talaq, etc. They are material for its forces, using latest techniques presenting Muslims, ‘Islamic terrorists’, of communication, surveillance, intelligence Maoists, Pakistan, etc. as threats to the country. gathering, counter-revolutionary propaganda, Whipping up rabid ultra-nationalism, pseudo- etc. in order to accomplish the objectives of patriotism, warmongering and communal ‘Samadhan’ in the next four-five years. Along with armed repression in the rural areas, it is continued on p.89

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IN MEMORY OF THE IMMORTAL MARTYRS OF KASANUR-TUMIRGUNDA

RED HOMAGE TO THE MARTYRS OF KASANUR-TUMIRGUNDA

CENTRAL COMMITTEE COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)