Stan Swamy lived a life of service to the poor and oppressed. He paid for his commitment

 

Stan Swamy died Monday afternoon in the Holy Family Hospital in Bandra, Mumbai. A thorn in the Narendra Modi government’s unknown plan for development in the forests of Jharkhand has been removed. Those who wanted him out of the way will be happy — though crocodile tears may be shed.
Citizens of this ancient land who have a heart will shed a genuine tear or two. I am one of those who is grieved. There will be many more like me, some vocal but mostly silent mourners whose cerebral dislike for injustice rankles in their guts. I may be categorised as a co-religionist of the Jesuit priest, but the great majority of the mourners cannot be accused of even a whiff of parochial feelings.

Punjab Khet Mazdoor Union stages protest in Bathinda on March 15th

With resolute determination the Punjab Khet Mazdoor Union representing the dalit landless agricultural labour, continues to flash the torch of resistance. The agricultural labour are merciless victims of the Agricultural bills and engripped by the ruler’s policies which patronise neo-colonial slavery. On the invitation of Punjab Khet Mazdoor Union State Committee, thousands of farm labourers men and women on March 15th protested against agricultural laws, amendments in labour laws and oppression on Dalits in the local grain market. Morally the spark of revolutionary resistance against the neo-fascist attacks of the rulers was ignited.I was present at the rally. In my view the gathering was not so large comprising around 5000 people, but still had important qualitative impact. For two weeks meticulous preparations were made for this event, particularly in the Malwa region. It is significant that a separate rally only for the landless agricultural labourers was staged as distinctive from the landed peasantry. The wrath the participants had against the present rulers was written on their faces as though a flame was burning within. They clearly understood the fascist nature of the bills introduced by prime minister Modi which made them hapless victims of the Corporates.I was impressed with the lucidity or cogeal nature of the speeches which at the very root explained the deep penetration of neo-fascism in the Indian economy, giving striking emphasis to the proto-fascist policies of the current Modi led Bharatiya Janata party.It continued the pattern of several qualitatively impactful protest rallies conducted by the PKMU in Bathinda at state level, in recent years. Another aspect that touched me was the intensive participation and great presence of women, who looked like holding half the sky.

250 Million Workers And Farmers Strike Nationwide In India

India saw one of the biggest nationwide strikes by workers, joined by protesting farmers today. Several states saw a complete shutdown. Over 250 million workers across sectors participated in the strike, called by 10 central trade unions and hundreds of worker associations and federations.

Kerala, Puducherry, Odisha, Assam and Telangana witnessed a complete shutdown while normal life was partially affected in several other states as workers struck work and took to the streets, protesting against the “anti-worker” and pro-corporate policies and labour laws as well as the new farm laws brought in by the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata party government, among other demands.

Common statement signed by Greek activists, academics, writers and students Save the life of the Indian writer and activist Varavara Rao!

(The list of signatures is being updated)

Varavara Rao, a poet, a writer, an activist and an advocate of democratic and social rights for decades against the arbitrariness of Indian governments, has been jailed for almost two years along with ten other activists, lawyers, journalists, etc. They are all accused of inciting violent incidents in the Bhima Koregaon case, a charge that is considered false, while the government for the last two years has failed to prove the charges in court to start the trial. The conditions in the prisons, where these prisoners of conscience are being held, are said to be unhealthy and the threat of the Coronavirus pandemic spreading has increased the risks. Varavara Rao, at the age of 80, has been tested and proved to be positive for COVID-19 and has many concomitant illnesses. His condition reveals the absolute neglect of his health by the prison authorities. We join our voices with academics from all over the world, intellectuals, journalists, members of the Indian Parliament, international humanitarian organizations, the National Human Rights Commission of India (NHRC) and others, and we demand the immediate release of Varavara Rao and the other pre-trial imprisoned activists of the same case.

Chained Muse: Notes from Prison by Varavara Rao

In November 2019, when the Bhima Koregaon accused were still housed in Yerawada Central Prison and their case had not yet been transferred to the NIA, the Telugu poet penned some thoughts about his experience there, and the carceral nature of the state.

With news coming in about the worsening health of Varavara Rao (VV), his family held an urgent press conference on July 12, 2020 to demand adequate medical care for the incarcerated 80-year-old Telugu poet. Held in prison for the past 22 months as an under-trial in the Bhima Koregaon conspiracy case, VV’s health has become a crucial cause of concern since May 28, when he fell seriously ill and had to be hospitalised in the Taloja Central Prison and later was shifted to the state-run JJ Hospital.

Callous Disregard For The Health Of Varavara Rao Must Be Condemned! Release Him Immediately!

Release Varavara Rao immediately! Condemn the State’s blatant and callous disregard for the health of the 80-year-old revolutionary poet! Demand the release of all political prisoners!

The Campaign Against State Repression (CASR) demands the immediate release of the revolutionary poet Varavara Rao who has tested positive for COVID-19. As per information received by family members, Varavara Rao’s health has rapidly deteriorated over the last couple of weeks. This is also evidenced by his weakening physical state, incoherent speech and inability to independently perform daily or bodily functions. After persistent efforts of family members in highlighting his health condition, the jail authorities, who had denied these concerns, were compelled to shift Varavara Rao to JJ Hospital in Mumbai on July 13th.

Interview with Comrade Ganapathi

Peoples March magazine, 2 August 2019 .

Comrade Ganapathi retired from the responsibilities of the General Secretary of the CPI (Maoist) and Comrade Basavaraj was elected as the General Secretery. On this occasion People’s March interviewed Comrade Ganapathi early this year. This is the full text of the interview – Editorial Board

People’s March: What are the reasons for your retirement from the responsibilities of General Secretary? 

Com Ganapathi: The reason for my retirement from the responsibilities of General Secretary of our Party is my increasing ill-health and age. The Central Committee of our Party faced very severe losses due to the ceaseless counter-revolutionary offensive.

‘India is fighting for her soul’: Arundhati Roy on fascism, Modi and being a writer in today’s world

I am truly honored to have been invited by PEN America to deliver this year’s Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture. What better time than this to think together about a place for literature, at this moment when an era that we think we understand – at least vaguely, if not well – is coming to a close.

As the ice caps melt, as oceans heat up, and water tables plunge, as we rip through the delicate web of interdependence that sustains life on earth, as our formidable intelligence leads us to breach the boundaries between humans and machines, and our even more formidable hubris undermines our ability to connect the survival of our planet to our survival as a species, as we replace art with algorithms and stare into a future in which most human beings may not be needed to participate in (or be remunerated for) economic activity – at just such a time we have the steady hands of white supremacists in the White House, new imperialists in China, neo-Nazis once again massing on the streets of Europe, Hindu nationalists in India, and a host of butcher-princes and lesser dictators in other countries to guide us into the Unknown.
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BannedThought.net Banned in India!

 

Source: Bannedthought.net

At 7 minutes to midnight (New Delhi time) on November 11, 2018, the Indian government sent us at BannedThought.net an email informing us that in less than two days time it would hold a hearing in New Delhi to decide upon blocking public access by people in India to this website, or at least to the parts of it which contain materials from India and which express the views of large numbers of people in India which the government disapproves of. While we were invited to send a representative to argue our case at that hearing, this is not only impractical for time and financial reasons, it would also obviously be a total waste of time. (Or possibly even lead to our representative being arrested and imprisoned as has recently been happening even to people’s lawyers in India!) The committee meeting on Nov. 14 will almost certainly be a mere bureaucratic formality in any case. And there is nothing that we could say there that we don’t already say on our website—namely that we fervently support the right of free speech and the right to publish and distribute progressive or revolutionary materials not only in India, but everywhere in the world. This extremely basic democratic right is opposed by the current ruling class in India. So there is no point for us to say anything further at this meeting or elsewhere to this despicable anti-democratic ruling class bent on the suppression of all ideas that they disagree with.

Greece. Two days of solidarity to the arrested militants and the revolutionary movement of India

On the occasion of the mass arrests of militants, activists and revolutionaries in India, a two-day program was organized, of informing the people about the popular and revolutionary movement in India, as well as denouncing these very arrests in that country.

On Friday the 5^th of October, a panel discussion took place at the books store of  “Outside of the walls” in Athens. There were many participants who were interested in finding out about the truth, in the revolutionary, workers' and popular movement, as well as in the democratic rights movement of India. The interest was apparent since all of the participants stayed until the end of the discussion but also because of the various contributions in the discussion and questions that followed. A contribution was also made by a representative of the Turkish magazine “Partizan”.

What Makes an Urban Naxal?

Bernard D’Mello* writes about his former colleague, “urban Naxal” Gautam Navlakha.

 

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government and the Hindutvavadi “nationalist” movement’s demonic drive for cultural orthodoxy seems to know no bounds. What is alarming is the former’s support for and complicity in the acts of the latter, as also the Indian state’s control of its “necessary” enemies through the use of state terror, with the category “urban Naxals” singled out in the latest of such drives (in June and August 2018) that otherwise routinely target Muslims, militant oppressed nationalities, and “Maoists.” In the government’s categorisation, the “urban Naxals,” at least so far, are lawyers, rights activists, poets, writers, journalists, and professors, deemed to be “active members” of the Communist Party of India (CPI) (Maoist).

# MeTooUrbanNaxal: Arundhati Roy

This morning’s papers (August 30, 2018) settle something that we have been debating for a while. A front-page report in the Indian Express says “Police to Court: Those held part of anti-fascist plot to overthrow govt.” We should know by now that we are up against a regime that its own police call fascist.In the India of today, to belong to a minority is a crime. To be murdered is a crime. To be lynched is a crime. To be poor is a crime. To defend the poor is to plot to overthrow the government.
When the Pune police conducted simultaneous raids at the homes of well-known activists, poets, lawyers and priests across the country, and arrested five people—high-profile civil rights defenders and two lawyers—on ludicrous charges, with little or no paperwork, the Government would have known that it was stirring up outrage. It would have already taken all our reactions into account, including this press conference and all the protests that have taken place across the country, before it made this move. So why has this happened?

India:Police fires at protesters. 13 dead. Interview with Varavara Rao

Thoothukudi firing reminds me of Nandigram, Kalinganagar; vested interest of big companies is causing these killings: Maoist ideologue Varavara RaoWe have seen the spine-chilling photograph of a policeman aiming a gun in Thoothukudi last week at the anti-Sterlite protesters. Why do you think police open fire on innocent people when there are other ways to handle law and order problem?

Not only that, you must have heard the voice of a police officer ordering to take at least one life, and seen the photograph of a police pulling a dead body saying he is not dead but pretending to be dead, and so heinously pulling him like a fallen and injured animal. In fact this was shot at neck, point blank for violating Section 144 and he fell to instant death. It is like Dyer closing the gates of Jalianwalah Bagh killing people indiscriminately. It is massacre deliberate and intentional…

Vasantha Kumari: It’s the State that’s violating the Constitution, not us

Vasantha Kumari, wife of Prof GN Saibaba, on their shared life and struggle for an idea of India in which myriad political beliefs can coexist

At a south Delhi housing complex, Vasantha Kumari, wife of Prof GN Saibaba, waters the plants in her backyard in quiet reflection. Some of them, large tubs of month-old flower saplings, shoot up defiantly under the hot April sun. Gardening was something they loved doing together. The tubs hold vivid memories — him exerting himself on the wheelchair, insisting on sowing all the seeds, and her chiding him to rest instead. Days later, on March 7, he would be locked away inside the Nagpur Central Jail, to serve life imprisonment, after being convicted by the Gadchiroli sessions court under sections 13, 18, 20, 38 and 39 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and section 120B of the Indian Penal Code for connections with the banned Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), an organisation allegedly affiliated to the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist).

Remember Kathua

Stop and ask, can depravity, brutality and injustice be justified by religion and politics?

The brutal murder and serial rape of an eight-year-old Bakherwal-Gujjar girl living in a village near Kathua, 72 km from Jammu, is horrific enough in all its detail. But, what has emerged since the police investigation led to the arrest of the alleged perpetrators of the crime is even worse, for it has exposed the fault lines in our society. How have we reached a point where the rape and murder of a child is used to fuel communal hatred and promote politically sanctioned impunity for criminals?

The gruesome details about what happened to this child between 10 January, when she disappeared, and 17 January when her brutalised young body was found, are terrifying because of what this represents in terms of human depravity. That a child could be abducted, drugged, confined in a temple, repeatedly beaten and raped, and then murdered and thrown out is horrific enough. What makes it worse is that the perpetrators included members of the local police. One of them even joined the search party with her parents after they complained that she was missing, all the time aware of where she was and what was being done to her.

Letter from jail

Prof. G.N. Saibaba is a former Delhi University professor who is currently serving life sentence for his alleged links to Communist Party of India (Maoist) and his health is in critical condition. He wrote a letter from Nagpur Central Jail. This time he wrote to Anjum. Anjum is one of the central figures of Arundhati Roy’s new novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.

Dear Anjum,

How are you? I hope you are doing well along with the entire Ministry in Jannet Guest House. I hope you still remember me six months after my disappearance from Delhi. I know it’s easy to forget people who go to prisons or the otherworldly worlds. Life outside on the Earth has to go on.

Capitalism: A Ghost Story

A 2012 essay by Arundhati Roy. An extensive work on how capitalism in India exploits public wealth, resources from the land, indigenous people and the status of India in the world.
Source: Outlookindia
Roy's speech at Xaviers College, Mumbai here

Is it a house or a home? A temple to the new India, or a warehouse for its ghosts? Ever since Antilla arrived on Altamont 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.”

Antilla belongs to India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani. I had read about this most expensive dwelling ever built, the twenty-seven floors, three helipads, nine lifts, hanging gardens, ballrooms, weather rooms, gymnasiums, six floors of parking, and the six hundred servants. Nothing had prepared me for the vertical lawn—a soaring, 27-storey-high wall of grass attached to a vast metal grid. The grass was dry in patches; bits had fallen off in neat rectangles. Clearly, Trickledown hadn’t worked.

But Gush-Up certainly has. That’s why in a nation of 1.2 billion, India’s 100 richest people own assets equivalent to one-fourth of the GDP.

The word on the street (and in the New York Times) is, or at least was, that after all that effort and gardening, the Ambanis don’t live in Antilla. No one knows for sure. People still whisper about ghosts and bad luck, Vaastu and Feng Shui. Maybe it’s all Karl Marx’s fault. (All that cussing.) Capitalism, he said, “has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, that it is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells”.

In India, the 300 million of us who belong to the new, post-IMF “reforms” middle class—the market—live side by side with spirits of the nether world, the poltergeists of dead rivers, dry wells, bald mountains and denuded forests; the ghosts of 2,50,000 debt-ridden farmers who have killed themselves, and of the 800 million who have been impoverished and dispossessed to make way for us. And who survive on less than twenty rupees a day.

Naxalbari: its relevance for today… and for tomorrow

by Vernon Gonzalves

The stormy period of the nineteen sixties gave birth in several countries to uprisings, movements and organisations that continue to have a lasting impact to this day. One of the most significant was the May 1967 uprising at Naxalbari in West Bengal. It symbolised the decisive ideological rupture with the revisionism of the leadership of the CPI and CPM and the firm establishment of a line of armed struggle for Indian revolution. The countrywide upheaval that it spawned and the revolutionary Naxalite movement and organisations that followed in its wake have continued, through ebbs and flows down the years, to inspire and impel progressive politics of this land. They yet offer the best hope for the revolutionary transformation of Indian society.

The upcoming fiftieth anniversary of the uprising ­is an appropriate moment to look back and look forward. Look back at the experiences of five decades in order to draw appropriate lessons for the movements of today; look forward in order to best leverage the present gains in order to achieve the yet unfinished tasks set by the revolutionaries of yesteryear. But before undertaking such an exercise, let us briefly look at the major points of change and continuity from the decade of the nineteen sixties to the second decade of the 21^st century.

Naxalbari Lives and Thrives in Dandakaranya

by Varavara Rao*

“In India, the Naxalbari Peasant Revolutionary Armed Uprising, which will complete its 50th anniversary – was influenced and inspired by the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution of China. Naxalbari was a path breaking event under the leadership of Com. Charu Majumdar – one of the two great leaders, teachers and founders of the CPI (Maoist, Com. Charu Majumdar and Kanhai Chatterjee – which marked a new beginning in the history of the country’s democratic revolution.”

It is the observation made by the Central Committee of CPI (Maoist) while giving a call to celebrate the four great events in the history to achieve socialism in the world, including the fiftieth anniversary of Naxalbari.