Losing our brother Kishenji

We received the terrible news that the leading Indian Maoist Kishenji (AKA Mallojula Koteswara Rao) was murdered in by government forces in a “fake encounter.” Kishenji was a leading figure and spokesman for India’s Maoist (Naxalite) movement — and reportedly the military leader of their embryonic popular armed forces.

The following is one of the more recent accounts of outrage and exposure.

Our hearts are with the brave communist fighters of India and the hundreds of millions of oppressed people who dream of liberation.

This article is re-posted from our sister site,  Kasama.

Varvara Rao:

Maoist leader Kishenji was tortured before being killed

Telugu poet and Maoist sympathiser Varvara Rao Friday alleged that top Maoist leader Kishenji was tortured before being killed in a fake encounter and demanded a white paper from the West Bengal government.

“Kishenji was subjected to inhuman torture as his body bore marks of several injuries and he was killed in a fake encounter 24 hours after being nabbed. I demand a white paper on the killing,” Rao told reporters at the state secretariat.

Rao also demanded filing of a case under section 302 in compliance with NHRC norms against those responsible for the killing in a memorandum to Home Secretary G D Gautama.

He alleged that four other Maoists were still being held in captivity ‘like Kishenji’.

Rao said that Kishenji’s niece Deepa Rao had arrived with him from Peddapalli in Andhra Pradesh and should be allowed to identify the body.

“Kishenji’s mother is very old and a cancer patient. She wants to see her son. Kishenji’s body should be brought to Kolkata for preservation and sent to Hyderabad.

“The body should be handed over to the family with due honour as he was a political worker,” he said, acknowledging that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had announced that Kishenji’s last rites would be performed with honour.

“The Andhra Pradesh government killed many Maoists in this way, but at least it conducted the post mortem complying with NHRC norms. Azad’s body (another Maoist top leader killed in encounter few years ago) was sent to his Delhi residence in accordance with NHRC norms,” Rao said.

Alleging that the present state government was closely following the style of functioning of the preceding Left Front regime, he said “I think there is no need for any discussions with the fascist, imperialist and feudalistic government in the present situation”.

“Kishenji, (CPI-Maoist secretary) Ganapathy and many others favoured talks which is no longer required in the present situation, nor are interlocutors,” he said.

Rao was accompanied by two Association for Protection of Democratic Rights members, besides Deepa.

A young Indian speaks out in Defense of her Maoist parents

Kerala, India: Slums and Special Economic Zones in Kochi

This is the powerful story of a young woman, Ami, whose parents are urban Maoist revolutionaries in Southern India. Despite the difficulties she has faced, including repeated harassment and intimidation from the Indian state, Ami testifies to the urgency of revolution in India. In particular, she emphasizes the necessity of ending the oppression of women:

My papa told me that they have been in this struggle so that thousands of girls like me can walk freely and fearlessly in this country. It means that they are living and working for me too. To bring about an environment in which I and my sister can cross the road and go to a neighbour’s house alone even at night. If this is the objective of their life, I support them, and I am with them.

The article also provides a glimpse of the difficult and delicate work of Maoist organizing. Such work is especially precarious in urban locations far from the forest base areas in Central and Eastern India. The article originally appeared in Open Magazine.

Daughter of a Maoist

Terrorised by the police, bereft of parents, evicted from school—what it means to be a 15-year-old daughter of parents ‘wanted’ by the State

29 October 2011

by Shahina KK

I first met her when she was around 10 or 11 months old. Her mother Shyna was a friend and source. At the time, Shyna was an upper division clerk in the High Court. She was also an activist trying to set up a trade union in the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Kochi. As a TV reporter, I had frequent contact with Shyna. She often gave me story tips from the SEZ, to which the media didn’t have much access. Her little girl was called Ameranta. I found the name odd. Many of our common friends thought likewise. We advised Shyna to change the name. I remember telling Shyna that when the child grew up, she would dislike this name.

Arundhati Roy: On the Forces Against the Indian State

The author Arundhati Roy has described herself as "Maoist sympathizer, not ideologue."

Arundhati Roy, noted author of works like the God of Small Things and Walking with the Comrades shares this opinion piece regarding the two forces working to depose the cruel Indian central government: the first a people’s army waging a liberating armed struggle movement with the support of the poorest of the poor and the other a Ghandian moralist movement led by privileged sectors. Posting here is not an endorsement of the views presented.

“you could say that the Maoists and the Jan Lokpal Bill have one thing in common — they both seek the overthrow of the Indian State. One working from the bottom up, by means of an armed struggle, waged by a largely adivasi army, made up of the poorest of the poor. The other, from the top down, by means of a bloodless Gandhian coup, led by a freshly minted saint, and an army of largely urban, and certainly better off people.”

I’d rather not be Anna

While his means maybe Gandhian, his demands are certainly not.

If what we’re watching on TV is indeed a revolution, then it has to be one of the more embarrassing and unintelligible ones of recent times. For now, whatever questions you may have about the Jan Lokpal Bill, here are the answers you’re likely to get: tick the box — (a) Vande Mataram (b) Bharat Mata ki Jai (c) India is Anna, Anna is India (d) Jai Hind.

India’s Arundhati Roy: There is an Insurrection

This article is from The Independent (UK).

The author Arundhati Roy has described herself as "Maoist sympathizer, not ideologue."

Is There a Ban on Reporting Bad News From India?

Andrew Buncombe

It was the writer and activist Arundhati Roy who set foreign journalists chattering recently. In an interview with Stephen Moss in the Guardian, Ms Roy was discussing the Maoist and Adavsi “resistance “to encroachment on tribal lands. Mr. Moss asked her why, “we in the West don’t hear about these mini-wars?” Ms. Roy replied “I have been told quite openly  by several correspondents of international newspapers, that they have instructions – ‘No negative news from India’ – because it is an investment destination. So you don’t hear about it. But there is an insurrection, and its not just a Maoist insurrection.  Everywhere in the country, people are fighting.

Australian TV on India’s ‘Red Tide’

As usual posting here does not imply endorsement of the views presented, but we share for the interest of our readers. It is noteworthy that the Indian Maoist movement has become a visible threat to the Indian state – which has responded with a cruel and bloody Operation Greenhunt, ruthlessly killing and torturing under the guise of fighting ‘terrorism.’  This brutal Indian army has recently moved into Maoist controlled camps as another step in their vicious campaign of war against the poor and those defending them.

Arundhati Roy: I’m a Maoist Sympathizer, Not Ideologue

This piece comes from the Guardian (UK) and highlights the experiences of author Arundhati Roy and her time with Indian Maoists known as Naxalites, and in this piece she describes herself as a Maoist sympathizer, but not an ideologue. This is profoundly brave for this author to side with the oppressed of India — while the Indian state continues its murderous acts under the guise of fighting terrorism which they call ‘Operation Greenhunt.’ 

Arundhati Roy authored Walking with the Comrades, an essay describing her time with the Indian Maoists.

Arundhati Roy:

‘They are trying to keep me destabilised. Anybody who says anything is in danger’

The Booker prize-winning novelist on her political activism in India, why she no longer condemns violent resistance – and why it doesn’t matter if she never writes a second novel

This is not an ideal beginning. I bump into Arundhati Roy as we are both heading for the loo in the foyer of the large building that houses her publisher Penguin’s offices. There are some authors, V S Naipaul say, with whom this could be awkward. But not Roy, who makes me feel instantly at ease. A few minutes later, her publicist settles us in a small, bare room. As we take our positions on either side of a narrow desk I liken it to an interrogation suite. But she says that in India, interrogation rooms are a good deal less salubrious than this.

India: Activist Binayak Sen attacks Sedition Laws

From BBC News South Asia Service.

Indian human rights activist Binayak Sen has accused the government of misusing the country’s sedition laws “to silence voices of dissent”.

In an interview with the BBC, he said that the laws were an outdated relic from the country’s colonial past.

Dr Sen was freed from jail in the state of Chhattisgarh earlier this month. He had been sentenced to life in prison in December for helping Maoist rebels.

The government is reportedly reviewing sedition laws.

Dr Sen also said the government was forming vigilante groups to fight the rebels. Villagers in some Maoist-affected areas have formed so-called self-defence groups, wihch have received state support.

The Indian government has repeatedly denied using unlawful means to fight the Maoists.

Who Binayak Sen?

In this video Arindam Chaudhari comments on the detainment of Dr. Binayak Sen. Posting does not imply endorsement of the views presented, but we share this for the interest of our readers.

Dr. Binayak Sen’s Statement to the Court

Free Binayaksen Campaign Poster

From International Campaign Against War on the People in India website.

Dr. Binayak Sen is a popular paediatrician in India, he is known as a “Barefoot Doctor”, a respected title citing the Maoist revolution in India. Sen has dedicated his work to the rural poor in India, including treating Maoist rebels. He was handed a life sentence in prison for sedition by the government of Chhattisgarh (a state in central India).

The Government of India has also attempted to bring sedition charges against noted author and activist Arundhati Roy for making statements in support of Kashmir autonomy and the Naxalite movement. The Communist Party of India (Maoist) has said in a recent statement “These judgments are the latest additions to the huge cache of anti-people, fascist repressive measures of the Indian ruling classes.” The CPI (Maoist) on has called for  a weeklong protests starting January 2nd, 2011 against “the fascist Chhattisgarh government’s court judgments.” For additionally information we urge readers to visit the campaign website for the immediate release of Dr. Binayak Sen. Below is Dr. Sen’s statement to the Chhattisgarh court.

Berkeley, CA: Chief of Police of Indian State Under Fire for Human Rights Record

This article was originally found here.

“Arresting Film-maker May Have Been a Mistake”: Vishwa Ranjan

For a change, it was the turn of Vishwa Ranjan, the high profile DGP (Director General of Police) of the Indian State of Chhattisgarh, to be interrogated. Questioning the DGP about the massive human rights abuses perpetrated by the police under his direction were over fifty students, faculty and members from a coalition of South Asian community groups at a conference on Indian Democracy at Berkeley, California, where he was one of the invited speakers.

And some of the ‘confessions’ that emerged from him were startling. The arrest of film maker Ajay T.G., Vishwa Ranjan said, was a ‘technical mistake’. The continued incarceration of Dr Binayak Sen in Raipur jail was the responsibility of the Chhattisgarh government and not the police.

Apparently, the chief police official of Chhattisgarh is so unused to questioning that he became flustered and signed a post-card to the Prime Minister asking for Dr Sen’s release! The card he signed reads ‘The imprisonment of this brave and good man is outrageous. I demand his immediate unconditional release.

Brave New India: Arundhati Roy Interview, Part 1

This interview originally appeared in Issue 61 Sept/Oct 2008of the International Socialist Review.

This is Part 1. Part 2 can be found here.

ARUNDHATI ROY is the author of The God of Small Things. She is known for courageously standing with the pooret people of India in their growing struggles with the state and international capitalism. Her latest books are The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile, with David Barsamian, and An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire.

DAVID BARSAMIAN interviewed her in New Delhi on December 29, 2007. David Barsamian is the producer of Alternative Radio, based in Boulder, Colorado.

All nations have ideas about themselves that are repeated without much scrutiny or examination: the United States—a beacon of freedom and liberty; India—the world’s largest democracy, dedicated to secularism.

India has done a better job than the United States in recent years. The myth about the U.S. being a beacon of liberty has been more or less discredited amongst people who are even vaguely informed. India, on the other hand, has managed to pull off almost a miraculous public relations coup. It really is the flavor of the decade, I think. It’s the sort of dream destination for world capital. All this done in the name of “India is not Afghanistan,” “India is not Pakistan,” “India is a secular democracy,” and so on.

India has among the highest number of custodial deaths in the world. It’s a country where 25 percent of its territory is out of control of the government. But the thing is that these areas are so dark, whether it’s Kashmir, whether it’s the northeastern states, whether it’s Chhattisgarh, whether it’s parts of Andhra Pradesh. There is so much going on here, but it’s just a diverse and varied place. So while there are killings going on, say, in Chhattisgarh, there’s a festival in Tamil Nadu or a cricket match between India and Australia in Adelaide. Where the light is shone is where the Sensex stock market is jumping and investments are coming in. And where the lights are switched off are the states where farmers are committing suicide—I think the figure is now 136,000—and the killing, in say, Kashmir, which is 68,000 to 80,000. We have laws like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which allows even noncommissioned officers to shoot on suspicion.