International Campaign against the War on People in India–Launched

This is an important new initiative that can play a crucial role in exposing and isolating the brutal Indian government, which has launched an unprecedented military offensive to seize the lands of this country’s poorest people, the adivasis or tribal peoples.

The International Campaign Against War on the People of India (ICAWPI) is being launched to work as a coordinating centre seeking international support for the resistance of the people of India against the all out military offensive of the Indian state against its own citizens.

ICAWPI is an international extension of widespread opposition and initiatives against this genocidal war to forcefully crush the heroic resistance of the tribal peoples in the heartlands of India and to hand over these lands rich in minerals and raw materials to international corporations such as Vedanta, Rio Tinto, Posco and others.

This overt war serving to facilitate the looting of the land and resources by Indian and international corporations for fabulous profits and the destruction of the livelihood of the countless numbers of the poorest of the poor in India is named as “Operation Green Hunt”. While in different regions of the country the same operation may be named differently, the Indian state shamelessly tries to hide this banditry against the people of India and utterly open servitude to the imperialism as “war against the Naxalites”– imposing a severe reign of terror and repression on progressive and democratic forces and individuals everywhere across the country.

Countless intellectuals, authors, film makers, academics, and other professionals such as lawyers and doctors who abhor the Indian state’s total lies and open disregard for civil and human rights have joined mass gatherings and rallies and various forums in India in order to raise their own voices and join forces to oppose the State and to defend the just cause of the oppressed tribal people in India.

Jan Myrdal Interviews CPI(Maoist) Leader Ganapathy

This interview was posted in Sanhati.

In Conversation with Ganapathy, General Secretary of CPI(Maoist)

Jan Myrdal and Gautam Navlakh, January 2010

Far inside the jungles of the Eastern Ghats we met the general secretary of the CPI (Maoists) Ganapathy aka Mupalla Laxman Rao. After welcoming us and inquiring from us whether we, in particular Jan Myrdal, faced any problem having to travel the rough terrain, the interview began. Following is the summary of the interview with him. We have retained the interview in the form in which it was given, read and approved by him with some minor language changes.  In particular we draw attention of readers to the General Secretary laying down concisely his party’s stance on the issue of talks in light of the disinformation spread by the Union Minister of Home P Chidambaram that CPI(Maoist) had “scoffed” at the Indian Government’s offer for talks. Indeed he told us:

To put concisely the main demands that the party has placed in front of the government [of India] for any kind of talks are 1) All-out war has to be withdrawn; 2) For any kind of democratic work, the ban on the Party and Mass Organizations have to be lifted; 3) Illegal detention and torture of comrades had to be stopped and they be immediately released. If these demands are met, then the same leaders who are released from jails would lead and represent the Party in the talks.

However, we consider the full text of the interview of importance for all those who want to know more about the policies of the party which the Government of India considers its main internal security threat.

Q: How do you envisage the linking of this struggle with a general struggle in India in terms of class ? Chairman Mao after 1935 took the Long March to Yenan created a base for national level and part of which was the united front with the Chiang Kai-Sheik. Thereby it became the main national power in China. How do you envisage becoming to a national power in India?

A: In China, in which condition Long March to Yenan took place and created a base and a part of it formation of a United Front with Chiang Kai-Sheik for national level is different to our present situation of New Democratic Revolution(NDR) of India. Chinese revolution had took-place in first half of the 20th century. Since then several significant changes have occurred in the world. Those are, firstly emergence of a Socialist Camp and its subsequent down fall, secondly downfall of colonialism and emergence of neocolonialism, thirdly emergence of so-called parliamentary system as the common political system throughout the world, fourthly, a long gap emerged in the revolutionary upsurge after success of revolutions in Vietnam, Kampuchea and Laos in-spite of some upsurges and significant struggles in several countries. If we look into the entire world history, after emergence of working class on the globe, it is confronting with the bourgeoisie class and all other reactionary forces and seized power from them in Paris for a short-while and then in Russian, China and several European countries for a long time and shocked the entire globe. In this trajectory, there were various ups and downs in the World Socialist Revolution but nonetheless the struggle continuous. It is like waves at times and it slowed down, but it never ceased. So we have to see any revolution of a country in the light of historical context.

UCPN(Maoist) Tightens Rules on Party Members in the Constituent Assembly

This article was published in Nepal News.

UCPN (Maoist) bars its CA members from attending foreign agency, NGO functions

Unified CPN (Maoist) parliamentary board has directed its CA members not to attend in individual capacity functions organised by diplomatic agencies and national and international Non Governmental Organisations (NGO)s without permission of the party. The party has directed the CA members in black and white to inform the party if they get any invitations from the NGOs and diplomatic missions and attend the functions only if the party directs to do so.

Maoist parliamentary board took such move after concluding that the trend of its CA members attending such functions is growing. The party has said, it is necessary to bar the CA members from attending various functions in individual capacity as the CA members were expressing opinions different from the party’s official position.

The party has also written to diplomatic missions in Nepal, International NGOs and NGO Federation Nepal asking them not to invite Maoist CA members in individual capacity. The party has asked them to write to the party officially if they want to invite any CA members in their function in the letter.