Thursday, November 5, 2009

THE WAR WAGED ON THE PEOPLE BY THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT STAND BY THE STRUGGLING MASSES FIGHTING FOR THEIR LAND, LIFE AND LIVELIHOOD!



Statement of REVOLUTIONARY DEMOCRATIC FRONT

The 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

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