Dear Comrades
This looks like it was a false start.
I am unable to make time for blogging.
I have decided to suspend blogging again,
until further notice.
Regards
Abhay
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Sunday, February 18, 2007
What Maoists Want
What Maoists Want
Maoist ambitions in India now extend to the farthest reaches of the country, and this is not just a fantasy or an aspiration, but a strategy, a projection, a plan and a programme under implementation ...
Ajai Sahni
The ‘Red Corridor’, extending from ‘Tirupati to Pashupati’ (Andhra Pradesh to Nepal), has long been passé in the Indian Maoists’ (Naxalites’) conception. Maoist ambitions in India now extend to the farthest reaches of the country, and this is not just a fantasy or an aspiration, but a strategy, a projection, a plan and a programme under implementation.
A multiplicity of Maoist documents testify to the meticulous detail in which the contours of the current and protracted conflict have been envisaged, in order to "Intensify the peoples’ war throughout the country". These documents reflect a comprehensive strategy, coordinating all the instrumentalities of revolution – military, political, economic, cultural and psychological – harnessed through the "three magic weapons Comrade Mao spoke about": the Party, the People’s Army, and the United Front.
After a great deal of dissembling and vacillation, India’s security establishment, both at the Centre and in the ‘affected’ States, appears to have conceded, finally, that the Maoist threat is, in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s words, the country’s "single biggest internal security challenge." But the threat is still restrictively envisaged as afflicting only parts of those States where Naxalite violence is visible, and is assumed to follow the erratic trajectory of incidents and fatalities from year to year. However, as the Chhattisgarh Director General of Police, O.P. Rathor, recently observed at a Conference in Raipur, "Statistics of incidents never give a real picture of the ground. Whatever is visible is only the mere tip of the iceberg. Unless caution is exercised, volcanoes can erupt."
It is necessary to recognize, crucially, that the phase of violence, which is ordinarily the point at which the state takes cognizance of the problem, comes at the tail end of the process of mass mobilization, and at a stage where neutralizing the threat requires considerable, if not massive, use of force. Within this context it is, consequently, useful to notice not merely the current expanse of visible Maoist mobilisation and militancy, but the extent of their current intentions, ambitions and agenda.
Significantly, the CPI-Maoist has established Regional Bureaus across a mass of nearly two-thirds of the country’s territory (Map 1), and these regions are further sub-divided into state, special zonal and special area committee jurisdictions (Map 2), where the processes of mobilisation have been defined and allocated to local leaders. As these maps indicate, there are at least five regional bureaus, thirteen State committees, two Special Area Committees and three Special Zonal Committees in the country.
This structure of organisation substantially reflects current Maoist organisational consolidation, but does not exhaust their perspectives or ambitions. There is further evidence of preliminary activity for the extension of operations to new areas including Gujarat, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Meghalaya, beyond what is reflected in the scope of the regional, zonal and state committees. A ‘Leading team’ recently visited Jammu & Kashmir to assess the potential of creating a permanent Party structure in the form of a State Committee to take the Maoist agenda forward in the State.
Click on Images for larger picture
Map 1
Map 2
In 2004, moreover, the Maoists also articulated a new strategy to target urban centres in their "Urban Perspective Document", drawing up guidelines for "working in towns and cities", and for the revival of a mobilization targeting students and the urban unemployed. Two principal ‘industrial belts’ were also identified as targets for urban mobilisation: Bhilai - Ranchi - Dhanbad - Calcutta; and Mumbai - Pune - Surat - Ahmedabad.
Within this broad geographical spread, the Maoists include, in their inventory of "immediate tasks", among others, the following:
* "Coordinate the people’s war with the ongoing armed struggles of the various oppressed nationalities in Kashmir, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur and other parts of the Northeast.
* "Build a broad UF (United Front) of all secular forces and persecuted religious minorities such as Muslims, Christians and Sikhs…
* "Build a secret party apparatus which is impregnable to the enemy’s attacks…
* "Build open and secret mass organisations amongst the workers, peasants, youth, students, women and other sections of the people…
* "Build the people’s militia in all the villages in the guerrilla zones as the base force of the PGA (People’s Guerrilla Army). Also build armed self-defence units in other areas of class struggle as well as in the urban areas."
The Maoist strategy is clearly to fish in every troubled Indian water, and to opportunistically exploit every potential issue and grievance to generate a campaign of protests and agitations. The principal vehicles for these ‘partial struggles’ are ‘front’ or ‘cover’ organisations of the Maoists themselves, on the one hand, and a range of individuals and organisations best described, in a phrase often attributed to Lenin, as "useful idiots" – well intentioned and often gullible people who are unaware of the broader strategy and agenda they are unwittingly promoting through their support to specific and unquestionably admirable causes.
As the Political and Organisational Review of the erstwhile Communist Party of India, Marxist-Leninist – Peoples War (CPI-ML-PW, also known as the Peoples War Group, which merged in September 2004 with the Maoist Communist Centre to create the Communist Party of India – Maoist) noted,
Cover organisations are indispensable in areas where our mass organisations are not allowed to functions openly…There are two types of cover organisations: one, those which are formed on a broad basis by ourselves; and two, those organisations led by other forces which we utilize by working from within without getting exposed.
This strategy has already contributed to the ‘eruption’ of a few unexpected ‘volcanoes’ in the recent past, with the role of Maoist provocateurs often discovered much after the event. Two of the most recent and impeccable causes that have been embraced in this cynical strategy include the caste conflict in Khairlanji and the escalating tensions and violence over the displacement and Special Economic Zones (SEZ) issues, including Singur and Kalinga Nagar.Sources indicate that current Maoist debates and documents condemn the "second wave of economic reforms" as a "violent assault on the right to life and livelihood of the masses", and call for "an uncompromising opposition to the present model and all the policies that are coming up." Internal debates on the issue have further underlined the "need to build a huge movement against displacement and the very model of development itself", and to unite all "genuine democratic and anti-imperialist forces… to create a tornado of dissent that forces the rulers to stop this juggernaut".
The issues at stake envisaged for potential mobilisation comprehend "development driven through big dams, super highways and other infrastructural projects… gigantic mining projects, Special Economic Zones (SEZs), urban renewal and beautification".
Within the same pattern, United Fronts and Joint Action Committees have focused on "burning issues of the peasantry such as for water, power, remunerative prices for agricultural produce, against exploitation by traders, against suicides by the peasantry, against the WTO, and on worker, student, women, Adivasi and Dalit issues." Thus, "Issue-based joint activity with other forces has been the general form of UF (United Front) undertaken by our Party at various levels…" Suitable ‘issues’ are not picked up randomly or opportunistically, but are based on extensive ‘investigations’ into ‘social conditions and tactics’, and are meticulously reconciled with the broader Maoist strategy and agenda.
These various causes, as already noted, are impeccable, and no one can be faulted for extending support to demands for greater equity, justice and access in these various spheres. For the Maoists, however, these various causes, whether they relate to ‘oppressed nationalities’, minorities, caste excesses, or other social and economic issues, are an integral component of their strategy of political consolidation, leading to military mobilisation.
In Maoist doctrine, these ‘partial struggles’ are no more than a tactical element in the protracted war, and they have no intrinsic value of their own. These ‘struggles’ create the networks and recruitment base for the Maoist militia and armed cadres. Where partial struggles thrive, an army is being raised. These ‘peaceful’ or sporadically violent movements are eventually and inevitably intended to yield to armed warfare and terrorism.
Their objective is to "isolate the enemy by organising the people into various cover organisations and build joint fronts in order to mobilise the masses into struggles to defeat the enemy offensive." Army formation, the Maoists insist, "is the precondition for the new political power", and "all this activity should serve to intensify and extend our armed struggle. Any joint activity or tactical alliances which do not serve the cause of the peoples’ war will be a futile exercise." Moreover, the integrity of the ‘partial struggles’ and the overall aims of the protracted peoples war is underlined by the fact that cadres of the Peoples Guerrilla Army (PGA) are required to engage in these agitational programmes as well. As the PGA’s "Programme and Constitution" notes:
The PGA will participate in the propaganda and agitations programmes as directed by Party Committees. It will organize the people. The PGA will extensively employ people’s art forms in its propaganda. It will try to enhance the consciousness of the people.
The Maoists’ Urban Perspective Document, moreover, envisages the formation of ‘Open Self Defence Teams’ and armed ‘Secret Self Defence Squads’ in urban areas. The document notes, moreover, that for the Secret Self Defence Squads,
One significant form of activity is to participate along with the masses and give them the confidence to undertake militant mass action.Other tasks are to secretly hit particular targets who are obstacles in the advance of the mass movement.
It is useful to recall, in this context, that when talk of the ‘Red Corridor’ was first heard at the turn of the Millennium, most security, intelligence and political analysts simply scoffed, dismissing the very idea as a pipe dream and a propaganda ploy. Since then, however, the Maoist consolidation has occurred precisely along the axis of the then-projected ‘Red Corridor’.
If the state is to prevent a further consolidation of Maoist subversion and violence across the country, it is crucial that the futile debate on, and disputable enumeration of, ‘affected’ States, Districts and Police Stations, be abandoned, and the scope of the state’s defences be extended to cover the contours of the Maoist projections. The Maoists are – and have long been – working to a plan, and have explicitly rejected the ‘Left Opportunism’ which they believe led to the failure of the original Naxalite movement (1967-73).
This gives the movement great strength – but to the extent that this design is well know – makes it enormously vulnerable. Regrettably, while there is a handful of officers in the security and intelligence establishment who are aware of the details of this design, the general grasp in the security and political leadership in the affected and targeted states (the latter category now comprehends the entire country) and at the Centre is, at best, poor. There is, moreover, the added constraint that the Maoist strategy exploits the vulnerabilities of constitutional governance and its freedoms to the hilt, and the security apparatus has only limited instrumentalities of containment available in the initial stages of subversion and mass mobilisation.
The Maoists believe that there is, at present, an "excellent revolutionary situation in India", and have clearly declared that "the seizure of state power should be the goal of all our activity". Building bulwarks against their complex strategy is a challenge, it would appear, that is yet to be imagined by the national security establishment. The fire-fighting responses of the past, the ‘battalion approach’ of deployment of Central Paramilitary Forces (CPMFs) from one theatre to another, and the preferential allocation of financial resources to ‘disturbed’ States and areas, may help fitfully contain the violence of Maoist armed cadres. However, if the nation-wide campaigns of subversion are not addressed, and if prevention, rather than containment, does not become the sheet-anchor of national policy, there will be a tipping-point beyond which national capacities for emergency management will begin to fall disastrously short. That is the Maoist dream; it could become the country’s nightmare.
Ajai Sahni is Editor, SAIR; Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal
Link
Maoist ambitions in India now extend to the farthest reaches of the country, and this is not just a fantasy or an aspiration, but a strategy, a projection, a plan and a programme under implementation ...
Ajai Sahni
"Revolutionary warfare is never confined within the bounds of military action. Because its purpose is to destroy an existing society and its institutions and to replace them with a completely new structure, any revolutionary war is a unity of which the constituent parts, in varying importance, are military, political, economic, social and psychological."
Mao Tse-Tung on ‘Guerilla Warfare'
The ‘Red Corridor’, extending from ‘Tirupati to Pashupati’ (Andhra Pradesh to Nepal), has long been passé in the Indian Maoists’ (Naxalites’) conception. Maoist ambitions in India now extend to the farthest reaches of the country, and this is not just a fantasy or an aspiration, but a strategy, a projection, a plan and a programme under implementation.
A multiplicity of Maoist documents testify to the meticulous detail in which the contours of the current and protracted conflict have been envisaged, in order to "Intensify the peoples’ war throughout the country". These documents reflect a comprehensive strategy, coordinating all the instrumentalities of revolution – military, political, economic, cultural and psychological – harnessed through the "three magic weapons Comrade Mao spoke about": the Party, the People’s Army, and the United Front.
After a great deal of dissembling and vacillation, India’s security establishment, both at the Centre and in the ‘affected’ States, appears to have conceded, finally, that the Maoist threat is, in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s words, the country’s "single biggest internal security challenge." But the threat is still restrictively envisaged as afflicting only parts of those States where Naxalite violence is visible, and is assumed to follow the erratic trajectory of incidents and fatalities from year to year. However, as the Chhattisgarh Director General of Police, O.P. Rathor, recently observed at a Conference in Raipur, "Statistics of incidents never give a real picture of the ground. Whatever is visible is only the mere tip of the iceberg. Unless caution is exercised, volcanoes can erupt."
It is necessary to recognize, crucially, that the phase of violence, which is ordinarily the point at which the state takes cognizance of the problem, comes at the tail end of the process of mass mobilization, and at a stage where neutralizing the threat requires considerable, if not massive, use of force. Within this context it is, consequently, useful to notice not merely the current expanse of visible Maoist mobilisation and militancy, but the extent of their current intentions, ambitions and agenda.
Significantly, the CPI-Maoist has established Regional Bureaus across a mass of nearly two-thirds of the country’s territory (Map 1), and these regions are further sub-divided into state, special zonal and special area committee jurisdictions (Map 2), where the processes of mobilisation have been defined and allocated to local leaders. As these maps indicate, there are at least five regional bureaus, thirteen State committees, two Special Area Committees and three Special Zonal Committees in the country.
This structure of organisation substantially reflects current Maoist organisational consolidation, but does not exhaust their perspectives or ambitions. There is further evidence of preliminary activity for the extension of operations to new areas including Gujarat, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Meghalaya, beyond what is reflected in the scope of the regional, zonal and state committees. A ‘Leading team’ recently visited Jammu & Kashmir to assess the potential of creating a permanent Party structure in the form of a State Committee to take the Maoist agenda forward in the State.
Click on Images for larger picture
Map 1
Map 2
In 2004, moreover, the Maoists also articulated a new strategy to target urban centres in their "Urban Perspective Document", drawing up guidelines for "working in towns and cities", and for the revival of a mobilization targeting students and the urban unemployed. Two principal ‘industrial belts’ were also identified as targets for urban mobilisation: Bhilai - Ranchi - Dhanbad - Calcutta; and Mumbai - Pune - Surat - Ahmedabad.
Within this broad geographical spread, the Maoists include, in their inventory of "immediate tasks", among others, the following:
* "Coordinate the people’s war with the ongoing armed struggles of the various oppressed nationalities in Kashmir, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur and other parts of the Northeast.
* "Build a broad UF (United Front) of all secular forces and persecuted religious minorities such as Muslims, Christians and Sikhs…
* "Build a secret party apparatus which is impregnable to the enemy’s attacks…
* "Build open and secret mass organisations amongst the workers, peasants, youth, students, women and other sections of the people…
* "Build the people’s militia in all the villages in the guerrilla zones as the base force of the PGA (People’s Guerrilla Army). Also build armed self-defence units in other areas of class struggle as well as in the urban areas."
The Maoist strategy is clearly to fish in every troubled Indian water, and to opportunistically exploit every potential issue and grievance to generate a campaign of protests and agitations. The principal vehicles for these ‘partial struggles’ are ‘front’ or ‘cover’ organisations of the Maoists themselves, on the one hand, and a range of individuals and organisations best described, in a phrase often attributed to Lenin, as "useful idiots" – well intentioned and often gullible people who are unaware of the broader strategy and agenda they are unwittingly promoting through their support to specific and unquestionably admirable causes.
As the Political and Organisational Review of the erstwhile Communist Party of India, Marxist-Leninist – Peoples War (CPI-ML-PW, also known as the Peoples War Group, which merged in September 2004 with the Maoist Communist Centre to create the Communist Party of India – Maoist) noted,
Cover organisations are indispensable in areas where our mass organisations are not allowed to functions openly…There are two types of cover organisations: one, those which are formed on a broad basis by ourselves; and two, those organisations led by other forces which we utilize by working from within without getting exposed.
This strategy has already contributed to the ‘eruption’ of a few unexpected ‘volcanoes’ in the recent past, with the role of Maoist provocateurs often discovered much after the event. Two of the most recent and impeccable causes that have been embraced in this cynical strategy include the caste conflict in Khairlanji and the escalating tensions and violence over the displacement and Special Economic Zones (SEZ) issues, including Singur and Kalinga Nagar.Sources indicate that current Maoist debates and documents condemn the "second wave of economic reforms" as a "violent assault on the right to life and livelihood of the masses", and call for "an uncompromising opposition to the present model and all the policies that are coming up." Internal debates on the issue have further underlined the "need to build a huge movement against displacement and the very model of development itself", and to unite all "genuine democratic and anti-imperialist forces… to create a tornado of dissent that forces the rulers to stop this juggernaut".
The issues at stake envisaged for potential mobilisation comprehend "development driven through big dams, super highways and other infrastructural projects… gigantic mining projects, Special Economic Zones (SEZs), urban renewal and beautification".
Within the same pattern, United Fronts and Joint Action Committees have focused on "burning issues of the peasantry such as for water, power, remunerative prices for agricultural produce, against exploitation by traders, against suicides by the peasantry, against the WTO, and on worker, student, women, Adivasi and Dalit issues." Thus, "Issue-based joint activity with other forces has been the general form of UF (United Front) undertaken by our Party at various levels…" Suitable ‘issues’ are not picked up randomly or opportunistically, but are based on extensive ‘investigations’ into ‘social conditions and tactics’, and are meticulously reconciled with the broader Maoist strategy and agenda.
These various causes, as already noted, are impeccable, and no one can be faulted for extending support to demands for greater equity, justice and access in these various spheres. For the Maoists, however, these various causes, whether they relate to ‘oppressed nationalities’, minorities, caste excesses, or other social and economic issues, are an integral component of their strategy of political consolidation, leading to military mobilisation.
In Maoist doctrine, these ‘partial struggles’ are no more than a tactical element in the protracted war, and they have no intrinsic value of their own. These ‘struggles’ create the networks and recruitment base for the Maoist militia and armed cadres. Where partial struggles thrive, an army is being raised. These ‘peaceful’ or sporadically violent movements are eventually and inevitably intended to yield to armed warfare and terrorism.
Their objective is to "isolate the enemy by organising the people into various cover organisations and build joint fronts in order to mobilise the masses into struggles to defeat the enemy offensive." Army formation, the Maoists insist, "is the precondition for the new political power", and "all this activity should serve to intensify and extend our armed struggle. Any joint activity or tactical alliances which do not serve the cause of the peoples’ war will be a futile exercise." Moreover, the integrity of the ‘partial struggles’ and the overall aims of the protracted peoples war is underlined by the fact that cadres of the Peoples Guerrilla Army (PGA) are required to engage in these agitational programmes as well. As the PGA’s "Programme and Constitution" notes:
The PGA will participate in the propaganda and agitations programmes as directed by Party Committees. It will organize the people. The PGA will extensively employ people’s art forms in its propaganda. It will try to enhance the consciousness of the people.
The Maoists’ Urban Perspective Document, moreover, envisages the formation of ‘Open Self Defence Teams’ and armed ‘Secret Self Defence Squads’ in urban areas. The document notes, moreover, that for the Secret Self Defence Squads,
One significant form of activity is to participate along with the masses and give them the confidence to undertake militant mass action.Other tasks are to secretly hit particular targets who are obstacles in the advance of the mass movement.
It is useful to recall, in this context, that when talk of the ‘Red Corridor’ was first heard at the turn of the Millennium, most security, intelligence and political analysts simply scoffed, dismissing the very idea as a pipe dream and a propaganda ploy. Since then, however, the Maoist consolidation has occurred precisely along the axis of the then-projected ‘Red Corridor’.
If the state is to prevent a further consolidation of Maoist subversion and violence across the country, it is crucial that the futile debate on, and disputable enumeration of, ‘affected’ States, Districts and Police Stations, be abandoned, and the scope of the state’s defences be extended to cover the contours of the Maoist projections. The Maoists are – and have long been – working to a plan, and have explicitly rejected the ‘Left Opportunism’ which they believe led to the failure of the original Naxalite movement (1967-73).
This gives the movement great strength – but to the extent that this design is well know – makes it enormously vulnerable. Regrettably, while there is a handful of officers in the security and intelligence establishment who are aware of the details of this design, the general grasp in the security and political leadership in the affected and targeted states (the latter category now comprehends the entire country) and at the Centre is, at best, poor. There is, moreover, the added constraint that the Maoist strategy exploits the vulnerabilities of constitutional governance and its freedoms to the hilt, and the security apparatus has only limited instrumentalities of containment available in the initial stages of subversion and mass mobilisation.
The Maoists believe that there is, at present, an "excellent revolutionary situation in India", and have clearly declared that "the seizure of state power should be the goal of all our activity". Building bulwarks against their complex strategy is a challenge, it would appear, that is yet to be imagined by the national security establishment. The fire-fighting responses of the past, the ‘battalion approach’ of deployment of Central Paramilitary Forces (CPMFs) from one theatre to another, and the preferential allocation of financial resources to ‘disturbed’ States and areas, may help fitfully contain the violence of Maoist armed cadres. However, if the nation-wide campaigns of subversion are not addressed, and if prevention, rather than containment, does not become the sheet-anchor of national policy, there will be a tipping-point beyond which national capacities for emergency management will begin to fall disastrously short. That is the Maoist dream; it could become the country’s nightmare.
Ajai Sahni is Editor, SAIR; Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal
Link
Anniversary of Naxal Varghese martydom today
Read about the encounter Killing of Comrade Verghese below
Before I am killed give me a signal so that I can shout a slogan
Anniversary of Naxal Varghese martydom today
Sunday February 18 2007 11:45 IST
Before I am killed give me a signal so that I can shout a slogan
Anniversary of Naxal Varghese martydom today
Sunday February 18 2007 11:45 IST
KALPETTA: The 37th anniversary of martyrdom of Naxal Varghese, the revolutionary who was killed by police in the Thirunelli forests, would be observed on Sunday.
According to the district committee of the CPI-ML (Red Flag), PN Salimkumar, leader of the organisation, would hoist the flag at the martyr’s column at Ozhukkanmoola, near Mananthavadi on Sunday morning.
State leaders of the organisation PC Unni-checkan, KT Kunhikkannan, Vijayan Kuzhiveli and Kunnel Krishnan would participate in the public function to be organised at the Gandhi Park, Mananthavadi, on Sunday evening.
Orissa State seeks more funds to contain ultras
State seeks more funds to contain ultras
Sunday February 18 2007 10:02 IST
Sunday February 18 2007 10:02 IST
BHUBANESWAR: The State Government has decided to seek more financial assistance from the Centre to tackle the problem of growing Left-wing extremism in Orissa.
Among others things, the State Government would raise the issue of Central funding for Vijayawada-Ranchi highway which would go a long way in containing the Maoists activities. The highway would pass through 12 tribal dominated districts.
The Government has made an estimate of Rs 184 crore for the road project during the 2006-07. Besides, the demands include more funds for training of security personnel and modernisation of the police force. The Government has already sought two more platoons of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) following increased Naxalite violence during the recent months. Besides, the State Government would also ask for inclusion of two more districts in security related expenditure (SRE).
These issues would be raised by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at the first meeting of the empowered group of Ministers (E-GoM) on naxalism, headed by Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, in New Delhi on February 19.
Among others, the meeting is likely to be attended by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Law Minister H R Bhardwaj and other Union Ministers, besides Chief Ministers of over half a dozen affected states including Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Chhattisgarh.
The meeting will discuss all issue relating to Left wing extremism. The Centre has already suggested streamlining of inter-state operations against Naxalites by use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), sharing intelligence and fine tuning action plan.
'Heartless' Buddhadeb hiding facts over Singur, charges Mamata
'Heartless' Buddhadeb hiding facts over Singur, charges Mamata
[RxPG] Singur -, Feb 17 - Combining histrionics with humour, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee Saturday described West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya as a 'heartless emperor without clothes' out to rob the farmers of their land and the state of its democratic rights.
Addressing her first rally at Singur after withdrawal of prohibitory orders, she alleged that the government had struck a secret deal with the Tatas, who are to set up a small car factory there.
Targeting Tata Motors and Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata, she said: 'I love the street dog in my neighbourhood more than Ratan Tata' as 'he is out to destroy about 10,000 families in the name of a Rs.100,000 car'.
'The chief minister is a heartless person. He does not have a heart. In Bengal people have no democratic rights. He is like emperor without clothes,' Mamata said as farmers protesting acquisition of land gathered there brandished their land ownership papers.
'Raja tor kapar kothai -,' she shouted, referring to the 'ways' of Buddhadeb Bhattacharya.
'If you disrobe people, you will also be without clothes.'
'He is one without even common sense. The CPI-M - is playing with fire, which will singe them,' she said.
'Why were the Tatas given this land? I am not an economist but it is plain and simple that if you subsidise a company with power, water and Rs.10 billion then it can roll out a car for Rs.100,000 for a limited period of time,' Mamata said.
'No wall of the Tatas raised by imposing Section 144 Cr PC - can stop you. The wall is not important, the people are important, their wishes are important. Those among you who have not given land, don't give. It is a battle for honour, for your mother -, for your pride, for democracy,' she told the gathering to a resounding affirmation.
The Calcutta High Court Wednesday struck down the imposition of prohibitory orders in Singur, terming it 'misuse of power'. The prohibitory orders were promulgated following violence in the area over land acquisition.
Mamata said it was not her responsibility always to maintain peace and held that 'for any violence the responsibility will be of the chief minister'.
'We are not against industry. We want industry on wasteland and agriculture on farmlands,' she maintained.
'I hear the Tatas are going to collaborate with Italy, so is this going to be a 'Tatali' - project,' she commented, as people burst into laughter.
'Singur is not alone now. We are with you,' she said.
Singur, about 40 km from here in Hooghly district, has been chosen by Tata Motors for its small car project on over 997 acres of land. The deal triggered a violent face-off between the state government and farmers, led by civil society groups and parties like Trinamool Congress.
Link
Shops, houses set afire in Nandigram
Nandigram: The on-going protests against the proposed SEZ project in Nandigram, turned violent as CPIM members intervened and allegedly burnt houses and fired gun shots in the area.
Members of Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee—the organization spearheading the protests—said the CPIM men hurled bombs and fired gunshots at people on Sunday.
Over 11 shops were ransacked in the Tekhali Bazar area. BUPC members alleged that a mob of over 300 CPI-M supporters set ablaze houses, including a bakery at Tekhali Bazar village, where jewellery and garment shops were looted.
Satyen Karan, a resident of Dangra locality, was beaten up when he went to Tekhali Bazar and found his shop being looted. Houses were set ablaze, shops were looted and some people were reported missing from the area on Saturday.
The Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee organised a procession in Tekhali Bazar to protest the looting of shops and damage to property. BUPC convenor Sheikh Sufiyan vowed that the body would resist attempts by the CPI-M to foment trouble in the area.
With PTI inputs
Members of Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee—the organization spearheading the protests—said the CPIM men hurled bombs and fired gunshots at people on Sunday.
Over 11 shops were ransacked in the Tekhali Bazar area. BUPC members alleged that a mob of over 300 CPI-M supporters set ablaze houses, including a bakery at Tekhali Bazar village, where jewellery and garment shops were looted.
Satyen Karan, a resident of Dangra locality, was beaten up when he went to Tekhali Bazar and found his shop being looted. Houses were set ablaze, shops were looted and some people were reported missing from the area on Saturday.
The Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee organised a procession in Tekhali Bazar to protest the looting of shops and damage to property. BUPC convenor Sheikh Sufiyan vowed that the body would resist attempts by the CPI-M to foment trouble in the area.
With PTI inputs
Naxalite Movement splits in Karnataka ?
Karnataka naxal movement splits
K. Srinivas Reddy
HYDERABAD: Sharp differences over the Maoist strategy of area-wise seizure of power led to a split in the naxalite party operating in Karnataka.
The ideologues, who disagreed with the Maoist principle of intensifying the revolution in rural areas first and then spreading it to urban centres, have floated a new party named the Maoist Coordination Committee (MCC).
The split in Karnataka has obviously turned out to be an `unpalatable' development for the party leaders, as it comes in the backdrop of intensified efforts to unite smaller naxalite parties in the country. With a majority of the cadres in Karnataka quitting the parent party and joining the MCC, the ideologues are worried. The name of the leader who engineered the split has not yet been announced. He is stated to be making serious attempts to contact the leaders in other states and mass organisations to woo them back into the MCC fold.
Alarmed over this, the CPI (Maoist) Polit Bureau has recently written to all its party members in the country `to expose their opportunistic and disruptionist activities'.
Sources say the split was discussed at length at the recent Polit Bureaumeeting held from November 16 to 24, 2006. The meeting attended by central committee secretary Ganapathi decided to step up efforts to convince their cadres on the futility of the `new line'.
The meeting felt that the central committee had failed to initiate steps to stem the dissent and ideological disagreements had accentuated after the killing of Saketh Rajan (February 6, 2005).
Maoist activity in varying intensities is seen in Bidar, Gulbarga, Bellary, Raichur, Shimoga, Chikmagalur, Udupi, Dakshina Kannada, Hassan, Kodagu, Tumkur and Kolar.
Link
K. Srinivas Reddy
HYDERABAD: Sharp differences over the Maoist strategy of area-wise seizure of power led to a split in the naxalite party operating in Karnataka.
The ideologues, who disagreed with the Maoist principle of intensifying the revolution in rural areas first and then spreading it to urban centres, have floated a new party named the Maoist Coordination Committee (MCC).
The split in Karnataka has obviously turned out to be an `unpalatable' development for the party leaders, as it comes in the backdrop of intensified efforts to unite smaller naxalite parties in the country. With a majority of the cadres in Karnataka quitting the parent party and joining the MCC, the ideologues are worried. The name of the leader who engineered the split has not yet been announced. He is stated to be making serious attempts to contact the leaders in other states and mass organisations to woo them back into the MCC fold.
Alarmed over this, the CPI (Maoist) Polit Bureau has recently written to all its party members in the country `to expose their opportunistic and disruptionist activities'.
Sources say the split was discussed at length at the recent Polit Bureaumeeting held from November 16 to 24, 2006. The meeting attended by central committee secretary Ganapathi decided to step up efforts to convince their cadres on the futility of the `new line'.
The meeting felt that the central committee had failed to initiate steps to stem the dissent and ideological disagreements had accentuated after the killing of Saketh Rajan (February 6, 2005).
Maoist activity in varying intensities is seen in Bidar, Gulbarga, Bellary, Raichur, Shimoga, Chikmagalur, Udupi, Dakshina Kannada, Hassan, Kodagu, Tumkur and Kolar.
Link
Friday, February 16, 2007
Popular Front of India - Empower India Conference
Popular Front of India will organize Empower India Conference at Bangalore on 15,16,17 February 2007 to discuss and conduct awareness sessions on the need of empowerment for Independence, freedom and Justice of common people.[1]
Introduction to the Mega Event
Popular Front of India Website
http://www.popularfrontindia.org/
Update
The website has been hacked by some criminal elements...
You can view the cache here
Empower India Conference Article on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empower_India_Conference
Join the March of History
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Renovation
In the coming few days I will be updating the blog layout and making minor changes in layout and format.
Any suggestions to improve the site are welcome
I haven't replied to any emails in a long time...will be replying to them in the coming days.
Regular posting will commence on this blog in another week or two but it will no longer be at it's earlier pace.
Any suggestions to improve the site are welcome
I haven't replied to any emails in a long time...will be replying to them in the coming days.
Regular posting will commence on this blog in another week or two but it will no longer be at it's earlier pace.
February 6th - 2nd anniversary of the Martyrdom of Comrade Saketh Rajan
We remember Comrade Saketh Rajan thus we make him Immortal...
An Undated file picture of Comrade Saketh Rajan seen taking notes
(pic source -Lankesh Patrike )
Dear Comrades
Feburary 6th was the 2nd anniversary of the Martyrdom of Comrade Saketh Rajan.Below is a article written by one of his admirers in a leading Kannada daily.....
The Guru among thousands of Gurus - Saki
Click on the article for a larger image
An Undated file picture of Comrade Saketh Rajan seen taking notes
(pic source -Lankesh Patrike )
Dear Comrades
Feburary 6th was the 2nd anniversary of the Martyrdom of Comrade Saketh Rajan.Below is a article written by one of his admirers in a leading Kannada daily.....
The Guru among thousands of Gurus - Saki
Click on the article for a larger image
