India: Militant worker uprisings

Workers’ struggles in urban areas of India are on the rise. As we have reported before, the CPI(Maoist) is increasing its influence in the cities, and there is a call for a massive general strike in India on February 28. Even major US media outlets are taking notice, as evidenced by the following article from Forbes. Thanks to Joe for pointing this out. 

India Factory Workers Revolt, Kill Company President

by Kenneth Rapoza

January 27, 2012

Workers at the Regency Ceramics factory in India raided the home of their boss, and beat him senseless with lead pipes after a wage dispute turned ugly.

The workers were enraged enough to kill Regency’s president K. C. Chandrashekhar after their union leader, M. Murali Mohan, was killed by baton-wielding riot police on Thursday.

Kashmir-Troops open fire on 500 protesting at power plant

Resistance to the brutal Indian state and its imperialist allies continues, in all sections of the country, from the factories of Mumbai, to the forests of  Orissa, to the mountainous regions of  Kashmir and Jammu, where its peoples are fighting for self determination. This article is from Al Jazeera.

Kashmir Power Cut Protest Turns Deadly

“At least one person killed when Indian troops open fire on protesters angered by electricity outages in winter weather.”

January 3, 2012

Troops in Indian-controlled Kashmir have opened fire on hundreds of villagers who were protesting against frequent power cuts, killing one person and injuring two others, police said.

Nepal: Maoist May Day 2010 in Kathmandu

This is an eyewitness report from Nepal by Jed Brandt

Many Kasama readers are familiar with  this article from May First 2010. New Kasama readers may not have seen this or may not even know much about Nepal. 

This first hand report  gives an inspiring picture of the determination of the Nepalese people, especially the youth, to live in a new socialist world.

Nepal’s Streets for May 1: We Make the Power!

by Jed Brandt

Kathmandu, April 29, 2010: Business as usual is over in Kathmandu.  With two days to go until May First, overflowing buses are pulling in by the hour to the outskirts of town.

The city is crowded. Bus caravans are unloading directly into street marches wild with chanting, marshaled by uniformed cadre from the Young Communist League. Despite a week of fear-mongering by Nepal’s mainstream press, the crowds are militant but unarmed. And they are giddy despite harassment from the Armed Police on the roads leading into the city.

Nepal: Students to Protest Fuel Prices

Student protesters, including the revolutionary student group associated with the UCPN(Maoist) are planning to protest against rising fuel prices, which are partially due to companies hoarding supplies. The protests will occur outside of Nepal’s most prominent government institutions. This article is from myrepublica.

Students to raid petrol pumps, picket Singha Durbar

Republica

Kathmandu, Jan. 29: The agitating students have announced another round of protest programs, including combing petrol pumps and dealers and picketing Singha Durbar, to exert pressure on the government to completely withdraw its decision to raise fuel prices.

India’s Maoists – Who are they? What do they want?

This piece first appeared in Radical Notes (Nov.2009). It offers valuable background to the revolutionary movement in India.

A more theoretical discussion of communist strategies in the Third World was recently published here on Kasama, offering background of a different kind.

India’s Maoists: Who they are and what they want

by Rita Khanna

This is meant to be a simple and brief explanation of the goals and strategies of the Maoist movement in India for people who may not have much awareness about it and are confused by the propaganda in the mainstream media. This does not go into the arcane debates about mode of production in India, the debates among communist revolutionaries over strategy and tactics etc. This aims at people who, for example, often resort to violent activities against the Government.

Nepal – The Resistance of the Dalits and Dreams of a New Nepal

The introduction is from an interview Winter Has Its End journalists , Eric Ribellarsi and Jim Weill, did in Nepal with Tilak Pariyar, Chairman of the Dalit National Liberation Front of Nepal, an organization associated with the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).  The title of this interview is Dalit Dreams of a New Nepal.

“ER: Can you start by explaining what it means to be a Dalit in Nepal?

Dalits are a community within the Hindu religion, based off the caste system. The caste system was brought here by India, and it has been spread all over the South Asian countries. People have been divided up into castes. The laboring classes have been treated as lower class people.

Laboring people have been called “untouchables”. It means that if you touch a laboring person, you will become impure. This system was adopted by the government, as well, which created all of these laws based off of the caste system. And this has been continuing in our society for about 3000 years. The laboring people are forgotten by this system. For this reason the Dalits have gathered in one party, the Maoist Party, the one party that wants to change society.”

The following article is from myrepublica, and is an example of the militant resistance of many of Nepal’s Dalits. 

Dalits Shut Down Palpa, Obstruct Highway

Republica

Palpa, Dec. 27: A Dalit organization in Palpa has called for a strike in Palpa district on Tuesday protesting the murder of Manbir Sunar.

Arundhati Roy on India: Time for ghosts to play

From a new article by Arundhati Roy:

“Capitalism’s real gravediggers, it turns out, are not Marx’s revolutionary proletariat but its own delusional cardinals, who have turned ideology into faith. They seem to have trouble comprehending reality or grasping the science of climate change, which says, quite simply, that capitalism (including the Chinese variety) is destroying the planet.“

This article appeared in Financial Times

Beware the ‘gush-up gospel’ behind India’s Billionaires

by Arundhati Roy

January 13,2012

Is it a house or a home? A temple to the new India, or a warehouse for its ghosts? Ever since Antilla arrived on Altamount Road in Mumbai, exuding mystery and quiet menace, things have not been the same. “Here we are,” the friend who took me there said, “pay your respects to our new ruler.”

Nepal: Reactionary parties oppose Maoist land legalizations

According to the following article, the Unified Communist Party of Nepal(Maoist) are legalizing land transactions that occurred during the People’s War period (1996-2006). It seems likely that many of these transactions involved the distribution or confiscation of land held by wealthy peasants. Nepal’s bourgeois parties seem bitterly opposed to this process, uniting to call the decision ‘autocratic’. The article originally appeared at myrepublica.

Maoists set to leaglise 5‚000 war time transactions

January 19, 2012

The “People’s Government” formed by Maoists during the decade-long insurgency had certified some 5,000 land transactions in the Salyan district alone, and the incumbent Maoist-led government is all set to implement it legally.

The all-party mechanism coordinated by Maoist Secretary Tikaram Oli had sent the records approved by the Maoist People’s Government in the district to the Land Reform Ministry through the District Land Revenue Office one year ago.

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The fight to bring healthcare and revolution to India’s cities

In the context of revolutionary war in the Indian countryside,
communist forces are grappling with how to ignite and lead people’s mass struggle in the cities. Krishanu Mandal makes an argument for opening one such front of struggle in the demands for healthcare, fighting against cruel profiteering in the medical industry, and reviving a mass urban revolutionary movement.

While the CPI (Maoist) is busy now defending itself and its mass base of poor agricultural classesand tribals against a relentless and violent attack by the Indian state, a revival of revolutionary democratic work in the urban areas is an extremely serious issue. Once again we emphasize that a careful reorganization of the entire matrix of the working class and democratic mass movements in urban area is necessary and such a complementary movement comprising such concrete mass-political actions in the sphere of health might be one component of that.

Thanks to Joe for the intro, and for alerting us to this article. It originally appeared at Sanhati.

The Aftermath of the AMRI Tragedy: Some Related Thoughts on Democratic Work in Urban Areas of India

by Krishanu Mandal

January 5, 2012

This article provides a case for mass-political movements around health-care and expropriation of private health-care sector as one component of the revival of revolutionary democratic work in urban area.

The gruesome death of about 90 people, mostly critically ill and infirm patients, due to the fire at the AMRI (AdvancedMedicare and Research Institute) Hospital in Kolkata, India in the second week of December has made international news. This has been followed by a comparably gruesome death of more than 170 people by drinking poison-laced country-liquor in a region of southern West Bengal a few days later. The response of the common people to these incidents stimulates some introductory thoughts on diversification of democratic work in urban areas of India.

India: Tribal peoples fight corporate land grabs in Jharkand

The following is a discussion of a group of adivasi (tribal) people in Northeastern India who are resisting forced displacement from their land and homes by corporate mining and industrial interests.

In a span of three to four years the Jharkhandi people began to realize that the central & state governments were not for peoples’ welfare but that they were laying steps to sell off peoples’ land, their water & forest resources together with all the mineral riches to corporate houses. They decided to act. Wherever projects together with land requirements were announced, people mobilized and organized themselves and said a definite ‘no’ to the government and companies. People’s Resistance Movements Against Dispacement sprang up in different parts of Jharkhand from 2004 onwards.

Explanatory notes: an MOU is a “Memorandum of Understanding, in this case between corporations and the Indian state. A lakh is a unit of measurement equal to 100,000.

Though this piece is a great introduction to tribal resistance in India, this site does not necessarily endorse all the analysis contained within. The article originally appeared at Sanhati.

Where Ants Drove Out Elephants – The Story of People’s Resistance to Displacement in Jharkhand

January 6, 2012

By Stan Swamy

This article is an introduction to the trajectory of peoples’ movements against displacement in Jharkhand in the last few years. As the author writes, the resistance in Jharkhand has resulted in the fact that “[o]ut of the about one hundred MOUs signed by Jharkhand government with industrialists, hardly three or four companies have succeeded in acquiring some land, set up their industries and start partial production.” – Ed.

Sri Lanka: A Regime Whitewashes Its Dirty History

The Sri Lankan regime has carried out repression against the Tamil people — a minority nationality on the island — for decades, and this article from a Ceylonese Maoist leader outlines how the LLRC (copy of the commission’s report), a “truth and reconciliation commission” set up by the regime, has served as an effort to whitewash the government’s history of attacks on the masses. The question of national liberation (as among the Terai people in Nepal or adivasis in
India) is a central concern of communist revolutionaries in many places in the world.

“If the war on the side of the Regime and the State was
waged based on a political ideology and an accompanying military doctrine aimed at militarily liquidating the LTTE, along with its political-military leadership, and to annihilate the political status of the Tamil nation, if the war was waged under a military
doctrine with no regard for collateral damage in order to achieve this
objective; and with that, to consolidate a Sinhala-Buddhist
hegemonic-chauvinist-militarist State that would feed into the
political agenda of perpetuating the Rajapakse dynastic regime,
then the war itself is on trial.”

The original post appeared at Democracy and Class Struggle. Thanks to Joseph for pointing it out, and writing the introduction.

The LLRC Report: A Process of Reconciliation or Perpetuation of a

Dynastic Military Junta?

December 29, 2011

by Surendra Ajit Rupasinghe, Secretary, Ceylon Communist Party – Maoist

The LLRC Report has served to polarize an already, irrevocably, polarized society, placed barriers in bringing about reconciliation and opened the country to even more foreign intervention.  Here was a golden opportunity for the State and the Regime to come clean, on which basis the bridges of reconciliation could have been built and all foreign powers that intend to pursue their geo-political agendas by exploiting the situation would have been silenced. This issue affects all of us. It is our collective honor and dignity that is at stake. As citizens, as the supreme People of Lanka, we do not want our country to be seen as a morally degenerate banana republic. The country belongs to us, its citizens. It cannot be held hostage to any particular political agenda or regime. This issue affects our collective moral conscience, our shared sense of justice, our collective identity as a civilized human community. Therefore, we must pursue the debate, however consequential it may be.

Nepal’s Gajurel: We do not Accept the Path of Surrender

The following is an interview with CP Gajurel, a leader of the revolutionary faction of Nepal’s Maoist party. Here, he responds to Prachanda’s recent Central Committee document. 

It originally appeared at myrepublica.com

Interview – ‘Dahal’s Paper a Surrender’

by Kiran Pun

December 25,2011

Republica: Party Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has presented a political document at the CC meeting. What do you have to say about it?

CP Gajurel: The document has proved that our leadership is swiftly heading toward ‘rightist and opportunistic” political line. The document has justified the mistakes committed by political leadership. So, the document has adopted the path of surrender.  We do not accept it. Party Senior Vice-chairman Kiran (Mohan Baidya) will present another document from our side.

China – The Spirit of Wukan

“One Western reporter compared the atmosphere in Wukan to that of the Paris Commune, a veteran Hong Kong journalist reminisced about Beijing in the spring of 1989, before the crackdown on Tiananmen. He described then an almost intoxicating sense of unity and generosity, where cab drivers drove protesters for free and thieves vowed to switch professions, buoyed  by a feeling that all was good and possible in the fleeting moment.”

This article is from Foreign Policy

The Spirit of Wukan

by Rachel Beitarie

December 23, 2011

Wukan,China – Peasants do not have a good record of facing off with the Communist Party. Rural standoffs usually end with the arrest of the ringleaders and an increased security presence for the remaining residents. Yet on Thursday afternoon, Dec. 22, residents of the embattled village of Wukan scored a major achievement in their 11-day stand-off with local government, securing the release of one of the village’s three detained leaders, the other two were released today.

Nepal: New Central Committee document by Kiran

The following is a document presented to the UCPN(M) Central Committee by Vice Chairman Mohan Baidya ‘Kiran’. It is long, but important for understanding the current situation facing Nepal’s Maoist party. As one might expect, it discusses many of the dangerous choices made by some leaders of the UCPN(M), including the dissolution of the People’s Liberation Army, the BIPPA trade agreement with India, and the failure to make necessary preparations for revolt.

Kiran also reaffirms that a “New People’s Democracy,” as a temporary stage in preparation for socialism, is the party’s minimum program. Kiran argues that not only is this the official line of the party, as decided on by the Chunbang meeting of 2005, but more importantly that this line “is necessary as well as possible.”

In the Chunbang meeting, the UCPN(M) collectively recognized that the reactionary parties, like Nepali Congress and the Communist party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) would try to turn the government into a bourgeois parliamentary republic. This is precisely the situation the Maoists have been facing for the past 5 years, as the bourgeois parties have been doing everything in their power to prevent a new, revolutionary Nepal.

But those bourgeois parties have had some assistance. Kiran argues that the party’s inability to move past the parliamentary swamp is due to a shift in strategy, one that was never agreed upon by the party as a whole. Referring to Prachanda specifically, Kiran notes that

“the Constituent Assembly is being taken not as a tactics but strategy. In this way, efforts have been made to end and liquidate the new people’s democratic revolution and mass insurrection.”

The piece also explains, quite candidly, that democratic centralism has broken down within the party and is “a mess”. He even goes as far as to say that the leadership of the party has “acted against the people,” and that class divisions have risen within the party. These are hard words, speaking to a bitter, difficult situation.

Ultimately though, the document is not pessimistic. Kiran argues forcefully that revolution is still possible.  His general plan affords more priority to mass mobilizations, or the “street front” than the parliamentary front. The plan also involves the strengthening of cultural and educational programs within the party, as well as the “People’s Volunteers,” a people’s fighting force that can be mobilized in the absence of the PLA and the Young Communist League. The document also demands that the party refuse to compromise on a constitution that does not meet the needs of women, oppressed nationality groups and those from oppressed castes.

The ideological divides within the UCPN(M) are deep. This document will not heal many of those schisms, nor does it provide answers for all of the questions facing Nepal. But it does show that there are revolutionaries within the party who have a broad outline for future struggle.

Thanks to Frontlines of Revolutionary Struggle for making this document available.

Kiran : On problems of the party and their resolution

1. Need for a new report:

Now, the class struggle is at a serious juncture and this class struggle has been reflected on our party’s two-line struggle. The history of Nepal’s new people’s democratic revolution and communist movement is at a new turning point.  We are in the grave type of labor pain. While, on the one hand, the conspiracy to liquidate the process of great people’s war initiated in 1996 into parliamentary quagmire is being consolidated; the revolutionary line, on the other, has emerged more effectively against this trend with a new commitment to give continuity to the Nepali new people’s democratic revolution.