On July 23, 1996, the ban on CPI(ML) (People's War) which was nominally relaxed for an year, was reimposed by the fascist Telugu Desam government led by the wily Chandrababu Naidu in AP. Six other revolutionary mass organisations - the Andhra Pradesh Rythu Coolie Sangham (the Peasant and landless labour Association), the Radical Youth League (RYL), the Radical Students Union (RSU), the All India Revolutionary Students Federation (AIRSF), Singareni Karmika Samakhya (Singareni Workers Federation), Viplava Karmika Samakhya (Revolutionary Workers Federation) - were also outlawed thereby snatching away even the minimum democratic rights of the people. By this fascist measure the hypocratic democratic garb of the TDP has been thoroughly exposed before the people. For hardly an year-and-a-half has passed since it promised to lift the ban on the Party and mass organisations and to restore the democratic rights of the people during the Assembly elections in December 1994.
Earlier, the ban on CPI(ML) (People s War) and its revolutionary mass organisations was imposed for the first time by the Congress government in May 1992, but in reality, an undeclared ban was in force for over a decade. Open meetings, rallies or demonstrations were not allowed since 1985 barring a brief six-month reprieve in 1990. Thousands of people were arrested and false cases were foisted. Hundreds of houses were razed to the ground. Property of the struggling peasantry worth crores of rupees was destroyed. Scores of mass activists "disappeared" without anyone's knowledge. Over a thousand people were brutally murdered. The fundamental right to speech, assembly, association and life were suspended for the struggling people in North Telangana and other parts of AP. Every successive government in AP only stepped up the repression no sooner than it assumed office based on promises to put an end to the police terror.
The people, however, could not be cowed down by these repressive measures. They continued to defy the unofficial ban and counter the undeclared war of the government's mercenary forces through the guerrilla war of self-defence. While answering the state terror through militant mass resistance, the people also fought the repressive governments a lesson by voting them out of power.
The TM government led by NTR which murdered over 250 members and sympathisers of our Party and mass organisations between 1985 and 1989 was ousted out of power in the 1989 Assembly election. The Congress which came to power in its place proved to be even more repressive by creating a record of over 500 encounter killings. As a result, it had to once again tasted the people's wrath in the 1994 Assembly elections when it was completely wiped out in Telangana. So much was people's hatred for these cold-blooded murders that almost all the top leaders of the Congress including several ministers were defeated in Telangana by wide margins. The TDP encashed on the anti-Congress, anti-repression feelings of the people and promised to lift the ban on CPI(ML) (People's War) if it came to power. But no sooner had it assumed power than it went back on its promise and continued the ban for another six months. The reactionary ruling classes, it is clear, will never learn the lessons from the history. It was only due to the mounting pressure from various democratic sections of the people that it was compelled to temporarily lift the ban in June 1995. The ensuing period, however, showed that the so-called lifting of the ban was only a hoax as the police terror on the activists and sympathisers of the Party and the mass organisations continued unabated.
In less than two years after it came to power, the TDP government eliminated 211 people in cold-blooded "encounters". 60 people were killed in the first 8 months of NTR's rule, 81 in the 9 months prior to the reimposition of the ban under Chandrababu Naidu's fascist regime and another 70 in the 4 months following the reimposition of the ban on July 23rd. Among those killed in fake encounters were two members of AP State Committee,
Coms. Reddappa and Com. Sudarshan alias Mahender, a Regional Committee member, Com. Venkata Swamy, District Committee members Com. Sammi Reddy and Allam Manohar and several other Central Organisers, squad members, leaders of RYL, RCS, RSU, SIKASA and other sympathisers.
The police terror has become so savage that the encounters that used to be earlier staged in the countryside shifted to the very heart of the towns and cities. The killings of Com. Madireddy Sammiroddy (refer to the report in last issue of the Voice of Vanguard) in Mancherial town in broad daylight in the presence of thousands of people after hours of firing by the police illustrates the peak of state terror even in the so-called period of relaxation of the ban. The reimposition of the ban has only further legitimised such savage acts by the police as it gives them free unbridled license to murder at will.
In order to justify the reimposition of the ban on our Party, the state government stated that violence by Naxals has been progressively increasing in the period of relaxation of the ban and that the lack of industrial development in Telangana was due to the obstacles created by the Naxalites. But it should be clear to any impartial observer of the events in AP that it is police violence that has been on the increase and the armed actions by the Naxalites are only a means of self-defence. A recent report by the APCLC incontrovertibly proves that the number of people killed by the police between 1980 and 1996 far exceeds the number of those killed by the naxalites in the same period. Moreover, the violence unleashed by the two ruling class parties in Rayalaseema against each other claimed more people's lives than the number of class enemies eliminated in the ongoing revolutionary war in Telangana. In less than two years of TDP rule, it is estimated that over 200 people died in the Congress-TDP group clashes. In Kurnool district alone 70 members belonging to both these parties died in intra-ruling class violence in the past 6 months of this year alone. It is the police and the ruling class goons that are responsible for the actual violence in AP. It should be remembered that it is the ordinary people who are the real victims of the violence unleashed by the ruling class parties in Rayalaseema and police violence in Telangana. On the other hand what the Naxalites undertake is only counter violence and is hence directed only against the state's mercenary forces, informers and ruling class representatives.
The second reason cited by the government as a justification for the reimposition of the ban is even more baseless and a total lie. Whatever development has taken place in Telangana in the past two decades is due to the relentless anti-feudal struggle taken up by the CPI(ML) (People's War).. Even until the late 70s feudal relations in land represented by the domination of big landlords and a servile, oppressed peasantry acted as a drag on the development of the productive forces in Telangana. The anti-feudal struggle led by our Party which resulted in the distribution of over 3 lakh acres to the poor and landless peasants and the freeing of a large section of the peasantry from feudal oppression and exploitation led to several radical changes in rural Telangana The more intensive cultivation of the land, bringing uncultivable waste land under the plough by using modern technology and inputs, development of irrigation, and other developments in agriculture are all a fall out of this anti-feudal struggle. The increase in the daily wages of agricultural labourers, the end to the extra-economic coercion and free services extracted from the bonded labourers, the relative increase in the remunerative prices for the agricultural produce, the distribution of the agricultural inputs at fair prices to the peasantry, freeing the peasantry from the stranglehold of the moneylenders and other traders, ensuring a fair price for the forest products gathered by the tribal peasantry and freeing them from the rapacious exploitation by the non-tribal outsiders, unscrupulous contractors, forest officials, bureaucrats and the police, provision of drinking water and housing and a host of other achievements which the heroic peasantry of Telangana gained under the leadership of the CPI(ML) (People's War) over the past two decades have improved the living conditions of the people and increased their purchasing power thereby laying a stronger basis for the industrialization of the region. The hitherto dominant, servile peasantry has come into the centre-stage of history with the shattering of the feudal relations to a large extent. If only proper development plans are takn up by utilising this vast human potential, the unlimited mineral and other natural resources of Telangana and use these for the benefit of the people and not for the satisfaction of the insatiable greed of the contractors, comprador capitalists, bureaucrats and the imperialists, Telangana would become one of the foremost industrial regions of India. Presently, around half of the occupied lands are lying fallow for want of irrigation facilities, agricultural inputs and, most important of all, due to fear of police reprisals. Lack of proper supply of electricity is another factor hampering agricultural production. Lakhs of peasants who bought motor pump sets with their hard-earned savings or by taking loans, are unable to use them due to the problem of low voltage that frequently burns out the motors and transformers. Thousands of tanks in the villages which have the potential to irrigate a few lakh acres are in disuse. Disgusted with the callous negligence by the government, the people themselves have at last begun to repair the tanks through collective efforts under the guidance of the Party. Productivity of land and labour can increase considerably if the above problems of the peasantry are solved. This would increase the income (purchasing power) of the peasantry thereby giving a boost to the industries that later to their real needs.
Poultry, dairy farming, fisheries and several cottage and small scale industries can be set up to absorb the surplus population in the villages. But every successive government in AP has not only failed in tapping the vast reservoir of labour potential and the vast resources of the region for the development of the region but has actually been selling off the resources to the imperialists, comprador bureaucratic bourgeoisie and to the greedy contractors.
It is the pro-imperialist and pro-big business policies of the state and Central government that has kept the Telangana region under-developed while draining out the region's wealth. For instance, the Singareni collieries which is the biggest industrial establishment in Telangana has been incurring huge losses due to the policies.
The State and Central governments had given Rs. 555 crore in the form of loan to the Singareni Collieries in the past 5 years and collected Rs. 885 crores in the name of interest ! While the cost of production of coal amounts to Rs.800 per tonne it is supplied to the private big business and other Public Sector units for a mere Rs. 600 per tonne. The bureaucrats and the politicians have been siphoning off huge amounts as kickbacks and commissions for importing the machinery. Due to automation and rationalisation as part of the New Economic Policy package, workers are being retrenched in large numbers.
Already 40 thousand jobs have become redundant as a result of the introduction of the new machinery. With the capital-debt ratio having become 1:3.72, the losses in the first four months of 1996 have reached Rs. 200 crores. While these losses are a result of the pro-imperialist, pro-rich policies of the government and the corrupt practices of the bureaucrats and politicians, the blame is placed on the SIKASA for encouraging strikes and "indiscipline" among the workers. Leaders, activists and even suspected sympathisers of SIKASA are being arrested, tortured and eliminated.
Another instance of gross mismanagement and corruption is seen in the case of the Azamzahi Mills in Warangal which has now gone into the list of BIFR. The factory which once had 6000 workers is now not in a position to give employment to even 600 workers. It is in such a pathetic financial mess at present that it is forced to sell off its lands in order to run the mill. Even worse is the fate of the textile mill in Sirpur Kagaznagar in Adilabad district which was closed down throwing out hundreds of workers into the streets. The introduction of mini-cigarettes has ruined the lives of lakhs of people who depend solely on the bidi-making industry in Telangana. The government which cries hoarse that there has been no industrial development of Telangana due to "Naxalite menace" has to answer as to who is the real culprit behind the closure of the above industries, for the losses in Singareni Collieries and for the ruination of lakhs of families dependent on the bidi industry.
Telangana has immense mineral resources but the government does not even have the capital to invest in the region. Instead of chalking out feasible plans for the development of labour-intensive industries based on local resources and catering to the people's needs, it is inviting the MNCs, NRIs and the comprador bureaucrat capitalists to plunder and drain out the region's wealth. A handful of such large capital-intensive industries can hardly provide employment to the growing number of unemployed in Telangana. Moreover, such projects will only lead to the eviction of a large number of peasants from their lands and deprive them of even the existing means of livelihood. It is these projects sought to be set up with the aid of the World Bank and the imperialists that our Party is determined to stop at any cost. The traitors who prostrate before the imperialists and the compradors and allow them to loot the region's wealth must be opposed tooth and nail. The Party supports any project that would lead to gainful employment and uses the resources for the real development of the region.
What then are the real reasons for the reimposition of the ban on our Party and the mass organisations when there has hardly been any increase in the incidence of violence in the past one year?
In fact, the TDP government would have loved to continue the ban all along but the mounting public pressure for the repeal of the ban and the political compulsions of the Eleventh Parliamentary elections prompted it to relax the ban temporarily. It began to hatch its conspiracies for imposing the ban the very day after the elections were over in early May this year. It tried to provoke us into reckless actions by staging several fake encounters from May to July. The banning of People's War and the various mass organisations was very much essential for carrying out the anti-people measures the State government had laid out in consultation with the World Bank the MNCs and the big compradors.
The state government was desperately hatching plans to scrap the subsidy rice scheme, to lift prohibition, to slash the various welfare schemes, to increase the power tariff, bus fares and other services. To implement these measures, the real opposition has to be stamped out. The ruling classes are fully aware that it is the CPI (ML) (People's War) and its revolutionary mass organisations which can offer genuine resistance to their anti-people police repression following the ban unlike in 1992 when it had to lose a lot more cadres and lie low for a while. This time around, the Party was fully prepared for the coming offensive and hence could gear up its mechanism and evolve appropriate tactics to continue the mass struggles as well as launch armed attacks on the enemy forces selectively. The most important factor for the ineffectiveness of the ban is the extensive mass base and tremendous support the Party enjoys among the masses. On the military front too, the Party's armed forces are well-prepared to take on the every offensive. Through tactically armed actions against the police and political leaders were kept on a low key last year, they retained the initiative to strike when needed. Hence after the imposition of the ban, the armed retaliatory attacks by the people's guerilla forces have increased.
It is only by arming the people, strengthening the people's armed forces and developing the armed resistance against the state terror that a fitting reply can be given to the enemy's fascist offensive. And it is to this chief task the Party's main efforts are now directed.