PAKISTAN ON Ramp Despite Rampage, Classic Case Study in Free Market Democracy Promoted by US Corporate WAR Econmy Zionist!
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Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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- Category: Country
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- Capital: Islamabad
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announces Long March
The Awami Tahreek (Peoples Movement of the masses of Sindh) announces
46 days historical Long March 8th Oct to 22 Nov 2009 (from Kandhkot to
Karachi) for Autonomy, NFC, Water, Education and Resources and Rights of
Sindh and against Corruption, Lawlessness, Terrorism, Unemployment and
man-made Inflation. Prior to this mega event the annual central elections of
Awami Tahreek, shall be held on 28th September 2009 at Yesrab Hall
Qasimabad, Hyderabad, Sindh.
Awami Tehreek Long March
KARACHI: The Rasool Bux Palijo-led Awami Tahreek (AT) announced on
Friday that it would organise a long march in first week of October against the
alleged settlement of outsiders in the Sindh as well as other issues faced by
the province. AT President Abdul Qadir Ranto made this announcement while
addressing at a protest rally at the Karachi Press Club. A number of women
activists belonging to AT women wing Sindhyani Tahreek also participated in
the rally. Ranto said that the planned protest long march would begin from
Kandhkot and end in Karachi. "Besides settlement of outsiders in Sindh, the
party would also record its protest on other issues, including restraining Sindhi
students from admissions in educational institutions in Karachi and the
allotment of millions of acres of provincial land to non-Sindhi population," said
Ranto. Sindhyani Tahreek's Zahida Shaikh as well as AT's Abdul Hakeem
Halepoto, Hakim Zangejo, Mazhar Rahujo and others also spoke on the
occasion.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009%5C08%5C08%5Cstory
_8-8-2009_pg12_7
http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.1&thid=124c918a00ab61ff&mt=application%2Fpdf&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmail.google.com%2Fmail%2F%3Fui%3D2%26ik%3D9e0ec3292c%26view%3Datt%26th%3D124c918a00ab61ff%26attid%3D0.1%26disp%3Dattd%26realattid%3Df_g1othr3m0%26zw&sig=AHBy-ha73AMRaRk_9eIyKsy5ihEbTJ5bGQ&pli=1
Mushahid Hussain
Hillary Clinton's visit with a difference was probably the most significant event in Pakistan-American relations since the advent of President Barack Hussein Obama. She came, she saw, but while she did not quite conquer the "hearts and minds" of Pakistanis, Hillary at least earned their grudging admiration. She showed more guts than the bunkered-up Pakistan rulers, who refuse to leave the comfort and safety of their "5-star prisons" in Islamabad.
Unlike the aloof and abrasive Holbrooke, Hillary reached out to the "real" Pakistan. She got a peep into the emerging Pakistani society -- dynamic, vibrant, outspoken and self-confident. She seemed taken aback, used as visiting high-level Americans are to a sanitised Islamabad, where the officially-certified truth of the fawning ruling elite links sycophancy and servility to their self-perpetuation.
A profile of this "new" Pakistan is instructive, with three key ingredients. First, while the "old" Pakistan was politically a "one-window operation" -- monolithic and centrally-guided -- today's multiple power centres go beyond the military-security Establishment or the traditional political elite, and these now include the fiercely-independent media, an assertive civil society, confident young men and women with faith in their country's future, and a free judiciary that for the first time is truly an autonomous player.
Second, in contrast to the "old" Pakistan where the political elite was united in its belief that the road to Islamabad lies through Washington, the "new" Pakistan has little time for 'business-as-usual' political shenanigans, an absence of fear of power and authority, and no "Holy Cows."
Third, there is a broad popular consensus woven around a rejection of the mediaeval mindset and terrorism of the extremists, the corruption and capitulation of the ruling elite, and the hubris and diktat emanating from Washington.
While Pakistan's fourth flirtation with the United States goes through its predictable course of romance-disillusionment-distance, there is some good news and bad news regarding Washington's Afghanistan policy. First, the good news. Unlike Lyndon Johnson and George W Bush, Barack Hussein Obama is not allowing his generals to lead him to "Vietnamistan," as critics are calling the escalation in Afghanistan. As seven meetings of his "war council" demonstrate, Obama has bid goodbye to the non-starter that was his "Af-Pak" strategy. The smart politician that he is, Obama would not want his presidency to sink in the mountains of the Hindukush, hence the "review and reflect" mould.
But the bad news is that the Obama administration remains clueless on Pakistan and Afghanistan. They know what they don't want to do -- not escalate to such an extent that the US will end up facing another quagmire. But they still don't know what they should be doing or how to go about it.
After "Afpak" is dead and hopefully buried, here's what Pakistan should tell Washington on how to go about a doable strategy:
-- Trust Pakistan as an ally, and treat Pakistanis with the respect and dignity they deserve. After all, they have the highest stakes and suffered the most as the "eye of the storm" since the 30-year unrelenting war in Afghanistan (attempts at encouraging a civil-military divide amongst "good" and "bad" Pakistanis won't work);
-- Don't make Afghan policy hostage to a failed and flawed ruler in Kabul, who neither has credibility nor any legitimacy. Cobble together a government of national unity in Afghanistan, and do it quickly. Karzai today is just another Babrak Karmal;
-- Stop treating terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan as only a "Pakhtun problem." The Pakhtuns, on either side of the Durand Line, are suffering the most. They have faced death, destruction and displacement with fortitude. The Pakhtuns are the most hardworking of the ethnic groups living in Pakistan, with a deeply democratic and egalitarian ethos. During a conference at NATO headquarters in July 2007, Khalid Pashtoon, an Afghan MP from Kandahar, told the gathering that notwithstanding tall clams of expansion of the Afghan National Army (ANA), representation of Pakhtuns from the troubled southeastern Afghanistan in the ANA was still less than 1 percent;
-- Remember, the road to stability in Kabul now lies through Pakistan, so its security and strengthening should be paramount, not the other way around. Pakistan, with a functioning, modern, state infrastructure, is doable with greater intelligence coordination and fashioning of a fresh, comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy, which the country still lacks. American-style "nation-building" in Afghanistan is not doable.
"Af-Pak" lies buried for a combination of reasons. It was cobbled together in a hurry based on certain assumptions, notably a distrust of Pakistan military-security establishment's intentions regarding extremism, and confidence in the Kabul administration's ability to serve as an anchor of US political strategy in Afghanistan. Both have been disproved by subsequent developments.
Much has happened in the region since then. Pakistanis have demonstrated unprecedented resolve, unity and determination to protect the vision of their Founding Fathers regarding their country, as the successful military operations in Swat-Malakand and South Waziristan demonstrate. The US now has no political prop to its military strategy, especially after the disastrous election fiasco in Afghanistan.
There has been the first official interaction between the Indian government and the ISI, and a softening of the Indian stance on Kashmir, with a renewed willingness to "talk to all, without preconditions." This change of heart in New Delhi is partly premised on a fear of the resurgent Maoists (who now influence 20 of India's 29 states) and on the fiery polemics between China and India, the first such strident exchange in 30 years.
For the future, three core areas of distrust and conflict remain in Pakistani-American relations. And unless these are resolved by the Obama administration, neither the bilateral relationship nor any US strategy in Afghanistan will succeed.
First, the two sides view their enemies differently -- the US does not view our enemies within as their foes nor do we view their adversaries in Afghanistan as our threats. Hence, a mutual lack of cooperation in tackling each other's enemies, whose most recent manifestation was the US/NATO forces in Afghanistan timing the closure of check posts on their side with the Pakistan strike in Waziristan.
Second, India and its role in Afghanistan are viewed differently in Islamabad and Washington, with the latter brushing aside Pakistani concerns and taking no interest or measures to stop the growing proxy war between the two rivals in Afghanistan.
Third, the US views the Pakistan military and security services essentially in an adversarial light, to be contained, controlled and "cut down to size." Washington conveniently overlooks the fact that the main threat to the democratic dispensation is not from any budding Bonapartists waiting in the wings, but from the same reasons – "bad governance and increasing corruption" -- that Obama mentioned in his stern phone call to Karzai on Nov 2. These issues, vital for Pakistan's stability and democracy, were in the original Biden-Lugar bill, but are strangely missing from the final legislation, for reasons best known to Washington.
Irrespective of what Obama decides for Afghanistan, the Pakistani state is already in the process of reinventing itself, a process that has been hurt by US ignorance and arrogance regarding its much-maligned ally. The challenge for Obama is to fashion a Pakistan policy that matches the new realities in the region, rather than reflecting an old, outmoded mindset.
The writer is a senator and senior political analyst. Email: mushahid. hussain@gmail.com
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=20680
Dhu al-Qi'dah 14, 1430 A.H, November 02, 2009
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
Source and Author Unknown
In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate
The Americans follow contradicting programs in Afghanistan. These contradictions have greatly contributed to the chaos and corruption now rampant in the country. After invasion in 2001, Americans announced the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reconstruction (DDR) program which was aimed at encouraging former warlords and gunmen to surrender their arms for cash incentives, employment opportunities and vocational training. After a time, they left the program uncompleted, and opted to raise their own militias under the name of Campaign and Security Guards.
These so-called security guards escort American and other NATO member countries military and logistical convoys from one province to another, particularly to Uruzgan, Helmand, Farah and other provinces in the south. Some militias are used to detain suspected Afghans.
Recently, New York Times disclosed that following the American invasion of Afghanistan, Wali Karzai created the Kandahar Task Force which is involved in various human rights violations.
According to the Times Weekly, Wali Karzai frequently used the Kandahar Task Force against his opponents and on one occasion, they killed police chief of Kandahar province. Similarly, Americans pay tens of millions of dollars to private militia annually for escorting their convoys.
The private militias extort money from common people and levy agricultural tax on farmers named Ushar. They are involved in burglary, kidnapping and other unscrupulous activities. All these are overlooked by the invaders as the militia support them in their fight against so-called terrorism.
Applying The Sons of Iraq replica to Afghanistan, the invading Americans have created militia from among the Afghan minorities in the north of the country. Recently, they created such militia in Qazal Qila and appointed a Turkmen as commander. The Turkmen and Uzbek are ethnical minorities and their militias are notoriously known for human rights violations during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.
To many observers who closely monitor developments in Afghanistan, these moves by the invading Americans can be part of plan dubbed as Chaostan, which was unveiled by Mc Crystal, American top commander in Afghanistan during his recent speech in London. According to this plan, the Americans want to create chaos in Afghanistan by plunging the country into geographical, racial and religious fighting once again.
Mullah Brader Akhund, Deputy-Amir of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in one of his interviews said that Mujahideen had captured several groups of armed men who were involved in destroying schools and bridges. They admitted that they were paid by foreign intelligence agencies to do so. In this year Eid ul Fitre message, the Amir ul Momineen, Mullah Omar Mujahid instructed all Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate to disarm armed groups who are involved in encroachment on people's life, property and honor on the provocation of the enemy.
Similarly, the bomb blasts in congested places, which have killed hundreds of innocent civilians, is of great concern to the Mujahideen and the Afghan people. This year in the holy month of Ramadan, a bomb went off in Kandahar just at the time when people were to break their fast. More than 50 people were killed in the explosion.
The Islamic Emirate denied having hand in the explosion and condemned it as a horrendous and despicable event. Later Dawa Khan Mina pal, a Radio Liberty reporter was detained by police of the Kabul puppet regime when he was trying to investigate the blast to find out who were behind this gruesome event.
Many observers agree that foreign intelligence agencies are involved in anti-human activities to malign the good name of the armed Mujahideen who are fighting Americans and other forces of the NATO member countries. Recently, the Afghan surrogate president Karzai complained in a press conference that unknown helicopters were airdropping armed men in the north.
According to him, these armed men disturb peace and security there. But Mujahideen in the area say, the foreign invaders airdrop the militia there to target Mujahideen hide-outs during the night and they also attack ethnically sensitive areas in order to provoke racial fighting.
The Americans think, by doing so, they can justify the presence of their troops and enlist supporters from among Afghan minorities against Taliban. These hidden agendas are driving our country into an unknown direction. Unequivocally, the foreign military presence in Afghanistan is part of the Afghan problem.
The more they stay in our country, the more, they will plunge our country into chaos and uncertainly. The only solution is that the invaders leave Afghanistan and let the Afghans to form an Islamic government where people from all ethnicities can participate in the government making on the basis of their talent and services to the people. This will vault out the country from the current vortex of conspiracies and ensure peace and stability in Afghanistan and the whole region.
| Pak on ramp, despite rampage | ||
| NASIR JAFFRY | ||
Islamabad, Nov. 6: The big names from the West refused to come and the event had to be pushed back by over a fortnight after a chain of terrorist attacks, but Pakistan still managed to unveil its second fashion week. The four-day event — the last was held in 2005 — was scheduled to start on October 15 but started on November 4. Ayesha Tehmina, the chief executive officer of Fashion Pakistan, said in Karachi that security fears and over 300 deaths in a series of suicide attacks and explosions in October had rattled the industry. "Fashion Pakistan, which has organised the event, has invited 32 designers from across the country," said Tehmina Khalid, a spokeswoman for the organisers, adding that designers and models were not coming from abroad because of security reasons. The Marriott hotel in Karachi, the venue, falls in a red security zone and has been heavily guarded since the fashion week began. The event is part of Fashion Pakistan's objective to encourage and promote the fledgling industry that struggled for four years to put together this fashion week. Karachi is known as one of Pakistan's more fashionable cities. The first fashion week in 2005 was dubbed a success, though the industry has no figures recording sales. Fashion shows and events have been organised in Pakistan for the past few years. Several small shows are held every year by individual designers. Fahad Hussain, a young designer, said the event was nothing less than a treat for him and he was delighted to see the "lovely amalgam" of East and West, which is the basic philosophy of his designs. Pakistan's top designers Sonya Batla, Imbias, Aeisha Varsey, Fahad Hussain and Shameel Ansari marked the opening with low necklines and slim-fits, though the skin show was understandably restrained. No Islamic organisation has issued an edict against the fashion week yet. Pakistani celebrities, TV and sports stars as well as politicians buy the creations of Tariq Jamshed, Freiha Altaf, Deepak Perwani, Imbias, Maheen Karim, Junaid Jamshed, Nadya Mistri and many others. The Pakistani media too have promoted the event. English-language papers like Daily Times, The News, The Nation and Dawn have separate Sunday editions dedicated to fashion and new trends. Most private TV channels have telecast shows on the fashion week. |
| Wars pierce heart of US army - Battlefield-set doctor kills 13 in texas base | ||
Texas, Nov. 6: An army psychiatrist facing deployment to one of America's war zones has killed 13 people in the largest active duty military post in the US in the worst mass shootings ever at a base in the country. Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the suspected gunman of West Asian descent, has been shot four times and is on ventilator in a hospital after the rampage at the Fort Hood army post in central Texas. Of those killed, one was a civilian and 12 were soldiers. Less than 24 hours later, another shooting struck an office building in Florida. At least eight people were injured but local media said two were killed. ( ) Hasan, 39, was about to be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, and shouted "Allahu Akbar" before opening fire, a witness said. Clad in a military uniform and firing an automatic pistol and another weapon, Hasan, a balding, chubby-faced man with heavy eyebrows, sprayed bullets inside a crowded medical processing centre for soldiers returning from or about to be sent overseas. The victims were cut down in clusters, officials said. Witnesses told military investigators that when the gunfire stopped, soldiers schooled in battlefield medicine ripped their clothes to make tourniquets and bandages. Sirens typically used to warn of tornadoes sweeping across the plains alerted residents, schools locked down and the Fort Hood community struggled to understand what had just happened. Fort Hood, named after a general and 160km south of Dallas-Fort Worth, is a virtual city for more than 50,000 military personnel and 150,000 family members and civilian support personnel. It has been a major centre for troops being deployed to or returning from service in Iraq and Afghanistan and is considered one of the safest places in the world. A woman police officer is being credited with stopping the shooting rampage. Responding within three minutes of an alert, Fort Hood police sergeant Kimberly Munley shot the gunman four times despite being shot herself. Munley's condition is said to be stable. Born and reared in Virginia, the son of immigrant parents from either Jordan or Palestine, Hasan joined the US Army right out of high school, against his parents' wishes. Military records indicated that Hasan was single, had never served abroad and listed "no religious preference" on his personnel records. Fox News quoted a retired army colonel, Terry Lee, as saying that Hasan, with whom he worked, had voiced hope that President Barack Obama would pull American troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, had argued with military colleagues who supported the wars and had tried to prevent his own deployment. Obama called the shootings "a horrific outburst of violence" and urged Americans to pray for those who were killed or wounded. The Muslim Public Affairs Council, speaking for many American Muslims, condemned the shootings as a "heinous incident" and said: "We share the sentiment of our President." | ||
| NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE AND AGENCIES |
| India and EU sign nuke pact |
| OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT |
| New Delhi, Nov. 6: India and the European Union today signed a pact on a nuclear energy project and decided to conclude their long-delayed free trade treaty by next year. The two sides also agreed to expand cooperation in countering terrorism by speeding up negotiations between Europol, the EU's top criminal intelligence organisation, and Indian agencies. The agreements followed talks at the 10th India-EU summit here between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and leaders of the 27-member bloc. The EU team included Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country currently heads the rotating EU presidency, and European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso. India will participate in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project. The project on fusion energy is said to be the costliest experiment of its kind costing 10 billion euros (around Rs 70,000 crore). The first reactor is expected to be ready in Cadarche, France, by 2016. The pact was signed by Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU's external relations commissioner who represented the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). The discussions between Singh and the EU leaders covered a broad spectrum of issues, including the global financial crisis, energy security, climate change, trade and counter-terrorism. The situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan also came up. On terror, Swedish Premier Reinfeldt said: "India and the EU stand together in combating terrorism, which is a serious threat to international peace and security." Trade was also high on the list. It was decided that the talks for a free-trade pact, launched in 2007, should be wrapped up next year. |
| 'Outsider' jab, this time from Chauhan | ||
| OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT | ||
Bhopal, Nov. 6: People from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are not welcome in Madhya Pradesh. Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan today did a Raj Thackeray and declared that he would not allow "outsiders" and "people from Bihar" to work in the state. The statement from the normally temperate BJP leader, made at a poverty alleviation programme in Satna, over 500km from here, sent shockwaves through political circles and civil society. "Yeh kaise ho sakta hai ki Satna mein factory lage aur doosre rajya ke log kaam karen (How is it possible that a factory is set up in Satna and persons from other states come and work here)?" "I will ask all private companies not to hire labour from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh," he added, the ominous statement echoing Raj Thackeray, the north Indian-baiter leader of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. The 51-year Chauhan, who took over as chief minister in 2005, is not known for making hawkish or belligerent statements, his tenure being marked by fewer communal disturbances. Chauhan is himself never short of harping on the theme of harmony and inclusiveness. Late tonight, the chief minister clarified he did not intend to hurt anyone. The Congress, trying to claw its way back into the state, was quick to pounce on the chief minister. State Congress chief Suresh Pachauri said: "It is a shocking remark coming from a person who is holding a responsible post in public life. I ask the BJP central leadership to come clean on it. Do they endorse his views or intend to act against him?" BJP insiders sought to underplay Chauhan's remarks. A senior party functionary said the chief minister's statement should be seen in the context of economic backwardness in Satna and other parts of Rewanchal. "What he (Chauhan) implied was that there are too many unemployed youths who should be hired to work in local mines and cement plants," said a source. Pachauri, however, scoffed at the explanation. "Surely there are better ways of articulating it. He could have said that industries should give preference to local youths. But naming persons of a particular state is blatantly wrong, politically incorrect and speaks of the mindset," the former Union minister said. The statement has left Bihar leaders fuming. RJD chief Lalu Prasad took a jab at Chauhan, claiming the chief minister had lost his mental balance. "Not only that, what he has said is unconstitutional," Lalu Prasad said, asserting that Indian citizens have a right to work in any state. The Lok Janshakti Party's Ram Vilas Paswan, an ally of Lalu Prasad, demanded Chauhan's resignation. A section of BJP leaders in Madhya Pradesh, who did not wish to go on record, said more than Raj Thackeray, Chauhan seemed to be parroting Gujarat's Narendra Modi. Although Modi has never sought to discourage labourers from other states, he has been a strong votary of "Gujarat for Gujaratis" and Gujarati pride. "The sub-text in Chauhan's remark is that locals in Madhya Pradesh should get precedence over all resources, including work opportunities," said a BJP source. |
| Dhaka 'sends' Ulfa leaders |
| OUR BUREAU |
| Nov. 6: Police sources tonight said two senior Ulfa leaders had been "pushed" into India from Bangladesh, a bilateral breakthrough that skirts the absence of an extradition treaty and stands out in sharp contrast with the attitude of Pakistan towards fugitive extremists. The police sources in Agartala said Ulfa "finance secretary" Chitrabon Hazarika and "foreign secretary" Sasha Choudhury, who the banned outfit said had been picked up from their Dhaka home, were "pushed into" India on Wednesday through the Tripura section of the Indo-Bangla border. The sources said this was the first time militants belonging to any Indian insurgent outfit had been sent back by Bangladesh where they have allegedly found a haven for over two decades now. Dhaka's effort is being seen as "a gesture of goodwill" ahead of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's scheduled visit to India next month. The sources said the border thrust was the only way to send back the two Ulfa leaders as the neighbouring countries did not have an extradition treaty. They cited the instance of Ulfa general secretary Anup Chetia who was arrested in Dhaka in 1997 but could not be deported to India in the absence of a treaty. After the pushback, the two leaders were kept in the Gokul Nagar BSF camp, 20km south of Agartala town. "The duo were later taken out of Agartala under security cover today," a source said, without naming the destination. The two — said to be part of the Ulfa "think tank" — are wanted in Assam on charges of sedition. Assam government sources said arrangements were being made to take the two to the state. Officially, however, both India and Bangladesh are keeping silent, given the delicate nature of the issue. Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi said he had no "confirmed" information on the whereabouts of the Ulfa leaders. In an email, Ulfa had pleaded with the Bangladesh government to prevent the two leaders' handover. Chitrabon is the husband of jailed Ulfa central publicity secretary Pranati Deka. Both he and Sasha are in their late forties. |
| Noam Chomsky: No Change in US 'Mafia Principle' |
| Chomsky: 'It is wise to attend to deeds, not rhetoric' |
By Mamoon Alabbasi – London
As people across the world breathed a sigh of relief to see the back of former US president George W. Bush, top American intellectual Noam Chomsky warned against assuming or expecting significant changes in the basis of Washington's foreign policy under President Barack Obama.
During two lectures organized by the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, Chomsky cited numerous examples of the driving doctrines behind US foreign policy since the end of World War II.
"As Obama came into office, Condoleezza Rice predicted that he would follow the policies of Bush's second term, and that is pretty much what happened, apart from a different rhetorical style," said Chomsky. "But it is wise to attend to deeds, not rhetoric. Deeds commonly tell a different story," he added.
"There is basically no significant change in the fundamental traditional conception that we if can control Middle East energy resources, then we can control the world," explained Chomsky.
Chomsky said that a leading doctrine of US foreign policy during the period of its global dominance is what he termed as "the Mafia principle."
"The Godfather does not tolerate 'successful defiance'. It is too dangerous. It must therefore be stamped out so that others understand that disobedience is not an option," said Chomsky.
Because the US sees "successful defiance" of Washington as a "virus" that will "spread contagion," he explained.
Iran
The US had feared this "virus" of independent thought from Washington by Tehran and therefore acted to overthrow the Iranian parliamentary democracy in 1953.
"The goal in 1953 was to retain control of Iranian resources," said Chomsky.
However, "in 1979 the (Iranian) virus emerged again. The US at first sought to sponsor a military coup; when that failed, it turned to support Saddam Hussein's merciless invasion (of Iran)."
"The torture of Iran continued without a break and still does, with sanctions and other means," said Chomsky.
"The US continued, without a break, its torture of Iranians," he stressed.
Nuclear Attack
Chomsky mocked the idea presented by mainstream media that a future-nuclear-armed Iran may attack already-nuclear-armed Israel.
"The chance of Iran launching a missile attack, nuclear or not, is about at the level of an asteroid hitting the earth -- unless, of course, the ruling clerics have a fanatic death wish and want to see Iran instantly incinerated along with them," said Chomsky, stressing that this is not the case.
Chomsky further explained that the presence of US anti-missile weapons in Israel are really meant for preparing a possible attack on Iran, and not for self-defence, as it is often presented.
"The systems are advertised as defense against an Iranian attack. But ...the purpose of the US interception systems, if they ever work, is to prevent any retaliation to a US or Israeli attack on Iran -- that is, to eliminate any Iranian deterrent," said Chomsky.
Iraq
Chomsky reminded the audience of America's backing of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein during and even after Iraq's war with Iran.
"The Reaganite love affair with Saddam did not end after the (Iran-Iraq) war. In 1989, Iraqi nuclear engineers were invited to the United States, then under Gorge Bush I, to receive advanced weapons' training," said Chomsky.
This support continued while Saddam was committing atrocities against Iraqis, until he fell out of US favour when in 1990 he invaded Kuwait, an even closer alley of Washington.
"In 1990, Saddam defied, or more likely misunderstood orders, and he quickly shifted from favourite friend to the reincarnation of Hitler," Chomsky added.
Then the people of Iraq were subjected to "genocidal" US-backed sanctions.
Chomsky explained that although the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was launched under many false pretexts and lies, was a "major crime", many critics of the invasion - including Obama - viewed it as merely as "a mistake" or a "strategic blunder".
"It's probably what the German general staff was telling Hitler after Stalingrad," he said
"There's nothing principled about it. It wasn't a strategic blunder: it was a major crime," he added.
Chomsky credited the holding of elections in Iraq in 2005 to popular Iraqi demand, despite initial US objection.
The US military, he argued, could kill as many Iraqi insurgents as it wished, but it was more difficult to shoot at non-violent protesters in the streets out on the open, which meant Washington at times had to give in to public Iraqi pressure.
But despite being pressured to announce a withdrawal from Iraq, the US continues to seek a long term presence in the country.
The US mega-embassy in Baghdad is to be expanded under Obama, noted Chomsky.
Optimism
Chomsky stressed that public pressure in the 'West' can make a positive difference for people suffering from the aggression of 'Western' governments.
"There is a lot of comparison between opposition to the Iraq war with opposition to the Vietnam war, but people tend to forget that at first there was almost no opposition to the Vietnam war," said Chomsky.
"In the Iraq war, there were massive international protests before it officially stated... and it had an effect. The United Sates could not use the tactics used in Vietnam: there was no saturation bombing by B52s, so there was no chemical warfare - (the Iraq war was) horrible enough, but it could have been a lot worse," he said.
"And furthermore, the Bush administration had to back down on its war aims, step by step," he added.
"It had to allow elections, which it did not want to do: mainly a victory for non-Iraqi protests. They could kill insurgents; they couldn't deal hundreds of thousands of people in the streets. Their hands were tied by the domestic constraints. They finally had to abandon - officially at least - virtually all the war aims," said Chomsky.
"As late as November 2007, the US was still insisting that the 'Status of Forces Agreement' allow for an indefinite US military presence and privileged access to Iraq's resources by US investors - well they didn't get that on paper at least. They had to back down. OK, Iraq is a horror story but it could have been a lot worse," he said
"So yes, protests can do something. When there is no protest and no attention, a power just goes wild, just like in Cambodia and northern Louse," he added.
Turkey
Chomsky said that Turkey could become a "significant independent actor" in the region, if it chooses to.
"Turkey has to make some internal decisions: is it going to face west and try to get accepted by the European Union or is it going to face reality and recognise that Europeans are so racist that they are never going to allow it in?," said Chomsky.
The Europeans "keep raising the barrier on Turkish entry to the EU," he explained.
But Chomsky said Turkey did become an independent actor in March 2003 when it followed its public opinion and did not take part in the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Turkey took notice of the wishes of the overwhelming majority of its population, which opposed the invasion.
But 'New Europe' was led by Berlusconi of Italy and Aznar of Spain, who rejected the views of their populations - which strongly objected to the Iraq war - and preferred to follow Bush, noted Chomsky.
So, in that sense Turkey was more democratic than states that took part in the war, which in turn infuriated the US.
Today, Chomsky added, Turkey is also acting independently by refusing to take part in the US-Israeli military exercises.
Fear Factor
Chomsky explained that although 'Western' government use "the maxim of Thucydides" ('the strong do as they wish, and the weak suffer as they must'), their peoples are hurled via the "fear factor".
Via cooperate media and complicit intellectuals, the public is led to believe that all the crimes and atrocities committed by their governments is either "self defence" or "humanitarian intervention".
NATO
Chomsky noted that Obama has escalated Bush's war in Afghanistan, using NATO.
NATO is also seen as reinforcing US control over energy supplies.
But the US also used NATO to keep Europe under control.
"From the earliest post-World War days, it was understood that Western Europe might choose to follow an independent course," said Chomsky. "NATO was partially intended to counter this serious threat," he added.
Middle East Oil
Chomsky explained that Middle East oil reserves were understood to be "a stupendous source of strategic power" and "one of the greatest material prizes in world history," the most "strategically important area in the world," in Eisenhower's words.
Control of Middle East oil would provide the United States with "substantial control of the world."
This meant that the US "must support harsh and brutal regimes and block democracy and development" in the Middle East.
Somalia
Chomsky tackled the origins of the Somali piracy issue.
"Piracy is not nice, but where did it come from?"
Chomsky explained that one of the immediate reasons for piracy is European counties and others are simply "destroying Somalia's territorial waters by dumping toxic waste - probably nuclear waste - and also by overfishing."
"What happens to the fishermen in Somalia? They become pirates. And then we're all upset about the piracy, not about having created the situation," said Chomsky.
Chomsky went on to cite another example of harming Somalia.
"One of the great achievements of the war on terror, which was greatly hailed in the press when it was announced, was closing down an Islamic charity - Barakat - which was identified as supporting terrorists.
"A couple of months later... the (US) government quietly recognised that they were wrong, and the press may have had a couple of lines about it - but meanwhile, it was a major blow against Somalia. Somalia doesn't have much of an economy but a lot of it was supported by this charity: not just giving money but running banks and businesses, and so on.
"It was a significant part of the economy of Somalia...closing it down... was another contributing factor to the breaking down of a very weak society...and there are other examples."
Darfur
Chomsky also touched on Sudan's Darfur region.
"There are terrible things going on in Darfur, but in comparison with the region they don't amount to a lot unfortunately - like what's going on in eastern Congo is incomparably worse than in Darfur.
"But Darfur is a very popular topic for Western humanists because you can blame it on an enemy - you have to distort a lot but you can blame it on 'Arabs', 'bad guys'," he explained.
"What about saving eastern Cong where maybe 20 times as many people have been killed? Well, that gets kind of tricky ... for people who... are using minerals from eastern Congo that obtained by multinationals sponsoring militias which slaughter and kill and get the minerals," he said.
Or the fact that Rwanda is simply the worst of the many agents and it is a US alley, he added.
Goldstone's Gaza Report
Chomsky appeared to have agreed with Israel that the Goldstone report on the Gaza war was bias, only he saw it as biased in favour of Israel.
The Goldstone report had acknowledged Israel's right to self-defence, although it denounced the method this was conducted.
Chomsky stressed that the right to self-defence does not mean resorting to military force before "exhausting peaceful means", something Israel did not even contemplate doing.
In fact, Chomsky points out, it was Israel who broke the ceasefire with Hamas and refused to extend it, as continuing the siege of Gaza itself is an act of war.
As for the current stalled Mideast peace process, Chomsky said that despite adopting a tougher tone towards Israel than that of Bush, Obama made no real effort to pressure Israel to live up to its obligations.
In the absence of the threat of cutting US aid for Israel, there is no compelling reason why Tel Aviv should listen to Washington.
What Can Be Done?
Chomsky stressed that despite all the obstacles, public pressure can and does make a difference for the better, urging people to continue activism and spreading knowledge.
"There is no reason to be pessimistic, just realistic."
Chomsky noted that public opinion in the US and Britain is increasingly becoming more aware of the crimes committed by Israel.
"Public opinion is shifting substantially."
And this is where a difference can be made, because Israel will not change its policies without pressure from the 'West'.
"There is a lot to do in Western countries...primarily in the US."
Chomsky also stressed the importance of taking legal action in 'Western' countries against companies breaking international law via illegitimate dealings with Israel, citing the possible involvement of British Gas in Israeli theft of natural gas off the coast of Gaza, as one example that should be investigated.
In conclusion of one of the lectures, Chomsky quoted Antonio Gramsci who famously called for "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will."
- Mamoon Alabbasi contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.
With the ongoing P5+1 negotiations taking place between Iran, the United States and other members of that group, much of the world's attention has been focused on Iran's nuclear program. The Obama Administration has made clear that it would like to pursue the path of dialogue and diplomacy in order to win broad international support to resolve the standoff with Tehran. Meanwhile, lawmakers from both chambers of Congress have proposed a wide array of new unilateral sanctions to be imposed against the Islamic Republic of Iran. The procession of such sanctions legislation has drawn wide bipartisan support, an indication that passage of such legislation may be easily achieved.
Iranian Americans Gather in Support of Governor O'Malley of MarylandNovember 6, 2009, Washington, D.C. - Nearly seventy-five guests were in attendance at a private reception on October 29th in support of Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley. The event, which was graciously hosted at the home of Dadi and Farinaz Akhavan, served to introduce Iranian American Marylanders to the Governor and to bring their thoughts and concerns to his attention. Also present at this event was Maryland's Lt. Governor Anthony Brown. 2009 National Survey of Iranian Americans To Be Released Next WeekViews of Iranian Americans Relating to Recent Developments in Iran Explored New House Resolution Supports Iran's "Green Revolution"
November 6, 2009 – Iranian American Perspectives on IranPresenting the next in a series of compilations of the perspectives and analyses of a number of Iranian American experts concerning recent developments in Iran. Author Morteza Baharloo Becomes the First Iranian American to Join the Board of the Asian American Writers' WorkshopNovember 6, 2009, Washington, DC – The Asian American Writers' Workshop, one of the most prominent Asian American groups in the country, announced the confirmation of Morteza Baharloo to its board. Baharloo is the author of the novel The Quince Seed Potion and is the first Iranian American to join the Workshop's board. Click here to read more PAAIA seeking a qualified U.S. citizen for the position of Executive DirectorPAAIA is a non-partisan, nonsectarian national organization focused on creating a networked, cohesive IA community and projecting an accurate image that underscores the vibrancy, accomplishments, and contributions of Iranian Americans to life in American. PAAIA also seeks to build an influential community voice by promoting the participation of IAs in all spheres of American political life, including supporting their election or appointment as public officials.
| APPLICANTS FOR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR POSITION ► Join PAAIA Today! |
From: FRONTLINE
1 Volume 26 - Issue 22 :: Oct. 24-Nov. 06, 2009 INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE from the publishers of THE HINDU
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`To establish a liberated area':
Interview with Koteswar Rao, CPI (Maoist) underground leader.
SUHRID SANKAR CHATTOPADHYAY
KOTESWAR RAO, alias Kishenji, is a politburo member of the banned CPI (Maoist) and is in charge of the party‟s operations in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and Orissa. He was drawn into the revolutionary movement when he was doing his B.Sc. (Mathematics) in Karimnagar, Andhra Pradesh. He became a full-time member of the CPI-ML (People‟s War) in 1974.
"We plan to spread our movement to north Bengal, the plains of Bihar, the central districts of Orissa and eastern Chhattisgarh," he told Frontline in an exclusive telephonic interview in which he talked about the Lalgarh movement, the Maoist programme of individual killings and future plans of the Maoist movement. Excerpts:
Do you think the movement in Lalgarh is the fallout of the Singur and Nandigram movements rather than a heritage of the Naxalbari movement?
The movement in Lalgarh is the fallout of the Naxalbari movement, but the movements in Nandigram and Singur also had an impact on the Lalgarh movement and the people of Lalgarh. Such a long and sustained movement on a political issue has never taken place in the history of independent India. The main reason for this is the increase in political awareness among the masses.
At the same time, there is, on the one hand, a worldwide economic crisis and, on the other, Indian multinationals seizing the land and property of the common people. These, too, had a role to play in the eruption in Lalgarh.
And of course the Nandigram and Singur agitations, in which we were also present, are certainly big factors. At present, it is not possible to carry out just a peaceful agitation in West Bengal; along with peaceful agitations there must be huge rallies and meetings involving the direct participation of thousands of people.
There is a view that the Lalgarh movement is a spontaneous tribal movement that became so big that the CPI (Maoist) had to get on to it or be left behind. Your comments.
It is not as if we started doing our groundwork in the region yesterday; we have been doing our groundwork for a long time. The Maoist role and leadership in the area has been a continuous process. But, at the same time, the PCPA [People‟s Committee against Police Atrocities] and the Maoist movement are not the same, and it would be incorrect to say that the people of the region have been influenced only by Maoists; they have been very much influenced by the PCPA, too.
2
But if there were no arrests following the assassination attempt on Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on November 2 last year, would you have been able to build such a strong movement?
Not something like this. It would have developed in a slow process. But the reaction of the people worked to our advantage – much more than it did in Nandigram or Singur. We didn‟t have any demand other than that the police apologise to the people, but the State government did not agree to it. We were left with few options.
Did you at any point think that the movement might not need you?
Yes, I did. We expected a movement after November 2, but nothing so big. I expected the strength of the movement to be around 50 per cent of what it eventually became. But the movement itself has undergone a qualitative change over the months. Earlier, when the villagers protested, they assembled in large numbers with their traditional bows and arrows. Then the combined forces entered the region and many villagers fled.
Subsequently, they all returned and now they are not fleeing anywhere. They are standing their own ground and collecting weapons to strike back. So tell me, where do you think this spirit to retaliate is coming from? Whom do you think the villagers are supporting now?
In 2007, it was decided that the CPI (Maoist) would broad-base its activities and not focus only on individual killings like the earlier naxalite movement. But Maoist killings are being reported almost every other day. So in what way is it different from the old programme?
At that time, annihilation of the class enemy was the only form adopted to bring about the revolution. We have changed that. We say that annihilation is one of the forms. This was not invented by Maoists; we have seen in history that the masses have always allowed it. To us, annihilation is one aspect of our total movement.
It was not a regular feature earlier as you claim. It became a regular feature only after the combined forces entered the region. If you recollect, before the deployment of Central forces, we held a Jana Adalat [people‟s court] for 30 CPI(M) people in Madhupur [near Lalgarh].
More than 12,000 villagers attended the trial. The public wanted the death sentence for 13 of those under trial. But Bikas [the Maoist commander of operations in Lalgarh], after hours of persuasion, finally managed to convince the public that the time was not right to mete out such a punishment. Finally, the public agreed that those 13 people be just made to wear garlands of chappals and apologise. The other killings took place only after continued disregard of repeated warnings that were sent to the victims both by us and by the people of the region.
The victims were not just police informers, they practically marched with the combined forces. It is not that we killed only CPI(M) people, we killed members of the Jharkhand Party, too, for helping the combined forces and for joining the Gana Pratirodh [People‟s Resistance] Committee; and I would also like to add that there is no difference between the Salwa Judum and the Gana Pratirodh Committee.
We killed the main leaders of the committee. Of the six main leaders of the Gana Pratirodh Committee, three were from the CPI(M) and three from the Jharkhand Party. Here again, we killed them after repeatedly requesting them to desist from forming such a committee. They did not listen to us and we had no other alternative.
3
The annihilation policy of old and what we do today are not the same. Along with individual assassinations, there are also other forms of actions that we undertake – different kinds of mass movements, social boycotts of culprits, and various developmental works.
In fact, recently, in Shankabanga village [in Purbo Medhinipur], we dug a seven-kilometre canal for irrigation. We have done similar work in many villages.
The CPI (Maoist) had announced that it will spread the movement to new areas following the general elections this year. Which are the areas that have been identified?
North Bengal, the plains of Bihar, the central districts of Orissa and eastern Chhattisgarh. All these are backward areas where multinational companies are trying to penetrate, and the State governments are signing memorandums of understanding with them. The strategic location of these areas will also help us in our movements.
The movement in Orissa is one of the most upcoming movements by our party and it will facilitate a combined consolidation of our movements in the neighbouring States of Jharkhand, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, bringing as many as 15 districts under our control.
Tell us something about your plans in West Bengal.
Very simply, to establish a liberated area. We decided in 2007 that this [the Jangalmahal] would be a guerilla area. Since then we have progressed a lot, we have already reached out to more than half the population of the region and made it politically aware. I can tell you only so much. Our politburo does not allow us to divulge the tactical aspects of our programmes.
But is there widespread recruitment into your movement from the region?
There has to be recruitment, or else how will the movement grow?
There are reports of fresh plans by your party to try and assassinate the Chief Minister, and even storm Writers Buildings. Your comments.
The media need sensational news, and the police need to justify their fat salaries. Do I really need to elaborate? As I have repeatedly said, to kill Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was not my decision. It was the decision of the people of Nandigram, the people of West Bengal, and even sections of the liberal bourgeoisie.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, who earlier extended her support to the PCPA's movement, seems to have distanced herself from it. Your comments.
I have been asking Mamata Banerjee for the last three months to make her stand clear. After the general elections her fortune has soared, but what about the fortune of the "Ma, Mati, Manush" [Mamata‟s political slogan of Mother, Earth, and People]? Their situation remains the same. What Mamata Banerjee is doing is indulging in opportunistic politics.
With the State and the Centre now planning to launch a much stronger attack, do you not think that your movement, as it stands today will endanger the lives of thousands of innocent and apolitical villagers?
The state should think about that. People like Manmohan Singh, [P.] Chidambaram and Buddhababu are responsible for the situation as it stands today. Ultimately, they are the ones responsible for the killings. We still want peace, it is the government that does not.
So are you willing to sit for dialogue with the government for the sake of peace?
You are probably the 210th person to ask me this question. Chidambaram and Buddhababu have clearly said there will not be any dialogue; they have already arrayed their forces for war, and still you people from the media keep harping, „You will all not survive this‟. This is clearly to break the spirit of the common people. I do not understand why you all are continuously asking me this question. It really is not possible for me to provide routine answers to such routine questions. I am standing in a battlefield here.
http://frontlineonnet.com/stories/20091106262202200.htm
CENTRAL COMMITTEE
October
30, 2009
CHIDAMBARAM CANNOT FOOL PEOPLE WITH THE DRAMA OF TALKS AT GUN-POINT!
AS LONG AS STATE TERROR AND MASSACRES OF UNARMED ADIVASIS CONTINUE
THERE IS NO QUESTION OF TALKS!!
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister Chidambaram have been
putting forth the most absurd proposal for talks with the CPI (Maoist)
provided the latter abjured violence. While amassing thousands of
paramilitary forces in the Maoist-dominated areas in the country and
carrying out brutal attacks against unarmed adivasi people and the
Maoist revolutionaries, they are shamelessly talking of violence by
Maoists. According to the grand plan of the reactionary rulers a total
of 75,000 central forces, assisted by tactical air support by IAF
choppers, will go to war by the end of this month. An equal number of
police forces from the states will join these central forces to carry
out the biggest ever military offensive against the people in general
and the Maoists in particular. While deploying such a huge force,
which is greater in size than the armies of most countries in the
world, Chidambaram is trying to fool the people that he is not going
to war with the Maoists. It is the state terror, saffron terror, and
state-sponsored terror that have become the greatest threat to peace
and security in our country. The Congress-led UPA government has to
its credit the massacre of over 2000 people and Maoist revolutionaries
in the past five years. And yet, Manmohan and Chidambaram have the
audacity to say that their government is implementing the "rule of
law" and ask the Maoists to lay down arms and sit for talks.
Asking Maoists to lay down arms as a pre-condition for talks shows the
utter ignorance of Manmohan and Chidambaram regarding the historical
and socio-economic factors that had given rise to the Maoist movement
or are too intoxicated by the brute force they possess by which they
dream they can stamp out a movement rooted in the socio-economic
causes. The CC, CPI (Maoist), makes it crystal-clear that laying down
arms means a betrayal of the people's interests. We have taken up arms
for the defence of people's rights and for achieving their liberation
from all types of exploitation and oppression. As long as oppression
and exploitation exist, people will continue to be armed in ever
greater number. However, an agreement could be reached by both sides
on a cease-fire if Manmohan and Chidambaram give up their irrational,
illogical, impractical, absurd and obstinate stand that the Maoists
should abjure violence. They should be introspective and decide
whether they are prepared to abjure state terror and unbridled
violence on the people. If at all they are serious about talks then
they should first create a conducive atmosphere by earnestly
implementing at least what is guaranteed by the Indian constitution by
which they swear.
They should stop illegal abductions of Maoists and people suspected to
be supporting Maoists. They should put an immediate halt to torture
and murder of unarmed people, instruct their so-called security forces
to desist from raping women in Maoist-dominated areas, abandon their
policy of destroying the property of the people and burning adivasi
villages. They should withdraw the police and para-military camps from
the school buildings, panchayat community buildings and from the
interior areas so as to instill a sense of security among the people.
They should disband the state-sponsored armed vigilante gangs like
salwa judum, sendra, gram suraksha samiti, nagarik suraksha samiti,
shanti sena, harmad bahini, and other blood-thirsty mercenary gangs
that are unconstitutionally established by the police top brass and
the ruling class parties. An impartial judicial commission of enquiry
should be formed to go into the inhuman atrocities by the police,
CRPF, other central forces and the vigilante gangs on Maoists and the
people at large and basing on the investigations the culprits should
be punished as per the law. All those arrested for being Maoists or on
suspicion of aiding the Maoists, including people in particular who do
not have any connection with our organisation, should be released
unconditionally. They should repeal all draconian laws and Acts such
as the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), Chhattisgarh Special
Powers Act, Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), etc. They should
disband the government-organised concentration camps in the name of
rehabilitation of the adivasis displaced from their villages, pay
adequate compensation to over two lakh adivasis who were forcibly
displaced by the salwa judum gangs and the CRPF-police combine. All
those who have become victims of state and state-sponsored terror,
i.e., those who were murdered, maimed, raped and pushed into a state
of mental trauma should be given adequate compensation.
As for socio-economic issues, the lands of the tribals should be
handed back to them wherever they are snatched from them; the mining
and other so-called development projects that lead to displacement of
the tribals and destruction of their way of life should be immediately
disbanded. All the MOUs signed with the imperialist MNCs like Vedanta
and the big business houses like the Tatas, Mittals, Essar, Jindal,
etc should be scrapped. The much trumpeted policy of Special Economic
Zones which is nothing but to create enclaves of foreign occupation
and imperialist plunder that ruin havoc in the social, economic,
ecologic and cultural lives of the people living in these areas should
be immediately scrapped along with the colonial policy of land
acquisition. The lands snatched away from the tribals by unscrupulous
landlords, other non-adivasis, and by the government should be
restored to their rightful owners. If these are fulfilled, then one
can think of talks to discuss on the deeper issues that are blocking
the real development of our country.
The CC, CPI (Maoist) unequivocally asserts that the government's
proposal for peace talks is only a propaganda ploy that in no way
differs from the peace proposals of Hitler prior to World War II.
After the Cabinet Committee on Security had given the final approval
for the massive offensive against the Maoists, after the IAF choppers
are ready with the Garuda commandos and gunships to pulverize the
adivasi areas, these war-mongers are talking of peace! We appeal to
all democratic and peace-loving forces to expose the hypocrisy and
double-speak of Manmohan, Chidambaram, Raman Singh, Buddhadeb and
others and oppose their war preparations against the oppressed
downtrodden people of our country who are waging a struggle for land,
livelihood and liberation from inhuman feudal and imperialist
exploitation.
Azad,
Spokesperson,
Central Committee,
CPI(Maoist)
PEOPLE BY THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT!
STAND BY THE STRUGGLING MASSES FIGHTING FOR THEIR LAND, LIFE AND LIVELIHOOD!
The former US president George W. Bush declared a 'War on Terror' in
the pretext of 9/11, and attacked Iraq and then Afghanistan so that US
imperialism could capture oil, gas and other natural resources in
these foreign countries. The prime minister of India too made an open
declaration of war against 'terrorism' after 26/11. P Chidambaram too
recently announced the government's decision to go on a military
offensive adhering to the dictates of the US. This time the offensive
was aimed at the people of this country, those who are among the most
deprived and exploited. This is just to facilitate the handing over of
the country's natural resources to the plunder and loot of foreign
corporations, even though purported aim is to 're-establish the
sovereign rule of the Indian state in Maoist influenced regions'. One
of the main proponents of this war on people is Manmohan Singh, who
was an economist with the World Bank controlled by US imperialism
before he joined active politics. Till the day of becoming the finance
minister of the UPA government, P Chidambaram was a member of the
Board of Directors in Vedanta, the British mining multinational. He
was also the lawyer of the notorious US electricity corporation,
Enron. Both Singh and Chidambaram have been die-hard advocates of
foreign investment to the country, the two foremost agents of US
imperialism in the country. On 18th of June 2006, the prime minister
made a statement in the parliament, pronouncing that 'the environment
for foreign investment is going to be severely affected if left-wing
extremism continues to grow and expand in the mineral-rich regions of
the country'. The booty of this war declared by Manmohan Singh's
government on the people is going to be handed over to the imperialist
countries, particularly to US imperialism.
Borders within the country: Much like the US government which sent 1.5
lakh soldiers to occupy Iraq and 1 lakh to Afghanistan, the Indian
government too is sending its 1 lakh troops to wage a war against in
central and eastern parts of the country, with similar purposes in
mind. Only that the target this time is our own people, in our own
territory. It is as if the government has declared a part of this
country to be a foreign land, and is now sending its armed forces to
occupy it. In addition to the Indian army and the air-force, tens of
thousands of armed personnel from the police, CRPF, ITBP, IRB, Special
Task Force, Rashtriya Rifles, etc. are mobilized to take part in this
full-scale war. The home ministry and the defense ministry are jointly
overseeing this war under the command of high-ranked army officers.
Army colonels and brigadiers are running Jungle Warfare Schools in
Chhattisgarh, and are imparting training to the troops to confront the
people. The notorious Rashtriya Rifles under the direct command of the
Indian army, as well as the ITBP and BSF, raised for defending the
borders of the country, are being redeployed by the central government
for this military offensive. Air force helicopters are being
requisitioned, including the 'Garud' armoured helicopters. The
government is outlaying more than 7,300 crores of hard-earned money of
the working people for this war.
The government is preparing to take the help of intelligence input
from US defense satellites as well. In Lalgarh too, which the home
secretary has termed as the 'laboratory of joint army operations', US
spy-satellites were used to scan Borpelia, Kantapahadi, Ramgarh and
adjoining areas. In September 2009, the home minister Chidambaram went
on a four-day state visit to the US. Just after his return from this
trip, 'Operation Green Hunt' was launched in the northern, southern
and eastern parts of Bastar. At least 19 adivasi villagers were
brutally murdered during this operation. It is worth noting that many
teams of US security establishment secretly visited Chhattisgarh in
order to assess the war preparations. The Indian government is also in
constant consultation with the US army officers who are commanding the
imperialist war against Afghanistan and North-West Pakistan.
Corporate plunder for super-profits is the real motive behind this
war: From the year 2001 onwards, there was a scramble among various
state governments to outsmart one another in inviting foreign
investors and comprador big business houses of the country to their
respective states, and to conclude hundreds of agreements and
Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs). In Jharkhand itself, more than 100
MoUs were signed by the state government with Mittal, Jindal, Tata,
RioTinto and other foreign and Indian big corporations in the last
nine years involving mining projects, steel and aluminum plants,
electricity plants, dams, and so on. In Orissa too, companies like
Vedanta, POSCO, Tata, Hindalco, Jindal and Mittal are eyeing for the
unexplored natural resources. The BJP government in Chhattisgarh has
already concluded agreements with Essar, Tata, RioTinto and other such
big corporations to set up Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in the mining
sector. In these three states alone, agreements worth Rs.873,896
crores of investment in various projects have been concluded till
September 2009. The peasants who are largely dependent on land,
forests and rivers for their livelihood, particularly the adivasis,
have refused to give up their resources for corporate plunder. They
have organized themselves against forcible land-acquisition for these
big projects. The Maoists too, who have been fighting against the
ruling classes to carry out a revolutionary transformation of the
present exploitative system and for the liberation of the oppressed
masses, have built up a strong resistance against these anti-people
projects. The Maoist movement has successfully organized the masses to
fight for the scrapping of these agreements and MoUs, to resist the
incursion of the corporates, and to establish people's revolutionary
power that guarantees the rights of the masses over land and natural
resources in many of these regions.
The government intensified its onslaught on the people soon after the
agreements and MoUs were concluded, and the adivasis in particular
subsequently became the targets of state terror. The unleashing of
Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh left hundreds of adivasis dead, raped and
maimed, thousands of houses burnt, and more than seven hundred
villages displaced. Children were decapitated, dead bodies of adivasi
villagers were mutilated and hung from trees, rape was used as a means
of state repression. Around three lakh adivasis were forced to leave
their villages, of which more than fifty thousand were forcibly kept
in Salwa Judum camps. The first of these police camps were financed by
Essar. In the Singhbhum region of Jharkhand which attracted the
largest amount of agreements for corporate investment, a reign of
state terror was established through 'Nagarik Suraksha Samiti'.
'Tritiya Prastuti Committee' was used in Balumath in order to crush
the resistance against the setting up of a power plant by the Abhijit
Group of Companies. In Orissa too, the so-called 'Shanti-Sena' which
complimented the mercenary goons of the corporations, was created to
attack the people's resistance. The resistance of the people and the
revolutionary movement has resiliently withstood the combined attacks
of the police, para-military and the vigilante gangs, and defended the
people's rights over land and natural resources. Imperialist forces,
particularly US imperialism and its 'strategic partner' the Indian
government, have therefore launched this fresh military offensive on
the people in these regions, similar motives with which US
imperialists went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan to subjugate and
plunder the mineral and natural resources of these countries.
The only way forward is to Establish People's Power: The people's
struggle for rights over their land, forests and natural resources has
been continuing ever since the feudal and colonial forces have tried
to dispossess them through the use of force or the 'rule of law'. Ever
since the imposition of the Forest Act by British colonialism, whereby
the rights of the adivasis on their forests and land was taken away,
many glorious rebellions challenged the might of British India. The
adivasi Ulugulan under the leadership of Birsa Munda in Jharkhand,
Bhumkal Vidroh in Bastar led by Gundadhar, the Ghumeswar rebellion in
Orissa, etc., all were aimed at defending the rights of the people
over land and forests. During Naxalbari movement too, the oppressed
masses fought for their rights over land, and to establish people's
revolutionary power by overthrowing the feudal social order. The
masses of this country in general and the adivasis in particular have
a history of waging persistent and uncompromising struggles against
the exploitation and oppression of the ruling classes. Even today the
masses of the entire country, led by the people's movements in
Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal etc. is
marching forward, holding high the banner of revolutionary class
struggle and defeating the fascist attacks of the reactionary rulers
one after another. Be it Operation Green Hunt or Operation Siddharth,
Salwa Judum or Harmad Vahini, Ranveer Sena, Sunlight Sena, C-60, Black
Hundreds, Sendra, Grey Hounds, CRPF or CoBRA, the fighting masses of
the country have time and again stood up to ensure befitting response
to the combined repression of the feudal, comprador big bourgeois and
imperialist forces.
The Indian government must stop this war waged against the people of
central and eastern India, and must immediately and unconditionally
withdraw its armed forces from these regions. All the MoUs and
agreements with foreign multinationals and Indian corporations for the
plunder of natural resources of the people must be scrapped, and the
land forcibly acquired for such projects must be restored to their
rightful owners. In addition, the rights of the people over land and
forests must be acknowledged. Otherwise, the people of this country
will rise up against this war waged on them by the central and state
governments, and fight a resolute struggle for establishing people's
sovereign power over their resources, their sources of life and
livelihood. This struggle will not cease until the dream of a truly
People's Democratic India, visualized by Bhagat Singh and thousands of
martyred revolutionaries, is turned into a reality.
REVOLUTIONARY DEMOCRATIC FRONT (RDF)
Contact: Rajkishore, Secretary, RDF, rdfindia@gmail.com
| What Is Maoism? by Bernard D'Mello The Maoist movement in India is a direct consequence of the tragedy of India ruled by her big bourgeoisie and governed by parties co-opted by that class-fraction. The movement now threatens the accumulation of capital in its areas of influence, prompting the Indian state to intensify its barbaric counter-insurgency strategy to throttle it. In trying to understand what is going on, and, in turn, to re-imagine what the practice of radical democratic politics could be, it might help if, for a moment, we step aside and reflect over the questions: What is Maoism? What of its origins and development? What went before its advent? What are its flaws? Where is it going? Where should it be going, given its legacy? As I write at this lovely time of the festival of lights -- Diwali -- in India, I hope to bring back into the glow this body of thought and practice that the stenographers of power have consciously, deliberately distorted. I am fully aware that those whose job it is to transcribe the opinion of the dominant classes will -- having already presupposed what Maoism is all about -- accuse me of pushing an ideological agenda, and will dismiss what I have to say as illegitimate. Nevertheless, let me persist.
Anuradha Ghandy (Anu as we knew her) was a member of the central committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) [CPI (Maoist)]. Early on, she developed a sense of obligation to the poor; she joined them in their struggle for bread and roses, the fight for a richer and a fuller life for all. Tragically, cerebral malaria took her away in April last year. What is this spirit that made her selflessly adopt the cause of the damned of the Indian earth -- the exploited, the oppressed, and the dominated -- as her own? The risks of joining the Maoist long march seem far too dangerous to most people, but not for her -- bold, courageous and decisive, yet kind, gentle and considerate. Perhaps her days were numbered, marked as she was on the dossiers of the Indian state's repressive apparatus as one of the most wanted "left-wing extremists". That oppressive, brutal structure has been executing a barbaric counter-insurgency strategy -- designed to maintain the status quo -- against the Maoist movement in India. What is it that is driving the Indian state, hell-bent as it is to cripple and maim the spirit that inspires persons like Anu? Practically the whole Indian polity -- from the semi-fascist Bharatiya Janata Party to the main affiliate of the parliamentary left, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) -- have pitched in against the Maoists, backing a massive planned escalation of the deployment of paramilitary-cum-armed-police, this time with logistical support from the military, to crush the rebels. It seems that sections of monopoly capital -- including ArcelorMittal, the Essar Group, Vedanta Resources, Tata Steel, POSCO, and the Sajjan Jindal Group -- have given an ultimatum to the state governments concerned and the union government that they will dump their proposed mining/industrial/SEZ projects if the local resistance to their business plans are not crippled once and for all. Righteous indignation against "left-wing extremism" has reached a crescendo, buttressed as it is by sections of the commercial media, with images and profiles (dished out to the fourth estate by anti-terrorist squad officers) of apprehended revolutionists a source of excitement for TV audiences. A year and a half ago, my son -- lanky, unkempt, his hair dishevelled -- came home from school one day to tell us that his teacher called him a Naxalite (what the Maoists are popularly called). I asked him, "How did you react?" He queried, "Daddy, who are these guys, these Naxalites?" I answered, "Well, they are rebels who resent the deep injustice meted out to the poor." He responded, "Well then, I feel proud to be called a Naxalite". The boy is still very young, but he will soon approach that wonderful time of his life when his urge to understand what is going on in the country and the world will be unquenchable. More recently, a malicious and vengeful advertisement by the home ministry in the newspapers painted the Maoists as "cold-blooded criminals". Maybe it is time for me to consider how I will answer his question: What is Maoism? An answer to such a query requires a stepwise approach to finding first answers to questions such as: What is Marxism? What is Leninism? What is Stalinism? Only then, can one get to understand what Maoism is all about. For, after all, Mao's Marxism undoubtedly stemmed from the Leninist school; he applied Marxism, Leninism (the latter, a school of Marxism in the age of imperialism) and Stalinism (a decomposed form of Leninism which he also struggled to overcome and go beyond), as a method of analysis of the social reality of China. But more, he intervened in that reality through conscious social political action guided by Marxist theory and from the late 1920s to the end of the 1960s continuously learnt from events, thus making possible an enrichment of the original. What has come to be known as Maoism had its material roots in China's underdevelopment, the failed practice of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the urban areas in the 1920s, and its subsequent peasant-cum-guerrilla-based movement in the countryside. Theoretically, and in practice, Mao's Marxism was enriched by overcoming and going beyond Stalin's mechanical interpretation of Marx's theory of history. And, Mao constantly applied Marx's "materialist dialectics" in helping to understand and resolve multiple "contradictions" -- internal conflicts tending to split what is functionally united -- with the likely outcome following from the reciprocal actions of the opposing tendencies. It is the fusion of all of this with the original Marxism and Leninism that constitutes Maoism. Like Marxism, at its best, it is a comprehensive world view, a method of analysis and a guide to practice, not a set of dogmas. What then is meant by the Maoist dictum "learn truth from practice"? With this preview, we are now in a position to move on. At the outset itself, let me say that while I speak solely for myself, I make no claim whatsoever to originality. I wrote this piece as a self-clarifying exercise and submitted it for publication in the hope that it might help others like me, striving to be educated about matters that are not academic. What Is Marxism? In searching for an answer to this question, I can do no better than what the Monthly Review has taught me. In one of the founder-editor's words (Sweezy 1985: 2):
In its view, prior to the development of capitalism, civilization had been impossible without exploitation; the social surplus appropriated was (1985: 3-4)
At this point, it must be said that while Marxists share a conception of reality, they differ in many respects in explaining the world and in assessing it. Also, the intellectual structure created by the founders of Marxism -- Marx and Engels -- has been significantly modified and adapted, as it no doubt should, with advances in human knowledge and understanding, and with the development of capitalism into a global system. But, and of course, its scientific validity should be judged in the first instance by its contributions to the ability to explain reality. However, there's something even more exacting -- in the very long run, Marxism has to be judged by the fruits of its project of taking humanity along the road towards equality, cooperation, community, and solidarity. We should have done this earlier, but it is now apt to bring into focus the most crucial character of Marxism, something, following Sweezy, we alluded to in the beginning of this article. The whole purpose of constructing and re-constructing its distinctive intellectual structure to understand the world was and is so that this exercise may lay the basis of changing society for the better. This is stated most succinctly in Marx's 1845 Theses on Feuerbach: "The philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point however is to change it." But integrating theory and practice (developing a strategy and a set of tactics for changing the world for the better and implementing them) is far more difficult and messy a project. Marx and Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto in December 1847 and January 1848, but they never even attempted to define, let alone provide, any blueprint of the transitional society (their followers called it socialism) which would in time -- that was the expectation -- evolve asymptotically towards communism, never really reaching it. As Sweezy has it, in Marx and Engels' conception, the transitional society ("socialism")1 would begin its existence as "primarily a negation of capitalism which would develop its own positive identity (communism) through a revolutionary struggle in which the proletariat would remake society and in the process remake itself" (1983: 2-3). But, frankly, the proletariat in the developed capitalist countries, for reasons already mentioned, was increasingly losing its quality as the source and carrier of revolutionary practice. The development of the working class, the advance of human capability -- always at the very centre of the forces of production -- was not perceived by the workers as being hindered by the relations of production; the latter was not discerned as intolerable by the workers as long as they were able to extract better terms from capital through their struggles (strikes, etc) within the confines of the system. Why should they then bear the risk of losing what they were gaining in the present when what they could gain by revolting against the system was highly uncertain and far away in the future? In other words, Marx and Engels didn't blame the workers for the lack of a revolutionary consciousness; the objective conditions weren't there for its germination. What then of early Marxism (it was not called Marxism is Marx's time, but for convenience we are designating even that period within its scope) in its mistaken expectation, drawn mainly from its analysis of the living and working conditions of the working class (in Engels' The Condition of the Working Class in England, written in late 1844, early 1845 when he was 24) and the logic of Marx's the famous 1859 Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy that that class in the advanced capitalist countries would eventually, sooner or later, revolt and emancipate itself? The at first spontaneous, and later on organised, struggles of the workers, led by the parties of the left, were eventually able to force the ruling class and its political representatives to bring in the factory laws and various social legislations, and implement them, which convinced the workers that things could get better even within the confines of capitalism. In this, no doubt the surplus from the toilers in the colonies/neo-colonies/semi-colonies/dependent countries (the "periphery"), shared not only between the local elites and the ruling classes in the "centre", but also to an extent, by the working classes there, helped provide part of the cushion. As a result capital at the "centre" got richer and stronger too. Marx and Engels didn't take all of these developments into account and so proved wrong in their expectations of a socialist Europe. But, to his great credit, Marx did brilliantly take account of -- besides the massive expropriation in Britain through the enclosures -- capitalism's pillage, in its mercantilist phase, of what later came to be called the "periphery" or the third world, in Part VIII of Capital, Volume 1, entitled "The So-Called Primitive Accumulation". He also did not ignore "unequal exchange" -- through siphoning a part of the surplus created in production via funds used by a distinct class for trade in commodities (merchant capital) -- with the periphery, in the competitive phase of capitalism. Basically, merchant capital played a crucial role in the periphery, albeit as an appendage of industrial capital at the centre (Kay 1975). Marx had not the opportunity to re-orient his theory of accumulation to take account of what had begun to happen at the end of his life, the emergence of capitalism as a global system with the ushering in of monopoly capitalism. But, we have it from Sweezy (1967: 16) that he was fully aware of the causal relationship between the development of capitalism at the "centre", in his day, in Europe and the development of underdevelopment in the "periphery". Early Marxism however proved inadequate in elaborating a theory of accumulation on a world scale that would explain the functioning of capitalism as a global system. All the same, Marx suggested a way of analysing capitalism -- how capital got its wealth from the pillage of the "periphery", from expropriation through the enclosures, from the surplus labour of workers in the past, and from the acquisition of smaller and weaker units of capital; how the superstructure (the state, the legal system, the dominant ideology and culture) was adapted and modified to facilitate all of this; and with what potentialities. That method was "materialist dialectics", which was applied by the best of his followers -- two of whom were Lenin and Mao -- to understand the ever-changing world and to intervene to change it for the better. Meanwhile, the parties leading the various working class movements in Europe, members of the Second International, continued to pay lip service to the cause of proletarian revolution. But, soon they were exposed for what they really had become when in 1914 they supported their respective governments in the war, an act demonstrating nothing less than the self-destruction of internationalism, and the quashing of many a hope of proletarian revolution. With the possibility of the workers making significant economic, social and political gains within the confines of capitalism at the "centre", Marxism was "revised", re-fashioned by Eduard Bernstein and others to empty it of its revolutionary content. Of course, this was not Marxism anymore, but given the objective conditions in Europe, the "revisionist" doctrine took the place of the revolutionary one there. What Is Leninism? What Is Stalinism? It was in these the worst of times that Lenin, a thoroughly orthodox Marxist, struck a momentous chord on the political stage with his pamphlet, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916), explaining the war then raging in terms of a division of the world into separate spheres of influence and the inter-capitalist struggles for its re-division. Lenin's purpose was limited mainly to explain the nature of the war then underway and what should be done by socialists leading the working class. Lenin urged that rather than fighting and killing each other in this imperialist war, the workers must be convinced to convert the imperialist war into a civil war to overthrow their respective bourgeoisies. The impact of accumulation on a world scale in shaping the nature of "underdevelopment" of the "periphery" and, in turn, the accumulation of capital at the "centre" -- and the consciousness of the working class there -- were not the focus. Instead, in Lenin's view, the super-profits of monopoly capital were, among other things, used to bribe an upper stratum of the working class -- thereby creating an "aristocracy" of labour -- and some leaders of the working class movements. Lenin thus blamed the political leaderships of the social-democratic parties leading the movements of their respective working classes and their betrayal of the majority of their respective proletariats. The fact that the objective conditions in Europe had changed, which thwarted the permeation of a revolutionary consciousness in the workers on the continent, eluded him. But it may be said -- on the whole -- of Lenin and the Bolsheviks that in the course of their practice they rescued Marxism from those of its adherents who mistakenly and mechanically interpreted Marx as a "historical determinist". But let me explain the Marxist position. A "determinist" way of thinking argues that history and the given conditions existing on the ground uniquely determine what is likely to happen next. In pure contrast, a "voluntarist" point of view holds that almost anything can happen subject to the will and positive resolve of effective leaders and the resolute support they get from their followers. In my view, Marxism is neither "determinist" nor "voluntarist" -- in its conception, at any given moment there are a range of possible outcomes, determined both by history and the existing conditions and context. The actual outcome from among this set will depend on social action. That is, which particular intermediate goal the leaders choose from the range of possibilities ("strategy"), and whether they and their supporters go about trying to achieve that result with appropriate tactics and respond "correctly" to the course of events that unfold. Clearly, Lenin -- and Stalin, and Trotsky, we might add -- put great weight on patterns of leadership -- centralized direction by a revolutionary elite. Mao did not disagree with this, but from experience emphasized the necessity of honest and correct feedback from the party rank and file and the masses. Stalin has called Leninism the Marxism of the era of "imperialism" and "proletarian dictatorship". But he is one who evokes deep anguish among many socialists. On the one hand, he was the only top leader among the Bolsheviks who came from the wretched of the earth (his father was a poor cobbler and his mother was of poor peasant-serf stock), fortunate to have been educated at a religious seminary; it was under his leadership that the Soviet Union and its Red Army vanquished the might of the German armed forces in the Second World War to safeguard humanity from fascism. And as long as he lived it was possible to believe (mistakenly, in the view of some) in the existence of a global co-ordinated movement in active revolutionary conflict with capitalism and imperialism. But, on the other hand, he consigned Leninism and socialism to the grave -- that which is not democratic can never be socialist. Indeed, as Harry Braverman (1969: 54) put it:
Paresh Chattopadhyay (2005) argues that the very notion of socialism in Lenin and the other early Bolsheviks' (before Stalin's consolidation of power) was completely at odds with that of Marx. The suggestion seems to be that, given this original flaw, and economic and social backwardness, it was only a matter of time before the ruling elite in the Soviet Union metamorphosed into a ruling class, legitimizing its authoritarian (and, in this view, exploitative) rule in the name of Marxism. Certainly, as a result, Marxism and Leninism have been discredited in the eyes of many. After all, following the seizure of power in October 1917, didn't the means begin to shape the very ends to eventually overwhelm the socialist aspiration? However, I think one should take account of what has come to be called "Lenin's last struggle" -- warning of serious danger from the growth of a ruling bureaucracy and from the "crudity" of Stalin. Beyond this, it seems to me, and I have come to believe this, that given the existence of class, patriarchy, racism (and caste, one might add) over millennia, power and compulsion are deeply rooted in social reality; indeed, they have almost become part of the basic inherited (but not unchangeable) human condition, which leads one to make a very strong case for civil and democratic rights and liberties (these have been gained through historic struggles waged by the underdogs) that should not be allowed to be abrogated come what may. For our purpose over here, however, it would be pertinent to briefly mention the way Lenin conceived of the revolution in "backward" capitalist Russia where, in his analysis, the bourgeoisie and its political representatives were incapable of bringing about the "bourgeois-democratic revolution" -- overthrowing czarism and seizing and dismantling the feudal estates -- making it imperative that the working class in alliance with the peasants take over that task, only to quickly move on to the next stage, that of socialist revolution. In all of this, the worker-peasant alliance was to be led by the vanguard party. Lenin's conception of such a party then becomes germane -- its purpose was to politically organise and bring revolutionary ideas to the working class, more generally, the masses, and lead the revolution to establish a "dictatorship of the proletariat". Marx had conceptualized the latter as a system in which, following the seizure of power, this would be the regime in which the proletariat would "not only exercise the sort of hegemony hitherto exercised by the bourgeoisie", but a "form of government, with the working class actually governing, and fulfilling many of the tasks hitherto performed by the state", and Lenin fully endorsed this view (Miliband 2000: 151). Of course, in Lenin's way of thinking, the dictatorship of the proletariat was to be exercised by the workers under the guidance of the vanguard party. The latter evolved over time -- in the conditions imposed by illegality, inner-party organisation was different in 1902 from that following 1905, and then February 1917, when a mass-based party adhering to "democratic centralism" was seen to fit the bill. Democratic centralism was conceived as an inner-party organisational principle and practice where the various factions within the party strictly adhere to the guideline "freedom of discussion, unity of action" (Johnstone 2000: 135). Of course, what happened in practice was the stamping out of the democratic component; in 1921, factions were virtually outlawed, something Stalin is said to have taken advantage of to ultimately secure his domination of the party (Johnstone 2000a: 408-409). In parallel, the dictatorship of the proletariat -- conceived as a dictatorship over the former ruling classes, but a democratic role model as far as the masses were concerned -- came to be "widely associated with the dictatorship of the party and the state over the whole of society, including the proletariat" (Miliband 2000: 152), which came to be associated with Stalinism. Stalinism -- a decomposed version of Leninism closely associated with the regime in the Soviet Union from the late 1920s to the time of Stalin's death in 1953 -- has to be seen, as Ralph Miliband rightly emphasised, in the context of Russian history (2000a: 517). However, given the constraint of brevity, we can, at most, only list its principal characteristics, drawing largely -- but not uncritically -- from Miliband (Ibid: 517-19):
All the same, it seems that Lenin's aspiration and vision of the socialist state -- as expressed in State and Revolution, written in the summer of 1917 -- after the seizure of power was inspired by Marx's lauding of the 1871 Paris Commune and drawing lessons from it about the future socialist "state". Marx was emphatic that the working class, after taking power, should not simply take control of the existing structure, institutions and machinery of the old state, all of which had to be "smashed" and replaced by a state of a radically new type. As Ralph Miliband (2000b: 524) sets forth Marx's depiction of the credo of the Commune, which Lenin seems to have accepted, and the role of the party envisaged by the latter in his tract, State and Revolution:
A very remarkable feature of State and Revolution, given the importance Lenin always attributed to the role of the party, is the quite subsidiary role it is allotted in this instance. But Lenin's vision of the socialist state "did not survive the Bolshevik seizure of power". Yet, he "never formally renounced the perspectives which had inspired State and Revolution". Can we thus conclude that Lenin wanted "the creation of a society in which the state would be strictly subordinated to the rule and self-government of the people" (Miliband 2000b: 525)? The contrast between theory and practice, in this respect, couldn't have been starker. Frankly, one has to clearly distinguish between what one says and what one does. After all, what happened to the Congress of Soviets -- soviets which had the potential to be self-governing organs of the workers and the peasants -- that had arisen almost spontaneously from the movement of February 1917? By the summer of 1918 the soviets had no more than a mere formal existence. The main institution of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies (independent of any one party), took the back seat, with the party leadership at the steering (Miliband 1970). Indeed, the dictatorship of the proletariat was deemed impossible except through the leadership of the single party; socialist pluralism too got precluded (Ibid). But, to be fair, it is important though to note that Lenin, in his last writings, expressed the need to create the basis for popular self-governance, for which, he felt, there must be a genuine revolution, where culture flowers among the people. Was he then calling for a "cultural revolution", something that Mao launched in China in 1966 with the aim of "preventing capitalist restoration" (Thomson 1970: 125)? Maoism: Evolution and Development2
The conventional wisdom of the day presents Mao as some kind of a "monster", for instance, in Jung Chang and Jon Halliday's 2005 book, Mao: The Unknown Story, which, in its obsessive intent to denigrate Mao, is least concerned with the known facts about the man (Gao 2008: chapters 4 and 5). Indeed, in Li Zhisui's The Private Life of Chairman Mao, he is made out to be a "monstrous lecher" by a doctor, bent on disparaging Mao, shabbily doctoring the facts (Gao 2008: chapter 6). It is evident that a "battle for China's past" is underway, with the elite intelligentsia leading the attack. The latter are Chinese, who were the victims, real or imagined, direct or indirect, of the Cultural Revolution, and some leading lights in the "China Studies" field the world over, who have always been prone to somersaults depending on the direction of the political wind in Washington. For instance, their positions have shifted from "disparaging" during the period of Cold War hostility to "grudgingly complementary" following Sino-US détente in the early 1970s, and then to "Mao-was-all-wrong; Mao-is-to-blame" with the great reversal in China in the post-Mao period when the official view turned anti-Maoist, and the ideology of neo-liberalism took hold.3 The credo of objectivity that is repeatedly claimed is a myth. It is not surprising that in a world where "the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas", the views of the beneficiaries of the cultural revolution, the peasants and the workers, who gained in terms of education, healthcare and other aspects of social welfare, as well as the "voice" they got in the fields and the factories and in the political arena, are not being heard (Gao 2008). With this necessary communication of the side I lean on, let me then get to the origins of Maoism, which got its lease on life in the immediate aftermath of the eventual rejection of the disastrous line of "united front from within" (leading to restraints on organisational independence), which was virtually forced on the CCP by the Third International (the Comintern) in 1923. It was claimed by the latter that the Kuomintang (KMT), led by Chang Kai-shek (after Sun Yat-sen died in March 1925), represented the "revolutionary national bourgeoisie" of China. This alliance was supposed to produce national liberation and the bourgeois-democratic revolution (revolution led by the bourgeoisie in alliance with the workers and peasants) but led only to the disastrous defeat of the communists at the hands of Chang's counterrevolution in 1927, leading to the civil war (1928-35). But even in defeat there was a silver lining: no doubt the Chang-led KMT controlled the bulk of the armed forces; but the Fourth Army deserted in August 1927 to join the communists, which led to the founding of the Red Army. A new leadership of the CCP gradually began to coalesce around Mao; however, it was only by around 1932 that this budding "Maoist" authority gained legitimacy and the CCP could forge, and refine over time, its own strategy and path to achieve the goals of the "new democratic revolution" (NDR). For our purpose over here, it must be mentioned that the Comintern had mechanically extended Marx's historical analysis of the transition from feudalism to capitalism in Europe to the colonies/semi-colonies/neo-colonies, merely adding that imperialism had allied there with the feudalists to maintain and consolidate its power. It was then assumed that the national bourgeoisie would take the lead in the struggle against imperialism and feudalism/semi-feudalism, and therefore it was the duty of the communists there to rally the masses in support of such a project, for it would lead to national independence and bourgeois democracy, without which the struggle for socialism would have had to be indefinitely postponed. But, as we have seen, such a policy led to the disastrous defeat of the communists in China in 1927. The so-called national bourgeoisie proved to be nothing but the ally of imperialism against the communists. It was the CCP under Mao that most effectively challenged the Comintern line by refusing to surrender control and leadership to those who could not be relied upon to carry through to the very end the struggle for genuine national independence or the fight against feudalism/semi-feudalism. The quality of the leadership was crucially important (Sweezy 1976: 10). It adopted the strategy of protracted people's war (PPW), which relied on the peasants, built rural base areas, carried out "land to the tiller" and other social policies (for instance, dealing with the gender question through the mobilization of women in the countryside) in these areas (run democratically as miniature, self-reliant states), thereby building up a political mass base in the countryside to finally encircle and "capture" the cities. Here it needs to be emphasised that it was only during the anti-Japanese resistance (1937-45), when the contradiction between Japanese imperialism and national independence became the principal one (playing the leading role), relegating the fight between feudalism and the masses to a secondary and subordinate position, that the CCP managed to shift nationalist opinion progressively in its favour. It was in this period that it overcame its confinement in the rural areas to move on to the national stage, extend the PPW and capture the popular imagination. The CCP could not have successfully "captured" the cities, but for the massive nationalist upsurge in the course of the anti-Japanese resistance turning decisively in its favour due to its correct handling of the unity and struggle between nationalism and anti-imperialism, leading on to the successful completion of the NDR.4 At the core of the NDR was opposition to the transformation of the society under the leadership of the bourgeoisie and its political representatives. The NDR -- unambiguously led by the communist party -- suppressed the big bourgeoisie because, even as it retained private capitalist enterprise, it was primarily meant to create the prerequisites for socialism. At the heart of the course of the NDR, from 1927 to 1949, was the building of base areas, involving the following (Gurley1976: 70-71):
All of this -- whether political, economic, or cultural and ideological -- entailed following the "mass line", which is a distinctive feature of Maoism. This is a method of involving the masses in how, for instance, each of the above is to be done and then implementing what had been decided upon with their participation. The party leaders thereby correctly understand the opinions of the people and so fashion the required policies in a manner the masses will support and actively implement. Mao summed this up pithily as: "from the masses, to the masses". Indeed, in the process of participating in the "land to the tiller", land investigation, and in the ideological struggles, the people understood the local class structure and the ideas and institutions bolstering the status quo (Gurley 1976: 71-72). This brings us to three crucial dimensions of Maoist theory and practice in trying to enrich the democratic process in the Leninist vanguard party, the mass organizations, and the society. In the Maoist conception of the vanguard party, just like in Lenin's, centralised guidance by a revolutionary elite is at the core, and this elite leadership is drawn from intellectuals, workers and peasants, with the difference that workers and peasants are sought to be represented, over time, in greater proportion. What is however distinctive in Mao is the conscious effort to fuse the inner-party organisational principle of democratic centralism ("freedom of discussion, unity of action") with the mass line ("from the masses, to the masses"), the mass organisations under party leadership providing the crucial link between the two. However, a word over here about the claim of the vanguard party being led by the proletariat might be in order. Here, as Benjamin Schwartz (1977: 26) explains, in Maoism, the term "proletarian" refers to a set of moral qualities -- "self-abnegation, limitless sacrifice to the needs of the collectivity, guerrilla-like self-reliance, unflagging energy . . . iron discipline, etc" -- as the norm of true collectivist behaviour. Proletarian leadership then comes to be constituted by a set of intellectuals, workers and peasants who excel in these moral requirements. We are thus beginning to grasp some distinctive features of Maoism -- the conception of NDR as opposed to that of bourgeois-democratic revolution; PPW; "base areas" and the way they are established; the principal contradiction (which may change over time) steering the course of the PPW; and, democratic centralism plus the mass line. It is then time to introduce what may indeed be the differentia specifica of Maoism, best done by illustration from Maoist practice in China. We have already alluded to the idea that the road to socialism was already entered upon and struggles to persist on that road were undertaken early on in the new democratic stage of the revolution itself. We said that the big bourgeoisie is suppressed during the NDR itself in order to lay the ground -- create the pre-conditions -- for socialism. Why? Socialists, more than others, are well aware that there are definite limits to the compatibility of capitalism and democracy, that is, if the latter is understood as government in accordance with the will of the people (Sweezy 1980). But from a capitalist point of view, such democracy is acceptable and considered viable only if the majority continues to believe that the capitalist system is the best for them, or that there is no alternative but to live with it. The moment this belief erodes, democracy becomes a potential danger to capitalism, best illustrated by the case of Chile, where, following the coming into office in 1970 of a party pledged to begin the transition to socialism, the big bourgeoisie collaborated with Washington and the military took over to save capitalism there (Sweezy 1980). To circumvent such a reaction, a new type of democracy ("new democracy") -- a type of democracy that doesn't preclude the transition to socialism if the majority want it -- has to be created, for which, the big bourgeoisie has to be suppressed. In effect, the NDR doesn't do away with capitalism, but it confiscates the property of the imperialists and the big bourgeoisie -- those at the apex of wealth, power and privilege -- and hence stymies the anti-democratic opposition to socialism from their representatives and backers. But let us elaborate upon the Maoist idea of steps within the new democratic stage, steps in the transition to socialism, and steps within the socialist stage itself, and the thought that the pre-conditions of a subsequent step/stage in the process of progressive change must be created within the step/stage that has to be transited from. The land reform program leading in steps to communes can be used as an apt illustration. It may be best to take William Hinton's books, Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village (1966) and Shenfan: The Continuing Revolution in a Chinese Village (1983), which together provide a rich documentary account of the land reform in Long Bow village of Shanxi province during 1946-48, onward to the formation of mutual aid teams, and from 1953, the merging of those teams into "elementary cooperatives", and from there to advanced cooperatives and further on into communes, and tracing developments up to 1971. They tell a whole lot of facts, even those that contradict what the author is trying to argue; it is difficult to even propose a framework to look at this whole social canvas. However, fortunately, subsequently Hinton has helped provide such an enabling structure (1994; 2002; 2004), though he also revised his assessment of the Cultural Revolution following the publication of Shenfan (Pugh 2005). Perhaps it would be best to begin where Fanshen concludes (Hinton 1966: 603):
The book, however, does bring some thoughts to mind and I cannot resist expressing one or two. As is well known, Hinton's first story of Long Bow offers a "microcosm" of the upheavals in China that overthrew semi-feudalism in the countryside. On the one hand, it throws light on what a poor peasant has to go through in a bad year and how he/she feels when there is no surplus to pay the rent, interest and amortization, and yet he/she then has to part with the grain that would have kept his/her family from hunger and starvation, and to know that that very landlord and/or moneylender-trader had collaborated with the Japanese during 1937-45. On the other, one can understand why a close bond may develop between the poor peasant and the village-level party person when the former knows that latter considers himself/herself accountable to the poor peasants' league and the village congress. There is one more important insight that comes from Fanshen -- that when one extracts rent and interest, and what is lost in "unequal exchange" from the net output of the poor peasant household, especially in a bad year, what remains is not even what wage labour would have got, that is, if one were to impute the respective wage rates for family labour. This suggests exploitation of a greater order under semi-feudalism than under backward capitalism, if both are at the same technological level. Marx had also referred to this, albeit, in a different context, when he discussed the plight of the Irish tenant farmer. This leads one to a dispute with those scholars, including Benjamin Schwartz (1951: 4) who hold that the CCP, though successfully having come to power essentially on the strength of its organisation of the peasantry, and not that of the urban proletariat, had inaugurated in China the "decomposition" of Marxism that Lenin began in Russia, and thus, the opposite of the significant innovation that some have attributed to it. Given Marx's remarks on the Irish tenant farmer, I would doubt that he would have agreed with this view. Let us then get to Shenfan. In 1948 itself, the peasants had begun to form mutual aid teams where a small number of households pooled resources other than land (tools, implements, draft power, occasional labour) but still cultivated the land on an individual basis. Then in 1953 the formation of elementary cooperatives got underway, in which land as well as other resources were pooled, but individual ownership rights were maintained. Incomes were based partly on property ownership and partly on labour time committed to cooperative production in ratios set to garner majority local support. Here dividends had to be paid on the assets, including land, made available, but the complaint of the middle and rich peasants was that this was not as much as they would otherwise have got, that is, if they had cultivated individually by hiring in labour. But when crop yields began to increase because of more intensive use of labour in the cooperative mode, the conflict regarding how to divide the income as between the labour contributed and the assets pooled became sharper (Hinton 1983:142-43). The resolution usually took the form of moving from something like a labour to capital share of 40:60 to 60:40, for, over time, it was living labour that had created the addition to assets. A time would then come when the new assets created by labour overwhelm the original assets pooled at the time of the formation of the cooperative, when it then became appropriate to abolish the capital share of the net output, that is, move to "advanced cooperatives". The latter entailed a definite socialist advance, involving all peasant households being incorporated in such producer cooperatives, with common ownership of all productive resources. As Hinton (1994: 6-7) puts it:
Of course, with one more step on the collective ladder, the advanced cooperatives were turned into larger units of collective economy and government -- the communes. The point however is that in each step of the ladder leading up to collectivization, the preconditions of the next step were introduced, which helped resolve the old contradictions and smoothed the transition to the next step/stage. But, it is alleged that the strategy of the Great Leap Forward (GLF) (1958-61), the organisation of the people's communes, and the left deviations of that period led to a massive famine in which up to 30 million people are said to have died.5 Then, there have been the excessive violence and the personal tragedies of the Cultural Revolution (CR). For both, the excesses of the GLF and the CR, Mao and Maoism have been held entirely responsible. Hinton however disagrees. To get to the truth, he explains the context -- that of "protracted political warfare" (Hinton 2004: 51). The NDR was a revolution of a new type, new in that it was meant to create the preconditions for the socialist road, unlike bourgeois-democratic revolutions that open the road to capitalism. Following 1949, however, the resolution of the contradictions with semi-feudalism and imperialism brought the contradiction between capitalism and the Chinese working people to the fore -- the latter became the principal contradiction. Right from the time of the launch of the NDR, the CCP had been divided into two major factions -- a "proletarian" one, headed by Mao, and a "bourgeois" one, headed by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping; pre-liberation, the former was based in the liberated areas, while the latter was in the KMT-dominated cities. After liberation in 1949, the two factions "merged as one organisationally, but they never did merge ideologically" (Hinton 2004: 54). This led to a fundamental split over development strategy and policy ever since Mao took China decisively on to the socialist road. It was on the eve of the GLF that Mao declared on 27 February 1957 ("On the Correction Handling of Contradictions among the People"): ". . .the question of which will win out, socialism or capitalism, is still not settled". As Hinton put it: "No policy, from either side, could be applied without contest", which meant extreme friction between the two factions (Ibid: 55). He goes on (Ibid: 56-59):
Basically, in order to resolve the contradiction between the "proletarian line" and the "bourgeois line" within the party in favour of the former, the Maoists, in the CR, tried to plant the seeds of a later stage of socialism in the earlier stage itself, thus doing away with a mechanical separation of the two stages and concentrating instead on their interrelations (Magdoff 1975: 53). The two stages of socialism, supposed to follow chronologically, are the phase where distribution of the social product is according to the principle "from each according to her/his abilities, to each according to her/his work" followed by the phase where distribution is according to the norm "from each according to her/his abilities, to each according to her/his needs". Magdoff (1975: 53-54) explains that Maoists focus on the interrelations between the two and therefore emphasise the need to create the preconditions for the transition within the earlier phase itself, the main prerequisites being the way the social product is distributed and a change in human relations. If one doesn't do this, the inequalities produced and reproduced by the current stage will lead to the emergence and consolidation of a new privileged elite that will gradually transform itself into a new ruling class. And, they derive their justification of this with reference to Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme, with its forceful description of the necessary persistence of inequality in a socialist (but not communist) society. One can thus understand why the major concerns during the CR were "measures that tend[ed] to reduce differences arising from the division of labour between city and country, manual and mental labour, and management and employees", knowing very well that their attainment was "in the far distant future and will involve many political struggles in the years ahead" (Ibid: 54). It is then clear that Maoists reject Stalin's mechanical interpretation of Marx's 1859 Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy as a deterministic theory of history. Mao accused Stalin of emphasising only the forces of production (the means of production and human capability) to the neglect of the relations of production (relations at work, and ownership relations that bestow control over the forces of production and the product), and the superstructure (institutions such as the state, the family, religion, education, and the law, and culture and ideology). Even among the productive forces, Stalin -- Mao alleges -- in a relative sense neglected the growth of human capability, which should have constituted the core of the forces of production. Again, Stalin essentially viewed the direction of causation as a one-way route from change in the forces of production to alteration in the relations of production, and thereon to revamp of the superstructure (Mao 1977). Mao instead argued that elements of the superstructure are transformed only with a considerable lag; the old culture hangs on long after the material base of the economy is radically altered. But, if a conscious effort is made to change the elements of the superstructure, this, in turn, affects the economic base (the productive forces and the relations of production). Hence, Mao was bent on ushering in the people's communes even before the modernisation of agriculture, for, in his view, changing the relations of production and elements of the superstructure would, in turn, spur the productive forces. Hence, also the stress upon the stifling economic effects of the prevailing class structure of the factories during the CR, or of the domination of landlords and "comprador-bureaucrat" capitalists in the pre-liberation period, or on the liberating effects of smashing the superstructure (for example, Confucian culture) (Howe and Walker 1977: pp 176-77; Gurley 1976: chapter 2). How apparently open-ended the interrelations among and between the forces of production, the relations of production, and the superstructure are in Mao's conception of Marx's theory of history! Marrying the Various Strands We have seen in this essay that, at its best, Marxism leads one to expect a close interrelationship between theory and practice; where either is scarce the other will be acutely disadvantaged. Maoism, by and large, has privileged practice over theory -- it views practice as the foundation of theory. But what does the Maoist dictum "seek truth from practice mean"? At its best, and if one reads Mao's July 1937 definitive On Practice: On the Relation between Knowledge and Practice, Between Knowing and Doing, he takes on both, the dogmatists and the empiricists, the "right opportunists" and the "leftists". As he puts it: "Practice ['class struggle, political life, scientific and artistic pursuits'], knowledge, again practice, and again knowledge. This form repeats itself in endless cycles, and with each cycle the content of practice and knowledge rises to a higher level". And, in his outstanding August 1937 essay On Contradiction he holds that contradictions -- the struggle between functionally united opposites -- cause continual change. Development stems from the resolution of contradictions and strategy involves choice of the form of struggle most suited to resolve a contradiction. But the desired qualitative alteration can be brought only through a series of stages, where the existing stage is impregnated with the hybrid seeds of the subsequent one, thereby dissolving the salient contradictions of the former and ushering in the latter. Mao's Marxism was of the Leninist school, albeit tending closer to its Stalinist version (which, as we have seen, is a decomposed version of Leninism), but struggling to overcome and go beyond Stalinism. We have traversed a wide canvas with some wild strokes, covering the ground from Marxism to Leninism, and from there to its Stalinist revision, and then to Maoism in terms of its evolution and development in China from the late 1920s to the late 1960s, focussing on its differentiae specifica. The latter, we have found, are:
"Materialist dialectics" as a way of thinking and a guide to doing was a powerful tool in Mao's hands, but its weaknesses were perhaps inherent in its very strengths; in the end, the very method led him to hugely overestimate the pace of change and vastly underestimate the obstacles to change. Marx too fell into the same trap when his very method of analysis led him to believe that revolution was around the corner, immensely underrating the huge barriers to progressive change. Does the very application of the method of materialist dialectics lead its practitioners to err on the side of "voluntarism" in their practice? If one looks forward from the vantage point of 1969 -- the year marks the beginning of the end of the Maoist era -- the great reversal from "socialism" to capitalism (Sharma, ed. 2007) lay ahead. But 1969 also affords a good look back in time. It might help to begin from an incident from Mao's childhood when he was in school, which he related to the American journalist Edgar Snow (1972). One day he and his fellow students were witness to the decapitated heads of rebels strung to the city's gates as a warning. The insurrectionists had led starving peasants in an uprising to find food. The savage repression of the rebellion was obvious, and the incident left a profound impression on the boy and he never forgot it, deeply resenting the treatment meted out to the rebels. Clearly, from a very young age Mao came to view the prevailing social order as quite simply intolerable and to expect a revolutionary high tide sooner or later. "A single spark can start a prairie fire", he told his close comrades in January 1930; twenty years later, he is said to have declared: "The Chinese people have stood up!" There is a touching story of Mao's triumphant entry into Beijing which is worth recounting:7
But in the years after 1949, even in the mid-1960s, as we have seen, the question of whether it will be capitalism or socialism in China was still unsettled. At the age of 72, the guerrilla in Mao stirred again -- better to burn out than to hit the skids. As Jerome Ch'en (1968: 5), quoting Mao the poet put it:
Four years later, all that remained were the embers -- the time had come to just fade away. Not much later, his closest comrades, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De passed away. The Bard of Avon's idea that "all the world's a stage" has acquired the status of a cliché, but it must surely have been one of the great pleasures of Mao's life to have been on the same stage with the two of them. The time was now up for one of the greatest Marxist revolutionaries of all time to ascend to the stars to join them: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, the 20 million soldiers of the Red Army who had died in the war against fascism, the many ordinary peasant-guerrillas of the PLA who sacrificed their lives in the long march to a better world. Maoism, however, needs to be taken to task; one cannot but ask: Why the peasants and workers didn't resist the great reversals to capitalism in China and the Soviet Union -- the counter-revolutions? Were these regimes, as long as Mao and Stalin were around, really socialist, as has constantly been the claim of latter-day Maoists? The truth could only be highly disappointing, that is, if one were to judge Maoism, as is only fair, by the fruits of its project of taking humanity along the road towards equality, cooperation, community, and solidarity. In China itself, Maoism didn't succeed on this score -- all the united actions of the workers and the poor peasants, all the mass education of the Maoist period, didn't seem to have brought about their intellectual development to a point where they could take on the "capitalist roaders" after 1978 to uphold the ideas of equality and cooperation as against hierarchy and competition. Maoism failed to provide a successful working model of socialism in the 20th century. What's worse, even as Mao was in his last years, People's China entered into an accommodation with US imperialism against the Soviet Union -- Mao's On Contradiction was misapplied to justify the arrangement. In a blatant violation of an important Maoist tenet, nationalism got the better of anti-imperialism when in 1974 Deng Xiaoping used so-called "three worlds' theory" to rationalise the "right-wing" turn in China's foreign policy. But despite all these shortcomings, there can be little doubt that over the longer period, from the late 1920s to the late 1960s, Maoism did something unprecedented in human history -- it brought about a drastic redistribution of income and wealth in China; it radically reordered the way Chinese society's economic surplus was generated and utilised, all for the better. Mao's Legacy and the Future of Maoism It's time then to talk of Mao's legacy. As we have seen, Maoism has a definite view about how to get to socialism, and about what needs to be done to meet the basic needs of everyone in a poor country. Development is to be on an egalitarian basis -- we are all in it together and everyone rises together. What then of Mao's legacy, Maoism? Surely, this is open to all who share his Weltanschauung, his method of analysis -- materialist dialectics -- his values, his vision, and choose to embark together on the long march to socialism, knowing beforehand that the journey is fraught with considerable peril. What then of Maoism in India (Ram 1971; Banerjee 1980; Mohanty 1977; Gupta 1993; 2006; Azad 2006), one might ask? Maoist China did its best to feed, clothe and house everyone, keep them healthy, educate most of them. Contrast this with the deplorable conditions in India at the end of the 1960s and even today -- the tragedy of India ruled by her own big bourgeoisie -- and one gets wind as to why there are some in India who look to the Maoist model of development as the way to a richer and fuller life for all. Anu -- whom we started this article with -- was one of them. However, while one may have deep respect for such people, one needs to ask the question: Are the basic path and strategy of revolution that were necessary in China in the 1930s and 1940s right for India in the 21st century? Well, India differs very significantly from the China of those times, more so in its history, geography, class and social structure, traditions, and in the nature of its "semi-feudalism"/backward capitalism, the accommodation of the big bourgeoisie with imperialism,8 the strength of the repressive apparatus of the state, the nationalities question, and so on. And, importantly, while Chinese history is replete with periodic widespread peasant uprisings, Indian history, in a comparative sense, is scarce of such rebellions, which perhaps can be explained in terms of caste (Moore 1966: chapters 4, 6, and 9) -- it is fundamentally antithetical to any meaningful unity of the exploited and the oppressed.9 Recall that Mao adapted his Marxism-Leninism to the realities of China's history, China's potentialities; "learn truth from practice" was his message. Surely a party like the CPI (Maoist) that stems from a political tendency that, over the last 40 years, has done its best to take the Indian revolution forward might like to take a hard re-look into the abyss that is India -- its history, its potentialities. The Maoists must keep in mind that the scientific validity of the Maoism they uphold will be judged in the first instance in India by its contributions to correctly explaining Indian social reality. There is a lot they have had a hand in this respect, for instance, in emphasising the parasitical reliance of Indian capital on the state for its self-expansion, expressed in the notion of bureaucrat capital. Or, in stressing the powerful role of the state in the very making of the Indian big bourgeoisie (of course, the "state's" fostering of the ruling classes more than the other way round, going back to ancient times, is an insight from the eminent historian D D Kosambi). The Maoists have also helped us to see the post-1956 official "land reforms" as having led to the partial amalgamation of the old rural landowning classes into a new, broader stratum of rich landowners, those not setting their hands to the plough, including an upper section of the former tenants, all of whom, despite the various markets, have yet to rid themselves of various "semi-feudal" practices and pre-capitalist elements of culture. Also, it is the Maoists who, in their practice, correctly do not even try to differentiate the rural poor into "agrarian proletariat" or "landless peasantry", knowing very well that the same very poor household can be categorized in one or the other at various points in time. And, in organising the "agrarian proletariat"/"landless peasantry" along with the poor and middle peasants, and a section of the rich peasants, they insist on factoring in the caste question, despite their knowing how highly problematic and painfully difficult such a getting together can be. Also, it is the Maoists more than others who first grasped the brutal character of the dominant classes and the leaders of the political parties they have co-opted, the very same categories whose forebears had taken power in the name of Gandhian non-violence. All this is knowledge essentially derived from their practice. The CPI (Maoist) has come in for a lot of condemnation for its violent activities, including killings. The violence however has to be viewed in the context of the undeclared civil war that is underway in the areas of its influence, for instance, in Dantewada in the state of Chhattisgarh (PUDR 2006). The government is implementing a barbaric counter-insurgency policy, which includes the fostering of a network of informers and combatants among the civilian population, right from the village level upwards: a state-supported, state-sponsored, and even state-organised so-called people's resistance -- called Salwa Judum (SJ) -- against the Maoists. Entire villages have been evacuated and the villagers forcibly dumped into relief camps, and this, in the circumstances of large-scale acquisition of land by private corporations in what is a mineral-rich region. The last four years have witnessed violent attacks, loot, destruction, intimidation, rape and killing on an unprecedented scale principally by the SJ; indeed, the latter has even forcibly mobilised the displaced into its ranks. Undoubtedly, the killing is by both sides, but the big difference is that the Maoists, generally when they target specific state representatives, or even informers, they first warn them to desist from the anti-people activity they are undertaking. Those guilty of rape, torture, deaths in custody, or responsible for "encounter" killings are singled out so that others may, out of fear of such reprisals, desist from acting thus. As far as the SJ representatives are concerned, any person who joins them is targeted, not because of any personal enmity, but because of the role that the SJ has been playing in the undeclared civil war. More generally, the violence also has to be seen in the context of the close de facto nexus between economic and political power at the local and regional levels; the dominant classes, through various means, exercise a degree of control over the police and the judiciary, which increases the chances of violent confrontation between the contending classes.10 Those who deliberately, falsely depict the Maoists as "devotees of violence" choose to suppress the fact that the violence of the oppressed (and the Maoists who now lead them) has been always preceded and provoked by the violence of the oppressors (and the state and private forces that back them). To claim, as some liberals do, that the violence of the oppressed is "morally equivalent" to that of the oppressors is to endorse the reactionary state, which backs the oppressors. And, in this age of the management of public opinion, the "programming" of what the public thinks, sees and reads, the "facts" that are disseminated are artificially separated from a whole host of other relevant facts, never allowing the public to discern the "real" present. But, while acknowledging that antagonistic contradictions between hostile class-based organisations will lead to violence, it is a Maoist tenet that guerrilla actions ought to be subordinated to "mass-line" politics -- the Maoist guerrillas should give precedence to winning over the mass of the people in their base areas and, in consequence, in the surrounding areas -- and work towards a better balance ("proportionality") than ever before between means and ends. Regarding the resort to violence in the revolution, to the extent that I have absorbed their writings, it would be fair to say that Marx and Engels might not have disagreed with the use of violent methods by the revolutionary forces in India today. The dominant classes could never be expected to give up their control without employing all the repressive power at their command. It is useful perhaps to recall that Marx's response to the "crimes and cruelties alleged" against the "insurgent Hindus" of 1857 was to set out an account of the daily violence "in cold blood" of British rule in India (Marx 1857). As to the false claim that the Maoists have no mass support in their areas of influence, one has only to listen to perceptive yet sensitive, independent observers who know the situation on the ground. The state forces are much stronger (as far as armaments and numbers go) than the Maoist guerrillas, and yet the tribal peasants support the latter. Why do these peasants take the risk of supporting the underdogs, even when they know that, when the guerrillas are vanquished, they, as their supporters, will be at the mercy of the state forces, and will most probably perish? If, at the risk of death itself, the peasants choose the guerrillas, surely there must be something more significant going on over here. Besides India, Maoism is a political force to reckon with in Nepal (Bhattarai 2005; 2009; Mage 2005 and 2007; Parvati 2005; Mage and D'Mello 2007; AMR 2008), the Philippines (Sison 1989; 2003), and Peru (Spalding 1992, 1993; Leupp 1993). The Nepali Maoist leaders have been imaginative -- their ideas of some combination of the "Chinese" (triumph in the countryside and spread to the cities) and the "Russian" (victory in the cities and spread to the countryside) models of revolution, and of "21st century democracy" (multi-party competition as long as all agree on the goals of "new democracy") are appealing. The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), given its relative strength vis-a-vis "the enemies" of democracy and their friends and masters outside the borders of that small country (above all in India), seeks to utilize the bourgeois republic as a stage in mustering the force of the impoverished masses and nationalist intermediate strata to proceed towards NDR (Bhattarai and WPRM-Britain 2009). But these theories are being put to a severe test in practice. What then of the future of Maoism and the renewal of socialism that it promises? Frankly, "whatever chance there may have been that the revolutions of the 20th century could or would provide successful working models of socialism" has long since been extinguished; "socialism, we are told, has been tried and failed" (Sweezy 1993: 5). But, as Marx was the first to show, the obstacles to a better future cannot be meaningfully addressed within the framework of capitalism. The challenge then is to revive and renew the legacy of socialism. In this, can Maoism illuminate the way? Maoism has its roots in Marx who was, above all, a radical democrat -- he demanded the reincarnation of community and mass solidarity; he dreamed of the communion of human beings with nature; he stressed the dialectic of liberation; he looked forward to a just society alongside "rich individuality"; and, as Paresh Chattopadhyay (2005) reminds us, he insisted on the removal of commodity exchange, the division of labour, the state. . . . But, then, Lenin too, in his State and Revolution appeared as a thoroughgoing democrat, though he introduced into his conception of socialism elements that are antithetical to the "association of free individuals" -- wage labour and state (Ibid). Mao and the Chinese Maoists too gave the impression of being revolutionary democrats, that is, if one were to go by the 20 million people marching through the streets of various Chinese cities in the last week of May 1968, the demonstrators mainly chanting the slogan: "long live the revolutionary heritage of the great Paris Commune". Indeed, Marx's interpretation of the Commune was then deemed relevant to the revival of the revolution in China, something that found a place in the famous "Sixteen Points" of 8 August 1966 (Meisner 1971; Robinson 1969: 84-96). "Let a hundred flowers blossom, let a hundred schools of thought contend" was not merely intended policy for the promotion of progress in the arts and sciences, but one of ushering in a flourishing socialist culture -- at least that was the claim. Thus, given the radical democratic streak running from Marx to Mao, the best thing that Maoism could do is to commit to the promise of radical democracy: just as there cannot be liberty in any meaningful sense without equality, for the rich will certainly be more "free" (have more options) than the poor, so there cannot be equality without liberty, for then some may have more political power than others. So far, all revolutions inspired by Marx have only enjoyed the support or participation of a significant minority. Can the commitment to radical democracy up the tide to get the help of the majority? Will the means then be carefully chosen so that they never come to overwhelm the socialist aspiration?
Notes 1 Paresh Chattopadhyay, in personal correspondence, draws my attention to the view that Marx spoke of a "political transition period" (not of constituting a distinct "society") from capitalism to communism under the rule of the proletariat; socialism and communism, for him, were simply the alternative names for the same classless society he looked forward to, after capitalism. 2 We think it necessary to be more comprehensive on Maoism because even one of the best dictionaries of Marxist thought (Bottomore 2000), even in its second edition, didn't have an entry on Maoism, although it, rightly and deservedly, had one on Trotskyism. 3 But even as I make such general remarks, I need to qualify them by stating that within the "China studies" field there have been and are a set of first-rate scholars, some of whom we have learnt a great deal from -- Benjamin Schwartz, Stuart Schram, Maurice Meisner, Mark Selden, Carl Riskin, Manoranjan Mohanty, G P Deshpande, Chris Bramall come to mind. However, as will soon be evident, herein I mainly rely on writers of the Monthly Review School -- John Gurley, William Hinton, Harry Magdoff, and others. 4 To his credit, it was Benjamin Schwartz (1951) who first highlighted the shift in the CCP's strategy (in response to what the party saw as a change in the "principal contradiction") during the course of the anti-Japanese resistance. 5 The figures have been disputed though, among others, by Utsa Patnaik (2004: 10-12) and Joseph Ball (2006). 6 I may be naïve, but given that Mao is said to have had overwhelmingly the people's and the PLA's support but the Liu-Deng faction had the upper hand organizationally within the party, Mao could have split the party and gone for a referendum to decide China's future course -- capitalism or socialism -- and there would have been little doubt what the result of the plebiscite would have been, the outcome of which would have totally legitimized the socialist road. Why didn't he do this? 7 This episode was related by Chou En-lai [Zhou Enlai] to Charlie Chaplin in Geneva during the Korean crisis when the former had come to negotiate an end to the Korean War and the latter had made possible a showing of City Lights to the visiting dignitary (Chaplin 1966: 526, 530). 8 The country has recently witnessed the largest ever Indo-US military exercise on Indian soil. 9 Also, religion, ethnicity and nationality have been divisive cards played by the main political parties and their forebears to divide the toiling masses at the local level in the Indian sub-continent. The utter criminality of communalist-religious mobilizations and the pogroms unleashed against the main religious minority in India have been the most tragic outcomes of this brand of semi-fascist politics in the recent past. 10 In 1994, I happened to go to the courts in Midnapore town (in Paschim Midnapore district of the Indian state of West Bengal) for some legal matter. During the long lunch break I was resting in an empty courtroom when two desperately poor tribal men, who seemed to be in a bad condition as a result of torture, were brought by the police into this "court" -- as I pretended to sleep, the court clerk, masquerading as the judicial authority (the real guy was probably enjoying his extended siesta at home) passed a summary order in a minute, remanding the accused to further police custody. I mention this because Lalgarh, in the Jhargram sub-division of the district, and the contiguous Jangalmahal area, is presently one of the epicenters of Maoist revolt, and, if one wants to get to the roots of this local eruption since November last year, the criminal justice system's deliberate, callous, and continuing discrimination against the poor, the tribal poor in particular, is not unimportant. It is interesting that at the time of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 Marx, referring to "some of the antecedents which prepared the way for the violent outbreak", quoting from the report of the "Torture Commission at Madras" highlights "the difficulty of obtaining redress which confronts the injured parties". Marx concludes (1857):
What is tragic is that, in a province of independent India governed by the "social-democratic" Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front government without a break since 1978, there are elements of an essential continuity (with respect to British India in 1857) in the manner in which the criminal justice system functions. References AMR (2008): "Nepal's Revolution: Armed Struggle Made Free and Fair Elections Possible", Editorial, Analytical Monthly Review, April. Azad (2006): "Maoists in India: A Rejoinder", Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 41, No 41, October 14, pp 4379-83. Ball, Joseph (2006): "Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward?" Monthly Review, September. Banerjee, Sumanta (1980): In the Wake of Naxalbari: A History of the Naxalite Movement in India (Calcutta: Subarnarekha). Bhattarai, Baburam (2005): "The Royal Regression and the Question of the Democratic Republic", Monthly Review, March. Bhattarai, Baburam and WPRM-Britain (2009): "Nepal: Interview with Baburam Bhattarai", 26 October, World People's Resistance Movement (Britain). Bottomore, Tom (ed) (2000): A Dictionary of Marxist Thought (New Delhi: Maya Blackwell). Braverman, Harry (1969): "Lenin and Stalin", Monthly Review, June, pp 45-55. Chaplin, Charles (1966): My Autobiography (New York: Pocket Books). Chattopadhyay, Paresh (2005): "Worlds Apart: Socialism in Marx and in Early Bolshevism", Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 20, No 53, December 31, pp 5629-34. Ch'en, Jerome and Mao Tse-tung (1968): "An Unpublished Poem by Mao Tse-tung", The China Quarterly, No. 34, April-June, pp 2-5. Gao, Mobo (2008): The Battle for China's Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution (London: Pluto Press). Gupta, Tilak D (1993): "Recent Developments in the Naxalite Movement", Monthly Review, Vol 45, No 4, September, pp 8-24. Gupta, Tilak D (2006): "Maoism in India: Ideology, Programme and Armed Struggle", Economic & Political Weekly, Special Issue on the "Maoist Movement in India", Vol 41, No 29, July 22, pp 3172-76. Gurley, John G (1976): China's Economy and the Maoist Strategy (New York: Monthly Review Press). Hinton, William (1966): Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village (New York: Monthly Review Press). Hinton, William (1983): Shenfan: The Continuing Revolution in a Chinese Village (New York: Vintage Books). Hinton, William (1994): "Mao, Rural Development, and Two-Line Struggle", Monthly Review, Vol 45, No 9, February, pp 1-15. Hinton, William (2002): China: An Unfinished Battle – Essays on Cultural Revolution and Further Developments in China (Kharagpur: Cornerstone Publications). Hinton, William (2004): "On the Role of Mao Zedong", Monthly Review, Vol 56, No 4, September, 51-59. Howe, Christopher and Kenneth R Walker (1977): "The Economist", in Dick Wilson (ed): Mao Tse-tung in the Scales of History: A Preliminary Assessment Organized by the China Quarterly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp 174-222. Johnstone, Monty (2000): "Democratic Centralism", in Tom Bottomore (ed), pp 134-37. Johnstone, Monty (2000a): "Party", in Tom Bottomore (ed), pp 408-11. Kay, Geoffrey (1975): Development and Underdevelopment: A Marxist Analysis, (London: Macmillan). Leupp, Gary P (1993): "Peru on the Threshold: A Reply to Hobart A Spalding", Monthly Review, Vol 44, No 10, pp 25-30. Magdoff, Harry (1975): "China: Contrasts with the USSR", Monthly Review, Special Issue on "China's Economic Strategy: Its Development and Some Resulting Contrasts with Capitalism and the USSR", Vol 27, No 3, July-August, pp 12-57. Mage, John (2005): "Nepal – An Overview: Introduction to Parvati", Monthly Review, Vol 57, No 6, November, pp 13-18. Mage, John (2007): "The Nepali Revolution and International Relations", Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 42, No 20, May 19, pp 1834-39. Mage, John and Bernard D'Mello (2007): "The Beginnings of a New Democratic Nepal?" MRZine, 16 March. Mao, Tse-tung (1977): A Critique of Soviet Economics (New York: Monthly Review Press). Marx, Karl (1857): "Investigation of Tortures in India", New York Daily Tribune, 17 September. Meisner, Maurice (1971): "Images of the Paris Commune in Contemporary Marxist Thought", The Massachusetts Review, Vol 12, No 3, Summer, pp 479-97. Miliband, Ralph (1970): "The State and Revolution", in Paul M Sweezy and Harry Magdoff (ed): Lenin Today: Eight Essays on the Hundredth Anniversary of Lenin's Birth (New York: Monthly Review Press), pp 77-90. Miliband, Ralph (2000): "Dictatorship of the Proletariat", in Tom Bottomore (ed), pp 151-52. Miliband, Ralph (2000a): "Stalinism", in Tom Bottomore (ed), pp 517-520. Miliband, Ralph (2000b): "State and Revolution", in Tom Bottomore (ed), pp 524-25. Mohanty, Manoranjan (1977): Revolutionary Violence: A Study of the Maoist Movement in India (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers). Moore, Jr, Barrington (1967): Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (London: Penguin). Parvati [Hisila Yami] (2005): "People's Power in Nepal", Monthly Review, Vol 57, No 6, November, pp 19-33. Patnaik, Utsa (2004): "The Republic of Hunger", Social Scientist, Vol 32, No 9/10, September-October, pp 9-35. PUDR (2006): When the State Makes War On Its Own People: A Report on Violation of People's Rights During the Salva Judum Campaign in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh" (Delhi: People's Union for Democratic Rights), April. Pugh, Dave (2005): "William Hinton on the Cultural Revolution", Monthly Review, Vol 56, No 10, March, 33-42. Ram, Mohan (1971): Maoism in India (Delhi: Vikas Publications). Robinson, Joan (1970): The Cultural Revolution in China (Harmondsworth: Penguin). Schwartz, Benjamin (1951): Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press). Schwartz, Benjamin (1977): "The Philosopher", in Dick Wilson (ed): Mao Tse-tung in the Scales of History: A Preliminary Assessment Organized by the China Quarterly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp 9-34. Sharma, Hari P (intro) (2007): Critical Perspectives on China's Economic Transformation: A "Critical Asian Studies" Roundtable on the book China and Socialism by Martin Hart-Landsberg and Paul Burkett (Delhi: Critical Asian Studies and Daanish Books). Sison, Jose Maria (1989): The Philippine Revolution: Leader's View (New York: Crane Russak, Taylor & Francis Group). Sison, Jose Maria (2003): "'The Guerrilla is Like a Poet. . . ' -- Professor Jose Maria Sison in Conversation with Bernard D'Mello", Frontier, March 30-April5, pp 3-5. Snow, Edgar (1972) Red Star over China (Harmondsworth: Penguin). Spalding, Hobart A (1992): "Peru on the Brink", Monthly Review, Vol 43, No 8, January 1992, pp 29-43. Spalding, Hobart A (1993): "Peru Today: Still on the Brink", Monthly Review, Vol 44, No 10, pp 31-39. Sweezy, Paul M (1967): "Notes on the Centennial of Das Kapital", Monthly Review, Vol 19, No 7, December, pp 1-16. Sweezy, Paul M (1976): "Socialism in Poor Countries", Monthly Review, Vol 28, No 5, October, pp 1-13. Sweezy, Paul M (1980): "Capitalism and Democracy", Monthly Review, Vol 32, No 2, June, pp 27-32. Sweezy, Paul M (1983): "Marxism and Revolution 100 Years after Marx", Monthly Review, Vol 34, No 10, March, pp 1-11. Sweezy, Paul M (1985): "What Is Marxism?" Monthly Review, Vol 36, No 10, March, pp 1-6. Sweezy, Paul M (1993): "Socialism: Legacy and Renewal" Monthly Review, Vol 44, No 8, January, pp 1-9. Thomson, George (1970): "From Lenin to Mao Tse-tung", in Paul M Sweezy and Harry Magdoff (ed): Lenin Today: Eight Essays on the Hundredth Anniversary of Lenin's Birth (New York: Monthly Review Press), pp 115-25. Bernard D'Mello is deputy editor, Economic & Political Weekly, and is a member of the Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights, Mumbai. This essay is dedicated to the memory of my first editor, the late Samar Sen (Shômor babu, as we called him), founder-editor of the Kolkata-based weekly, Frontier. It is also in appreciation of Subhas Aikat whose Kharagpur-based, hand-to-mouth existing Cornerstone Publications brings out an Indian edition of the Monthly Review and books that pose the kind of questions generally shunned by academia. The essay is my small thanksgiving to all you MR people, past and present, on the occasion of your 60th anniversary. I thank Paresh Chattopadhyay, N Krishnaji, John Mage, C Rammanohar Reddy, and P A Sebastian for their critical but helpful comments on an earlier draft; the usual disclaimers apply. Comments (2) | Trackback | Print |
URL:http://www.countercurrents.org/sagar051109.htm
Maoist Martyrdom Vs State Barbarism
By Satya Sagar
05 November, 2009
Countercurrents.org
Is Maoism in India really the only response to poverty and lack of development? Is an armed rebellion the only way to change the way the Indian State operates? Will such a movement lead to a better future for underprivileged people in this country? Are other forms of mass democratic struggles an alternative option at all?
These are the questions that haunted me as I sat through a public hearing on drought at Daltonganj in Jharkhand's Palamu district late October this year. Questions that are not new and have been debated repeatedly within the various strands of the Indian left movement for several decades now, with no clear answers as yet.
While I mused, there was this young woman standing on the stage, slowly edging towards the mike, patiently waiting for her turn to speak. She need not have said anything at all. Her emaciated, frail frame, the harassed look on her face and the tears silently welling up in her sunken eyes had already conveyed to us this was another tale of unmitigated tragedy.
Barely in her early twenties, she had been diagnosed with tuberculosis a few months ago. Her husband was already on his deathbed due to the same affliction as there was no public health center near her village. Treatment in town was obviously unaffordable. The drought raging in the district, reported to be the worst in over half a century, would end up wiping out her entire family she explained in a quiet, matter of fact tone.
As we sat there, the small 'jury' of three or four of us who had come from Delhi and Ranchi to listen to the woes of Palamu's villagers felt much, much smaller. For her horror story was only one out of some 3000 similar ones of neglect, deprivation and outright desperation that tensely waited to be recalled that early winter afternoon.
The old man who never got his old age pension, the abandoned widow on the verge of starvation, the landless worker who slogged for wages that never arrived, the child born with a deformed hip a decade ago and still hobbling his way through childhood. This contrasted with the fact that thousands of crores of rupees had been allocated for employment guarantee schemes, subsidised rations, public health and infrastructure schemes – all siphoned off somewhere between the Indian capital New Delhi and the state capital Ranchi. Stolen by a kleptocracy that dares to call itself the 'elected' representatives of the Indian people.
And yet, poverty and lack of development are not the only reasons why the Naxals or Maoists, the MCC or whatever you want to call them thrive in Palamu. It is also the lack of respect and dignity that the dalits and adivasis of these parts have suffered for centuries, their abject humiliation by the 'upper castes' continuing without redress in Independent India.
Many, many moons ago when the first movements for justice started in this district they were led by the Communist Party of India, the Socialists, the Gandhians. Struggles against feudal practices like the 'right to the first night', which forced the brides of Dalit men to spend the first fortnight after marriage as concubines of upper-caste landlords- a 'custom' enforced at gun-point. Or against the practice of bonded labour whereby generations of families slaved for their 'creditors', the interest on their loans accumulating faster than the rivers of sweat they were able to shed.
In the seventies, when these popular struggles died down due to changing priorities or exhaustion or corruption or whatever of these organisations the Naxals had moved into this vaccum- with their guns. So somehow it is not just the failure of the Indian state to deliver the basic needs of the people we are talking about here but the inability of our mass, democratic movements to maintain a consistent long-term presence too.
Do the Maoists have popular support? Among the landless, the poor, the 'lower castes', the adivasis the answer obviously would be yes as in the initial years their interventions did help wipe out the worst of feudal excesses. Most of their cadres come from these oppressed sections of society though the occasional 'upper caste' youth too have joined.
Have their actions led to an overall improvement in the lives of the people? Well, yes and no. Yes, because as mentioned their activities have boosted the morale of the poor and the oppressed. No, because a high morale is all very well but a highly nutritious meal or a functioning high school would be still better and these are still elusive.
The Maoists with simple Newtonian logic had achieved the first step of doing away with the fear of feudal oppression. Greater the inertia of an object, greater the force required to move it. Shoot a few really bad, 'upper-caste' warlords in the area and this has the force-multiplier effect of, at least for a short while, moving mountains of unaccounted power.
The next several steps of organising people, winning all the basic things they crave for- food, water, healthcare, escape from poverty and so on has proved far more difficult for the Maoists. In other words, the details of day-to-day life are missing from their strategy. There is only so much martyrdom and bloodshed any population can take.
It is also true though, once the gun has been taken up by the oppressed, the State weighs in heavily on the side of the local oppressors. The latter themselves escalate the levels of violence and it becomes impossible to do anything in the open. No more public meetings, no rallies, no discussions and debates among the people, no mass organisations. In other words none of those basic ingredients required to build a future, participative people's democracy.
At the same time, the underground- that dark and dangerous space so tantalising from a safe distance to angst-ridden, urban radicals- is fraught with enough problems of its own. The constant hiding, the secrecy and suspicion bordering on paranoia, the inability to communicate with comrades or carry out political education of cadre, the costly lapses and subsequent losses- all leading to the near negation of the movement's original objectives.
Every now and then a creative Maoist cadre somewhere will try to do something different at the local level like run schools, crackdown on social evils, mobilise people for militant struggles that don't involve the use of arms These struggles, wherever they have occurred, have always been hugely popular with the people. Those in power, who had complained about the violence of the Maoists, would now worry about their non-violent methods and at some point of time step in with their jackboots to crush the experiment.
Unfortunately, I suspect, the Maoist leadership too sees these experiments as ideologically soft, reformist or even worse as too 'Gandhian' and doesn't really believe in them in any way. It occasionally allows them to happen with the idea that 'deviants' within their fold can always be brought back to the 'correct path' one way or the other. The lives of the people, after all, can really change for the better only when the 'New Democratic Revolution' happens.
In the worldview of the Maoist ideologues the physics of the armed struggle will some day square the grand mathematical equation of social injustice on one side with the predations of capitalism and imperialism on the other. Their solutions are alarmingly final ones, all derived from the dead abstractions of physics and mathematics, whether they correspond with the living biological needs of the faceless 'people' and 'masses' or not.
Nobody knows what this 'New Democratic Revolution' really means, how many hands and feet it has or whether it prefers sugar and milk with its coffee or not. Or for that matter, why the Dalits and Adivasis of India should fight for this particular model of the future and not something else. The indigenous people of the Indian subcontinent for example may be better off fighting for complete autonomy from the rest of India instead of taking on the burden of carrying out the entire 'Indian revolution'. And if the Dalits and Adivasis should take up the gun why not poor Muslims, many of whose social and economic indicators are even worse? Also if this Revolution does happen some day, why should it be confined to the borders of India – why not South Asia as a whole or even beyond?
Again, nobody even knows when this Revolution is supposed to happen or be finally declared 'successful' but it is believed passionately that nothing but the gun can lead the people of India to this utopia. As one of the Maoist ideologues caught by the police recently in Jharkhand reportedly told the media with frightening clarity, 'the bloodshed will stop only when the Revolution is over". He did not bother to set a timeframe- they could be fighting for the next 200 years for all we know- all their martyrs looking nice on wall posters in the meanwhile. Will there be anyone out there left to recognise the 'victory' when it finally comes?
I personally do believe in the right of the masses to wield the gun if need be. When faced with a violent ruling class, it is an ugly but understandable premise. Mao was right when he said 'power flows from the barrel of a gun'. The problem is about all the things he did not mention and that do not flow from guns – like water, food, medicines, peace or ultimately for that matter, even guarantees of justice and democracy. Making a fetish of armed struggle to the neglect of every other way of operating is not serious politics at all and rather indicative of the nihilist mindset behind such strategies- 'jalaa do, mitaa do, yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye tho kya hei'.
The Indian State too on its part is appropriately barbaric in everything it does, making each wild accusation and conspiracy theory of the Maoists seem like a profound, well-studied thesis. Rs. 470 crores is the sum given by the Central Government for Jharkhand's anti-Naxalite operations- to be spent on more arms for the police and more uniforms for the unemployed youth who go on to become the Indian police. If that sum were spent sincerely on the kind of people queuing up to complain at the Daltonganj public hearing there may have been no need for either the Naxal or the noxious cop.
Instead the State builds schools in the Naxal dominated areas and fills them with policemen- there are 3000 schools right now in Jharkhand full of Cobras and Scorpions or similar species lower down the evolutionary order. It is clueless about who is really a Maoist and who is not so it ends up blindly lashing out at some innocent folk within the reach of its very short and clumsy arms.
Again, the State, for all its prattle about 'rule of law', also does nothing to encourage any form of peaceful resistance either. Mahendra Singh of the CPI(ML) Liberation, the brave and only MLA in the Jharkhand Assembly exposing corruption in high places, was gunned down in broad daylight in early 2005. An investigation by an official committee has implicated a senior police officer, who continues to rise up the hierarchy instead of being booked for murder!
Just a year and half ago Lalit Mehta, a bright young engineer and certainly no Maoist, was shot dead in Palamu district as he exposed corruption and organised social audits of the NREGA or employment guarantee scheme. His killers, local politically connected mafia, have not yet been apprehended and may never be. All this obviously sends out a chilling message to anyone who wants to follow Lalit's path of 'unarmed' activism.
The truth is that those who run the Indian State and sections of the Indian population who benefit from its policies really don't give a damn for the people the Naxals or other left forces are trying to mobilise. The Dalits, Adivasis and the poor in general can all shrivel up and die for all they care. Whether these folks want it or not they will be subjected to a perverse development process that involves driving nails through their flesh and laying rail lines across their bones so that a small minority of Indians can have their 'infrastructure' and feel like a 'superpower'. If they choose to fight back they will be crushed like flies- the endless legions of unemployed Indian youth from around the country marshalled in uniforms for this genocide.
That is precisely why when the masked Maoist leader Kishenji openly mocks the Indian State on prime time television and invites it to battle he should be careful, for he may get exactly what he wishes. The State would like nothing better than a war against its own citizens, as it becomes another opportunity to make lots of money, replenish its arsenal, demolish whatever little democratic space is left in the country and rollback all resistance to its skewed policies for decades to come. A war, for which the Maoists too, despite all their bravado, are simply not prepared well enough.
Both the Maoist leadership and the Indian State it seems are keen on playing with each other only one game called 'revolution and counter-revolution', which ends only when either of the two players ceases to exist forever.
One thing is very clear though. If a new game is to emerge forcefully on the Indian stage soon, far greater number of Indian citizens need to get down to the task of solving the problems of poverty, oppression and injustice than involved currently. The situation today, more than ever before, calls for the building of many, many more creative mass movements to establish the rights of the people than out there right now.
As the late K.Balagopal pointed out so insightfully in a piece on violence versus non-violence in the Economic and Political Weekly a few years ago, neither method has really made much difference to the course of Indian state policies since Independence. In other words, there is simply not enough happening to bring about change given the scale of the country's various problems.
There is no point though in blaming either the Indian State or the Maoists, both of whom will continue to do only what they know best. While Indian democracy is too important to be left to 'elected' politicians Maoist martyrdom by itself will also never be enough to change the Indian State.
It is for the rest of India to decide whether they are going to be mere spectators, pliant players or makers of a different destiny for themselves and their society.
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