Press Release by COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST) CENTRAL COMMITTEE

COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)

CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Press Release

July 2, 2011

 

Immediately withdraw the death sentences on Adivasi and dalit cultural artistes and leaders Comrades Jeeten Marandi, Anil Ram, Manoj Rajwar and Chhatrapati Mandal !

 

On June 23, the Giridih district (Jharkhand) sessions court judge Indradeo Mishra pronounced death sentences to Jeeten Marandi, Anil Ram, Manoj Rajwar and Chhatrapati Mandal in the Chilkari case where 19 people were killed in 2007 and thus the state bared its fascist fangs one more time. Jeeten Marandi and others have always worked openly and the organizations they are working for are not banned organizations. Pronouncing death sentences in a case with which they had no connection whatsoever is a clear is nothing but an act of revenge on them as they are standing firmly with the people using song and dance in all their anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggles, particularly against displacement. As part of Operation Green Hunt launched to suppress the Maoist movement in the country, particularly in Central and Eastern India, the central and state governments have been resorting to the most brutal and heinous atrocities one could imagine on the poorest of the poor – the Adivasis of this country and these latest death sentences are one more proof of this. The cruelest face of OGH could be seen in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha and that too in the Adivasi areas of these states where the Maoist movement is stronger.

Jeeten Marandi is a well-known Adivasi cultural artiste and leader of Jharkhand Abhen, a cultural organization of Jharkhand. He is a leader of the All India League for revolutionary Culture and has toured the length and breadth of India propagating revolutionary songs and culture. Anil Ram, Manoj Rajwar and Chhatrapati Mandal are also Adivasi and Dalit cultural artistes. Jeeten displayed his cultural talents since he was a child and gradually developed himself into one of the finest artistes this country has ever produced. It was only natural that as a conscious child he could not ignore the plight of the Adivasi society of which he himself was a part. His social investigation of the root causes for the poverty, exploitation and oppression of Adivasis naturally led him to revolutionary politics and he and his cultural organization propagated revolutionary politics to awaken political consciousness among the people.

Propagating one’s ideas openly is not a crime and nobody can be punished for that. The ruling classes of India are not ready to tolerate any kind of dissent and have been resorting to all kinds of ploys to stifle the voices of dissent to its pro-imperialist and anti-people policies aiming to loot the natural resources and rich mineral wealth of the people. As true people’s artistes they have been in the forefront in the anti-displacement movement in Jharkhand which is giving one of the toughest resistances in this matter. It is very clear that the state is punishing them for these political activities and not for some Chilkari case which everybody knows is just one of the dozens of false cases foisted on them. In the bitter class struggle fought against feudalism in Bihar and Jharkhand massacres were perpetrated by the land lords through their private armies on the peasantry, particularly on the dalits. The peasantry had to resort to counter-violence in self-defence and incidents like Chilkari are a part of it. The state instead of looking into the root causes for such incidents and addressing them, is trying to use them to foist false cases on mass organization activists to stifle their voices of dissent.  Firstly they slapped a case of sedition on Jeeten Marandi in 2007 with the allegation that he made inflammatory speeches in front of Raj Bhavan in Ranchi on the issue of release of political prisoners and have been harassing him ever since with incarceration and false cases. Even before that he has been arrested many times and sometimes beaten brutally. This death sentence comes as a culmination of all these conspiracies to stifle his voice forever. The state is so shameless in its callousness that it has foisted some cases of Pirtand and Teesri P.S. which happened when Jeeten was in jail!

This country has a 200 year long history of colonial rule under the British which was consequently witness to countless Adivasi rebellions. British imperialism sought to suppress these rebellions by using brute force with the advantage of modern weapons they had and hanging of the rebel leaders was one consistent tactic it had used. The comprador Indian ruling classes which inherited this mantle of brute suppression from them are following in their footsteps. Comrades Bhumaih and Kista Goud were the first revolutionary peasant activists to be hanged in `independent India’ and later death sentences were pronounced on many revolutionary activists, particularly on the revolutionary peasant activists in Bihar (which included the present Jharkhand) implicating them in false cases. People’s lawyers and civil rights leaders like comrades KG Kannabiran and Pattipati Venkateswarlu as part of their civil rights organizations have vehemently fought against the death sentences pronounced on the revolutionaries both in the courts and outside and built broad movements not only with the immediate demands of annulling the death sentences in particular cases but also for ending capital punishment. It is the necessary to continue this fight on a broader scale as it is obvious that the state would resort to more such fascist acts apart from the massacres, false encounters and atrocities perpetrated on the Adivasi hamlets on a daily basis. Singanna of Narayanapatna was killed point blank in police firings, Lalmohan Tudu of Lalgarh was killed in a `fake encounter’ and now comes this death sentence on Jeeten Marandi of Jharkhand. This is all part of the conspiracy to kill the people’s leaders who emerged from the people’s movements waged against feudalism, comprador bureaucratic bourgeoisie and imperialism. By rendering the movements leaderless they want to remove all hurdles to their loot of natural resources in the Adivasi areas.

As Jeeten and other people present in the court sang in the court immediately after the death sentences were pronounced – `that day would definitely come’ when people would put an end to all these fascist acts of the state with powerful mass upsurges. Neither death sentences nor false encounters can kill the spirit of true leaders of the people and they would fight to the end.

CPI (Maoist) demands that the death sentences of Jeeten Marandi, Anil Ram, Manoj Rajwar and Chhatrapati Mandal be annulled immediately. It appeals to all democratic organizations, civil rights organizations, organizations for the rights of political prisoners and particularly to all cultural and literary organizations and Adivasi cultural associations to build a vast movement demanding the annulment of these death sentences and the unconditional release of these people’s artistes. Let us broaden this movement for ending capital punishment altogether.

 

(Abhay)

Spokesperson,

Central Committee,

CPI (Maoist)

Govt : The Biggest Terrorist. The Adivasi uprising

BY puclmangalore
The advice to Maoists to give up violence would go down better if were accompanied by the economic package as well.
By: Kuldip Nayar
Tamer is a small Adivasi village in the deep jungles of Chhattisgarh. Two tribal farmers from the village are fighting a loosing battle against a young congress MP. He has forcible built a factory on their fields, spread over 10 acres. He belongs to an industrialist scion from Haryana.
One farmer, possessing one and a half acres, is a policeman who has resigned from his job to devote all his time to get back the land. He and other farmer having seven and a half acres of a land, often travel 400 km to Raipur, the state capital to knock at the door of top officials because the farmers have got no justice at the district headquarters Raigarh.
Both have been dubbed ‘Maoists’ though, in this case, they are merely fighting for their land. Prim minister Manmohan sing has characterized Maoists as the “ single biggest internal security challenge” to India the two farmers have nothing to do with the Maoists and Naxalites . But since the Maoists have evoked revulsion in the last few months after slaughtering 24 policeman in West Bengal , and 12 villagers in Bihar, the government finds it convenient to call the 2 farmers Maoists to divert attention from the forcible occupation of the land. But they are not an exception.
I met at Raipur this week many tribal’s who had been ousted from their land -and villages- to make room for industrialists of different climes, Indian and foreign, to exploit the natural resources like coal and iron ore. The state government has signed as many as 105 MoUs. The ragtag force of Sulwa Judum is an armed private outfit that the government has constituted to drive out tribals by force.
Some of the uprooted tribal’s , num bering 2 lakh , have crossed over from Chhattisgarh to the jungles in Maharashtra, Orissa and Andra Prades. Many are yet to be rehabilitated(40000 are still in camps ). Tribals could have used their poisoned arrows to defend themselves as they have done in the past.
The national Human Rights commission gave a critical report against the treatment meted out to tribals. On the basis of the report, the supreme court has instructed the Chhattisgarh government to rehabilitate the dispossessed Adivasis. Every collector has been asked to rehabilitate the disposed. But there is no action yet.
An overwhelming number of tribals, roughly 84 million or 8.2per cent of India’s population, are not with the Maoists in their rebellion against the state. But what option do tribals have when they find the Maoists equipped with latest weapons threatening them? Tribals are also victims of lack of development and corruption. In fact, they find themselves caught between the government’s neglect and the Maoists’ gun.
Basic needs
Tribals want to return to their old life when the forest provided them with everything they needed. They had then ‘jal’ (water), ‘zamin’ (land) and the bounty of jungle. In fact, that is their demand and they agitate to have them back. They are too innocent for the mechanizations –and brute force-of the nexus between the government and the corporate sector.
The Maoists have only made things more difficult for them because their war cry and their violence have driven the state to adopt fascist tactics. Unthinkingly, New Delhi has given its operation the nomenclature of Green Hunt. If at all it is a hunt, it is of the Red and it endangers whatever the green s left. The ravages of operation through the jungles can be devastating. The innocent will bear the brunt.
I also met Dr. Vinayak Sen at Raipur. He is president of the Chhattisgarh’s PUCL. He is a doctor who has spent two years in jail. I did not see anything violent either in his deeds or words. Why the government took umbrage against his fight for civil rights of the suppressed tribal’s is not understandable. Such people should be given recognition for the good work they are doing to retrieve the people from the Maoists’ clutches.
The crisis of Indian politics, as I see, is a crisis of change. It reflects the widening gap between the base of polity and its structure. Both politics, as I see, is a crisis of change. It reflects the widening gap between the base of polity and its structures. Both political and economic processes have brought sections of the peripheral and deprived social strata in the open without the rulers doing anything about it.
Home minister P Chidambaram may be able to suppress the Maoists by employing the huge apparatus the government has built in the name of law and order, a state subject. But he should realize that some other Maoists will come up if the 70 per cent of people remain poor and if the disparities between the people and the areas do not get narrower.
Chidambaram’s advice to the Maoists to give up violence would go down better if he were to announce the economic package as well. He must have seen how the movement confined to a few villages in West Bengal some 50 years ago has spread to Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh.
Political parties have to tear a leaf from the book of the Maoists. Today they have come to represent a social economic change in the country. They alone talk about such an agenda. What they do not realise is that they will be a big force to reckon with if they take to electoral politics.
PUCL
DATE: 02-04-2010