Arundhati Roy interviewed by Shoma Chaudhury

(a must read interview of writer activist Arundhati Roy on the question of state and revolutionary violence. although we disagree with her on some points regarding socialist states and her evaluation of Mao and Stalin.in these times of fascist terror and repression Arundhati brilliantly exposes the hollowness of the logic of neutralism and same attitude towards fascist state violence and the resistance.we thank TEHELKA for the interview. — Editor)

‘It’s outright war and both sides are choosing their weapons’

There is an atmosphere of growing violence across the country. How do you read the signs? In what context should it be read?

You don’t have to be a genius to read the signs. We have a growing middle class, reared on a diet of radical consumerism and aggressive greed. Unlike industrialising Western countries, which had colonies from which to plunder resources and generate slave labour to feed this process, we have to colonise ourselves, our own nether parts. We’ve begun to eat our own limbs. The greed that is being generated (and marketed as a value interchangeable with nationalism) can only be sated by grabbing land, water and resources from the vulnerable. What we’re witnessing is the most successful secessionist struggle ever waged in independent India — the secession of the middle and upper classes from the rest of the country. It’s a vertical secession, not a lateral one. They’re fighting for the right to merge with the world’s elite somewhere up there in the stratosphere. They’ve managed to commandeer the resources, the coal, the minerals, the bauxite, the water and electricity. Now they want the land to make more cars, more bombs, more mines — supertoys for the new supercitizens of the new superpower. So it’s outright war, and people on both sides are choosing their weapons. The government and the corporations reach for structural adjustment, the World Bank, the ADB, FDI, friendly court orders, friendly policy makers, help from the ‘friendly’ corporate media and a police force that will ram all this down people’s throats. Those who want to resist this process have, until now, reached for dharnas, hunger strikes, satyagraha, the courts and what they thought was friendly media. But now more and more are reaching for guns. Will the violence grow? If the ‘growth rate’ and the Sensex are going to be the only barometers the government uses to measure progress and the well-being of people, then of course it will. How do I read the signs? It isn’t hard to read sky-writing. What it says up there, in big letters, is this: the shit has hit the fan, folks.

You once remarked that though you may not resort to violence yourself, you think it has become immoral to condemn it, given the circumstances in the country. Can you elaborate on this view?

I’d be a liability as a guerrilla! I doubt I used the word ‘immoral’ — morality is an elusive business, as changeable as the weather. What I feel is this: non-violent movements have knocked at the door of every democratic institution in this country for decades, and have been spurned and humiliated. Look at the Bhopal gas victims, the Narmada Bachao Andolan. The nba had a lot going for it — high-profile leadership, media coverage, more resources than any other mass movement. What went wrong? People are bound to want to rethink strategy. When Sonia Gandhi begins to promote satyagraha at the World Economic Forum in Davos, it’s time for us to sit up and think. For example, is mass civil disobedience possible within the structure of a democratic nation state? Is it possible in the age of disinformation and corporate-controlled mass media? Are hunger strikes umbilically linked to celebrity politics? Would anybody care if the people of Nangla Machhi or Bhatti mines went on a hunger strike? Irom Sharmila has been on a hunger strike for six years. That should be a lesson to many of us. I’ve always felt that it’s ironic that hunger strikes are used as a political weapon in a land where most people go hungry anyway. We are in a different time and place now. Up against a different, more complex adversary. We’ve entered the era of NGOs — or should I say the era of paltu shers — in which mass action can be a treacherous business. We have demonstrations which are funded, we have sponsored dharnas and social forums which make militant postures but never follow up on what they preach. We have all kinds of ‘virtual’ resistance. Meetings against SEZs sponsored by the biggest promoters of SEZs. Awards and grants for environmental activism and community action given by corporations responsible for devastating whole ecosystems. Vedanta, a company mining bauxite in the forests of Orissa, wants to start a university. The Tatas have two charitable trusts that directly and indirectly fund activists and mass movements across the country. Could that be why Singur has drawn so much less flak than Nandigram? Of course the Tatas and Birlas funded Gandhi too — maybe he was our first NGO. But now we have NGOs who make a lot of noise, write a lot of reports, but whom the sarkar is more than comfortable with. How do we make sense of all this? The place is crawling with professional diffusers of real political action. ‘Virtual’ resistance has become something of a liability. …………

The Beginnings of a New Democratic Nepal?

by John Mage and Bernard D’Mello

(John Mage of Monthly Review and Bernard D’Mello. deputy editor of Economic and Political Weekly (”EPW”) of Mumbai, India, visited Nepal in February, and trekked into Rolpa, the original base area of the revolutionary “people’s war.” The following account appears simultaneously on MRZine and in the current (March 17th) issue of EPW.)

Over the last year, as the world watched Nepal making a significant and qualitative break with its past, the EPW too was planning a special issue. For the two of us, having come of political age in the 1960s and 1970s, an aphorism of those times that still lingers, “no investigation, no right to speak,” may have been behind our joint decision to visit Nepal in February, to put our fingers to the pulse of things. A “people’s war” that lasted 11 years led by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the CPN(M), as well as the Jan Andolan in April last year, brought about profound shifts in the balance of power in national politics. The 238-year old feudal monarchy has been marginalised, a preliminary step towards laying the foundations for a democratic republic. The Nepali Maoists, for their part, are practising another one of those 20th-century aphorisms: “to rebel is justified.” They had waged a just war by raising an army — the people’s liberation army (PLA) — ingrained with the democratic tradition of building close ties with the common people. Their strategy required the establishment of “base areas” in rural Nepal, which have now been heralded as representative of a new Nepal in the making. It was in this context that we decided to trek in Rolpa, located in mid-west Nepal, one of the first base areas in the people’s war.

As is by now well known, the CPN(M) has altered its strategy of a protracted people’s war, although the party’s goal is still the establishment of a people’s republic of Nepal. It is now concentrating on ushering in a democratic republic, with a multiparty democracy within a constitutional framework that is anti-feudal and anti-imperialist, and requiring extensive reorganisation of state power to resolve problems related to class, gender, caste, and nationality/region. Under the UN’s monitoring mission, the PLA units have stored and sealed their arms and ammunition and have confined themselves to temporary camps/cantonments in the run-up to elections to a new constituent assembly. The Nepal Army (NA), too, has been confined to the barracks and a similar quantity of its arms stored and sealed. The Maoists have even agreed to dismantle the people’s governments in their base areas; they are now represented in the interim legislature and their entry into the interim cabinet appears imminent.

We set out to understand developments in the base area of Rolpa in the Magarat region, where the Maoists have claimed, according to one of their spokespersons [Parvati 2005], to have undermined the feudal base of the state, setting up mobile, locally-based people’s courts, people’s councils at the regional (under the Magarat autonomous region), district, village and ward levels, and also a local militia to ensure public security. There have also been moves to reconstruct the economy, importantly, with a socialist orientation, and the initial foundations for progressive changes in the areas of health, education, and culture have been laid. The obvious question in our minds was that, with the end of armed conflict in sight, but with the tasks of the revolution still unfinished, what would be the fate of these progressive changes that remain in their formative stages. ……….

photos from Greece

please click them to enlarge.

Report of struggle from Greece

Our Friend Chrissi Perperidou had sent this short note and some photos through mail from Greece.as we requested him to send information and news about the student movement in Greece.we are giving the links to photos in the  new post as we are unable to give them directly due to the problems of browser.we thank comrade Chrissi Perperidou and comrade Christos Mais. and we express our full solidarity to the great struggle of the students of the Greece. — Editor

 

Students’ struggle brought the first victory and goes on for the final ruin of the government’s projects

 

The reform of the Constitution, attempted the recent period in the Greek parliament by the government of New Democracy (centre-rightist) with the collaboration of PASOK (social-democrat), is part of the attack by the capital’s forces against the workers, the youth, the interests of people’s toiling majority and the democrat and social gains.

The constitutional reform concerns certain subjects of decisive significance since they were the result of our people’s struggle and gains for decades.

It concerns:

1. Article 16. It concerns the FREE PUBLIC EDUCATION which is the state’s commitment for all education stages. The abolition-reform of this article opens the way for the abolition of the right to education of the people, the working class and the youth. It is also connected with the abolition to professional and democratic rights of the youth and the people. It opens the way for the complete privatization of Education and the establishment of private Universities.

2. Article 24. It concerns the declassification of forest land which becomes prey to the constructive capital, land-grabbers and temporizers of every kind. Practically it aims at turning large forest land to building ground bearing great danger for the environment.

3. Article 103. It concerns the abolishment of permanence of public service employees (they cannot be fired). It is the overthrow of the labor relations and being a hostage of the workers and the working class in the capital’s hands.

The required process is the follow:

At first we should clarify that a referendum is not required for the reform of the constitution articles.

It requires the majority of Parliament Members, 3/5 of the current parliament – that is 180 PM – in order to reform the articles by the simple majority of the next parliament (government) – only 151 PM. If in this parliament the number of PM who will vote for the reform of the article 16 is less than 180 then in the new parliament that will try to reform the constitution the number of PM that is required should be more than 180. ………

Khairlanji: Dalits Rise Against A Caste-Patriarchy Backlash

Though the Khairlanji Massacre has been white-washed as a land dispute, or a minor incident of aberration, by sections of the media and political mainstream, the Kharilanji killings were definitely a case of a backlash against the assertion of dalit and women’s rights. Two women, the mother Surekha and the daughter, Priyanka Bhotmange simply defended their right to use their land as they wished…but this assertion by women, and that too, dalit women upset the caste hierarchy in society and painted them as quarrelsome, immoral and fit to be taught a lesson. Priyanka was the only girl in the village who had studied up to Std. XII ; their family was friendly with a police patil of a neighbouring village, one Siddhartha Gajbhiye who was a politically aware and assertive person. So, after the heinous incident and to build up towards it, a story was spread that the Bhotmanges sold liquor, that they practiced prostitution and that the mother, Surekha had an affair with Siddhartha. How convenient is the patriarchal texture of the fabric of Indian society! Rape and kill women, brutalize their bodies sexually and then blame it on them to clear your conscience. Victim becomes the accused and the real accused go scot free. Perhaps it is this reality that dalits, for generations have seen, all over the country and it is for this reason that in protest against the Khairlanji incident they came out on the streets in huge numbers, faced the wrath of the police and gave a challenge to the state—the Brahmanical, patriarchal state that invariably turns a blind eye towards the dalits and working class women. It is not surprising then that in many of these agitations, the leading activists were women. ……….

Interview with comrade Gaurav

‘India doesn’t want Maoists to come to power in Nepal’

A senior Politburo member of the Maoists in Nepal and in-charge of international relations, CP Gajurel was until recently jailed in India. In Delhi for the first time as an overground leader, he speaks on what lies ahead he reveals further strategies of CPN(M).interview is taken by tehelka.

What is your understanding of what is happening in Nepal today?

Something remarkable has happened in Nepal. We have a situation in which probably for the first time a despotic monarchy is going to be overthrown by the ballot. Monarchies have always been overthrown through violent revolution, but in Nepal, because of the 10-year people’s war and the 19-day street rebellion last year, we have a situation where the monarchy is going to be dismantled by peaceful means. That is what we are trying to accelerate. And the struggle the Maoists waged has meant even the so-called mainstream political parties are now pushing for the removal of the monarchy. And it appears to me that India is supportive of that, although India seems to want the Maoists not to get the majority. India would rather have the other parties in a majority.

Why do you say that?

Because once the Maoists get the majority, India thinks that a genuine people’s republic will be created and India would not like that.

But are you saying this on the basis of something concrete?

I do not have any concrete proof of the Indian thinking but the political line of its establishment is very clear. This is true of the main parties both in government and the opposition. Initially, India supported the monarchy because it thought only the monarchy could suppress the Maoists, but the people of Nepal have changed all that and India has to recognise the new reality. But even then, India will want a convenient sort of republic.

What do you mean by that?………

Onwards to the First Conference of Anti-Displacement Front

Onwards to the First Conference
Anti-Displacement Front

March 22nd, 23rd 2007, Ranchi, Jharkhand

“Heaven is a forest of miles and miles of Mohua trees
And hell is a forest of miles and miles of Mohua trees with a forest guard in it.”

–A popular saying of the Muria Adivasi of Bastar, Chhattisgarh

Whatever contributes to assimilating people to Nature is a dangerous threat…At least that has been the lesson, of any discernible reading of the history of humankind. Here too, in the South Asian sub-continent, the experiences of the vast sections of the people have not been an exception. Specifically, after the advent of British colonialism…

Post-1947, there has hardly been any difference in the experiences of the people of the sub-continent. “If you are to suffer, you should suffer in the interest of our country”, this was what Jawaharlal Nehru asked thevillagers, while laying the foundation stone of the Hirakud dam in Sambalpur, Orissa. Hirakud, or the dam at Bhakra, Nehru termed these’temples of modern India’. Ever since then, through the years of the so-called ‘green revolution’, canal irrigation cultivation, introduction of cash crops and hybrid variety of seeds we have daily proof that we create our world against Nature for want of profit. That people are forced to be the mute recipients of this expropriation of wealth in the name of development; of creating a new world out of Nature that is useful for a few rich and powerful. Even the most conservative estimate of the Government of India in 1994, after lot of jugglery with statistics, had to admit that more than 10 million (1 crore) people are still to be rehabilitated displaced by dams, mines, deforestation and other ‘development projects’. ………

WILL THE COURT PUNISH THE RAPIST S.P?

A fact finding team of CAVOW and PUCL recently visited the Sarguja district of Chattisgarh and found gross voilations of democratic rights.To suppress the democratic movements of the tribals police is terrorising them. here is the press statement —

POLICE TERROR AND BRUTALITY IN SARGUJA DISTRICT

During investigations the team came across the shocking case of a tribal woman who was raped by the Superintend of Police in North Chhatisgadh. This happened after she tried to get her husband to surrender before the police. Her husbnad, who had come to surrender, was shot in front of her eyes and then she went through this prolonged ordeal of gangrape. Two pertinent questions come to mind? How genuine is the surrender policy for Naxalites? We say that one of the achievements of the women’s movement is to have the law amended regarding custodial rape? But where is the law for the women of the toiling classes? Description by Shoma Sen (Convener,CAVOW) —

WILL THE COURT PUNISH THE RAPIST S.P?

Anil (Student, MGAHV Wardha)

ILPS: martyrdom of Hrant Dink

Hrant Dink, martyred in the course of peoples’ struggle
for freedom of expression and thought!

On Friday January 19, 2007, Hrant Dink, a progressive journalist in Turkey was murdered by an assassin in front of his office in Istanbul. Hrant Dink,a militant defender of democratic rights and freedom was the general editorof the weekly Agos, and was of Armenian descent. He was a vocal and active defender of human rights and persistently opposed violations of the people’s rights by the authorities in Turkey. For his endeavours he was persecuted by the fascist regime and was hounded and vilified by the racist and the chauvinist media. On numerous occasions his life was threatened by fascist and reactionary thugs attached to the state. His brutal murder by the hands of an assassin adds to the list the crimes and atrocities of the fascist and chauvinist regime in Turkey that perpetuates racial hatred, bigotry and has a total disregard for all democratic rights and freedoms of its citizens.

The reactionary regime, whose history of crimes and atrocities includes ethnic cleansing and genocide of national minorities including Armenians and Kurdish people, by targeting democratic intellectuals and journalists such as Hrant Dink, hopes to incite racial hatred and reactionary violence. At the same time hide the fact that in Turkey, abuse and total disregard for human rights and the denial of freedom of expression and association extends to all progressive and democratically minded sections of society including those of Turkish, Armenian, Kurdish origin or any other national minority.It was only in September 2006 that over 170 progressive journalists, trade unionists and activists were rounded up across the country on trumped up charges by the authorities. Many of those continue to remain in custody and are not allowed to receive legal advice. ……………………..

No Displacement; No Rehabilitation; Only People’s Development

(The following is a press Note released in a Press Conference on 21^st Jan 2007 soon by the Anti- Displacement Conclave in Ranchi, Jharkhand attended by scores of organisations from several states)

Today the vast sections of the people have been subjected to the worst kind of socio-economic crisis in the name of development. Today more and more tribals, dalits, minorities and the poorest of the poor are brutally removed from their forests, fields, lands, homes and cultures. They are being evicted in thousands from their lives and livelihoods. The powerful imperialist forces and their lackeys in the sub-continent are on their bid to capture the natural resources and perpetrate ruthless exploitation of labour. The people are rendered defenceless in the process of the dreaded Ds–Displacement, Disorganisation, Destitution and Decimation.

It is at a time that the need to unite and bring together all the fighting forces at the ground level against all forms of displacement under a single platform was mooted. And hence this preparatory meeting being held in Ranchi on the 20, 2tst of January, 2007. In this meeting, representatives of organizations and individuals from various states such as Jharkhand, Bengal, Haryana, Orissa, Delhi, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh deliberated on the strategies to carry forward the movement against displacement at the sub-continent level. ‘No to Displacement in any form’, was the firm resolve of the Meet.

The loot of the Indian people started after the advent of British rule with the super-imposition of the principle of Eminent Domain that virtually extinguished the natural right of the communities over their habitat and livelihood. This imperialist paradigm continued even post-1947 and despite the adoption of a new constitution. The special provisions for recognition and honouring the tribal people’s right under the constitution has been blatantly ignored that has sharpened the resentment of the people against the exploitative state. ………………