Oppose State Repression
Rally to the defense of the Revolutionary Movement in India
7 January, 1999
Dear friends and Comrades,
This is an appeal before the country and the international community to condemn the brutal repression unleashed by the Indian state against the struggling masses of Indian people, particularly in Andhra Pradesh, North Telangana, Bihar and the forest areas of central India popularly known as Dandakaranya. All India Peoples Resistance Forum (AIPRF) appeals to all democratic-minded people and democratic organizations the world over to raise their voices in support of the revolutionary movement of North Telangana (NT), Dandakaranya (DK), Bihar and Andhra Pradesh (AP).
The revolutionary, nationality, other democratic movements and even all spontaneous peoples struggles in India at present are facing severe repression. The right to life and all other civil and democratic rights are being violated with impunity. The intensification of the imperialist onslaught with the initiation of Structural Adjustment policies (SAP) since 1991 and increasing fascisization of the state and society have, correspondingly, added to the exploitation and repression of the existing social order.
The revolutionary movement of Andhra Pradesh, North Telangana, Bihar and Dandakaranya, constitute the core of the revolutionary peoples movement in India today. More than a hundred million people are part and parcel of this ongoing revolutionary movement in these regions. Directly or indirectly all these people are subjected to severe repression by the various state (provincial) Governments and the Central Government. Today, the agrarian revolution in India has sunk its roots with the masses and is gradually spreading to other regions. The people in the revolutionary movement are waging relentless struggle against the feudal and pro-imperialist ruling classes.
The revolutionary movements in Bihar on the one hand, and A.P., North Telangana and Dandakaranya on the other, fought fierce battles in the last 20 years with the feudal landlords and compradors, and have broken the feudal shackles, instilled a sense of confidence among the rural masses and brought relief to the general masses. Hundreds of thousands of acres of land was occupied in all these regions and distributed among the landless (though, often, the government does not allow the landless peasants who occupied the land, to till it). The land struggles are continuing. The Indian state reacts by killing the revolutionary leaders and the people who are actively participating in the struggles. The Indian state has been actively supporting the landlord classes by using all its armed forces. It is because the land reform laws of the government became a hoax over the last fifty years that the rural masses have been fighting to seize land from the feudal landlords. The feudal relations, bonded labour and medieval practices of subjugation are continuing through the caste system and the highly unequal land relations. It is against these oppressive social relations that the rural people are fighting, under the leadership of the revolutionary organisations. With peoples developmental projects and new visions and goals set with the formation of embryonic forms of peoples power in revolutionary struggle areas, the revolutionary and democratic movements are growing from strength to strength.
Except for a brief period of about a year in 1990, after a prolonged phase of repression between 1985-89, the repression on the revolutionary movement of North Telangana and Andhra Pradesh had continued. During 1991-97 the repression intensified and several leaders and activists were killed. Hundreds of thousands of paramilitary forces were deployed in the revolutionary struggle areas, especially in North Telangana. The Border Security Force, which should be safeguarding the international borders of India, was sent to the struggle areas which virtually turned into battlefields. And a ban was imposed on all legal activities of the revolutionary organisations. But during this phase of repression, the revolutionary movement deepened, mass participation increased and several hundreds of thousands of people turned up to the public meetings on several issues.
Revolutionary peoples movements started asserting themselves during this period and people rose up in waves against the pro-imperialist policies of globalization and the so-called led international free trade. Anti-WTO, anti-World Bank and anti-lMF struggles were triggered in all revolutionary areas. The imperialist forces increased pressure on the ruling classes of India. All the political parties like BJP, Congress, Janata Dal, CPI, CPI-M or the regional ruling parties like Telugu Desam party of Andhra Pradesh, AGP of Assam, National Conference of Jammu and Kashmir, or Akali Dals of Punjab started sharing power both at the Centre and at state levels and together, are carrying out repression on general democratic movements, and revolutionary and nationality movements. All these parties, though contending for more power or share in the loot, have common agreement on suppressing the peoples movements. On the other end of the spectrum, there has been some consolidation on the side of the revolutionary peoples movements as well. Thus CPI (ML) Peoples War, mainly concentrated in south and central India and CPI (ML) Party Unity in the north have merged together under the banner of CPI (ML) Peoples War on August 11, 1998.
In the last two years, the ruling classes have intensified the repression on the peoples movements of AP and North Telangana. This year, as a culmination of two-years of preparations, the Central Home Minister, L.K. Advani called for a Conference of the Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Maharastra, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa in June 1998 to devise even more sinister ways of suppressing the revolutionary movement. At the end of this Conference, attended by the top political representatives and bureaucrats of different states and the Centre, Advani declared that the Naxalite movement is a 'law and order' problem and hence it has to be wiped out with more armed forces and sophisticated weapons. Further, he declared that the 'Naxalite' movement [the revolutionary movement that began in Naxalbari region of North Bengal 32 years ago] is not only an internal threat to India, but also an external threat, nay, a crime against humanity" (sic!). He formed a 'Joint Co-ordination Centre' (JCC) with the top officials who are engaged in the suppression of the movement, with a view to liquidate the movement. The JCC has been meeting from time to time and the results of their plans are already showing up.
In the latest phase of repressive onslaught, a large number of people are being killed in the name of encounters. Sometimes whole squads have been wiped out. The police, and the paramilitary forces in Andhra Pradesh, North Telangana, Dandakaranya and Bihar have been given unlimited powers. Every year in North Telangana and in the rest of Andhra Pradesh, around 200 people are killed in the name of armed encounters. In 1998, 290 people were killed in the supposed encounters, while 159 people were killed in 1997, 161 in 1996 and 256 in 1992. Generally, the leaders, activists and common people (supporters or sympathisers) are picked up by the police from their houses or shelters and shot dead after interrogation and torture. Normally the dead bodies are not handed over to the kith and kin. In the last few years, people have come out in thousands to claim the dead bodies of the revolutionaries. The state is, once again, repressing these movements as well.
Today, the people of North Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are facing the crudest forms of repression. The armed forces of the state are killing the family members of the revolutionaries, raping women and banishing youth from the villages. Houses are demolished or burnt down, the crops of farmers are destroyed. The armed forces loot the houses and families are sent out of villages. Or in some villages, the police force the villagers to excommunicate certain families. The police forces set up political factions or maintain gangs of dacoits or renegades for attacks on people. They disrupt civil amenities or transport to chosen villages.
The state police are now using grenades, crude bombs, poisonous gases, and even land mines to kill the revolutionary activists and people. Chandrababu Naidu, the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, the blue-eyed boy of the World Bank and Bill Gates (of Microsoft corporation), now has navy helicopters to rush the killer "greyhounds" ( a sophisticated and deadly special task force) in the flash of a second. By using greyhounds and helicopters, 13 members of People's War party were hunted down and killed in the Orissa-A.P. border area.
A draconian legislation called "AP Unlawful Activities Prevention Act", with clauses of all the draconian Acts that were passed and implemented in the past 50 years of Indian history, is going to be enacted very soon. The proposed Act seeks, among other things, to arrest and detain anyone suspected to 'help, support, collaborate or encourage the banned organisations', although such activity may not be of a violent nature. According to another provision, the AP police or the Government can announce a list of "notified persons" and kill them at will. The proposed Act can ban, not only the public meetings, but also private meetings. The police can ban any piece of literature or news item if they think it helps the banned organisations. The newspapers cannot also publish any statement, whatsoever, issued by the banned organisations.
Like in Telangana, throughout the region of Dandakaranya, the police combing operations have been intensified. The Indian ruling classes have seldom paid attention to the problems of people in this region, and have always exploited the natural resources to the maximum extent. The most oppressed people of this region, the Adivasis (indigenous people) are targeted by the police and the women are raped. More than 100 people were killed in the name of encounters in the last few years. Between June and August, '98 there came "Operation Danteswari", which was followed by "Operation Indravati" and then "Operation Vajra" - all of which highly repressive operations, aimed at creating a reign of terror in the villages. One of the main objectives of this entire campaign of repression has been to identify the local mass leadership among the tribals, terrorise the weaker ones among them into becoming informers and kill those who could not be subjugated in this manner.
As part of these operations, the police stormed into the houses of mass organisation activists and destroyed their houses. The police come on motor vehicles and also in a convoy of 10-15 jeeps and beat up the villagers including children and women. The small shopkeepers, employees, local political representatives and even the school teachers are not spared. To carry on this kind of white terror and to root out the revolutionary movement, each of the state governments have been constructing roads into the interior places. When such attempts are resisted by the people, even the army is brought in to construct the roads.
Considering the feudal exploitation and oppression of the vast masses of the Indian society, the revolutionary struggles assume a special significance, that of protecting the basic human rights of the people. The case of Bihar state is instructive. According to one estimate, Bihar still has about 100 zamindars (landlords) who own more than 500 acres of land and 6000 zamindars who own more than ,100 acres each. As late as 1996, in a few areas of Bihar alone, the landless peasants had occupied 12000 acres of land under the leadership of the revolutionary movement.
In Bihar the recent phase of repression started in the wake of 1996 parliamentary election. The Bihar Government, under the direct supervision of the Central Government, has not only been organising special police combing operations in the struggle areas, but also advancing direct or indirect support to the Ranveer Sena and other private armies of the feudals which are involved in more than two dozen massacres. Their prime target is the revolutionary and democratic organisations. The BJP, the party in power at the Centre, is the main supporter of Ranaveer Sena.
Killings in fake encounters have now become one of the common measures of state repression in Bihar, like in Andhra Pradesh. In a short period of about 4 years (January 1994 - November '98) the police has killed more than 100 activists of different revolutionary and mass organisations. During the last three years, more than 100 massacres were organised in which about 1000 people were killed brutally by different feudal forces and their private armies with the active connivance of the police. Only the Ranveer Sena, the most heinous private army of the landlords, has committed two dozen massacres in Bhojpur, Patna and Jahanabad districts, in which more than three hundred people were killed and an equal number of people were injured. Bathani Tola and Laxchamanpur Bathe massacres, in which 22 and 58 people were killed respectively by Ranveer Sena, have become the symbols of feudal brutalities in the so-called free and democratic society of India.
Since early 1980s, around 3000 revolutionary leaders and activists were murdered and several thousands of revolutionary masses were killed by the private armies of landlords and the government armed forces in the struggle areas of CPI(ML,) Peoples War, Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) and CPI(ML) Party Unity, i.e. in Andhra Pradesh, North Telangana, Dandakaranya and Bihar.
Special reference needs to be made about the countless number of custodial deaths which, more often than not, are passed off as missing cases, with evidences destroyed. Further, mention needs be made about the hundreds of political prisoners languishing in Indian jails. In many cases, they are kept in solitary confinement with neither chargesheets filed nor trials taken. For example, thousands of prisoners charged under the erstwhile Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) are still not released, even after the Act has been repealed in 1996. This, again, is a reflection on the insensitivity of the judiciary, particularly about the socio-economic basis of the emergence of the various peoples movements.
There have been spontaneous peoples struggles erupting from time to time, particularly in the recent years which have also not been spared of the brunt of state repression. Thus there have been police firings at various places in Haryana, A.P. and Multai of M.P. upon farmers protesting privatisation of power and cut in subsidies. Similarly, there was firing upon farmers demanding remunerative prices at Sira in Karnataka.
Along with revolutionary peoples struggles in the main land India, the peoples of the nationalities, particularly, those of Kashmir and the North East (Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura and other nationalities) have been putting up valiant resistance struggles against the expansionist designs of the Indian state, over tile last 50 plus years of sham independence. It may be noted that more than 50 per cent of the armed forces in India are deployed in the regions of nationality struggles, within the borders of the country and not to counter any external aggressor. The movement in Punjab has been crushed with an iron hand, killing 25,000 people. About 60,000 people in Kashmir and not less than 10,000 people in the North Eastern states have been brutally murdered by Indian armed forces during this period. The nationalities and the revolutionary forces in India see each other as "blood-relatives"' with an understanding that they have share common goals of liberation from oppression and have a common enemy in the Indian state to reckon with.
The rise, particularly since the mid 1980s, of Hindu communal fascist forces represented by the political parties - Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena and the numerous militant Hindu outfits supporting them (VHP, Bajrang Dal, etc.), portends the prospects of even more severe repression on the peoples movements. The Hindu fascist forces, today, are the meeting ground of all reaction. They have been polarising society on the basis of religion, thus pitting people against each other, by engineering communal riots. They have grown up with the massive support of the Indian state machinery and dominant class forces who count on them as the ultimate guarantors of the status-quo, who could save them from the wrath of peoples movements.
In the wake of the intensified onslaught on the ongoing revolutionary movements of Andhra Pradesh, North Telangana, Dandakaranya and Bihar by the various state governments under the direct supervision and assistance of the Central government, AIPRF is taking up an All India campaign against the repressive ruling classes and their fascistic state machinery and we request all friends and fellow organisations to take up a campaign in other countries. AIPRF earnestly appeals for the support of the toiling people of the international community and all democratically minded people, on behalf of the struggling peoples of India, who today are waging a war against all odds of repression and exploitation. The prospects of the liberation of the peoples of India, a most important country in the imperialist world system, would definitely have a telling impact upon the collective destinies of all struggling peoples of the world.
In India, the anti-repression campaign will begin in January, '99. During the campaign, mass protest programmes, such as, Signature campaigns, Torch-light processions, Dharnas, Demonstrations, Conventions, Mass meetings etc. will be organised in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, North East, West Bengal, Orissa, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Maharastra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat and other states using poster exhibitions, video films, folders, posters and booklets. We seek the help of all the civil liberties organisations and pro-people intellectuals and democrats all over India for this campaign. We request all the progressive mass organisations to join the campaign. We request you to collect signatures against the repression and send to the Amnesty International, President of India and a copy to the AIPRF address given at the end of this letter. AIPRF appeals to the working people, democratic individuals and friendly organisations in India and abroad to raise funds through fund raising campaigns or otherwise, for the anti-repression campaign of AIPRF, and send them to the address mentioned below. We also request you to use all the fora available, to discuss and raise the question of the brutal state repression on the Indian revolutionary movement which is now forging ahead towards becoming a great social force, towards establishing an egalitarian society by smashing the imperialist shackles and the semi-feudal and semi-colonial relations of Indian economy and polity, towards a bright future for more than 1000 million people.
The Campaign is to be taken up with the following demands:
1. Stop encounter killings in Andhra Pradesh, North Telangana, Bihar and Dandakaranya immediately. Stop encounter killings in Kashmir, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya and in other regions.
2. Constitute an inquiry committee consisting of the sitting Supreme Court and High Court judges, to look into all incidents of fake encounter.
3. Withdraw paramilitary forces from Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Dandakaranya immediately.
4. Withdraw police camps from the villages
5. Unarm and disband all private armies like Ranveer Sena.
6. Release all revolutionaries and political activists who are languishing in jails without trials.
7. Stop infiltration into revolutionary forces leading to heinous murders. Punish the assassins of revolutionary activists instead of awarding them.
8. Repeal Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act and Disturbed Areas Act.
9. Stop enactment of Prevention of Terrorist Activities (POTA) in Tamil Nadu and Unlawful Activities, Prevention Act, A.P. and similar draconian legislations in other Indian states.
10. Lift ban on all revolutionary and mass organisations.
G.N. Saibaba
General Secretary,
AIPRF PD-50A,
Vishakha Enclave
Pitampura, DELHI-110 034
phone: 011-7466155 (also Fax)
E-mail: aiprf@hotmail.com
fax:91-011-7458953
G.N. Saibaba
(please do not write the organisation's name)
Bank Account No. 6680
Oriental Bank of Commerce
Pitampura Branch, Delhi-110 034.